#that and the fucking terf pissed me off yesterday

[yaknowlikenyah]

I think the most interesting thing about the myth of female socialization is that it implies that there's some universal way that ALL women have experienced socialization. Like every single woman grew up with close female friends terrified of men and making herself smaller.

What about the women who grew up bullied for being fat or ugly? Who grew up fearing other women for their judgment? What about the girls who were taught to stand up for themselves and be loud to make themselves heard? What about women who grew up as 'one of the boys' and joked around with their male friends? What about the women who never internalized the myth of the 'evil rapist men' and don't fear walking alone at night?

Were those women "male socialized"? Are they somehow less of a women for how they were raised? And why is it any fucking different for trans women?

[lesbianrobin]

not to return to the drama of yesterday/invite more but the terf accusations are wild because like. the whole fucking thing is that it's trans exclusionary radical feminism. what makes terfs terfs is the transphobia particularly transmisogyny.

and accusing somebody of being a terf for. being mean to a fictional man. is like... first of all i actually don't think they believe anything they're saying like i do think they're just trying to use social justice language to make themselves seem justified but BESIDES THAT. it is actually so insanely transphobic and misogynistic to act like Being Mean To A Guy is equivalent to trans exclusionary radical feminism. terfs are not primarily hurting men they are primarily hurting trans women!! it is quite literally in the name!!

but "terf" has been watered down so much that now people just use it as an insult against any lesbian they don't like. if you commit the crime of not worshipping men then you are actually a radical feminist which means you are also a transphobe and now people can attack you for not liking men but in a Woke Progressive way. it does not matter your actual ideology or even if you're trans yourself All that matters is that you dared to not center men 24/7.

and the worst fucking part of all of this is that as always trans women are being shouted over and disregarded! these people don't CARE about trans women all they care about is bullying dykes. and they're losers so they invoke trans women as some bizarre justification for their actions while doing Nothing to aid or advocate for trans women. it's just like such hateful loser behavior and it pisses me off.

[red-velvet-0w0]

okay I saw a post yesterday and i didnt want to say anything about it because it was clearly all in good fun but it really fucking pissed me off and has been eating away at me all day so im going to rant about it now:

It was basicaly just a compilation of people proclaiming themself to be straight men talking about finding penises and dicks to be attractive, but not in a way that that went against their heterosexuality.

and every single reblog was people joking about how they were "clearly just a closeted bisexual" or how "obviously they hadnt yet realized their own sexuality yet".

and thats all well and good ya know. but also.

What about trans women?

If a straight man loves a trans woman, does that automaticaly make him "secretly bisexual and in denial"? or does it mean he must automaticaly must discount her penis as part of her, treat it as something that he must live around, something that makes her less of a woman, rather than part of her that he can love unconditionaly?

and even ignoring the accidental transphobia of it all, the real thing that annoys me is just: why the fuck do you get to decide what their sexuality is? these arent fictional characters who you can make sexuality headcannons of as jokes. these are real people, who have consistantly stated and affirmed their sexuality as a straight man. and even if they are wrong, or just in denial, that is up to them to figure out, and you should shut the fuck up and listen to them when they say that. because what somebodies sexuality is is up to them to decide. and thats that.

in conclusion:

Somebodies sexuality is not dependant on genitalia, and is not up to you to define for them. (Terfs can feel free to fuck off)

[askgothamshitty]

I know this is probably like super obvious but man terfs fucking stink. They are the most delusional people ever brah. Trump won and basically said for fucking WEEKS he was going after women and all minority groups and the first people they put the blame for is trans people as if trump hasn't already yelled and screamed about wanting to get rid of us for fucking YEARS. I saw a tweet that pissed me the fuck off saying;

"Women who are male-centered and support trans saying 'This election taught us that men hate women' are so bizarre… The misogynistic and lesbophobic males playing in your faces, invading your spaces, and coercing you into relationships should’ve taught you this a LONG time ago."

and another saying; "it’s not like men in dresses are fighting for them either or if trump will actually do something about men in dresses, come on they’re men why would he?"

What planet do these people live on acting like conservative and right wing men aren't consistently attacking trans women/trans people?? Why do they act like trans women are the same as their oppressors or that cishet men see trans women as their equals when they fucking don't?? So many trans people are contemplating suicide and wondering if they'll be able to live as themselves and these troglodytes on twitter are being so oblivious to the fact they HATE US ALL!!

They don't give A FUCK about no damn 4b movement or women's rights, they hate trans people and hate us and blame us for fucking everything when we have nothing to do with this and are suffering severely too. They could literally stub their toe and somehow it was a trans woman's fault. Fuck TERFs, FUCK THEM ALLL!!!!

Amen!!!

It’s very ridiculous that they’re choosing to focus on hating cis female allies in the immediate wake of this election. People in their own movement are Trump supporters! Just this morning I saw a TERF proudly report that she voted for him yesterday. Like maybe they should clean house first. But what can you expect from virulent bigots like this? These are not smart people, and you’re right, they live on a different planet.

[whoa-its-dani]

I don’t use Twitter or Tiktok (I used to use Twitter but I stopped a few years back) but occasionally I’ll check on some of my fave Youtuber’s Twitters just to see how they’re doing or laugh at some memes. Yesterday, one of them had retweeted a Tiktok that pissed me off and I was going to post the tweet here and talk about it but I think he realized how dumb it was and deleted the retweet lmao

Anyway the Tiktok was this young white woman dancing to her totally original ramblings (definitely not parroting anyone you guys) about how “unless you’re a qualified scientist who does a clinical study that is replicated and peer reviewed, you can’t do research, you’re only participating in confirmation bias” or some shit and it really pissed me off.

I know that she probably meant well and I know who she was likely directing that towards, but it’s fucking stupid. I mean... words have meanings and honey you got that completely wrong. As pathetic as it may sound, yes, doing a Google search or reading a Wikipedia article IS research. Confirmation bias is when you’re only looking for info that backs up your personal beliefs or you’re ignoring anything that challenges (like actually challenges) them. Like we’re really gatekeeping learning now? Any research put out publicly on the internet (whether it’s a scientific PDF, an hours-long Youtube video, or a shitty tumblr rant) can be challenged and “peer reviewed” itself, so???

I swear, “confirmation bias” is starting to become one of those watered down words like “terf”, “racism”, “gaslighting”, etc.

Like listen I’m a complete dumbass, no credibility, 0 brain cells, but even I can see through that pseudo-intellectual horseshit...

Fuck

[amphtaminedreams]

J.K Rowling & The Echo Chamber of TERFs: Why Nobody Wants your Transphobic “Opinion”

TW// Discussion of Sexual Assault and Transphobia

SO...

I’ve seen the term “allyship fatigue” going round a lot lately on Twitter, since the issues of police brutality, institutional racism, and now transphobia have taken central stage.

And it’s weird. To be honest, hearing other white cis people calling themselves “allies” has always sounded kinda self-congratulatory. Taking this to the level of martyrdom that the phrase “allyship fatigue” evokes makes me want to heave. It’s shit that anyone even has to be saying Black Lives STILL Matter, but it does seem to unfortunately be the case that every time there is a highly publicised murder of a black individual by police, the explosion of us white people calling ourselves allies and retweeting and reblogging statements of solidarity only lasts so long before half revert back to being complacent with and uncritical of a world seeped with casual racism. Is that what “allyship fatigue” is? The excuse for that? Not only does the term take the focus off of the marginalised group the movement is centred around but it makes supporting equal rights sound like some kind of heroic burden we’ve chosen to take on rather than addressing a debt we owe and being not even good but just plain decent human beings. WE are not the ones shouldering the weight here, and if your mental health is suffering, that is not the fault of the people asking for their rights. Log off. We have the privilege to do that. It just doesn’t need to be a spectacle.

At the same time, this public onslaught of ignorance and hatred that the coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement has triggered (that let me again emphasise, black people have had to involuntarily be on the receiving end of their whole lives) and the frustration and anger that comes from seeing these absolute trash takes from people with no research into the subject who build their argument purely on “what about”isms is do-I-even-want-to-bring-children-into-this-fucking-world levels of miserable. In terms of earth beginning to look more and more like the prequel describing the events which lead up to a dystopian novel, the chaos of the last 4 weeks or so (2020 has not only shattered the illusion of time but also danced on the shards, I know) is the tip of the iceberg. I saw a thread about what’s going on in Yemen at the moment, which I had no idea about, and immediately felt consumed by guilt that I didn’t know. With the advent of social media, there’s been this sudden evolutionary shift where we’re almost required and expected to know about, have an opinion on, and be empathetic with every humanitarian crisis at once. I think young people feel this especially, which is why I say that sometimes it’s worth talking to an older person before you brush them off as a racist or a homophobe and see if they’re open to hearing different opinions-in general, I think we’re a generation that is used to being expected to consume a huge amount of information at once. They are not. For a lot (NOT all) of the older, middle-class, white population, ignorance isn’t a conscious choice, it is the natural way of life. The parameters of empathy until very recently have only had to extend just past your closest circle of friends to encompass people you “relate to”. That doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of caring about other things, and sometimes we owe them a chance to change their perspective first, if for no reason other than to advance the cause of, well, basic human rights for all.

So where does J.K Rowling come into all this? I hear you ask. Why doesn’t she just stop rambling? You potentially wonder. Well, I’m getting to it. 

J.K Rowling isn’t an unconsciously ignorant people. She is what I would call consciously ignorant. And of all weeks to flaunt this ignorance, she chose a time when people are already drowning in a cesspit of hatred. The woman whose whole book series supposedly revolves around the battle between good and evil didn’t even try to drain the swamp. She instead added a bucket of her transphobic vitriol into it. 

Let me preface this by saying that I wouldn’t wipe my arse with the Sun. What they did with the statement she made regarding her previous abusive relationship, seeking out said abusive partner for an interview and putting it on the front page with the headline “I slapped J.K”, whilst expected from the bunch of cretinous bottom feeders who work there, is disgusting. That being said, the pattern of behaviour J.K Rowling has exhibited since she first became an online presence is equally disgusting, and just because the Sun have been their usual shithead selves, doesn’t mean we should forget the issue at hand, that issue being her ongoing transphobia and erasure of trans women from women’s rights.

As I’m sure is the case for many people on Tumblr, J.K Rowling has always been such a huge inspiration for me, and Harry Potter was my entire childhood. My obsession with it continued until I was at least 16 and is what got me through the very shit years of being a teenager, and that will forever be the case. I’m not here to discuss the whole separation of the art from the artist thing because whilst I ordinarily don’t think that’s really possible, at this point the “Harry Potter universe” has become much bigger than J.K herself. I was so pleased to see Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint all affirm their support for trans rights-I was raised on the films up until the 4th one which I wasn’t old enough to see at the cinema, and the DVD was at the top of my Christmas list. They were always my Harry, Hermione and Ron. It was only between the fourth and fifth films that I started to read the books to fill that gaping in-between-movies hole, but as I grew up, I read them over and over and over again. Any of the subtext that people are talking about now in light of her antisemitism and transphobia went completely over my head, though who knows, whilst I can sit here and write that I’m certain I didn’t, maybe I did pick up some unconscious biases along the way? The art/artist discussion is a complex one and I don’t know if I’ll ever read the books again at this point.

There was absolutely no subtext, however, in the “think piece” on J.K’s website addressing the response to her transphobic tweets. There wasn’t all that much to unpack in the first tirade, they were quite openly dismissive-first that womanhood is defined by whether or not one experiences menstruation (I currently don’t due to health issues but I’m betting this wouldn’t make me any less woman in her eyes), and second, regurgitating an article which furthers the fallacy that trans women simply existing erases the existence of cisgender lesbian women. Rowling’s initial response to the backlash was to blame it on a glass of red wine, I think? Which is such a weird go-to excuse for celebrities because not once have I ever got drunk and completely changed my belief system. If you’re not transphobic sober, you don’t suddenly become transphobic drunk. What you are saying is that you’re not usually publicly transphobic (which isn’t even the case with Rowling because this is hardly her first flirtation with bigotry via social media) but that whoopsies! You drank some wine and suddenly thought it was acceptable!

Now what is her excuse for the formal response she wrote to the backlash, dripping with transphobic dog whistles and straight up misinformation (UPDATE: and as of yesterday, blocking Stephen King quite literally for replying to her with the tweet “trans women are women”, in case you thought that this whole thing was a case of her intentions being misconstrued)? Drunk tweets are one thing but if she managed to write a whole fucking essay whilst pissed I imagine there’s a lot of university students out there who’d pay her good money to learn that skill.

Here is the bottom line. TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN. There is no discussion around that. And if you don’t understand why, at the very least, you can be respectful of the way a person chooses to identify, especially when that person is an already targeted minority.

Obviously, sex and gender are complex things. Based on the fact that we don’t walk around with our nether-regions out, we generally navigate our way through the world using our gender and the way we present our gender. Gender of course means many different things to many different people; some see it as a sliding scale kind of thing whereas some people can’t see themselves on the scale at all, and choose to use terms other than man or woman to express how they identify. But, whatever gender one chooses to identify as, we live in a modern world-with all the scientific advancements we’ve made and all that we now know about the brain, using what is between people’s legs to define them is an ignorant, outdated copout. You’ll find that a lot of transphobes can live in harmony with trans women who conform, who have classically feminine features, maybe facial feminisation surgery, trans women who keep quiet about how they’re seen by cis women and don’t kick up “too much of a fuss” (which is in itself still a perfectly valid, brave and understandable way to live your life after years of feeling like you don’t fit in btw). The trans women that Joanne and her friends take the most issue with is the ones who want to expand what womanhood means and stretch the boundaries of what is and isn’t acceptable, destroying the confines of simplistic model that TERFs feel comfortable operating within. The ones who fight to be recognised as no “lesser” than cis women. Calling a person a TERF is quite literally just asserting that they are someone who wants to exclude trans women from their definition of womanhood, or in other words wants to cling to the old, obsolete model. If J.K Rowling cannot let the statement “trans women are women” go unchallenged (which we’ve seen from her response to Stephen King’s tweet she cannot), then she is by definition a TERF. It’s not a slur. It’s a descriptor indicating the movement she has chosen to associate herself with. Associating the descriptor of the position you so vehemently refuse to denounce in spite of all evidence and information offered to you with the concept of a “witch hunt” when trans women are ACTUALLY brutally murdered for an innate part of their identity is insulting, at the very least.

Let’s get this straight: despite transphobes trying to conflate sex with gender and arguing that sex is the only “real” identifier of the two, our existence on this planet and our perception of this world is a gendered experience. It is our brain, where the majority of researchers agree that gender lies, which decides and dictates not only who we are and how we feel but also how we interact with everyone around us. I don’t think it’s an outlandish statement to say that when it comes to who we are as people, that flesh machine protected by our skull is the key player.  PSA for transphobes everywhere: when people say penises have a mind of their own, they are NOT talking literally. The more you know. 

Gender is obviously a much newer concept than sex-it is both influenced by and interacts with every element of our lives. It’s also much more complex, in that there are still many gaps in our understanding. I assume these two factors combined with the familiarity of the (usually) binary model of biological sex are a part of why TERFS fundamentally reject the importance of gender in favour of the latter. Yes, most of the time, we feel our gender corresponds with our sex, but not always, and nor is there any concrete proof that this has to be the case. Most studies tend to agree that our brains start out as blank slates, that we grow into the gender we are assigned based on our bodies. In other words, our sex only defines our gender insofar as the historical assumption that they are the same thing, which in turn exposes us to certain cultural expectations. To any TERFs that have somehow ended up here-if you haven’t already, I suggest looking into the research of Gina Rippon, a neuroscientist whom has spent a large portion of her professional career analysing the data of sex differences in the brain. Whilst she originally set out to find some kind of consistent variance between the brains of the 2 prominent sexes to back up the idea that the brains of men and women are inherently different, she found nothing of significance-individual differences, yes, but no consistent similarities in the brains of one sex that were not present in the other. Once differences in brain size were accounted for, “well-known” sex differences in key structures disappeared-in terms of proportion, these structures take up the same amount of space in the brain regardless of sex. Her findings are best summed up by her response to the question: are there any significant differences in the brain based on sex alone? Her answer is no. To suggest otherwise is “neurofoolishness”. Not only does her research help put to bed the myth that our brains are sexed along with the rest of our bodies during development (this is now believed to happen separately, meaning the sex of our bodies and brains may not correspond), but also the idea propagated by the patriarchy for centuries that basically boils down to “boys will be boys”-a myth used to condone male sexual violence against women and even against each other on the basis that it is inherent and “can't be helped”. That they are just “built differently”. Maybe at one point in human evolution, men were conditioned to fight and women were conditioned to protect, but whilst the idea remains and continues to affect our societal structures (and thus said cultural expectations), we’ve moved on. I mean we evolved from fish for fuck’s sake but you don’t see us breathing underwater. 

Gender identity is based on many things and admittedly we don’t fully have the complete picture yet. The effects that socialisation and gender norms in particular, as much as we don’t want them to exist, have on our brain are huge; there’s evidence that they can leave epigenetic marks, or in other words cause structural changes in the brain which drive biological functions and features as diverse as memory, development and disease susceptibility. Socialisation alters the way our individual brains develop as we grow up, and as much as I’d love to see gender norms disappear, they’ll probably be around for a long time to come, as will their ramifications. The gap between explaining how socialisation affects the brain of cisgender individuals compared to the brains of transgender or non-binary individuals is not yet totally clear, but as with every supposed cause and effect psychology tries to uncover, there are outliers and individual differences. No, brains are not inherently male or female at birth but they are all different, and can be affected by socialisation differently. In one particularly groundbreaking study conducted by Dick Swaab of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, postmortems of the brains of transgender women revealed that the structure of one of the areas in the brain most important to sexual behaviour more closely resembled the postmortem brains of cisgender women than those of cisgender men-it’s also important that these differences did not appear to be attributable to the influence of endogenous sex hormone fluctuations or hormone treatment in adulthood.

Maybe dysphoria is something that evolves organically and environmental factors don’t even come into it. Like I said, we don’t have the whole picture. What we DO know is that for some people, as soon as they become self-aware, that dysphoria is there, and the evidence for THAT, for there being common variations between the brains of cisgender individuals and transgender individuals, is overwhelming. You can be trapped in a body that does not correspond with how your brain functions, or how you wish to see yourself. Do individuals like J.K Rowling really believe it is ethical to reinforce the idea that we are defined by our sex and that our sex should decide the course of our lives, should decide how we are treated? That we should reduce people to genitals and chromosomes when our gender, the lens through which we see and interact with the world, could be completely different? Do they not see anything wrong with perpetuating the feelings of “otherness” and dysphoria in trans individuals that results from society’s refusal to see them as anything more than what body parts they have? In a collaboration between UCLA MA neuroscience student Jonathan Vanhoecke and Ivanka Savic at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the statistics collected pointed to what trans activists have always been trying to get at-the areas of the brain responsible for our sense of our identity showed far more neural activity in the brains of trans individuals when they were looking at depictions of their body that had been changed to match their gender identity than when this wasn’t the case; when they saw themselves with a body that corresponded with their gender identity, when they were “valid” by society’s definition, they felt more themselves. When J.K Rowling tells trans people that their “real identity” is the sex they were born with, she is denying them this right to be themselves and due to her large platform, encouraging others to do the same. YOU are doing that, J.K. And who knows why? Where does your transphobia come from? Peel back the bullshit layers of waffle about feeling silenced and threatened, which you know you are directing at the wrong group of people, and admit it’s for less noble reasons. Taking the time to unlearn the instinct embedded into your generation to see people according to the cultural status quo of biological determinism is effort, I know-but you wrote a 700+ page book. I’m sure you can manage it. Or is it an ego thing? You don’t want to admit that you may have been uneducated on gender and sex in the past, and now have to stick by your reductive position so your image as an “intellectual” isn’t compromised. I don’t know. Only you do. But your position is irresponsible and dangerous either way. You can make up bullshit reasons as to why the link between trans individuals and the incidence of suicide attempts and completions isn’t relevant or representative of the struggle that trans people face due to the hatred that people like you propagate but it is there, and you J.K Rowling, someone who has spoken in the past about the horror of depression, should know better. You should know better than to CLAIM you know better than the experienced researchers who have found the same pattern time and time again-that the likelihood of trans individuals committing suicide is significantly higher than that of cis people. 

No, Rowling’s transphobia has never been as upfront as saying “I don’t believe transgender people exist” but she continues to imply that when she makes claims such as womanhood being defined by whether or not one experiences menstruation, and the completely subjective concept of whether an individual has faced sex-based violence from cisgender men. I’m sure she’d be out here taking chromosome proof cards like Oysters if it wasn’t for intersex individuals throwing her whole binary jam into a tailspin. Yep, there’s even suggestions that the binary biological model might not be so binary these days-just because two people have, say, XY chromosomes, does not mean that these chromosomes are genetically identical between individuals-the genes they carry can, and do, vary and so their actions and expressions of sex vary. 

Ideally, what TERFs want to do with their language of “real womanhood” is create an exclusive club that trans women are left out of when they too suffer under the same patriarchal society that those who are born female do. Yes, they might not experience ALL the issues a person born with female genitalia do, but no two women’s life experiences are the same anyway. Trans women also have their own horrible experiences with the patriarchy, and are often victims of a specific kind of gendered violence that is purported by the idea of “real womanhood”. Don’t throw trans sisters under the bus because you’re angry about your experience as a woman on this planet-direct your anger at the fucking bus. Don’t claim that “many trans people regret their decision to transition” when the statistics overwhelmingly show that this is the EXACT FUCKING OPPOSITE of the truth (according to British charity organisation Mermaids, surgical regret is proportionately very low amongst gender affirmation outpatients and research suggesting otherwise has been broadly disproven) because you’ve spoken to a selective group of trans individuals probably handpicked by the TERFS you associate with to confirm their biases, and then have the nerve to claim that trans-activists live in echo chambers on top of that. Don’t use anecdotes and one-off incidences where “trans women” (I say trans women in quotation marks because we’re pretty much talking about a completely statistically insignificant group of perverted cis men who have, according to TERFs, somehow come to the conclusion that going through transition will make their already easy-to-get-away-with hobby of assaulting women even...easier to get away with?) have committed sexual crimes to demonise and paint as predatory group who are largely at risk and in 99.9% of situations, the ones being preyed on. It’s a point so disgusting that trans activists shouldn’t even have to respond to it, but the idea that an individual would go to the pains of legally changing their gender and potentially the hell of the harassment that trans people face, the multiple year long NHS waiting lists to see specialist doctors,  just so that they can gain access to women only spaces is ridiculous. It’s worth noting here just how sinister you repeatedly bringing up this phantom threat of cis men becoming trans women in order to assault women in “women only” spaces is. The implication here is that they should use the toilet corresponding to the sex they were born as, right? Because it’s all about safety? Well, statistically speaking, far more trans women are abused whilst having to use men’s toilets than when they use women’s ones and the same goes for trans men, and yet you don’t mention it once. Your suggestion also puts people born female who identify as women but maybe do not dress or present in a typically feminine way at risk of being ostracised when THEY need to use the women’s bathroom. The idea that by ceasing to uphold values like yours we are putting women at risk is quite simply, unsubstantiated; the legislation to allow individuals to use the bathroom corresponding to whichever gender they legally identify as has been around since 2010 in the UK and yet we’ve yet to see the sudden spike in the number of women being assaulted in bathrooms you imply will exist if we create looser rules around gender identity and let people use whichever toilet they feel the need to. Similarly, in a study of US school districts, Media Matters found that 17 around the country with protections for trans people, which collectively cover more than 600,000 students, had no problems with harassment in bathrooms or locker rooms after implementing their policies. If cis men want to assault women, they will. They don’t need to pretend to be trans to do so. Don’t pretend to be speaking as a concerned ally of LGBTQ+ individuals when you’re ignoring the thoughts of the majority of individuals who come under that category.

(Just Some of the Trans Women Murdered for Being Trans Over the Last Couple of Years, L-R: Serena Valzquez, Riah Milton, Bee Love Slater, Naomi Hersi, Layla Pelaez, and Dominique Fells)

Trans women are not the threat here. Bigots like you are the threat. HOW DARE you use your platform to reinforce this rhetoric that gets trans people killed when there are so many much MUCH more important things going on right now. Two black trans women had been murdered just for being black trans women in the week you wrote your essay defending those initial tweets. This is an ongoing issue. As a cis woman, my opinion should read as sacred texts to you right, Joanne? Because I’ll say with my whole chest that I feel far more threatened by bigots like you who do not care for the harmful impact of their words than I do by trans women. I do not feel threatened by trans women AT ALL. And yeah, to me, unless they tell me otherwise that they like to go out their way to affirm their trans-ness (which I completely respect-it takes a lot of courage to be proud about your past in a world that condemns you for it), they’re just WOMEN like any other. Yes their experience of “womanhood” may be different to mine but no two individuals experiences are the same anyway and our gender related suffering has the same cause. As a rich, white, cis woman, it’s wild that you are painting yourself as the victim in this debate when trans people can face life in prison and in some places a death sentence for openly identifying with a gender different to their sex in a lot of countries. Nobody is saying that you can’t talk about cis women. Nobody is saying you can’t talk about lesbian issues either, though it’s a bit of a piss-take that you like to throw that whole trans women erase lesbian existence argument out there as a kind of trump card to say “look, I can’t be a transphobe, I’m an LGBTQ+ ally!”, an argument akin to the racist’s age old “I can’t be racist, I have black friends!”. You know from the responses you get to your transphobia that majority of the LGBTQ+ community are very much adamant that trans women are “real women” and that the same goes for trans men being “real men”, so don’t claim to speak for them. You cannot simultaneously care about LGBTQ+ rights and deny trans people their right to live as who they are, however veiled your sentiments around that may be. The whole gay rights movement of the 60s and 70s exist partially BECAUSE of black trans women such as Martha P Johnson if you didn’t know, and though it’s kinda common knowledge I’m doubting that you do because very little of what you tout is backed up by any kind of research. The articles you retweet, echoing the views of lesbians who also happen to be TERFs do not count-the idea that trans people existing simultaneously erases the existence of lesbians only applies to individuals such as yourself who don’t see trans women as women in the first place. That is the problem! Most people don’t have an issue with the fact that you may have a preference for certain genitalia, but I would argue that ignoring exceptional circumstances related to trauma or some other complex issue, relationships are supposed to be with the person as a whole, not their “organic” penis or vagina and it’s kind of insulting to anyone in a same sex relationship to reduce their bond to that.

Back to my point though, of course there are issues that cis women and lesbians face that need talking about, but trans people are affected by the same patriarchal system. You don’t need to go out of your way to mention that they’re not included in whichever given specific issue when there are also cis women who may not have experienced some of the things TERFs reference. You especially don’t need to act as if trans women are the reason we need to have these discussions in the first place. As I’ve said, as MANY women have said, repeatedly-they are NOT the threat here. It is disgusting to see someone I once had so much admiration for constantly punch down at a group that is already marginalised.  It’s 2020, J.K, there’s so much info out there. YOU’RE A FULLY GROWN WOMAN. There’s no justification. We get it, you had a tomboy phase. You weren’t like “other girls”. You didn’t like living under a patriarchal system. So you think you understand the mindset of people who want to transition. You think you’re not doing anything wrong by helping to slow the advancement of trans rights because well, you turned out fine? But you clearly fundamentally misunderstand what being trans is. It’s not about your likes and dislikes and having issues with the experience of being a woman (god knows we all do but I doubt anyone truly thinks for one moment that being trans would be any easier), it’s about how you think and feel at your core. It’s such a complex issue, and all the majority of trans people are asking you to do is LISTEN to them. You may be determined to live in binaries, yet the bigger picture is always more complex and fluid and it’s ever-changing, so all we can do is keep an open mind and keep wanting to know more and gather more evidence. If you’re capable of the mental gymnastics required to retcon the piece of work you wrote in the 90s to make it seem as if you were “ahead of the diversity game”, to the extent that you are now claiming Voldermort’s snake has always actually been a Korean woman and see nothing wrong with that when paired with the fact that the only Asian character you originally included was called Cho Chang, then well…I’m sure you can put your ego aside and do the groundwork to understand what trans people are trying to tell you too. You inspired a lot of children and teenagers and even adults, and got them through some very difficult times, taught that the strength of one’s character matters far more than what anyone thinks of you. You claimed you wanted to stand up for the outcasts.

Well, stand up for the outcasts. Now’s a better time than any. And once again: TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN AND TRANS MEN ARE MEN. They shouldn’t have to hear anything else.

Lauren x

[DISCLAIMER: shitty collages are mine but the background is not, let me know if you are aware of the artist so I can credit!]

[posi-pan]

But why use Pan if it was a direct response to a minority of Bi people. Many TERFS are lesbians, that doesn’t mean that lesbians should have a new term because of them. Pan was solely reactionary to Bi and wouldn’t exist if Bi didn’t. Plus the study you posted just highlighted that majority of Pan people are young are vulnerable. That doesn’t show any difference between Pan and Bi.

now y’all are just trying to piss me off.

you can’t compare how communities or individuals within a community deal with bigotry, or generalize that everyone should feel one way about it.no one is saying anyone has to use a different label because of the bigots who use their label. but, using your example, if a lesbian wants to distance themself from that term due to terfs, that’d be a personal choice they have every right to make, even if others don’t. it’s not one or the other. both can and do exist. and one is not more valid than the other.

the proof is in the fact that there were two solutions to combating the widespread issue that came from a “minority of bi people”, because not everyone could agree on one single response. some wanted to challenge the narrative within the community to take back their identity from transphobes and others wanted to embrace a different label that was transparent from the jump. both happened. and honestly, the former has been a bit more successful, considering more people know bi isn’t exclusive than people know what pan actually means. but that’s another thing.

if i’ve ever used the word “created” in regard to this, i misspoke, probably due to not having any sources for pan existing prior, which i have now. although in the post being referenced in your message, i said pan “caught on” in attempt to combat transphobia. pan already existed before this. this happened in the 90s, and there’s documentation of pan being a sexual orientation in the 60s. and the source i got this information from, about pan rising to prominence in response to transphobia, said that the political context of fighting transphobia is likely why pan became a big deal rather than staying a niche concept.

honestly, you can’t say pan is “solely reactionary to bi” because there just isn’t enough documentation on it. whether that be articles, books, studies, or simply queer people sharing their experiences. even though from what little there is about pan, we can guess that pan wasn’t created to be xyz compared to bi, but rather just another fucking word for how people feel, there still just isn’t enough information out there to dismiss it the way you are, anon.

(i don’t know the exact timeline for when pansexual was used in kink communities to indicate things like a club/party open to all people and a person open to all sexual experiences, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that meaning stemmed from pan simply meaning loving people regardless of gender. of course it could’ve also just been a literal translation of “all sexual”; all sexual orientations/all sexual acts. but again, that’s another thing.)

i don’t get the point of saying if bi didn’t exist neither would pan, because what does that have to do with anything? what is with the hierarchies and superiority about labels? “this wouldn’t exist without that” and “this has been around longer than that” like? okay? and? that doesn’t mean one is better or more important or more legitimate or more needed than the other?

as for your comment about the studies….age was literally one difference in one smaller study. there was no age difference in the second larger study i talked about. not sure how that indicates the majority of pan people being young. and if by “vulnerable” you mean more likely to experience poor mental health and bigotry because of their orientation, then sure. and those weren’t the only difference found, just the two you felt like made some kind of point in your favor. and my posts were talking about the difference between pan and bi people, not the difference between the pan and bi identities. which is literally stated in both my original post and my addition from yesterday.

why use pan? because it’s the term we relate to and feel most comfortable with and represented by. because even if the origin was as bad as people claim, it doesn’t cancel out what it means today. because no matter what horrible misinterpretations people have of it, it doesn’t change what it actually means. because we just fucking can.

[valachia]

Report from a gay club - Biphobia is alive and well

 So we are at one of only LGBT clubs in the city yesterday, and this 3 girls hit on me and my friend. One Armenian, two from Saudi Arabia, said they’re studying in Lebanon. They ask if we’re gay, I say I’m bi and friend I;m with is straight. So one of them, this butch girl whos pretty tall (again I’m 5′1 everyone is tall for me, but still), she stands up, gets in my face, starts saying how she doesn’t get it and she doesn’t like Bi people so she lost interest and that it’s stupid. Honestly, she had this very masculine voice and if I had been anyone else I might’ve actually been afraid but, girl, get the fuck outta my face I know krav and I got a knife.

So,  she says she’s “PURE LESBIAN” girl with a pussy who only likes other real girls with a pussy and I’m like, oooh, am I actually seeing a terf irl? never seen a terf before I don’t really go out much.  And then, other girl asks me how do I do it with both at the same time, which yes a shitty stereotype but sue me I like threesomes, so I answered it with “pretty easily actually”, which pissed them off, so they tried different tactics, went for the feelings part. Third girl walks up to me and asks how will I choose if I’ll marry a girl or a boy when I wanna get married. And really? thats your argument? never heared of that song that goes “first comes love, then comes marriage”? Or was that a poem idk. It’s like, they think I’ll be dating someone for a year or two and then be like “Darling, I think it’s time for me to get married, so since I’m very pro individual choice, I’ve chosen to marry someone who is opposite of your sex and proposed to someone else, guess we;re breaking up now.

What I actually told them was “ooh right forgot they still did arranged marriages for bisexuals in Lebanon and only let you choose the gender”. Guess wasn’t (or was) the right answer because he tall one snarled “fuck you I lost interest” and they stalked away. In all kinda scary and very informative encounter.

Anyways, TLDR: Biphobes and Terfs are alogical trash??

[evelyntransitions-blog]

Day 15 and 16

         Here comes days 15 and 16 an early two and one holiday special. It’s like Christmas it’s not even fucking Christmas time yet. Hell it’s not even racist turkey and mashed potato day. Seriously why the hell is thanksgiving a holiday? Actually don’t answer that.  So here’s yesterday in a nutshell.  I got the hell up out of bed. Achievement unlocked!  I went to work. Oh yes. Then...I did a whole lot of...work. I went and got some taco bell on my lunch break at work. Went home for that lunch break and had my mom get “up my butt” about getting boxes to move. Very anxiety inducing indeed. Went back to work. Did more work stuff. Ran into various scenarios in which I got boxes by sheer luck, which include -A customer leaving banana boxes behind -Getting to do some new optional stock work for one the managers (she was super cute and peppy when I said yes) -Having the closer for the night have extra boxes.          I came home with this small army of boxes, and with that in mind made a song about boxes  ″Boxes  boxes I got so many of you. Boxes boxes what will I do? Boxes Boxes pack stuff inside of you.” I sang this like 20 times between taking the boxes to my car and then back home after leaving work. Needless to say I took a well deserved nap after that, then woke up...took meds, and another longer nap until morning. Okay Today. Today mostly sucked.             I woke up at like 8am to work on my English Argument Essay because I decided to be a lazy ass the night before. Needless to say, it was awful. I had to go through and fix all the citations, edit all the grammar, rework all the paragraphs and eventually print it. I felt kinda bad because later that morning my mom wanted to spend time with me or talk with me or something and she just peers into my room, only to see me hunched over my desk going “GRAHHHH.hmmmmm...errrr.” to which responds “I was wanting to know if you wanted to.... actually I better just leave alone.”           I got it “done” though, and took it to school. I wasted a shit ton of money that morning buying a bunch of snacks to de-stress because class time was supposed to be spent going over our Essays even more. Believe it or not I found even more errors and ways I could reword things that I missed while scarfing down potato chips and chugging one of those plastic cups of water. After a good amount of time in class I realized that there was another student who needed someone to check his paper the other day and I was the one person who had spare time (well not exactly) so the teacher offered me over to him. Turns out he found someone else to look at his paper.

       I wound up caving and asking the teacher if I could just take my paper to the writing center, which she was weirdly cool with. I found the poor writing tutor stressed out of her mind grading other papers, but at this point all I could do is ask. She said “After I finish this one, fwoo i’m on the last two paragraphs” as she held her head in place. I told her to take as much time as she needed and thanks her throughly right after she accepted. I thanked her while she graded the paper too and after. Poor gal. I said to her “Remind me to get you a Christmas gift” to which she said “Aw, you don’t have to do that now.” I’M TOTALLY GOING TO GET HER A CHRISTMAS GIFT. (Assuming i’m not broke as fuck by then). The writing teacher marked the hell out of the paper and though she did say she liked it, she gave me a list of things I needed to fix. The most important thing being the flow of the paper, in which my thesis needs to fit my points. I gotta stay on topic...which is a weak suit for me. I had to hurry back to my English class because there were just so many things to go over with the paper, that it took up a ton of time. I flashed the newly marked paper to my English teacher saying “Blood sweat and tears.” My English teacher responded confidently “You’ll get it done.” I’ve got a 98 and a 95 on my last two assignments, so i’m pretty confident too...if only I could just get off this tumblr.        So um...work. Work was weird. I spent a lot of time moving these shelf things that hold the dvds and keep the soda machines in places because one of the regional managers got really upset because there was dust on top of the soda machines. It was also a coupon day in the middle of the week which was weird. On one of my breaks two of my co-workers had a joking/no serious conversation on how to woo a girl. This included... -A giant boombox

-Flowers with cocaine inside them

-An uber driver that did cocaine

-Warm Cocaine flowing out through the air vents of the car

-Pepsi to balance out the “coke” 

-a mini fridge 

and a water bed.

The rest of the night from there on out was mostly boring. I told some stupid jokes to customers and after a good number of regular conversations one very uncomfortable conversation happened. There was this younger guy with short hair that came though my line who started talking about prices. This was normal, considering where I worked. He then started talking about deals, which is also very normal. Different stores? Okay check...normal. He then brought up Target which he said he doesn’t shop at anymore because of the bathrooms. “The Bathrooms?” I inquire. I had a feeling I knew where this was going and unfortunately I was right and no, there was no poop just the other kind of shit. Transphobia. The worst kind of shit. The guy himself wasn’t that bad, he just didn’t know exactly what he was talking about. (Thank God). He says that he stopped shopping at Target because his girlfriends and some of their friends were uncomfortable with men going in the bathrooms. That they were worried about their daughters. That any man could just say they could ask to go in the bathroom and they could. Now the guy wasn’t coming off as arrogant and cocky or even preachy, but at this point i’m obviously fucking mad. So I say in a cold  dead voice “Transwomen aren’t men. They’re women.” The guy didn’t say anything to me, he just kinda eyeballed me and kinda fiddled around with his groceries and then paid. He then went back to bagging his groceries and only cared about his groceries. He didn’t come off as putt off, more so as he didn’t care much one way or the other. He was kinda absent minded, and I don’t mean that in a mean way. I gave the subject another go, and I said “You know some people who are trans look like men, and they just haven’t had all the surgeries. That and like  perverts are gonna go in bathrooms no matter what, just gonna be shitty for trans people.” He just kinda shrugs and says “Yeah I could see that too, that sounds like it sucks.” Then there was a :l from me and :l from him. And that was that. Did piss me off though.

       It wasn’t bad, but it was awkward. I can’t be mad at the guy for not thinking about things, it sucks his girlfriend and female friends are being terfs at worst and just not thinking much themselves at work. Like i’m glad people are worried about keeping their kids safe, but safeguarding bathrooms with a bunch of prejudice isn’t the way to do it, especially with all the trans women who’ve already been using the women’s restroom. I kinda wish every bathroom was just a family bathroom. Also why does no one ever think females can be perverts? Also x2 why don’t people ever worry about their sons being pervered on? Eh stupid. 

       My shift didn’t end long after that. I went home right after. Mom was pretty cool in the fact she made some spaghetti. She didn’t say much weirdly enough, nor did my Dad. I think they went to watch a movie, which is quite nice. I was half expecting them to be nagging me with questions about moving, but nah. I just got on facebook, listened to some music and talked to some of my friends about bad stuff going on in their life. There’s unfortunately a lot of bad days goin’ on, so that stinks.  But eh’ at least I got some time to relax now, I think I might watch some “Stranger Things” and just take it easy from this point out.