#terfs come up with better arguments challenge

[identitty-dickruption]

Hello, I'm very sorry to bother you. I am about to ask a long and possibly ignorant question. If you don't feel comfortable answering or you simply don't want to (it isn't your job to educate other people, I know that) I totally understand it. Just know that I'm coming from lack of knowledge, not lack of respect.

I just saw this post (couldn't find the original one, sorry) and I wanted to clarify. What exactly do you mean intersex people shouldn't been brought up during debates about gender and sex? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that I don't understand.

Everything else in the post, I'm clear about, but when transphobos say shit like "you are biologically either a man or a woman and you cannot change that because you cannot change your chromosomes," I do consider it worth mentioning that biological sex isn't as easy of a topic as they think it is. Human bodies are not always clearly, unquestionably either male or female. And sometimes a person is sure she is clearly, unquestionably female and then, one day when she's 25 years old, she takes a sex verification test for the Olympics and turns out she has XY chromosomes, like María José Martínez Patiño, so chromosomes clearly are a lame excuse for transphobos to use. I'm not gonna give more examples because you probably have heard many at this point and I'm sure you understand intersex topics better than I do, but I think I made clear my point.

If we don't expect all intersex people to live as multigender or nonbinary, then why would someone expect all perisex people to live only as their agab, when we know that everything regarding biological sex (chromosomes, gonads, reproductive system and hormonal production) means nothing when we talk about gender identity?

Again, I'm not trying to say that you're wrong, I just want to understand. Why using an argument like this would be wrong?

hello. out of all the points on that post, this is the one I get challenged on the most, for exactly the points you make — biological sex isn’t binary, it’s bimodal, so talking about intersex people makes sense to a lot of people when they enter these debates. I stand by what I said though

firstly. TERFs, on the most part, don’t see intersex people as intersex. they already have a standard response to this and it’s, “those people just have disorders of sex development, they’re still predominantly either male or female”. TERFs know the cases of intersex athletes very well, and they have ways to talk around it. so, like. this argument doesn’t even work nine times out of ten. it just forces intersex people to see yet more people label them as defective for the sake of a debate

secondly, being used as a gotcha in debates is a microaggression when you consider that it’s usually the only time I see people talk about me and my community. dyadic queer people + allies will acknowledge intersex people exist so they can win a debate, and then never talk about us or think about us again

this is particularly true when these same people will make incredibly intersexist arguments within the same debate

they’ll say things like “nobody’s forcing HRT onto children!” when hi! that happens to intersex kids and teens all the time. they’ll say “cis kids with hormonal disorders get approval for HRT, what’s the difference?” when, again. we’re not “cis kids with hormonal disorders”, we’re intersex people who are forced into unwanted medical treatment all the time

I don’t want my existence used as a debate point if you’re only going to think about me when you can frame it as a zinger or a takedown. I don’t want support because of my position in “the trans debate”, I want support because people actually care about me and my struggles

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

Serious question: how is it possible not to feel like we're doomed after reading such discussions? Like, it's clear people just refuse to care about women at all. They only care about men who call themselves women

I gotta be honest. I'm optimistic. If you're naturally pessimistic then you are already dead in the water, that's just the truth. But also, I feel like real life is better than online. I've had multiple pleasantly surprising conversations because I wasn't afraid to speak up. You can't be afraid to voice your opinion. Also, I don't understand the sentiment of being afraid to lose friends because of your disagreement on trans rights. I'll happily lose anyone who tells me that lesbians can like dick. Not only do I not give a single shit, but I've done it before and would do it again. Value yourself more. You don't deserve to be around people like that. Cut them off. You're not losing anything. I'm not in agreement with my friends on trans rights, but I have told them what's what. One of them has come to me privately to ask me questions on my beliefs, and we had a very respectful discussion. The thing is, I think these discussions are better in real life. Idk what it is, but people are sweeter when you talk to them face to face. Repeating what people say back to them helps them see that they're being ridiculous. I told one of my friends that liking both genitals makes someone bisexual, and she completely agreed despite the fact you can probably guess what we were arguing about that would prompt me to say that. A few months ago, I was in a group of people my age and we were absolutely clowning on a boy in our class who had said that trans women belonged in women's sports and who had called our teacher a terf . One of the boys in our group had never even heard the word terf before. A lot of the good people are offline or aren't heavily engaged in this specific debate. You gotta remember that the grand majority of people are straight and thus don't spend much time thinking about gay or trans people. I asked my mother what she thought of trans people and she said she "doesn't think about it". Imagine that? Never once thinking about this? A lot of people aren't aware of what's going on. Do you remember super straight? Straight people caught a whiff of the nonsense that trans people spout about sexuality and they went OFF. There's a lot more animosity towards the homophobia and misogyny of the trans movement than you think. Riley J Dennis' video about genital preferences was FILLED with people disagreeing with him and saying he wants everyone to be bisexual. Genuinely not a positive comment in sight. If you repeat trans rhetoric to regular people, there's a fairly good chance they'll think you're joking around. People want to be good. They take things at face value. A trans person say this? It must be true! They'll hit the 'like' button on trans positivity posts. But if you just challenge them a little bit then they almost always crack, in my experience. A literal perfect example is during the argument between my friends I mentioned above. One of them quite literally said "I've been agreeing with what you guys have said so far, but after hearing what [me] had to say, I agree with that as well." Like. You CAN'T be a coward. I remain positive because I don't think that things are as bad as a lot of you guys think. I genuinely really don't. I have so many more positive things to say, but I'm feeling burnt out so hopefully this makes you feel better, anon ❤️

[letsgivethisonemoreshot]

Ambush

Soooo, after the meeting in the alley with the cigarette, my brain traveled to the aftermath. Still blaming @caranoirs But now we've also added Walter, Marcel, Fabian, and Drew into the mix!

Send help.

“This is ridiculous!” Ridge yelled in frustration. “They think they can just come right onto our terf and cause trouble. And keep messing with you! Completely unacceptable and we need to do something about this.”

He was pacing around the large living room like area of the house Sheamus owned where they all spent a lot of their time. Kate was sitting on a couch, Ridge looking over at her from time to time while he spoke. Also in the room standing around were Fabian and Marcel. They had been spending more time together since Sheamus and Walter began working on their merger. Eventually Drew’s men would come over and fall in suit once everything was in place. Ridge was concerned when he first got to Kate, but after he made sure she was okay. He was seeing red. Even while on the phone with Sheamus letting him know what happened he was pissed. Kate tried to be in the background telling him that she was fine and everything was okay, but Ridge was seething.

“I don’t know who the hell this guy thinks he is thinking he can just come into town and take over,” Fabian added.

“Someone needs to put him in his place,” Ridge agreed.

“What about us?” Marcel suggested. “He’s always going around, sneaking up on people. Why don’t we do the same to him?”

“Let’s go. I’m more than ready to bash his fuckin’ face in.”

“Hold on Ridge, not just yet.” Fabian stopped him.

“Why the hell not?”

“You’re too angry. You need some time to calm down. Formulate a plan. You run in there like this just bulldozing through everyone being angry, it’s not going to end well,” Marcel answered.

Ridge rubbed his head and breathed out frustrated, but deep down he knew Marcel was right. They needed to have a plan or else they’d easily be taken down.

“We’ll go tomorrow. Let them think their safe since there wasn’t retaliation. Give Kate some time to rest. Then we’ll ambush them in the morning.”

“I wouldn’t mind cutting Tyler’s dick off while we’re at it,” Kate mumbled.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Ridge ordered.

“Excuse me?” Kate asked as she stood up to face him.

“They won’t leave you alone. We’re not going to bring you to them on a silver platter!”

“Listen Ridge, you’re…” Kate began before being interrupted by Marcel.

“Do you think leaving her here by herself is a good idea?”

“Why not? Better than dragging her into the lion’s den.” Ridge answered.

“Because what if they see all of us there and Trent realizes she’s alone. I wouldn’t put it past him to send someone out to try and find her. Especially since he knows Sheamus and Walter are out of town,” Fabian explained.

“Exactly. Therefore, I’m going.”

Ridge didn’t want to admit it, but Fabian had a good point. That doesn’t mean he was still happy with it. The look that he shot Kate with her smartass reply about winning the argument showed that.

“I’ll stay by her the whole time,” Marcel ensured.

Ridge eventually sighed, giving in. “Alright. She can come.”

The next morning, they were up and ready before sunrise. Ridge was still pissed. He probably hadn’t actually slept at all. Getting into Trent’s property was easy. Sneaking past the gates and cameras was the most challenging, but at that hour not too hard. They just broke down the front door with no one there, and bulldozing through everyone thar got in their way. It didn’t take them long to reach Trent. Another floor up he was in a large relatively empty room. Unfortunately for them, he was already up and dressed for the day. He was also joined by Pete and Tyler at his side. They all stood in a silent standoff for a few moments. Marcel keeping his word, never leaving Kate’s side. Always ready to have a protective arm reach out and push her away if needed, keeping her safe so Ridge could pounce without worry.

“Well isn’t this a nice surprise! Good thing I’m a morning person and can be up to greet my guests,” Trent stated breaking the silence with his usual smile.

“You look really happy for someone who’s about to get his arse kicked so bad he may never walk again,” Ridge spat through a clenched jaw.

“Ya sound awfully sure of yourself there mate,” Trent replied.

Marcel reached his hand over to grab Kate’s at their words, ready to jump in if needed while he and Fabian also kept a keen eye on Tyler and Pete.

Ridge scoffed. “Not too sure how good you at business with your numbers lad. If you look around you’ll realize you’re clearly outnumbered.”

Trent brought his hand up to rub his chin, his smiling fading only momentarily before returning with a more sinister tone. The same one Kate had seen in the basement. “You know what? You’re right mate. One of us is outnumbered.”

As he finished speaking, Marcel’s hand tightened around Kate’s wrist. She looked over at him, confused by what his next move was going to be. While she was looking away, she hadn’t seen Fabian wind his arm up ready to elbow Ridge in the face. Blood began to flow as Ridge grabbed his nose, completely caught off guard by Fabian’s attack. Before he could register what was happening, Fabian, Tyler, and Pete were on top of him. Kate tried to run over to him but was pulled back by Marcel and her held her tighter while the rest got Ridge under control. A short while later he was easily held by Tyler and Fabian. Marcel still held Kate who livid. Pete stood off a little behind Trent just watching.

“Gotta hand it to ya Ridge. You’re a tough guy. Took three of my men to wear you down and you still had fight in ya.” Trent complimented. “Could use a big guy like you.”

Ridge wasn’t really able to say much as his face was beginning to swell, but he was able to look up Trent from his knees in disgust. 

“Now before either of you say anything, have a quick look at this.”

Trent pulled out his phone and pulled up a video that someone had sent to him. It appeared to have been recorded last night, but by the angle the person recording it was trying to be discreet so others didn’t notice. But it did show Walter, Sheamus, and Drew sitting around a table with half empty whiskery glasses and cigars.

“Fellas I might have ta get home soon,” Sheamus said as he sat back down at the table.

“Everything okay?” Drew asked as he raised an eyebrow.

“Just got off the phone with Ridge. Trent and some of his gang cornered Kate in an alleyway behind a bar we go to a lot. Threatened to take her with them and hold her until we all agreed to lay off him.”

“So let him,” Walter said before blowing smoke from his cigar.

Drew immediately looked over at him confused. He had been close with Sheamus for a long time. Walter might not have known the relationship between Sheamus and Kate, but Drew knew that’s not something he would ever think of.

“I can’t do that,” Sheamus said.

“Why not?” She’s just a girl you got working for you. What’s so special about her?”  Walter asked.

“She’s, she’s like a sister to me. She’s been wit me for the last six years. She’s always been loyal ta me.”

“I get that, but she’s not blood. Call their bluff.”

“I’m the closest she’s got.” Sheamus defended, but sounded a little defeated.

“Is she worth risking everything you’ve worked for? And letting someone else come in and tell you how to run your empire?”

Walter put his lips back around his cigar. Drew stayed quiet as he took another sip of his whiskey. Sheamus sat back in his seat as if he was pondering his life in a whole new light.

“Fun stuff right?” Trent exclaimed as he put his phone back into his pocket. “ You can see just how much he cares about you. Now Ridge, what do you say you come with me and we have a little chat about your future.”

“Based on that? We have no idea how the rest of that conversation went!” Kate spoke up.

“Well we do know that he never came home after he got that phone call. And have either of you spoken to him since that call you made last night?” Trent’s question was answered by silence. “I didn’t think so. Now let me rephrase. Ridge, we’re going to go to my office and have a discussion. And after it you’re either going to join us, or you’ll be disposed of and I’ll deal with you personally.” Trent said in a deeper, much more threatening tone than he had previously spoken in. “Now you.”

Trent had turned to Kate causing Ridge to stir a bit. She stood tall trying not to show any emotions other than the anger fuming inside her.

“Gonna try and threaten me with the same thing?” Kate sneered.

“No. I’m not. You don’t get that privilege,” He answered with a smile both confusing Kate and causing her stomach to drop. “I know clearly where your loyalty stands. So for now, you’re just a gift to Peter.”

“What?” Kate blurted out as Pete stepped forward with a smirk. 

“Pete, here you go. Do whatever you want with her that Sheamus wouldn’t let you.”

Fabian and Marcel had grabbed Ridge and taken him up to another floor where Trent’s office was. Pete held tightly onto Kate as he walked her to a place he had been using as a bedroom.

“Peter I swear if you lay one finger on me…”

“Don’t worry. If I recall correctly, I know you prefer two or three. Or if that’s a problem I always have other things I can use.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And you love it.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“That’s what I have you for darlin’.”

Kate rolled her eyes and scoffed before turning away from him and walking towards the closed door. He followed behind only taking two steps to catch up to her. He reached his hand up, wrapping it around her throat and pulling her flush against his body. Her eyes fluttered slightly as a small involuntary moan escaped her lips. He nuzzled his nose along her neck before bringing his lips towards her ear.

“Where do you think you’re going? You’re mine Katie,” He whispered roughly as his hand traveled across her stomach and dipped inside the front of her black leggings.

Kate’s mind was racing. A few moments ago she didn’t know what to think about the video Trent had just shown her. She could only speculate what was going on with Sheamus’ mind. She didn’t know what was happening with Ridge. And now she was stuck with Pete, and as much as she hated him, she hated the fact that her body was melting into his touch even more. He knew her and her body so well, he was easily able to manipulate it any way he wanted. She gasped as his fingers stroked inside her slick folds, making her wetter with each touch.

“Don’t even bother tryin’ ta lie to me Katie. I know you love it. Remember how good I made ya feel last time? Just think how much better it’ll be if you just give in and let yourself enjoy it.”

“I never said I enjoyed you Pete,” Kate retorted trying to hold onto whatever strength she still had left. “Just because you messed around with my body and it responded doesn’t mean I want you.”

Pete clenched his fingers around her neck a little tighter.

“You know the walls at our place were really thin. Parts of it were built great, but where we spent our time, they were shit. I know you could hear me when I had girls over. You know how I know that? Because I could hear you too. The little moans you’d make while you were touching yourself listening to me fuck them in the next room. Trying to be quiet, but not quiet enough,” Pete explained into her ear as he was still slowly touching her. “And I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t enjoy it. Sometimes I’d get off from bendin’ them over and fucking them from behind listening to you moan my name pretending it was you in front of me.”

A knock at the door caused Pete to pull his hand out of her pants, but he still left the other hand around her throat. With her back against his chest, she was able to feel his heart racing. She knew he was restraining himself, and for some reason him being able to be in such great control filled her with excitement. She was focusing on his heart beat as Tyler opened the door and entered the room.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt but Trent wants to have a work with her when you’re done.”

“Lovely. I have a few choice words for him too.”

Tyler laughed, causing Kate to push back against Pete just slightly. “I see you haven’t trained her yet.”

“It’s only been five minutes Ty,” Pete laughed as well. “Ya gotta give me at least the night.”

“I dunno. She’s pretty feisty. Might take a while before you can have her trained properly. Though I will miss her smartass remarks. She made work a little more exciting.”

“Coming from the man who wasn’t able to handle me if I wasn’t tied up to something.”

Pete finally released the hold he had on his throat and snaked his fingers into her hair yanking a fistful back. “You know you really should be nice to him. There will be times I’ll have to leave for things and someone else might watch you.”

Kate watched as Tyler licked his lips while she tried to now show that she was nervous.

“Me watching her would do wonders if you wanted her trained like a proper pet for you. If she were with me, I’d already have my belt off and around her neck as a leash for the bitch that she is. And by the end of the night the only commands she’d respond to are sit, beg, and come.”

“Might wanna think twice about trying to walk out on me now huh?” Pete asked in a cocky tone. “The second you step foot outside that door, you’ll run into him.”

Tyler winked before turning back towards the door. “Anyway, when you’re done bring her up to Trent so he can welcome her properly.”

“Wait,” Kate found herself calling out before she could really even think to catch herself.

“Hey, what’s going on with Ridge?” Pete asked.

“He’ll be staying with us for a bit,” Tyler answered before closing the door behind him.

Kate felt a bit of relief knowing that Ridge was still alive. At least for now. She could find out more later. But for now, that was enough. She was lost in her own thoughts about it and didn’t realize that Pete had let go of her hair. He wasn’t even holding onto her at all anymore. He had taken off his shirt and thrown it off to the floor by the time Kate turned around to face him.

“Pete?”

“Hm?” He hummed as he grabbed her by the hip and pulled her close to him.

“You, you wouldn’t really let him hurt me would you?” She asked with a bit of intimidation in her voice that he hadn’t heard before.

He put his hand on her cheek, pushing her face up to make her look at him while running his thumb along her skin. “Kate, I am still the same exact person I was before.”

It was nightfall by the time Pete walked Kate up to Trent’s office where he did most of his work. Pete told her to just listen to what Trent said and it wouldn’t cause any problems. But that wasn’t exactly Kate’s strong suit. Inside, the room was dim. Almost as if Trent wanted people to feel cold and hidden as they sat down to do business with him. There was a large desk with his computer and phone atop it. Most of his things probably hidden away in the drawers. Two armchairs at one side of the desk for his guests, another large leather one for him at the other side. Kate wasn’t able to see all the little details of the office in the low lighting, but she could see artwork about. She could only guess that he had everything designed particularly for him. When Kate entered the room Trent was towards the back looking out a window. When Pete closed the door he closed the velvet dark green curtain and turned to his guest.

“Come on in love. Make yourself comfortable,” Trent said motioning to one of the chairs.

“I’d rather stand if that’s okay with you.” She replied from her spot in the middle of the room.

“So you do have manners,” He mocked.

Kate folded her arms across her chest and blew out a sigh, trying not to start a fight.

“Good to know you’re able to play nice.”

“I don’t see why that really matters.”

“It will if you want to stay here.”

“Look, I’m not going to give Pete any problems, okay?”

“I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about everyone else.”

Kate looked at him confused.

“I’m sure by now you’ve figured out that Walter and I have formed a partnership. Ridge and I had a nice talk earlier and he’s decided to stay with me. Thought he did try and assure that I wouldn’t kill you. And I thought maybe after some time thinking about the video I showed you and how the man who you’d been so loyal to seemed to be willing to throw you to the wolves, you’d have had a change of heart like Ridge and Pete did.”

“I thought I didn’t have that choice,” Kate questioned as she put his hands on her hips.

“You don’t really. You’re stuck here either way. I wasn’t lying when I said I couldn’t trust you. With any aspect of my business. I knew the first chance you’d get you’d quite literally stab me in the back. But you are an asset Kate.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Working at a club making you money,” Kate said as she dropped her arms.

Trent shook his head chuckled as he stepped closer to her. “You’re much more than a pretty face love. I’m familiar with your work. I think you could do great things here and help me out a lot. And in return, give yourself a life that you’ve never even dreamed of. Face it, everyone else has already fallen into line with me. The only thing Sheamus even has left now is Drew, and once he sees how pathetic Sheamus really is, he’ll back off too. Leaving Sheamus with nothing.”

As he stepped closer, she tried to keep distance between them. But she ended up running into his desk. She looked slightly before placing her hands on the sides holding herself up. When she looked back, Trent was right in front of her, placing his hands on either side of her onto his desk. His face getting closer to hers as he spoke.

“If you can prove to me that I can trust you, we can form a beautiful partnership here. But keep in mind until then, you belong to the British Strong Style. And the very first time you forget that, I’ll brand you, so that even if you manage to get away, anyone who finds you will bring you right back to me.”

[kenobihater]

Hello! Sorry if this isn't a topic you want to speak on (so feel free to ignore this) but I have two questions regarding different arguments I've seen about the Hogwarts Legacy bullshit, as there were mixed views from both trans and Jewish people when I went on a blocking spree earlier:

1. I saw a couple of the fans that paid actual money for the game defend their choice with "but Im trans" or "but Im Jewish" or both. Thoughts on that?

2. There have been claims that pirating the game is alright as long as you don't talk about it online, whereas others posed that engaging with the game through piracy is in itself harmful - maybe not to the wider society as a whole, but to Jewish, trans, and other marginalized individuals in that persons life. What is your stance on the matter?

I have some ideas about these myself but seeing as I am neither trans nor Jewish I think it'd be best to ask first and only follow up with a dialogue if that is wanted of me. I know that outsiders can sometimes have more nuanced/better positions than insiders (like with the whole truscum and transmedicalism rot going on about in some trans circles) but. Yeah. Asking predominantly out of curiosity but also because you tend to be aggressively clear and honest about the shit going on with HP and I like that.

I'm fine with answering this, though I will add that I'm not Jewish and so I'm not qualified to speak in depth on the antisemitism present within the game other than to acknowledge that it is very blatant and wrong.

From the perspective of a trans person, I think that even trans people can hold harmful and transphobic stances when it comes to this game bc they're letting their nostalgia blind them. Being a minority does not inherently free you from being wrong and bigoted, even against a group you yourself are part of. Sidenote - considering how this game actually has a trans person in it and to my admittedly limited knowledge it doesn't engage in transphobic rhetoric or tropes like it does with the antisemitism, I'd find it VERY sketch if a trans gentile claimed they could play the game bc they were trans. Like, hello! The antisemitism isn't negated by your transness!!

Onto your second question: I've thought about this myself and I think I've finally decided on my stance, though it's quite rambly. Imho if someone is absolutely 100% going to play the game, I'd prefer that they pirate it, do so behind closed doors, and not speak of it bc there's no such thing as bad publicity. But like... they're knowingly engaging with a game that is steeped in antisemitism and monetarily benefits a transphobe. The simple decision to play that game, even if it doesn't impact their worldview in any way, even if they aren't lining joann's pockets, even if they give it no publicity... they're still making a decision to put their own pleasure and enjoyment over the pleas of Jewish and trans people. That's selfish in my book. Like, if someone hasn't dropped HP I doubt anything I can say will change that, but I just find it sad and exhausting that people will call themselves allies and then refuse to do anything that could possibly challenge or inconvenience them. They post infographs about the rise of antisemitic hatecrimes and reblog "fuck terfs!", but will they actually show up to rallies? Call their legislators to complain about bigoted legislature? Educate themselves? Make room for Jewish and trans voices and be silent when necessary? Consistantly reflect on their own biases and bigoted behaviors and grow as a person? Something tells me that if they can't even refrain from playing a blatantly antisemitic wizard game just bc it reminds them of a book written by a terf they read when they were 12, that that's not very likely.

[scentedluminarysoul]

A woman is a biological woman, with female bodyparts and female chromosomes. What’s your definition? And could you also define what a man is, please, or is it only the definition of woman that is being called into question?

I don’t have a problem with if a man wants to transition and jerk off watching himself in a mirror, like you said. But you’re wrong that they’re not hurting anyone. My problem is with biological men wanting to get into women only spaces. Like women’s sport, women’s changing rooms, women’s hospital wards, women’s prisons. And don’t tell me no woman has ever gotten hurt by a violent man that was allowed into a women only space simply by saying he identifies as a woman, it has happened.

I have no problem with how anyone identifies or dresses, truly. I’ll use the pronouns anyone asks. But biology is biology and the truth is still the truth, even if you change the definition of a word. If we decided apples should be called oranges from now on and everyone did so, they would still be apples.

Last thing, I really believe that there is room for a lot of variations within biological sex. A woman can be ”masculine” and a man can be ”feminine”, there’s nothing wrong with that. Just because you don’t conform with the stereotypical behaviour of your sex or gender it doesn’t have to mean you don’t belong in it.

Do you know your chromosomes? I don't. Rarely anyone does. Where do I see them? Are they visible from the outside? With the naked eye? (See also below)

WHAT body parts? Please elaborate. Because I can PROMISE you, you haven't thought that one through.

My definition is someone who identifies as a woman. The end. I won't prescribe traits to other people.

Whataboutism. But here goes: Someone who identifies as a man.

Sweetie. Honey. My sweet summer child. I might have missed something here. Please help me and explain to me one thing:

The women's spaces you are describing, are they, perhaps, magic? Do they require a magic word, a magic spell, to be entered?

"I identify as a woman" = "Alohomora"?

No? Is it maybe. Just MAYBE. The case that anyone capable of opening doors could enter? Any cis man, in a moment when no one was looking, could follow a woman in. He doesn't need to say the magic spell or don a wig.

My school gym had segregated locker rooms. Same with the public pool. But nobody could stop me from just going into the "wrong" locker room. The door is unlocked. You know what the public pool also has? Showers. Segregated, but unlocked. Where everybody knows that people are naked and vulnerable there. It functions on the honor system.

I could literally just walk into any of them. Without a word. There is no guard. No magic barrier. This isn't Hogwarts. It's the real world.

No, I won't tell you that what you described never happened. Instead I will ask you for evidence that it did happen.

See, now you made a positive claim and you have to back it up. Show me evidence of these mythical men, who pretend they're women just to harass others. I don't have to disprove that, YOU have to prove that. That's how the burden of proof works. And if you can't, well, what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

Here's another thing that "feminists" like you need to realize: Women can do bad stuff, too. Women can be violent, too. Often are. I dated a cis man once who was raped by a cis woman. Women in women's prisons rape other women. It's horrible, but it's the truth. Women aren't some innocent angles incapable of any wrongdoing. That's actually sexist.

My country just had a case where a woman was held in the men's prison, where she was bullied and ended up killing herself. Trans women are not the danger, they are so much more in danger.

Transgender (trans) women are at higher risk of sexual violence than cisgender women, with trans women of color reported to be at highest risk.

(source) (more)

It's funny how you go on a violently transphobic rant and then try to be all diplomatic with pronouns and shit and how you don't care. After saying how much you care.

Thing is: why are you so obsessed with "masculine" and "feminine", anyways? They're literally social constructs, and the binary is rooted in colonialism and white supremacy. How about ditching that altogether?

Biological sex isn't even a binary.

I don't WANT TO belong in any sex or gender. And certainly not one assigned to me by someone else, without my consent. I am agender. I'm just a human being. One that doesn't understand why you people make such a big deal out of it in the first place.

I WISH I wasn't forced I to gendered spaces. I feel extremely uncomfortable, and that I don't belong. But people like YOU force me into them, because you think my genitals look a certain way. And then you tell me I'm dangerous when I'm in there? Fuck that.

You honestly seem to confuse feminism with hating men. That is just so sad. Hope you can get better. Genuinely. Being this full of spite and hate only hurts YOU, and keeps you from the good things in life. It makes YOU unhappy. Me? I don't care. I honestly don't give a shit about what you think. Why should I? I don't even know who you are. You're literally nobody to me. I just hope to get throught to you, somehow, for your sake and those of people around you, who might be scared of and hurt by you.

Lastly, here's a short video on not-so-basic "basic biology":

(YouTube video: Forrest Valkai - Sex and Sensibility)

You identify as a woman, right? You could have a Y-chromosome without knowing it! Does that make you less of a woman? If you found out you did have one, would you immediately turn around and live as a man, because "chromosomes"?

My stance is: people are allowed to exist and live in peace and I don't care about their genitals and chromosomes, only their character and actions.

If that is controversial, call me a punk.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Pro-variation vs. pro-selection culture

Evolution requires three things: some form of information that’s inheritable, some way to create variation from that information, and some way to select what information will be passed on to future generations. In biological evolution, of, course, we all know what these three things are: genes (information) can mutate (variation) -- well, it’s more complicated than just mutation, but this isn’t a biology lesson -- and those that are worse at surviving and reproducing themselves are of course naturally weeded out through cause and effect (selection). But other things -- art, culture, language, science, technology -- evolve as well, and they all need the same three things.

When it comes to variation and selection in things like culture and politics, there’s a sliding scale of which one people think is most important -- whether they’re more pro-variation, or pro-selection.

People on the pro-variation end of the spectrum tend to view diversity as a positive thing and selection as something that will take care of itself, or even something to be actively suspicious of because of its tendency to cause harm -- a rainbow queer community, an education system available to people of all cultures and economic backgrounds, country borders that are as open as practical, and embracing a diverse array of art make a community stronger, and things like gatekeeping, means testing and heirarchies on ‘what counts as art’ should be abandoned unless there’s a really good reason for the selective process to exist, in which case it’s grudgingly tolerated. To pro-variation people, exclusion and oppression within a community are threatening. Pro-variation people recognise that yes, you’re going to get some freeloading drains on resources and obvious money laundering schemes masquerading as terrible art and a few people pretending to be gay for a few years to look more interesting to their straight friends, and this is largely a non-issue, a perfectly acceptable price to pay for a diverse and fair world.

People on the pro-selection end of the scale tend to view selection as the main means of advancing or healing a society, and see diversity as something that will take care of itself and as something to be deeply suspicious of. Gatekeeping, unequal opportunities and financial heirarchies are needed to sort the what from the chaff and make sure everyone does their best (”capitalism breeds innovation”); initiatives to redress inequality and give minorities or poor people an ‘unfair’ advantage or make it easier for outsiders to enter the country should be abandoned unless there’s a really good reason for their existence, as they’re dragging down the ‘deserving’ and polluting the culture. To pro-selection people, contamination or invasion from outsiders is threatening. Pro-selection people recognise that yes, you’re going to lose some talented geniuses in sweatshops and stop some deserving people from achieving success and bully some LGBT people out of the community to face abuse and oppression alone, but this is largely a non-issue, a perfectly acceptable price to pay for an advanced and fair world.

“Oh, Derin, you’re just talking about left-wing vs. right-wing philosophies.” Sort of, but not really. It fits the stereotypes and common arguments to a T, but one can’t assume that all righties are pro-selection or all lefties are pro-variation. I have met pro-variation righties, although I’m not really sure how. And there are leftie TERFs out there, despite TERFism being an undeniably pro-selection philosophy. I find determining where people sit on the variation-to-selection scale to be a lot more useful for communication than left-to-right.

I say this because often I’ll see pro-selection and pro-variation people talking to each other, and notice that they’re having fundamentally different conversations. For example, let’s look at the issue of meritocracy. Most modern people would say that meritocracy is a good thing, but ’meritocracy’ means a fundamentally different thing to pro-selectionists than pro-variationists.

A pro-selectionist, when conceiving of meritocracy, tends to think in terms of, well, selection; devising a system where the strongest (those that excel in whatever the thinker thinks is important; innovation or determination or whatever) rise to the top and gain special privileges and power over others, that they can use to determine the rules and make life better for themselves and their children, elevating society as a side effect. To the pro-variationist, this is absolutely not a meritocracy. “You’ve built a system whereby those who don’t start out with more, those who are born poor or disabled or underprivileged in some way, have to work way harder and be lucky in order to get anywhere than those born lucky. People don’t get ahead on merit in this system because the playing field becomes drastically uneven after a couple of generations. This is not a meritocracy.”

A pro-variationist, on the other hand, would concentrate on making sure that everyone has a fair chance at exercising their skills and getting ahead. They’d focus on making sure that people had the space and security to exercise their skills and that, when it came to supporting the society to make that happen, those with more contributed more. To a pro-selectionist, this is absurd. “So those who have pulled ahead and succeeded are being penalised by having to give more? That’s the opposite of a meritocracy! That’s a system designed to drag the best down!”

I find this framework useful in explaining a lot of weird political quirks of certain subcultures. TERFs and tradwives, for example, are theoretically political opposites, but in practice their logic sounds almost identical to outsiders, sounding rather a lot like standard right-wing talking points and Fascism Lite. This is because they’re all using pro-selection arguments. To a pro-selectionist, the arguments of these groups look very different -- “we’re saying that X kind of people are good/virtuous/victims, and Y kind of people are bad/oppressors/sinners, which is the exact opposite of what the other group is saying!” To a pro-variationist, the fact that they are making literally the same argument makes them identical -- “you’re still putting people in your little ‘keep or cull’ boxes for exactly the same reasons, you just wrote different names on the boxes to keep or cull according to your personal taste.”

I think a lot of the things associated with right-wingers could be more accurately associated with people on the pro-selection end of the spectrum in general. It’s known, for example, that right-wingers tend to have a more sensitive disgust reflex and, as a consequence, be generally more xenophobic. You can see this in the way xenophobes talk of making room for outsiders; they talk of invasion, contamination, infection, hygeine, purity. LGBT exclusionists, lefties and righties, talk in the same sort of language. So do antis.

It’s also notable in the sorts of innocuous-seeming things that such people get really angry about. Right-wingers and authoritarians are known for their trend of an almost comical hatred of modern art. The idea that anything can be art, or that art can be measured on any level that isn’t strict complexity and realism of paint and sculpture, causes a surprising level of dislike in such groups. (See also arguments like ‘what is a video game’, ‘does this even count as a game’, althoughpeople thankfully seem to be bored of that now). Exclusionists are equally renowned for campaigns against inclusive terms like ‘queer’, and TERFs get obsessively nitpicky about people’s genitals to a really creepy degree and get very uncomfortable when you mention the ‘grey area’ in biological sex. This is normally assumed to be just dislike at people challenging their arguments, but I think it’s deeper. I think it’s like the modern art thing. Any kind of radical inclusivity is threatening to pro-selection thinkers, not because it’s a challenge to their rules and definitions -- they can have those arguments perfectly comfortably -- but because it is an attack on the very concept of meaning. “Words mean things! Groups exist! You can’t just... just get rid of groups and open up categories to include more people without putting them through a serious, rigorous proving ground first! You can’t just call anything you want to ‘art’, you can’t just call anyone outside cisheteronormative expectations part of the LGBT community, you can’t just call people men or women based on how they feel! That’s chaos! How can any progress be made if we just decide words don’t mean anything??”

(I also think this is a much-overlooked aspect of the same-sex marriage debate. Yes, most of that was garden-variety homophobia, but I’ve known a lot of people who were perfectly fine with ‘the gays having equal rights’, they just didn’t want it called marriage. To a pro-variationist, having the same legal language for partnerships regardless of the sex or gender of the participants is really important -- it’s a shield against future discrimination as the laws relating to either marriages or civil partnerships change over time. To a pro-selectionist, changing the definition of words related to fundamental cultural activities is a huge deal. “They’re eroding the very meaning of marriage! Chaos! How much more will the word change? Can people marry animals or cars next?!”)

As I said, this is a spectrum. I’ve met very few people who are on either extreme end -- even the most pro-equality liberal anarchist acknowledges that some standards of behaviour, community responses to inappropriate action and definitions of different communities do have to exist, to protect people, and the most hardocre fascist admits that there needs to be some measure of generating diversity to avoid stagnation and extinction. And people’s default reaction isn’t necessarily their position on all issues -- somebody who’s generally pro-variation might feel specifically threatened by immigration and think a strict proving ground for immigrants is necessary, or someone who is generally pro-selectionist might think that a robust social system is necessary because one’s economic status at birth has no bearing on one’s merit or value. But I’ve always found it to be a very useful general model.

[bondsmagii]

Hey read (some of) this blog post (long as hell), tries to pick it up where your old scp cult post left off: lackoflepers medium com/scp-is-not-a-cult-196e87ce6b11

(link)

this is insane. I've never written anything that's ever received a full response before, so that's exciting. what's even more exciting is that this piece does raise some really interesting questions, and is very well-written and thoughtful.

the strange thing is, I think we're both in agreement -- but I'm calling it a cult, and the author of this piece is calling it a "fledgling religion". I agree with this outlook, if I'm honest -- but at the same time I can't help but think that this has filled a hole in my cult theory, rather than poked a hole in it.

when I wrote the original cult post, the one thing I couldn't quite equate was the religion aspect. there was a lot of things to consider from that aspect, in terms of cults requiring a certain doctrine, rituals, etc, and while I was able to draw comparisons to the site culture and these things, it didn't quite fit. this article explains and illustrates exactly what all of these things are, and the sheer amount of similarities between the SCP wiki culture and religious fundamentalists. it's absolutely incredible, how it all still adds up.

however, some things are way off. I understand the author has a history with site and with staff, and they obviously understand that there's a complicated relationship between the two. the piece certainly tackles the question from an educated site-critical standpoint, but I can't help but notice some glaring omissions and in some places, assumptions which I feel are quite simply incorrect. under the cut we go, because this is long.

the author seems to be very ignorant of the site's cyclical patterns. one of their main arguments for the wiki's not being a cult is how people like Dr Gears and thedeadlymoose don't have more power over the masses, being such important figures. the problem with the wiki is that it is very cyclical, and big names of one era do not translate over to new eras. big names replace old ones, and the old ones either become fond grandparent figures (like Gears, who had the sense to take a step back before the tides changed against him) or they become irrelevant or reviled (like thedeadlymoose, or pixelatedharmony (Roget).) this means that if the former appeals to the group, they will get essentially a pat on the head and a gentle dismissal, or if the latter speak out they will be silenced, harassed, banned, etc. this is very cultlike behaviour -- if somebody goes against the grain, they become an immediate enemy of the people. the only way to survive fame on the wiki is to retire quietly, at your peak, and keep yourself to yourself.

going on from this, there are also different levels to how a staff member is seen. there have been eras of the site where the site admin might not be as impressive as one of the prolific writers, for example. who these days knows about The Administrator? it's all Dr Gears to them. different authors have different levels of unofficial authority, and the author of the piece doesn't seem to realise that it's a cult of personality as much as anything else. there are constant divisions among staff, even if they present a united front; frequently those not toeing the party line have been ostracised or purged, and this filters down to the average user. just because a person is on staff does not mean they immediately skyrocket to godhood, if we're using the religious metaphor. this is why it seems as though "staff" as a whole isn't uniformly worshipped -- they're not. there are complex currents of power at work here, and it's frustrating because at first glance it seems to invalidate the very real fact that a few site members have all the authority. the staff worship extends to staff members. those in lower tiers will act similarly to those in higher tiers as a new member would act towards all staff.

the author draws attention to thedeadlymoose's impressive efforts to bring the site forward from its 4chan beginnings and make it more inclusive to LGBT members -- something that has undoubtedly had an effect. however, the author does not mention that to date, the site's only successful splinter site (as in, a site that lasted more than a few weeks) is RPC, and while this website came about for multiple reasons, it's undeniable that one of these reasons was because of the fact that the wiki was openly supportive of LGBT people during Pride Month. it's also interesting to note that the author is also a member of the RPC site, so it's odd that this piece of the site's origins is not mentioned.

the acceptance of these pro-LGBT policies also seems to be less wide-spread than the author believes -- most people don't care, there does exist users who are homophobic or transphobic, and -- something I'm surprised wasn't mentioned at all in the piece -- when LGBT members of the site spoke up and said the new logo made them feel pandered to, and the resulting blowout made them feel targeted and unsafe, they were mass banned from the subreddit by a rogue moderator who, incensed by the fact his authority was so challenged, then ragequit and abused people on the threads for several hours. this is a typical staff response to discontent in the masses. so yes, thedeadlymoose did have some significant sway in the attitude changing somewhat, but it was not as widespread (nor as cared about) as the article's author seems to think.

now, I shall move on to specific quotations.

Furthermore, as a gaggle of creators, SCP should never feature the mass conformity of thought that defines a cult; theirs is an ecosystem that predicates itself upon creation, and obsessively on the new and original — that is to say, the different (but tempered).

while the author does elaborate on this idea of creativity and conformity, this is just wrong. again, I blame the author's ignorance in regards to the cyclical nature of the site -- which isn't the fault of the author, in my opinion. such cycles are slow, measuring out in years rather than months, which is insanely long for an internet community. in order to notice them, you would have to have been observing for some time -- which I have been. since I have been observing the site (which has been since its very creation -- I was on the 4chan thread in 2007 when 173 was created and I have seen the wiki from its infancy on EditThis over to wikidot) I have seen this happen countless times. a type of writing, be it style or genre, takes off. it could be LOLFoundation, grimdark, whatever -- it takes off, it runs the site for a year or so, and then it crashes and burns. when it takes off, there are rules for writing it that must be obeyed lest you be downvoted to oblivion. as the attitude turns against it, those who still write it are vilified and ostracised, and the new one takes over. there have been mass purges in the past, and there has always been, since the wiki's inception, conformity of thought. one of my oldest complaints about the wiki is that, for a site full of writers, they have no imagination and absolutely no desire to step out of the approved style.

To put it very broadly, things get accustomed to the status quo in a highly regulated environment, and get better at simply remaining and surviving in that.

this could be a decent rebuff to my previous point, but the fact is that while the SCP wiki harbours cultish behaviour, a vast majority of the users are casual readers who maybe write one or two articles. the stagnation is, at least partially, because of the fact that most users sign up, read some articles, think "cool, I have an idea for one!", write it -- and have it emulate the articles they've read, thus sounding similar in tone and content to the rest of the recent articles -- get a semi-decent response if lucky, and then move on after a few months or years.

the people who power the wiki, however -- who are prolific, who churn out insane amount of articles -- are suffering from what I outlined in my above point. a small percentage of the wiki dictates the direction it goes. it has always been like this -- and people who go against the grain that staff have employed, be it old user or new, will pay for it. this payment is often in downvotes, but occasionally comes in harassment, bans, or deletions, too.

Lastly a cult is really the most extreme version of a religion, it is a religion on steroids.

this is straight-up incorrect. cults began as religions gone hayware, yes, but the idea of a cult as a Jonestown-style compound in the middle of nowhere is outdated. cults are the most extreme version of an ideology -- be it religious, political, or otherwise. they are ideologies on steroids. thanks to the internet, they also no longer have to be in real life spaces. you can be in a social cult on Twitter or on Discord; you can be in a cult of ideology on an incel forum or in a social circle of TERF blogs. all of these things are cults. they have cult-like behaviour and thinking.

this is where the author proves my point beyond all doubt. the author says the following about the wiki's increasingly left-wing inclusive policies:

What was intended to be an executive extension in peace has, due to the force required to counteract the sheer hostility and persecution once leveled at this group at its peak, instead overshot its mark and has become a brutal bureaucratic sanctioning of political identity. (I can hear someone saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.)

the biggest shift in this cult-think, for me, was observed when the shift towards Terminally Online Woke Left attitudes began to be increasingly observed. I'm not talking about getting people to tone down the homophobia and whatnot. I'm talking about this culture of purity and suffering that the author outlines very well in the article; if you have read the article, I needn't go over it again. the wiki now holds a monopoly on suffering using the same kind of Oppression Olympics as other spaces devoted to purity culture -- and purity culture is a cult. this is straight-up fact at this point. it is my belief that staff identified the power available to them in a) targeting people from oppressed and vulnerable groups and giving them a so-called safe space and b) using their various oppressions to their advantage.

something that is prolific in purity culture circles is that somebody who is oppressed in any way cannot be held to blame for their actions. they cannot be a bad person. this is ideological armour, and staff wields it. they also use purity culture and apparently progressive ideology to shut down anyone who dissents, and to smear their name and have then ostracised as an enemy. why do they do this? liking the power and fame of their position is a big part of it, as the author outlined, but something major is missing.

throughout the entire article, the author does not once mention the detailed and extensive history of staff sexually abusing minors on the site.

this is well-documented by this point. staff has seen many predators in its ranks, including one of the most prolific site members of all time -- AdminBright, or The Duckman. staff has known about these staff members and has covered it up over years. I myself have heard testimony from countless victims, but whenever we raise enough of a stink, a staff member does an "internal investigation" and nothing comes of it. the fact that the cult-like behaviour of this website can be discussed without one of the cornerstones of cult activity -- using its members for financial or sexual gain -- is astounding to me.

to go on from this, there is also no mention of the SCP lawyer fund, which raised over $30,000 and then faced staff actively resisting transparency as to the case and the funds. financial manipulation is another major example of cult behaviour.

without acknowledging these two things, I do not think that a full argument against the idea of the SCP wiki as a cult can be possible.

the author raises a good point that illustrates both why staff acts the way it does, and why the users are so eager to imitate:

The answer is something that can turn someone into their nemesis; something that would make someone sell their soul for 1000 upvotes; that tragic commonality that binds all individuals who feel the need to write; the need to be received, but more, to be loved for it.

this is a big reason why staff clings to its power, and why people sell out their creativity, and why people emulate this behaviour, and why prolific authors burn out so fast. however, running through all of this at its core -- through the need to be received and loved -- is the power that comes with it. this is all about power.

to mention the specific example of LordStonefish, and his reaction when he found out that his interviewer was enemy of the people pixelatedharmony, now of "burning out, ragequitting the site, and going to talk shit on KiwiFarms" infamy:

[...] it was as if LSF was speaking to a leper, and that the ongoing participation in the salvation of public approval (not to mention site participation as well) was directly dependent upon LSF’s rebuke of pH as a demon who is only worthy of a terrible fate and, as we see in the screencaps, even death.

leaving my personal opinions on Harmony out of this, going from a perfectly civil interview to finding out that the interviewer was an enemy and not only dumping all of his private information to offset doxing, but also going into detail about some highly personal stuff for shock value... I don't think Harmony quite required that treatment. the fact is that, as the quote outlines above, the only way to ensure that he wouldn't be completely ostracised for fraternising with the enemy (KiwiFarms -- of which Harmony is apparently the ambassador) was to behave like a man shunning a sinner. Harmony has sinned -- she rejected the status quo, she defied the group and its authority, and LordStonefish, in order to remain safe from being tarred with the same brush -- has to react with suitable horror to her presence.

it should be noted here that while KiwiFarms has a reputation for being a hive of scum and villainy, its main reputation regarding the SCP Wiki has been for being the one place where complaints against the site are openly discussed, often by defected staff members such as pixelatedharmony and Cyantreuse, and perhaps most telling of all -- the place where a lot of accounts of sexual harassment and abuse have been filed. staff rails against it on the grounds of it being filled with people who use slurs and have questionable ideological beginnings (ironic, coming from a website which began on 4chan) -- but as a leftist myself with extensive knowledge of the wiki, I can confirm that no criticisms I've seen on there have been unfair or inaccurate, and in fact a lot of the evidence and testimony posted there is damning. it would be fair to not wish to associate with the site because of its content in other places, or even its past reputation, but the fact staff rail against it so hard when it's currently one of the only places (and certainly the only public place) where their deeds are on display? it's interesting.

of LordStonefish's reaction, the author says:

This is the behavior of a deeply religious figure.

it is. this is the reaction of a Mormon meeting an old friend who has left the church. this is the reaction of a Jehovah's Witness crossing the street to avoid a shunned neighbour. it is the behaviour, you could say, of a cult member.

in the conclusion, the author states:

And if anyone is to shoulder blame for the creation of this pathology and its complex, it are those true bigots of history and today, who don’t have the spiritual maturity to understand that someone’s sexual preference or identity shouldn’t be enough to categorically separate them from a definition of humanity; to beat, maim, and wish death upon them.

perhaps this might have been true, perhaps this might have drawn a thoughtful and damning line under the whole affair, if not for the fact that this behaviour has been occurring since long before the internet became known for its progressive and now increasingly often, ridiculous takes on inclusion and sensitivity. this kind of cultish groupthink has been ongoing since the wiki's very first inception. the cyclical worship of a group of staff members and other prolific writers (though the group are often one and the same) and their chosen theme or genre has occurred like clockwork since the late 00s. it has occurred when the website was still entrenched in its 4chan days and saying slurs was barely blinked at. it was still there back when staff was predominantly (or at least presumably) cis, white, and male. it was there when being gay was the butt of a joke and being trans was all but unthought of. it has always been there, and while the latest progressive policies and attitudes have had an effect on how the power is wielded, it has not changed the power itself. if the tides ever turn on the Terminally Online Woke ideology, staff will change with it and adapt their policies and ideologies to keep their power.

if anyone is to shoulder the blame for the creation of this pathology, it is the elitist attitude that has allowed a select few to be worshipped unquestionably. it is the power-hungry individuals who seek out fame and respect on a writing website and then use this fame and respect to treat others badly and their fear of a fall from grace to shelter others treating people worse. it is on the shoulders of the staff members who use their position to groom and sexually assault minors. it is on the shoulders of the staff members who keep it silent. as the severity of staff's secrets has increased, so has their attempts to silence dissent and reform at all costs.

the author agrees that this kind of religious think might lead to a cult in the future. the author says the cult will be a cult of vulnerability, but I disagree. I believe the cult is already there, and it is -- and always has been -- a cult of power.

[lazaefair]

Sequence of events the way I perceived/remember them. I’m doing my best to be as honest as possible and to minimize self-defensiveness, but I’m only human. Trying anyway:

I join All & More.

Within the first few days, I either bring up something about fandom racism, or challenge something someone said that I felt played into cultural biases regarding Marwan/Joe and the conversation turns to fandom racism. I don’t remember which happened first.

Either way, over the next weeks, between other conversations I get into several arguments/discussions about fandom racism with a few different people, including goldheartedsky. One person blocks me, which is how I learn about Discord blocking, and I block them back.

Goldheartedsky in particular keeps making remarks that show a clear bias against Joe/Marwan on the same spectrum as the biases that other Top Joe Stans have demonstrated in the previous months. She’s by no means the only one, as there is a mix of Top Joe Stans, neutral (I thought at the time) parties, and then me and Ven. But goldheartedsky and I get into it a few times with varying degrees of civility. She demonstrates that she relies heavily on strawman fallacies, red herrings, disingenuous mischaracterizations, and outright lying as tactics.

At some point I realize that she has blocked me (I can’t tag her or add reactions to her posts) so I block her back, as everything she had been posting had been upsetting me anyway.

After that, I started blocking people who got to roughly the same threshold as she did - attempting to preserve my fandom experience and give my stress levels a break.

By the time the conversation in question happens, I’ve blocked a handful of people, and basically just ignore the “blocked messages��� bars that replace their posts and act like they’re not there. This is what happens during The Conversation - there is at least one blocked person, maybe more, but I don’t know because they are blocked and all Discord shows you is “3 blocked messages” or however many messages have been replaced.

I also unfortunately was lackadaisical about tagging the people I was actually responding to, which would have muddied the flow of the conversation for anyone else who didn’t have the exact same people blocked that I did.

I never clicked on the “blocked messages” bars, the channel has since been deleted, and I haven’t looked at the screenshots being spread around, so I still have no idea what any of the blocked people said in that conversation.

As for the substance of the conversation - this isn’t an excuse for myself, but I was talking about the ethics of the presented issue the way I usually talk in ethics discussions, like a puzzle to be solved. I realize now that I should have...not done that. To the people I was actually talking to, I am genuinely sorry for the pain I caused by not being empathetic enough to the human/emotional side of the issue.

Some hours after the conversation peters out, a person I hadn’t blocked - but who was in the same loose friend group as the people I had blocked - comes into the channel and says that what I had said wasn’t appropriate.

I reach out to Ven to get a second opinion about it. She agrees, which is when I realize I fucked up.

While I am talking to Ven, one of the not-blocked people whom I’d actually been responding to in the conversation - who is Jewish - comes back in and basically clarifies what I’d intended to say on my behalf. (I did not ask them to do this, and I am grateful to them for doing it.)

Edit: I am aware that this person has just publicly disavowed their defense of me. I’m leaving in what I originally wrote, since I’m laying out the sequence of events and their post was part of the reason why I handled the situation the way I did at the time.

Ven advises me, and I agree, to leave it there, because this person has kindly already said what I would have said - and also because I reckoned that nothing I could have said would have actually satisfied the person who called me out, as they’d demonstrated consistent hostility toward me in all our interactions prior to this.

So I leave it there, the channel moves on, and I figure that’s that.

Fandom racism conversations continue, with multiple arguments happening in which the contingent of Top Joe Stans, including goldheartedsky, continue to deliberately use rude, insulting language and various fallacies in response to my and others’ requests to reconsider contributing to racist tropes about Marwan/Joe. In an argument about the content gap between types of stories and art produced between Joe and Nicky, one of them says outright that there is no content gap, citing the survey done by tog-resources in July.

I’d already been considering conducting a full survey of Joe/Nicky fic, but this spurs me on to actually do it. Ven and I start surveying, and publish our results in late February.

I won’t rehash that entire round of discourse here, but this is when the screenshots from A&M first appear and various people receive anons accusing me of being a TERF and antisemitic, etc. One of the anons contains enough circumstantial information for me to figure out that goldheartedsky is behind it, or at least part of it. This is my first indication that goldheartedsky was one of the blocked people in that conversation.

I decide to stay silent about the accusations because that seems like the high road to take, and because it feels like addressing them at all would lend credence to them.

The people throwing accusations around had either blocked me, or I had blocked them, so any words that I said about them wouldn’t have been taken in good faith anyway, especially after it got to bakedapplesauce.

Bakedapplesauce, who blocked me after receiving one of the longer anons, never contacted me to get my side of the story.

A while later, a third party contacts me to try to bring me and goldheartedsky together in a conversation to clear the air. I didn’t initiate this, but agreed to do it only if the third party acts as a go-between, 1) partly because I had just started a new job and was busy IRL so I didn’t think I could manage a conversation in real-time, but primarily 2) because then if screenshots of the conversation ever appeared in public, there could be no question as to who had done it. Goldheartedsky refuses this precaution, so I call it off.

So, that’s my side of the story. I don’t have screenshots because screenshots can be altered and taken out of context, and also because I just don’t do that shit. I regret that it’s gotten to this point, but since the February round of discourse, it always felt like there was no way for me to address the accusations without coming off as defensive or dismissive.

Also, until this round of discourse in June, no one had approached me about it in sincere concern. I’m only writing this post at all because this shit has now been splattered onto other people, including Jewish people who have to watch their generational pain be used as a shield and a derailing tactic to deflect from challenges to malicious, conscious racism. These anons only crop up when fandom tries to address racism, and only using hostile “gotcha” phrasing that makes clear they’re not actually concerned about antisemitism, they’re just trying to deflect. Well, they can try.

That being said, I do acknowledge and recognize that in that particular conversation, I was thoughtlessly callous about something that is gravely painful, and I should have known better. As I’ve said many times before, no one gets to declare by fiat that they’re “not a racist” because that’s not how cultural conditioning or implicit bias works, and it’s the same for antisemitism. I’m sincerely sorry for that and have been trying/will continue to try to do better.

[homeofhousechickens]

Noticed an influx of terfs harassing fellow agriculture blogs. And i want to talk about something pretty heavy, if you are one of those “terf” people or maybe you have found yourself following those types of blogs while also following mine please give my words a read. I know some people look up to me but to be honest I am not the most eloquent person but maybe i can convince you to look more critically at your world view.

Tw: Transphobia, abuse, trauma, Aphobia, Terf rhetoric

I will be honest and say that I also once attacked people who were different from me to, i used to be what i think is called an asexual exclusionist due to some of my own trauma and because of that i took it out on the asexual community as an angry autistic teenager. I was frustrated at my hypersexuality which was a symptom of my sexual abuse being treated like a normal sexuality so i projected those feelings of hurt back out into the world when their was better coping methods. I was frustrated at the well off asexual kids in GSA that couldnt understand why their fellow member was having a panic attack due to being kicked out of the house for being a lesbian, when i could have been just as frustrated at the other LGBT kids that had decent parents, i was just targeting them because they were different from me and it felt safe to.

Obviously as an adult I educated myself and no longer hold those ideas. I read stuff from outside of my own point of view and stuff that directly challenged me over the years, I know not everyone has the privilege to be able to do that but i did and the reason is is that i was tired of hurting and i was tired of hurting other people, I never harassed anyone but it did influence how i treated people when i was younger and i am sorry for it.

I know alot of terf rhetoric centers around the concept of women (specifically white women usually) being victims of the “other sex” or being them being the “better sex”. (i know because aphobic rhetoric is very similar) Due to this they genuinely believe that other women want to come into their spaces and “steal” this ideal away from them. Thats why they get so furious about the idea of functional uterine transplants. To them, their uterus or vulva is what defines them as “better” or the reason they suffer trauma but when the science is moving so where typical reproduction may not be the only pathway to child bearing they become enraged because they are no longer “special” to themselves. Their is no longer a reason for their trauma and pain.

This fundamentally is the basis of the hate they put out into the world. This is also why they attack cis women who do not conform to typical femininity. This boiling down of their worth to chromosomes or anatomy is literally just a rehashed version of the own misogyny they were likely fed as a child and it makes me sad. They say the same stuff my shitty relatives did about women but now terfs are the ones saying it about whoever they decide is the “other” sometimes that other is transgender women sometimes its intersex women and sometimes its women who just dont conform to their ideals. When you picture yourself happy, is it when your standing with your heels dug in on top of the people you deem “other”? Or is when your helping out your fellow human? When you tear down another person does it really build you up? When you see others tear someone down because of their appearance do you not care how it may affect the people you care about and the people who care about you? How many terfs have i seen brag about “hate saving” transwomens photos so they can make fun of them later? How does that sound when you say that out loud? Imagine going to the person you care about the most someone you deeply respect and saying “in my free time i save/take pictures of people i dont know and then i make fun of them and show them to a bunch of strangers so we can make fun of them together” like really say that out loud.

I would be ashamed. I want to make people happy not hurt them. I want connection and i think thats a base need for most humans. I want to connect with people who are kind to me and kind to others, if someone told me they were doing that i would feel ashamed for even talking to that person. Sexual abuse and trauma are no joke and there isnt an argument to say that women suffer gendered violence that cis white men simply never really will ever understand. But true of the matter is our trans brothers and sisters are treated just like woman are and worse. I feel like so many of us end up holding hate for a group of people due to bad experiences with individuals so our dumb brains start shoving people into boxes of “bad” and “good”. But a trans person can fear rape, abuse, trauma just as much as you do and they suffer from very high levels of it and thats a fact. They are not your enemy, hateful individualistic thinking is! and its that very same way of thinking that is killing the planet. I want to iterate that every single person you have interacted with on this website is a living breathing person. They have their own emotions, their own thoughts, their own dreams, and their own world view. When you say something mean or harass them you are actively hurting another person. Me typing this out right now, i am a person with my own flaws and aspirations. I think sometimes people forget that people are people not just faceless emotional less words on a screen. Trans women are women and this blog will always support that. If that makes you upset think about why, on your own at first, no social media to help you.

Maybe see a therapist who is well versed in gender and the lgbt. Therapists arent just their for when your depressed or anxious they are here to talk to. There is people you can read about or talk to, the worst thing that can happen is that you could change like i did. There is nothing shameful about changing and admitting mistakes. Sorry if i said some things wrong i just wanted to get it off my chest

[styrofauxm]

An overly in-depth and personal look at Harry Potter and JK Rowling

1. Obviously there's going to be transphobia and stuff discussed, I'm leaving content warnings up here as they come up, please stay safe. If I forgot any, let me know (I can't put them in the tags now, thanks Tumblr).

(Content Warnings: discussions of transphobia. Mentions of racism and ableism. Allusions to slavery. Cursing)

2. I'm tagging this "harry potter", but please don't put it on your blog if you still engage with JKR's content unless you are committing to not do so anymore

3. This is mostly for myself, however, I'm fine with criticism on this. It's messy and imperfect. But I'm not going to bother with any TERFs

Part 1: Background

I used to be really, really, really obsessed with Harry Potter. I read it in second grade, at a time where I was behind in reading, math, etc. for my age and grade level. The challenging vocabulary and complexity led to me becoming a better reader. Reading it took me over 6 months. It was the first goal I ever achieved. And it meant a lot to me.

And then I read it again. And again. And again, and again, and again. There's an argument to be made that almost all of my close friendships was cemented with a conversation about Harry Potter. I spent hours with my friends arguing that something was a plothole, while they insisted it wasn't. I read the books over and over, until quotes became embedded in my vocabulary, and I didn't even realize.

My parents begged me to find different books to read, even though I spent at most 2 weeks a year actually reading Harry Potter.

So yeah. It was important to me. It was my comfort series, my go-to books, a major part of my personality, and honestly a big part of my life.

I read Harry Potter 17 times. I had planned to read it 50 (because I set weird goals as a small child). I found a lot of joy in it.

And then, soon after I had finished the series for the 17th time, JKR made her second hint that she was transphobic (the first being a few years prior when she "accidentally" followed transphobic accounts). And I was a little upset, but I brushed it off. Until I couldn't anymore.

Part 2: In the past two years

At first, I was miffed, but I never really cared about JKR anyway. She wrote my favorite books, but ultimately she was unimportant. I just decided that as long as I don't buy HP stuff it'll be fine.

And then she said more stuff, and did more stuff. So I decided I wouldn't read the books in public anymore. Then I decided not to talk about them anymore (seriously if I had made this blog 3 years earlier it would have just been HP nonsense). And then she started saying that all people reading Harry Potter agreed with her. So I stopped reading the books (mostly. I've read the first few chapters on really bad days).

There was some other stuff involved, like crying at 1am after staying up all night watching this Contrapoints video. Which is a good video by the way, but a bit older than some of JKR's more recent TERF shit.

And yeah. Not engaging with something I used to engage with every day sucked. I based a lot of my identity around it. (I even used it to help myself understand trans people better). It had a big impact on me. But I had to let it go. And honestly, everyone else does too.

Part 3: J.K. Rowling........

JKR is a TERF. She's racist. Ableist. Bigoted. And probably much more. JKR hates trans people. She uses her platform against them.

At this point there's no arguing that she made a mistake. That she didn't understand. That she's trying her best. She's not. She knows what she's saying and doing and she doesn't care.

JKR hates my friends. She hates my family. And she hates people I've never met. She actively works to harm human lives.

Reading HP stuff, talking about HP, having pins or stickers for HP, watching the movies, etc. all benefits her. It gives her a platform. It gives her a place to sing hate from the rooftops. Continuing to engage with Harry Potter is ultimately complicity.

Part 4: Semi-conclusion

I get it. I get that its hard to let go. I still haven't fully.

I fully understand how much it sucks to give up something that means a lot to you. I know how awful it feels to have a bad day, think about what to do to feel better, and then not do it. I've done that multiple times over the past 2 years. I haven't perfect, but I'm doing my best.

But here's the thing. As much as I or anyone else found comfort in HP. As much as we took away vastly different messages than were actually there. As much as it feels horrible sometimes, supporting HP content in any way harms people far more than not reading a book series harms you.

I have more to say on this. I have thoughts and feelings and points left unsaid. Some of this isn't refined or concise, and some of it has gaps I couldn't fill with words. So I might add onto it.

Part 5: Bonus Ramblings

- Not promoting hate is a duty that we have. For the first time in my life, my family is sending me Harry Potter stuff. I'm not going to watch the reunion. I'm not going to watch the new Fantastic Beasts. I want to. I can't express how much I want to. But I won't. It's taking most of my self restraint to not watch the reunion. Sure it doesn't involve her. But she will use people watching it as a way to say that they agree with her BS. So I won't. And no one else should either. (Plus they used clips of her in it so they probably have to pay her something).

- Also, don't interact with content from other shitty people. I'm working on covering up stickers from the Illuminae Files because one of the authors is openly racist and the other basically is.

- No, this isn't cancel culture. It's literally just not letting bigots have a platform. If you have a problem with that, think about why you think deplatforming hate speech is a problem.

- I really want JKR to apologize and do better. But even if she did, I'm not sure I could read the books again. Or like it to the extent I used to. Which is really sad to me.

- The interpretation you had of the books vs what JKR was intending to say doesn't matter now that you know. I saw them as inclusive and anti-hate, but now I can't think of scenes the way I used to. Most people thought JKR was putting Hermione in the right with the house-elf thing, but all of the textual evidence contradicts that. Most people thought that there was anti-hate messaging with the Death Eaters being bad, but she's expressed no issues with the Weasley's ostracizing their non-wizard family members. The books aren't what most people thought they were, and at this point, you aren't going to get the messages you used to reading those scenes.

- If I have other stuff to add it'll probably be in reblogs or replies, and like I said, I am fully willing to discuss it (so long as you aren't trying to argue that JKR isn't a bad person. She is)

[rotationalsymmetry]

Reading through a argument around “is queer a self defined thing or is it something where you have to check off at least one specific named identity and tell people what that is thing?” And there’s a 17 year old who expressed concerns about the idea of queer being a self identifier thing getting his ass handed to him. Which, I have to say, my initial reaction (safely saved to drafts) also involved a lot of swear words, and not colorful background swearwords either.

Fuck off. My initial reaction was to tell him to fuck off. And that, never mind about hypothetical straight fakers, I didn’t want him at my queer events.

But...I can understand, being young, probably being new to the community, possibly not having any offline community at all, how someone might find themselves arguing that position.

I mean, we got a lot of gatekeeping of various types on this site and in online queer spaces in general. It’s a thing someone could pick up without really questioning it, just because other queer people are saying it. And, you’re new, you’re unsure of yourself, you want to fit in. I can see it.

So, the kind gentle explanation, for anyone who needs less fuck off and more patiently explaining. (If I get replies/asks about this I’ll attempt to continue with the patient version.)

The acronym isn’t fixed. It’s fluid, and the categories within it are fluid.

For example: Marsha P Johnson in her life didn’t call herself a transgender woman. She called herself a transvestite and a gay man, even though she used she/her pronouns. Now, we look back on that and think “well, the language changed over time, someone who lived the way she did would almost certainly call herself a trans woman now, and the modern queers who identify with her most tend to be trans women.” Categories are fluid, in that now we’re inclined to see “trans woman, cross dresser, gay man” as entirely separate categories that aren’t especially related to each other (and het crossdressers might not be seen as queer at all) but they used to have much more overlap.

As another example, “non-binary” wasn’t really a thing when I hit adulthood. There were people who would now call themselves nonbinary, but they used different terms, like genderqueer. Stone Butch Blues talks about “he-she’s”, a term that straddled “butch lesbian” and the modern “transmasculine”, and which definitely isn’t in common use any more.

And that’s just in recent American history! If you look at how queerness is conceptualized across time and across cultures, it varies so much. Some cultures have more than two genders that are universally recognized within that culture. Some times/cultures see homosexuality as being dependent on whether you’re topping or bottoming or about gender roles: a guy who bottoms or takes on feminine gender roles is gay, while one who tops is just a normal straight guy. Sometimes a culture has fairly set gender roles, but people who are biologically male or female taking on the opposite role and having a same-sex partner is completely normal and unremarkable.

The alternative to “a queer person is someone who says they are queer” is to have a fixed definition. You are queer if you check at least one: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, (asexual, intersex, two spirit, whatever else we want to explicitly include on the list.) But that would require “queer” to have a fixed definition and for all the sub-types of queer to be fixed.

What about when people don’t know for sure: a woman who knows she’s lesbian or bisexual but not which, a person who might be trans but isn’t quite sure, someone who might be asexual but again isn’t quite sure, but perhaps is quite sure they don’t feel comfortable when straight people talk about sex and romance. (And then there’s what happens when you’ve always thought of yourself as gay, but your partner is transitioning so what does that make you?) Hanging out in queer spaces with people who are queer makes sense for all of those people, even ones who might eventually decide they’re not actually queer after all.

And I’ve been writing paragraphs and paragraphs, but I think I missed the main point, which is: the alternative to “queer is self-defined” is “someone else gets to tell you whether you’re queer or not.” Which gives strangers permission to ask all sorts of invasive questions. (Especially if the given reason for defining queer is to keep people who aren’t queer out of queer spaces! That can only happen if you actually ask people coming into a space what they are!) There’s no way to define queer other than “someone who says they’re queer” or “someone who thinks they fit in with other queer people” that doesn’t open the door to those sorts of challenges.

And, in turn, to gatekeeping out people who might not be “queer enough” (ie, close enough to exclusively gay or lesbian) — in practice, trying to define queer leads to defining queer in a way that excludes aces or some trans people or all trans people or bi/pan people with opposite sex partners, or all of the above.

(Not entirely happy with how I’m using the term “sex” here, because I get “biological sex” can be a complex and very loaded concept for many trans people. If someone sees something they’re uncomfortable with and can suggest a better alt phrasing let me know.)

So, people tend to react to “queer shouldn’t be self-defined” in exactly the same way they’d respond to ace exclusionism or terf talk. Because...in practice, insisting queer has to have a fixed definition (or telling people to not use the word) tends to be round one of a game that ends with exactly those things. Even if you personally didn’t mean it that way, the rest of us don’t know that. We react to it like anti-racist activists respond to “All Lives Matter” — maybe it could be innocuous confusion, but it comes from a place of malice often enough that people do tend to assume malice.

Because the idea of fakers who are really straight infiltrating the community...that’s a terf idea and an exclusionist idea, and it doesn’t really fit with any robust and self-consistent understanding of queerness other than those ideologies.

[malwarewolf404]

[[disclaimer: I will be using the words biomale and biofemale in this post several times in an attempt to avoid confusion as to the point I’m trying to make. I do not intend to upset or alienate anyone who is intersex or does not otherwise conform to binary physical sex in any way. Thank you.]]

Let’s put together a little thought experiment. You take 100 sexually mature biomales and 100 sexually mature biofemales, both with no knowledge of society beyond this social group, and drop them on an uninhabited tropical island. They have all the resources, food and water, and even materials to make clothing and textiles not far behind from what we have in modern day, perhaps even unique ones to the culture they will eventually create.

Terfs and other denominations of trans-denialists would have you believe some very strict rules would be set up immediately. The biomales would hunt or gather, build, and perhaps begin to create the rituals or beliefs that might one day become a religion, and eventually a societal culture. The biofemales might be relegated to the role of caring for the society’s homes but perhaps not in the way one might expect (when trying to view this thought experiment through the lense of someone who has some particularly backwards ideas about womanhood being equated to the ownership of a uterus that is.) Perhaps terfs would have some more progressive ideas regarding the role of the biofemales, and sure, a matriachal society in which biofemales are responsible for the creation of societal culture isn’t at all outside the realm of possibility by any regards. In the spirit of trying to frame this argument as something a particularly progressive Terf might come up with, let’s say this is the case. Biofemales are the owners of family names and all social status, and biomales are relegated to the duties of cleaning, maintaining, and providing for the settlement.

Now before I actually make my argument, I will say I’m no terf at all. I am not a biofemale person who believes transwomen are rapists invading female-exclusive spaces like wlw. I can only imagine what a terf would come up with when presented with the thought experiment, and because I cannot be fucking bothered to interact with a terf on the issues of gender and biological sex (oh god could you fucking imagine.) That said, I believe I understand the perspective and beliefs of a person with that sort of mindset enough to construct this imaginary facsimile of the thought experiment from a terf’s perspective. Or, maybe I’m dead wrong, in which case I’m sure they’ll tell me. Just gonna quickly address them here:

Hello eager, anticipatory terfs! I’m sure you all have been waiting with bated breath for a post like the first bit of this one to come along so that you can reply in all sorts of flowery ad hominem language, saying things like “I hope you die in a fire you dickless pig-fucker!” Or, even better “Of course this pitiful excuse for a MALE would just LOVE to come up with his own approximation of what we, FEMALES, must be thinking!” I can assure you right now though, I’m not going to reply to any comments like that. I know that’s probably a real turn off for you, probably nixed any motivation to even keep reading this post, I understand. That said, this first part of the argument doesn’t matter, I only included it so that I might have some sort of control to weigh against my own imagination of the thought experiment. Additionally, I reached out to my three sisters about the ideas that a terf truscum person might have about the thought experiment. Here are their responses.

Buddy it’s 4 in the morning in California I can’t fucking read a three page paper this early.

What the fuck? Why would I want to put myself in the headspace of a trans-exclusionist? Why are you even asking me this? What is this for? What the fuck bro.

What’s a terf

Not as enlightening as I had hoped sadly. Anyways, I want to emplore you, please continue to read. I have a lot to say about this imaginary society and what I believe their ideas about gender conformity says about us. I think you might actually see some things in a different light than our incredibly polarized and entrenched societal beliefs would have you observe the issue. If that sounds like something that interests you, please read on.

So, this society. 100 biomales and 100 biofemales. And what do I believe it would look like? Well, I’ll tell you, but first I want to touch on a separate aspect than those I covered in my facsimile of a “terf” island society, and that’s sexuality. The reason I didn’t bring it up at all is because the fact is, many terfs are gay or bisexual women. They are real people with their own feelings and damage and ideas about what it means to be wlw. While I may have momentarily felt only slightly uncomfortable creating the idea of a “terf” island society and talking about its concepts of gender identity and social expectations placed on our imaginary island refugees completely in a vaccuum with no real input from actual women, being a wlw is not an issue I can even begin to comprehend, much less create my own ideas of what an idealized island society would look like to a wlw. It was a bridge too far, and I will not speak over real women with real opinions about what that is like. In fact, if you do identify as a woman (trans or not,) please feel free to share your own input on how you feel my facsimile “terf” scenario might be improved/ammended.

With all that said, let me say that I am now choosing to bring sexuality to the court because I am a gay man/nb person, and can speak to my own experiences and the experiences of others I know about sexuality. Additionally, from a terf’s perspective, the gender identity issue is one irreversibly entwined with sexuality.

So, a society with 100 biomales and 100 biofemales. What would it look like to me? Well, firstly, I don’t think the society would be so divided by gender as the imaginary terfs (or for that matter, most traditional people cough cough) would have you believe. Anyone who’s been to a public highschool knows that BOTH males and females are athletic. Both sexes are creative. Both sexes are capable of being responsible and loving parents. The problem we encouter with trying to frame everything into “men do this women do that” categories is that that is what our traditions and society have programmed us into believing is the norm. This society has none of that programming. Because of this, I do not believe this society would devolve into such a simplistic and arbitrary culture as “you have a penis so you go hunt and gather.” Instead, why not imagine a society where people’s individual talents and skills take precedence over their sex in regards to what role they are able to fulfill in this society? Perhaps you are a biomale, yet you have a very nurturing and caring instinct. Why not serve as a midwife and care for the village’s infants? Perhaps you are a biofemale, but are very athletic. Perhaps then, you would best serve the society as a hunter, no? I think you get what I’m getting at, and I don’t think anyone, even terfs, would disagree with me that gendered societal roles are a pretty dated concept that does not line up with what we understand of real people living in situations like this. They are a biproduct of western civilization’s traditions, and are not at all the norm in dozens of non-western societies.

So, if we can agree that there most likely wouldn’t be overarching end all be all gender roles in society, where is the issue exactly? Well, it’s this: some members of our society do not fall into the traditional gender roles associated with their biological sex. So, what about in this society, where there are no meticulously well-rooted gender roles? It stands to reason that without these gender roles, people would be able to do what they wanted, dress how they wanted, love who they wanted, free of prejudice or judgement. Obviously I am GREATLY oversimplifying a very complex issue, but live with me in the bit for a moment. What would you be in a world free from discrimination on the basis of biological sex, gender, or sexuality. There would be no traditions saying “you can’t do this because you’re this.” Who would you become? Who would you have the boldness and the freedom to be? Now, a pre-agricultural society that hasn’t even developed traditions or laws is hardly the most desirable place to imagine oneself living, but just think for a moment. No glass ceiling. No homophobic. No oppression on the basis of sex.

Now, I already have a good idea of what people are going to say about this post. “Tearing down the borders of gender and sexuality would only render our understanding of LGBTQIA ideas completely useless.” “There ARE certain things males are more inclined to do than women, biologically speaking. R*pe seems to come to mind.” “By refusing to give your imagined society any gender roles you have essentially made a moot point about what it means to be trans in our society.” Perhaps more broadly, “this thought experiment is dumb and you should feel bad.”

But here’s the thing. I’m not making this post in hopes of “dunkin’ on terfs” or even really challenging anyone’s opinions on anything. I have absolutely no hope that this dumb, worthless, ~3,000 word thought experiment will do any of that, let alone get any amount of notes. I only wanted to talk about this to put my own mind at ease in imagining a world I, a casual non-binary person, could exist without having to justify or prove myself as non-binary. I could, in my imaginary society, simply be myself. I could look up at stars. I could talk to gods of the wind on stillwater, of the sunlight through the palm fronds, and of the moonlight’s pale glow on the sand. I could do all of these things without constantly being percieved as a man because of the way I presented or behaved. And, I could find a masculine partner to be with, free of judgement.

“But Malwarewolf!” You cry, pleadingly. “What about all the people born as one sex that wish to transition into another sex? They would have no way of doing that in this imaginary society!! As a trans person, I do not experience the same satisfaction you do in this concept!”

This is, perhaps, the biggest hole in my argument. However, just because a person is born as one sex and wishes to transition in a relatively (oh, how do I say this without offending a lot of people,) quaint society doesn’t mean they’re just damned to live in a state of dysphoria or unhappiness with their body. I would argue, they might be able to live happier lives than trans people in our society do, existing as a fully welcomed and accepted member of society, with no oppression or suppression of their very valid desires to exist as they opposite sex. I would further argue that in a society without the proper foreknowledge and tools to perform gender-reassignment surgery, individuals who might identify as “trans” in our society would instead be free to express themselves however they wanted to instead of having to adopt a particular appearance or sex-identifying features to adhere to their non-existent gender roles. This is, very possibly, how the polynesian “third genders” came to be, such as Māhū in Hawaii and Tahiti, Fakaleiti in Tongan peoples, and Fa’afafine in Samoa. Now, these third genders are very important to many polynesian cultures and have very specific spiritual and societal roles in the island’s cultures respectively, the extent of which I am no way qualified to speak about (but would absolutely LOVE if some native Hawaiians could weigh in on!) It should be noted however, that a Māhū person can be born either male or female.

I say all of this to say, gender is a highly complex and winding topic. I could go on waxing poetic about my day-dream life in this idyllic society, but if you’ve made it this far in the post, you’ve probably had enough of that. Thank you so much for reading this far into a fucking hypothetical concept of all things. I will close by saying unironically, I’m gay as fuck, trans rights are human rights, and lastly trans-exclusionists if I see you bullying people in the comments I will suplex you through a plywood board.

I love you all and have a wonderful day.

[pokemonwarriors15-blog]

Pokemon warriors chapter 1

7000 years ago there was a war between Arceus and his evil half Necro. Arceus being unable to enter Necro's world Arceus chose 18 warriors and gave 17 of them a plate allowing them to become the greatest of warriors. 1 warrior was chosen to be given Arceus's energy making him the one to lead the others in the fight against Necro.

(As the day begins in the normal kingdom Alyssa was looking for Ryoma at the training ground to notify him of the meeting to be held at the council)

"Ryoma you need to hurry, the meeting is about to start and Cosmos will be mad if you're late." said Alyssa

"I'm almost done with my training then I'll leave. Besides he won't do anything, you know how he is." said Ryoma

"You should still try not to stress him out more then he is, you keep on and you won't be on the council."

"I'll still be a candidate regardless. Don't over exaggerate Alyssa."

"Whatever you say. Don't blame me if they choose someone else."

"And here I thought you were supposed to be an honorable and wise samurai... But, I guess not."(Alyssa begins to leave)

"Wait Alyssa! Fine I'll go, just don't think of me that way."

(Alyssa chuckles) Fine let's go get ready!"

"Phew, I really want to impress her... I can't continue acting like an idiot or she won't like me!" Ryoma thought.

(While Ryoma and Alyssa gets ready for the meeting other kingdoms are getting ready as well)

(Electric kingdom)

"Man I hope I'm the fifth choice to be on the council"said Ulrich

"To no offense Lord Ulrich I don't think you are capable for the council" said Isaac

"Whaaat!! I'm definitely capable I've been doing my training every day and I went from making D's to C's and sometimes B's in tutoring"

"That may be true but the council requires more serious decisions to enforce the laws and you're not exactly the most serious person my Lord"

"Man Isaac you can be to serious though maybe you should join the council"

"(Isaac chuckles) I couldn't I'm simply not powerful enough"

"AND I AM" Ulrich shouts

"Very well believe want you want to I suppose"

"You're also a jerk to Isaac I'm gonna go train"

"Very well I'll call you if they choose you as the fifth member" Isaac says sarcasticly

"I swear Isaac..."

(Grass kingdom)

"Saizo isn't today the election for the councils fifth member" said Kaze

"Yes sir it is" said Saizo

"Very well let's make sure they choose correctly"

"Sir why don't you become the fifth member"

"I have no interest in being a member besides the law doesn't matter to us anyway"

"Of course sir"

(Dark kingdom)

"Kizuato is everything prepared for the meeting" said Karma

"All preparations are almost ready then it'll be time to go Lord Karma"

"Very well, but we need to hurry it up as a candidate I cannot be late"

"Truly think you'll get it sir"

"That's not up to me to decide it's Cosmos's decision"

"True but I'm quite confident you'll be the fifth"

"So am I but there are other amazing candidates"

"None is as amazing as you sir"

"Thank you, Kizuato"

(At the council)

"Do you think you'll be the fifth seat" said Sophia while walking with Xander

"That all depends on if I've impressed the council members or not if not then I'll just have to work harder" said Xander

"Well I'm sure you did after all you're the most impressive man I know"

"Thank you, Sophia but that's an over exaggeration"

"No it's no-, Owe look where you're goi-, OH Mr. Glacier I'm so sorry sir"

"It's fine Sophia" Glacier said with a smile

"Hello Glacier it's always a pleasure"

"Thank you, Xander by the way you know where Karma and Ryoma is"

"No I do not in fact I haven't seen Kaze or Ulrich either"

"Hopefully they know if they don't make it none of them will be chose-"

"It doesn't matter Xander will be the fifth I just know it" Sophia said interrupting

"Sophia I appreciate your comment but don't interrupt Master Glacier like that" said Xander

"It's ok Xander I like Sophia's enthusiasm however Sophia while Xander is skilled and has the best control of the flames in his family there are other candidate's that are just as skilled after all I trained a majority of them though Xander is my favorite, so I do hope it's him"

"Thank you matter Glacier"

"Lord Glacier Lord Xander the meeting is about to start please go to the council room" said a guard

"Very well thank you" said Glacier

"Hopefully the others make it in time"Xander thought

(Outside the council)

"We're here sir" said Saizo

"Yes now let's get this over with I have more important things to attend to" said Kaze

"HEEYYY KAZE WAIT FOR ME" yelled Ulrich

(Oh no not right now, I'm already annoyed enough with this meeting) Kaze thought

"Yo Kaze let's go in together"

"Ulrich please don't yell so loud I have a lot on my mind at the moment"

"Aww Kaze you're too serious just like Isaac over here"

"Ulrich please stop commenting on how serious I am"said Isaac

"But it's true being to serious is boring anyways kaz-" "wait where did he go"

"He went in we better hurry to Ulrich, or we'll be late"

"Oh no I can miss my spotlight I'll definitely be the fifth seat"

"Whatever you say my Lord"

(In the council meeting)

"Alright the meeting shall start"said Cosmos

"But Cosmos not everyone is here yet"said Ulrich

"Ulrich please say Lord Cosmos" Isaac whispers

"Whatever"

"Ulrich while I appreciate your concern about the others the meeting must start no matter who isn't here"said Cosmos

"Fine"Ulrich said annoyed

(Doors open)

"Sorry I'm late" Karma said walking in

"That makes everyone except for Ryoma" said Drake

"Oh no Ryoma hurry up" Illumi thought

"I know Drake ugh alright than let's start everyone here make a statement and convince us on why you should be the fifth seat first well start with Glacier's recommendation Xander"

"Thank you Cosmos first I would like to say that I have been improving through training with Glacier and my studies has improved as well I'm making A's and S's also I believe I would help enforce better laws and help to make the kingdoms fair and safer"

"Thank you, Xander next is Kaze"

"I apologize Cosmos but I have no interest in being a council member please choose someone else"

"Very well then next will be Kerra"

"Well Cosmos but while I would want to be on the council I know I'm not fit for it because I'm not a rule maker so someone else is better off for the position"

"Fine then next will be Lynsect"

"Well as the strategist of the combine kingdoms I believe my intelligence would be a great asset to the council as a member, choose me if you do wish an if not choose what you feel is right"

"Thank you, Lynsect next is Koro"

"....."

"Koro please make a statement"

"I have no interest in this I'm gone" Koro said walking away

"As expected Koro doesn't care"said Kerra giggling

"Quiet Kerra he just doesn't find the use in being on the council like me" said Kaze

"You don't tell me to be quiet unless you want your soul taken"

"Try it"

"Now stop you know what we do when there's an argument you can fight in a fair match if needed otherwise stop the argument" said Cosmos

"No need for that I'll leave" said Kaze walking away

"Hmph good riddance"

"I hope Kaze is ok once I am done with this meeting me and him should apart maybe that'll cheer him up but first I'll have to get the fifth seat"Ulrich thought

"This is going well Cosmos"Drake commented

"Ugh Ryoma's late and now this"Cosmos thought

"Let's go on next is Drake's recommendation Karma please make your statement"

"Yes sir Cosmos I believe that there are many capable people here for the fifth seat. However I also believe that in order to be on the council you don't only need to be skilled smart and powerful but also experienced in battle and politics which I have knowledge in both and I have commanded the most armies allowing me to have more experience which is why I believe I should have the position but even so I'll stand by whatever decision you choose"

"Hmm thank you for your statement Karma now the next one would be Gale"

"Thank you however while I want to be on the council I have to kindly refuse I have problems in my kingdom to take care of first my apologies"

"That's fine Gale after this meeting we will help you with your affairs"

"Thank you Cosmos"

"Next will be Illumi's recommendation Regi"

"Well I believe that as the head of the United kingdoms defense I would make a great member being able to know all of our weaknesses and help improve them"

"Nice statement Regi next shall be Ulrich"

"Well Cosmos I believe this election and statement's are a waste of time. I'm the obvious choice for the fifth member I've done most of the improving and I bet I would make the UK a way more interesting place because it's so boring here"

"Umm interesting statement Ulrich... well next is Hisoka"

"Well making me a member would increase the strength of our army's because I could train others more making them stronger (maybe strong enough to fight me) so that is my belief"

"Good point Hisoka next is Terf"

"Sorry Cosmos but both me and my sister Emblem agreed that if both of us can't be on the council then we have no interest in it"

"Understandable very well I believe that laken said he couldn't maker it he had something come up so that is everyone so all of you please leave and allow us to talk and come up with a decision"

(Outside)

"Ulrich where are you going"said Isaac

"I gotta go challenge Kaze to a match"

"Don't you think he's tired of you asking him every time y'all see each other to fight in a match and aren't you tired of losing each time"

"Nah he loves it and besides I don't lose everyone Isaac just when I accidently go full speed"

"You do that everytime Ulrich that's why you lose you become predictable and someone like Kaze takes advantage of that"

"This time is different I'm gonna win tell me when they choose me for the fifth seat alright bye"

"But Ulrich.... (He never learns)"

"Ar-are we late seriously" Ryoma said

"You are I'm sorry Ryoma"said Karma

"See what happens when you don't listen Ryoma"said Alyssa angrily

"I'm sorry Alyssa (man she's gonna hate me now I'll have to make it up to her)"

"It doesn't matter besides Cosmos will kill you for it so I don't have to worry"

"Aahhh you're right how am I gonna explain this to him I'm only late because I was helping the villagers on my way here"

"Yeah then you had to go and accept the banquet reward making us late your so dumb sometimes Ryoma"

"Please don't say that Alyssa"Ryoma said pouting

"Please cheer up Ryoma I'm sure it'll all work out besides Cosmos didn't seem to annoyed"said Karma

"Thank you, Karma"said Ryoma hugging Karma

"Please Ryoma just making a friend feel better"Karma said nervously

"Well you're definitely nicer then some people"Ryoma said looking at Alyssa

"Hmph!!"

"I'm sorry Alyssa don't be mad"

"I'm not mad now off you'll excuse me I'm gonna go back to the kingdom while your stay here and explain yourself to Cosmos"

"Y-yes ma'am"

"By the way I hope you get severely punished"Alyssa said giggling

"Please don't say that Alyssa forgive me"

"Bye and good luck"

"Alyssa!!!"(She's definitely mad she's gonna hate me forever) Ryoma thought while heartbroken

(Bonus Kaze vs Ulrich)

(Where is he) Ulrich thought looking for Kaze

"KAZE"

"What do you want Ulrich"said Kaze

"Whoa Kaze don't just sneak up on me"

"You're the one who called me so I came and for what purpose did you yell my name"

"I wanna spar"

"Again Ulrich you're not gonna win you're too predictable"

"No I'm not I'll prove it so fight me"

"Fine"

"Yes"

"Come at me whenever you're ready"

"Get ready Kaze" (Ulrich said running electricity through his body increasing his speed and agility)

"You always start of with that technique as usual and no matter how many times you cut me with you're sword I can regenerate"

"Just watch"said Ulrich

(He'll start with his straight line as usual it's his favorite move) Kaze thought

"Thunderbolt"

"Wha- ahh(he started with thunderbolt)" Kaze said grinning

(Now time for my next move while he's paralyzed) (Ulrich thought while drawing his sword and jumping into the air in fusing his sword with a great amount of electricity)

"Take this Kaze my new move Thor's judgment"(Ulrich slashes his sword down electricity is released in a giant electric slash)

(Well looks like Ulrich has finally matured a little at least) thought Kaze

(Once the electricity hit the ground it bursted out electrifying everything in the area)

"That should've did it no way Kaze could go through that and be completely undamaged"

"Well Ulrich"

"What"

"You finally got me for once that makes me happy maybe I can finally be serious against you this will be fun"

"B-but you only have one arm and are damaged you can't possibly best me Kaze we need to get you to a doctor"

"No need (Kaze said while growing his arm back) instant regeneration remember"

"But you can only regenerate limbs you can't heal actual wounds"

(As Kaze grins he brings out his twin blades and slices himself healing his wounds)

"I never told you my blades abilities you see I can use them to heal wounds"

(What!!! That's gonna make fighting him even harder now)

"Ha Kaze no more holding back then I'm going all out"

"Please do"

(The real fight starts as Kaze and Ulrich clashes hitting swords to sword but Ulrich noticed that each time Kaze inflicted a wound it was more intense then in should be he jumps out of the clashing to see what's going on)

"If you're wondering why your wounds are more intense then they should be it's because of my swords ability"

"But I thought you said it heals wounds"

"That's true but it's also not my sword are able to control the rate cells in the human body grow and die basically when I cut with them I can heal the cells or break them down"

"Kaze I can't believe how much better you are then me I take pride in my abilities and I've always enjoyed sparring with you but you always seem to be one step ahead of me but that doesn't mean I won't beay you I will take you down"

"I look forward to it Ulrich"

(As the 2 warriors emotions intensifies they draw out all of the remaining energy for one last attack)

"This is it Kaze I'll win"

"We'll see Ulrich"

(Both of them clash with the strongest move)

(Ulrich) "Thor's straight line"

(Kaze) "Death sentence"

(As the battle ends Ulrich faints with a wound inflicted on his chest and Kaze with his left leg and right arm sliced off)

"Arghh I'm so glad I can regenerate but man that was his best move yet"

(Normally his straight line is just him increasing his speed and instantly slicing everything in front of him but this time he did 5 slices in one moment but it only looked like it was just one I got lucky and dodged 3 of them)

"You're getting better Ulrich better heal you though sorry for using that move (Kaze said while healing him) you just got me really excited though I held back if I didn't you would be dead my death sentence inflicts a deep wound and starts breaking down cells until it reaches the heart but I made it to where it stopped at the chest"

"There you're all healed up"(he's definitely getting stronger unlike me he's gotten way better I need to train more so I don't fall behind) "Ulrich you said that I was always better then you it's not true I never once thought of you then anything less but an equal now heal up and rest get better so we can fight again (Kaze leaves as Isaac shows up and carries Ulrich home)

[put-the-ash-in-trash]

“I do like to be informed on both sides of the argument” no you don’t, you’re doing the opposite to what you said you are lmfao. YOU plug your ears and cry transphobia & conservatism when none of that is even fucking happening. There was just people providing you with evidence that it does indeed happen. Then you get pissed off & say “no Terfs!!” So you can lock yourself back in your little echo chamber and never have anything challenge your world views again. pathetic dumbass. Admit this shit happens and there’s a solid fucking reason why we are worried. NO ONE has made the absurd claim that all trans women are predators. No one. They simply pointed out that yes, it’s possible that some ARE. fucking idiot.

i’m plugging my ears? i flat-out offered to give my side on why i think trans women should be allowed in women‘s spaces (second post, first paragraph), and not one person asked me to elaborate. instead i get anonymous hate messages. but sure, go off about how i’m the one plugging my ears.

for the record-if trans women are forced to use the men’s bathroom, then by extension trans men will have to use the women’s bathroom. if cis men can claim to be trans women, they can claim to be post-op trans men. either way is…not an ideal situation, but my way of thinking is that we should at least let trans women who aren’t predators/rapists/etc feel validated, for lack of a better term. it’s definitely not the best situation either way, but i feel that this way is slightly better (or, more accurately, less bad).

and yes, i did admit that these things happen. maybe i didn’t flat-out scream “i was wrong!” in caps and bold text, but i thought i made it sufficiently clear in my second post that i acknowledged the examples sent to me. then again, maybe that’s just something that made more sense in my head than it did on paper. but if you want me to acknowledge it more clearly, i will. examples (specifically, articles on trans women/cis men pretending to be trans women/etc assaulting women in bathrooms and the like) were sent to me, and i read some of them, took a break to answer this, and will promptly resume reading them after i post this. (sure, you can not believe me about reading the articles if you want, but after this you can’t say i didn’t acknowledge that these things happen, because i’m now seeing that they do.)

i’d also like to note that me saying “not all trans women are predators” (the direct quote is “of course, these examples do not prove that being a trans woman automatically makes you a predator”) was less of a “people are saying all amab people/trans women are rapists!!1!!1!!1!” thing and more of an exaggeration designed to convey that i highly doubt it’s the majority of trans women, but i get how you could have read it as the first one. as i’m sure we all know, vocal tones over a tumblr post (or any text) are hard to infer a lot of the time.

anyways, i’d appreciate if you (going for almost everyone who sent me an ask) didn’t send anonymous hate. (i mean, read a book. go outside. draw a dinosaur. whatever. but hiding behind a screen to tell someone that they’re a “pathetic dumbass”? at least get a more original insult. i’m not taking it to heart so it doesn’t really matter, but would it kill you to come up with something fun?) however, i have a feeling that people aren’t going to do so, so i took the liberty of turning off anonymous asks. i have a theory that people will be less hesitant to send hate if they can’t hide behind the ”ask anonymously“ checkbox, and if i’m wrong, well, there’s always the block option. if you would like to politely send me an example of these things happening, however, that’s completely fine.

anyways i guess i shouldn’t be so quick to say that i’m not going to respond to anything anymore. i will stay out of it as much as possible though, aside from when i come across something like this where i have a legitimate point to make by responding. (by the way, i think this was the second-politest ask i got. to the most polite one, i’m assuming you know who you are and thank you for sending that. i don’t have much commentary on your point as of right now since i just glanced over it, so i’m not sure how/if/when i’ll respond, but i am planning on going back to it later. either way, know that i read it.)

that’s really all i have to say. hope you have a nice day.

[gibbearish]

#like theres so many things wrong with that take#transmisandry was created to give trans men a way to talk about the experience of being raised as / treated as / perceived as women#without invalidating their identity by calling it misogyny#because super boiled down: trans men are not women and misogyny is bigotry towards women#so to call it misogyny implies theyre women#which like i have my own personal opinions on ppl being like 'trans men werent raised as women they were raised as men viewed as women'#like. i feel lile phrasing it that way is just unhelpful?? i wasnt raised as a man people saw as a woman#i was raised as a girl. i was treated as a girl my whole life. so yeah i may not know what it feels lile specifically to have my gender fee#like woman#but i do know what its like to be treated and viewed as a woman because thats what literally everyone else thinks i am#and to be like 'uwu but youre not a girl on the Inside therefore pretending to understand our struggles is misogyny' feels disingenuous at#best and downright terf-y at worst#like yeah my brain might not be girl flavored but i still got catcalled at 10 so i think nitpicking details is just unhelpful#but all of that aside it is also helpful for other trans men who are uncomfortable viewing themselves that way to be able to phrase it in a#way that doesnt imply they're women#especially since out of all men‚ trans men are literally the only ones actually being oppressed for being men#so if literally anyone on the planet has the right to use the word misandry and not be a fucking idiot its trans men#that was part of the argument i saw on tiktok too was that by using the word transmisandry you were indirectly lending credibility#to the word misandry as like an actual this that cis men suffer from‚ which. no#thats not how words work#anyways thats a lot of thoughts#actually i have more things to say about this#i think part of it is like. i feel like some people have leaned way too heavily into hash tag trans men are men and ended up coming out the#other side into ''trans men are men and therefore just as vile as cis men and do all the same things wrong and act exactly the same and#cannot be redeemed'' which is uhhhhhh fucked up#like theres been a super recent trend of implying trans men do not suffer any sort of oppression and therefore dont get to join#conversations about it when thats blatently untrue and literally part of the oppression trans men face#and added onto that is the idea that trans men dont face anywhere near the amount of oppression trans women do and therefore need to just#sit down and shut up which literally just divides the community. fights about whos more oppressed a) dont need to happen but b) definitely#dont boil down to ''one side is literally obliterated at every second by lasers from all angles and the other rests upon an ivory throne

#oh what the fuck tumblr limits the number of tags now? anyways: #sits on an ivory throne laughing cruely as the other suffers #because once again that only divides the community and tries to pit us against each other #trans men and trans women face both similar and unique challenges and the way to overcoming them isnt to argue about whose sucks more #they both suck‚ lets work together to fix it instead of taking turns shitting on each other #ok now im done i think #hm no i was wrong. anyways this also ties in to my opinions on who can say the t slur #like. cis people dont care what flavor of trans you are. theyre not going to see some gnc person and be like 'hey which way are you trans? #oh youre a trans man? fuck i guess i cant call you a slur now. enjoy your day.' theyll see someone who looks even a little to liberal and #thats that. furthermore generally anyone using slurs to refer to themselves probably has a pretty good reason to do so that you have #no way of knowing. they 100% know their own feelings far better than you do so to act like you can decide who gets to call themselves what #is wack. especially words usually intended to do harm. should trans men be calling other people the t slur? no. #but neither should trans women. reclamation is a wholly personal journey and to apply your own personal standards to others is #again: wack. literally the only time anyone is ok to call another person a slur is when they either have been given express permission or #are close enough to that person to know they would be ok with it even without explicit permission #ok /now/ im done #oh whoops i made trans women one word in the original post. my bad. i was typing transmisandry so many times my brain defaulted to one word

@marlboroprimedelux there u go bb

discourse here is buck fucking wild but at least i havent seen the argument i saw on tiktok which was "the word transmisandy was only coined because trans men saw trans women saying 'transmisogyny' and wanted to feel special too"

[asleepingwindow]

As a final post on this “discourse” sideblog, I want to talk about something not specific to the ace discourse, but rather something that cuts across all groups, all people online or off. Whatever you are arguing or whatever side you are on, we as humans are prone to confirmation bias and the online world is no better place than to create echo-chambers.

I have always felt that teaching myself skepticism was one of the best things I could have done for myself. It was during that time I was also active in the atheist community, online and off. The skeptic and atheist community often overlapped and it was from these groups that I became a feminist.

New atheist groups often wonder why they are largely made up of white men, and if you challenge them on their sexism/racism etc… it becomes obvious why, which is what happened to me. I was the darling women on a majority male forum agreeing with them that religion is the source of all evil, therefore exempting atheist men from things like sexism and all other bigotries. It wasn’t until an argument about rape culture came up that I saw just how deeply misogynist some of these men were.

So my venture into skeptic and atheist groups not only taught me the scientific process and logical fallacies but it also steered me towards social justice. I am no longer friends with any of those people in real life or online. Once I became a feminist and was able to identify their sexism, I wasn’t their darling atheist spokeswoman anymore. It was another valuable lesson in the way people form their groups and their echo-chambers within. How people will ignore some really bad things just to stay included and how they will turn when someone strays. Some people may be thinking of trump supporters now, but everyone is susceptible to this type of behavior.

Fast forward a few years later, but still a few years ago and I had to deal with a callout on an anonymous forum I moderated bc they monitored my tumblr and I made the sin of reblog from and being in mutuals with the wrong people, (who were just ppl they didn't like including people I’ve since met IRL.) I was dubbed a transphobe not for anything I explicitly said or did that was transphobic, it was guilt by association. Had to leave the forum, as this was also invitation to make up other horrible things I never did bc they could and now ppl were ready to believe.

This is around the time TERF started catching on, and while I certainly agree with calling out transphobia in feminism (I would never insist a trans woman is male, I think thats a violent act against trans women! And I despise it being done in the name of feminism) but at the same time it turned into a witch hunt for anyone who talked about sex-based oppression that even ended up attacking other trans woman for not towing a certain Tumblr rhetoric on these issues!

I’m no LGBT elder by any means, but I have been online since I was about 12 and I’m 32 now. I remember a time when the internet was far more horrible on SJ matters but also far more anonymous. People never dropped their real name; now one of the biggest social media sites requires it. And before that even happened I still saw a lot of petty bullshit happening online that wound up really hurting people IRL. So now with it easier to find out who people are and where they live, I can only imagine how online drama has ruined lives. We know it has driven people to suicide, and so as fun as it is to get self righteously angry at people for whatever your cause is, there’s still a person at the other end and no one’s perfect.

I am truly disturbed at how incredibly cliquey SJ groups are online, how callout posts aren’t for extreme racist sexist bigots, but for some drama I can’t even parse in their so called “proof”. And then you have activists on this site who block anyone who disagrees with them so their criticisms can’t show up in the notes. Some even go so far as dox people now for daring to disagree! K(And let’s be clear, I shed no tears for literal nazis being doxxed and losing their job, that’s just not what I’m seeing)

It’s easy, its human nature to fall into social pressures and conform to whatever the Big Names in your group are saying without question and to defend an absurd position based on emotional attachment than logical assessment. And we know it’s also easy to fall into a mob mentality and scapegoat people for all our problems. It’s also super fucking easy to plead mental illness and pretend you should be allowed to say anything you want without criticism, something that I hate so much as one who suffers from many mental issues including anxiety. (That’s why I created rules for myself when arguing online so I didn’t end up giving myself panic attacks over an internet edge lord)

I say this knowing I have participated in this behavior myself as well as having been a victim of it. But a lot in my life has changed and I am an older and sicker… and still likely to make similar mistakes. Point is I have learned and I have trained myself to not to fall into these traps and it does help. Experience is one hell of a teacher but it doesn’t have to be the only one.

No one can know if they are 100% right on any given issue, we all have our convictions for a reason. The difference is are you willing to listen to dissent? Are you willing to challenge your opinion and put it to the test? Or do you make block lists and shun anyone who entertains any different opinion? (a classic tactic amongst anti-vax groups when a parent sees the science) My convinction of many of my beliefs comes from the fact I have argued them over and over again, discharging beliefs that did not pass the test, while strengthening my arguments for and belief in those that do.

Make no mistake, when it does come to the so called “discourse” both sides can be guilty of this shit. I claim no purity. And I am in no way implying that we tolerate hate groups and violent hate speech, like those of nazis bc unfortunately nazis are actually relevant again, but I am saying some of you need a reality check on what that exactly entails, because a lesbian speaking her truth is not it.

And for god sakes don’t put teens on block lists, you know it invites harassment, you fucking know it.