#that tells us more about you than it does trans people

[neonaurore]

it's not my job to change your mind when you're wrong. I don't need to spoonfeed my existence to you

yeah idgaf you're still an asshole

no we don't lol

my issue is it doesn't matter if you're nice or angry. you're being a dick regardless. being angry would just be more upfront but no amount of politeness will change that you're acting like a jerk by trying to tell an intersex person explaining being intersex that they sound like notorious TERF jk rowling??? I don't think you're talking down to me. you're just a jerk. you started this conversation out the gate swinging like an asshat, but you thought using polite wording would change that you said something rude as hell. you are passive aggressive whether you realize it or not. but the passive aggression isn't the issue. the issue is that you're wrong, but you think you're not wrong because you're using "correct" tone and the scary intersex people aren't being nice enough. even though while how you say an argument can convey it better, it does not change the content of that argument or if it is true or not

read up on this

I brought up the fact that changing those terms out makes it seems so much more wrong, (even though they aren't equatable whatsoever) to show that putting ANYTHING in those blanks is agressive, including the term already there.

yes but the equivalency is wrong. the swap out is equating intersex with gender identity which it isn't. watch this

"Also the idea that you can make yourself a person of color is untrue. You can tan your body or have plastic surgery but that does not make you POC"

watch when I switch up what the topic is about, suddenly wow, the topic is about an entirely different thing?? like yeah. it would be wrong to say you can't become a woman, because you can. but you can't become intersex. that's a fact. and it's not "aggressive" to say a literally correct statement

Intersex should be a defended term. It's a small amount of people and the less of them that speak up the less chance they have at reducing the genuine war-crimes constantly commited against them.

wow thanks for explaining my own oppression to me, o noble perisex savior.

The more people that incorrectly claim the term, the less grounds the term has as a whole.

ok so what the fuck IS your stance. because you're the one who was mad at OP for saying you can't transition to intersex?? and now you're like "oh we gotta defend the term" that is exactly what OP was doing

Theres no other way to shift a perspective then a clean, precise, chisel. Try it on me if you STILL don't feel like i agree with you.

I don't care if you agree with me or not you're still a fucking asshole to intersex people talking about intersexism. you're no better than cis people who police trans people, than men who try to filter feminists, than white people who get upset about how POC discuss racism

you are a tar pit. if you want to fix that, then learn that people do not need to spoon feed themselves specifically to you to make themselves more palatable because that does not work for fighting for rights

and read that tone policing article for the love of fucking god. I'm not gonna respond to this conversation again until you know why tone policing is bad

In case anyone needs a reminder…

Being transgender does not make you intersex.

Going through HRT does not make you intersex. Surgery cannot make you intersex.

Intersex people are born with atypical variations of physical, biological sex characteristics. That is what makes someone intersex.

Perisex trans people (especially on Reddit) have been recently insisting that just being transgender makes you intersex, and therefore able to speak over intersex people on issues that specifically affect us, especially when it comes to dangerous and offensive terminology. This is not true.

Also the idea that you can somehow “make yourself intersex” is untrue. You can make your body more androgynous through things like hormone treatment and surgery, but that does not make you intersex.

Falsely claiming intersex identity based on these things isn’t *always* malicious (though it is often done to speak over us) but it is always harmful.

[kindaorangey]

so jimmy kaga-ricci has attachment and trust issues, and if you trace that back to his grief for joan (who, as a reminder, was the main person to advocate for jimmy when he came out as trans and as such was a massive part of his support system before she died) then it really really makes sense why jimmy has so much trouble appreciating the people in his life who are there long-term.

he's impulsive by nature, though he tends to hide that well, and when it comes to fleeting connections he seems to throw himself into them (think: the way he apparently acts towards magnet at the BRITS party) but becomes flighty and distracted once someone becomes a more insistent presence in his life (again, when magnet approaches him at the house party, jimmy is almost immediately bored and disconnected from the interaction)

and nowhere is that clearer than with lister and rowan. jimmy acknowledges all the signs throughout the book that both lister and rowan are struggling, and he always moves on from it almost immediately, either thinking he doesn't have time for it or wouldn't know what to say. the one time he does try to comfort rowan, rowan shrugs him off and tells him to go away, because this is clearly a pattern with jimmy - neither of them are used to jimmy being the one to support rowan. their relationship is not reciprocal in terms of emotional openness and support. the same goes for jimmy and lister.

and i think even though jimmy clearly relies on them both, that refusal to nurture his relationships to either bandmate or actually pay attention to anyone's issues but himself - it's solipsistic, it's individualistic - it's indicative of not wanting to get too attached to someone for fear of losing them. just like he lost joan. the same is true with his relationship to piero - he thinks about him constantly but doesn't actually call or visit all that often, and ends up catastrophising over piero's inevitable death more than he actually speaks to him cough ocd cough.

i don't have a wider point here, i just think it's interesting to interpret jimmy's self-absorption in the context of his grief for joan. <3

[kibor]

(I accept debates without any problems, I ask for education and respect <3).

Need to talk this here because no way i am the only person who think like this, but:

I HATE fans of the 2001 anime when they decide to talk about Seras. For me it's a kind of redflag when I see these guys want to say that the first Seras is better than the Ultimate one because she's more "serious, nihilistic (? wtf are u talking), intelligent" and reduce the 2006 one as a "whiny girl with big breasts who is disposable". I feel disgust, hate and want to murder anyone who says that, I've already written about Redpills co-opting Alucard as a "symbol of macho-man" (even though his character goes against EVERYTHING of that), these people are usally 5 options:

-Only consumed the 2001 and nothing else

-Only saw edits/scenes on the internet, thought it was cool to put Alucard's icon and made a larp about being a Hellsing fan

-Watched the 2 animes and read the manga, but only to do mediocre power scaling because when you actually ask about the story THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO ANSWER ANYTHING, NOT EVEN THE BASICS OF THE BASICS OF HELLSING THAT YOU HAVE TO KNOW...

-Only watched the Abridged because it's based on the argument of "it's funnier and better than the original!!!" (lmao yes, a parody that has a humor that is the juice of 2010 and that only a few scenes save it - and even with those that are saved, they became EXTREMELY saturated by fans to the point that it's annoying when you go into a cosplayer's comment or Hellsing fanart and only have Abridged jokes)

-Or just an avowed Nazi (but that doesn't mean he's separate from the other options above, because I've seen a lot of these guys in what I mentioned in the 4 topics who have far-right attitudes in their veins)

and realize that it's usually straight men lmao.

But back to Seras, I cried watching Ultimate again after years and she is one of my favorite characters. I love both versions of her character (Gonzo's or Madhouse's), but the 2006 one has my heart because I identified with her a lot at certain moments. Seras was someone who only suffered in her life but continued to be strong and the sweetheart that she is. People think that someone who is not "serious, without emotions and feelings" is not someone strong and worthy of respect. Guys, the 2006 Seras adapts the Seras from the manga. In Ultimate and in the manga she constantly questions about the afterlife (becoming a vampire, since she is dead) and at first she couldn't dissociate herself from the "human" because it was something so sudden, she got a fucking shot in the chest at a time when she was almost going to be r**ed and killed, she was taken to Hellsing (without knowing anyone) and still has to deal with more deaths in front of her (whether caused by her or not). Do you really think she's mentally stable?

IMO, I think those scenes with Alucard where he tells Seras to forget that she was human are very important, because if you look at it from a post-humanist perspective, it makes a lot of sense, because it brings up the debate about "humanity" not being something good outside of common sense but rather as a colonialist and violent concept, which arises with the rhetoric of civilizing discourse against native peoples (as a Spanish-Brazilian, it's extremely sad to see the effects of colonialism, especially against indigenous peoples) . We notice this even more in the current context when we see how society deals with trans people, disabled people, racialized people, women and any social minority that does not follow the correct standard of "being human", all in defense of a human security system (which is just racism, patriarchy and all the ways to maintain the structures of violence that kill us every day). Alucard is disappointed when Seras doesn't drink the blood precisely because he wants her to be strong and finally independent, that she came out of that suffering as a human and can now have a new life (I don't like this reading of saying that Alucard was "enslaving her").

and that's why I like Seras from 2006, especially in the scene where she feeds on Pip to defeat Zorin, you see a new Seras indeed. You see our cute and charismatic blonde vamp finally accepting being more than human, accepting the change and wanting to protect those she loves in that chaos in London. Seras from the OVA has development, that's why I hate the guys who only like Seras from 2001 saying that she had "no development at all and only exists for the sake of existing".

(a bit of "A Cyborg Manifesto" by Donna Haraway vibes but in the Hellsing context)

It's one thing if you like the anime version of Gonzo better and that's fine, I understand and respect it (i love this version of her too), but saying that Seras from the OVA is a horrible, useless and undeveloped character really upsets me.

[mx-paint]

.

[space929]

So this ask is genuinely unreadable so forgive me if I struggle with the following translation. I will mention here that, while I can go looking for sources on a lot of what I'm about to say, that would take a lot of time and effort that my dyslexic ass does not want to do. Feel free to look it up yourself. I'm already taking more time than I need to with this. Sorry about that. Hope it's all good that I did this.

TW: politics, gun violence (including schools), and I'm sure you can tell the rest from the above ask.

First off, I am an American citizen, so you, gloomwalkers, can't claim that I don't know because I'm not from the US. I learned the way you did, I just took it upon myself to listen to someone other than right-wingers who have everything to gain from my ignorance and stupidity.

Point one: I believe you're trying to say that Elon did not do the Sieg Heil? And also that our previous leaders have done the same - which was not a Sieg Heil but was worse than what Elon did because it makes you look better. I must say that I have no idea as to the context of the other photos (I guess you only wanted to provide Elon's?) And I would go searching for it but I do not know where to start with that and I don't feel like it so we're going to leave those accusations untouched as I am not doing my proper research.

The second one, however, we are going to talk about. Elon, at the very least, did an act that looked close to a Sieg Heil and then attempted to scrub it from the internet, not address it directly, and agree with multiple posts about how we should not be labeling people as Nazis, while having supported things that have been labeled akin to Nazism for years.

So I'm sure we can make a guess here. Not to mention that your context literally supports the claim you're arguing against. I suppose I should thank you for that. Makes my life easier.

And just to mention the "But he has autism" claims - so do I. And y'know what I do when my autism creates a situation in which I accidentally respond in a very bigoted manner? I apologize. I acknowledge my mistake and carry that around with me so I don't make it again. I do not go online and get mad about the fact that people are calling me out on my bullshit. I understand that all autistic people are different, but we are not incapable of learning or self-reflection and implying that we are is infantilizing and ableist.

Point two: do you... do you think that's a good thing? Do you think it's good that we allow hatred that will very likely end in violence fester and grow until it seeps into our laws and comes out as the situation we're dealing with now? Are you kidding me? Hate speech kills people. You realize that, right? You're good with that? Okay.

But onto our proof otherwise. A lot of people have been jailed for words. I know this is an old one, but the Sedition Act of 1918 literally made it so you could be jailed for up to twenty years for so much as denouncing a war. Also, for a more recent example, Briana Boston is currently jailed for telling a healthcare company "Delay, Deny, Depose, you people are next." Despite there being no proof that she would've done anything.

There are others, however I can't remember them and don't feel like research as I mentioned earlier so. Sorry.

Point three: did you like... get worse? With the grammar? Are you good? Do you need a doctor? That was genuinely concerning to read. Anyway, I guess I'll stop being condescending and respond. I'm trans. Hi! It's nice to meet you. That means that I Know Things. For example, I know that I have never been pressured to be trans. I have, however, been pressured to be cis. Do you care as much about that? I've had teachers ignore my pronouns - I'd say that is pushing an agenda. I've had a teacher tell me - to my face - that I should not be allowed in bathroom or sports - is that not pushing an agenda? Do you care about those?

The only agenda people using my correct pronouns are pushing is something called basic human respect and decency. It's a wonderful concept that you should look into. One of my favorites.

You would be correct. I can't force people to use my correct name or pronouns. It's not practical. But I believe that you're missing the part where this isn't a disliked nickname - something that is harmful and if you think that disregarding someone's wishes isn't a bad thing then, once again, are you good? Because this is concerning. Have you heard of empathy? I urge you to look into the basic human respect and decency I mentioned earlier. But more than that, this is that other concept that you don't believe in. Hate speech. That thing that literally kills people.

"[N]ext part of this is [you] wanting tax payers to fund trans medical issues that are not life threatening[. That] is not our way[,] not because they [are] trans but because they have no right to my money."

So we shouldn't pay for yearly check ups. Or X-rays, if we aren't positive the person will die without it. Also ear infections and appointments from them - that probably won't kill anyone. Dentistry. No one needs mental health help - yeah, my res stay was life-saving but we can't be sure that's the case with everyone and we need to run it by you, specifically, before we can be. Obviously those surgeries that greatly increase quality of life are useless. Our tax money is not to help the American people! Obviously. (/S, if it wasn't clear.)

"[A]lso th[re's] proof [that] this has been forced on kids ie people under 18 which is[,] in fact[,] grounds to remove and sue a teacher for forcing their views on kids at school."

So... I notice that you didn't source this? I actually did look this up (not in great length, I will admit) and I found two of ten articles discussing this point. One of them was from the POV of a mother, and the other was from known transphobic site Transgender Trend from the POV of a fourteen year old. This supports everything that I have both heard and experienced during my time at ten different schools. Four of them being on the west coast, tyvm. This also lines up with what my friends from different schools in different areas have experienced.

I'm trans because I'm trans, not because my teacher forced me to shave my head and do man things. In fact, I was a very feminine child. And yet... I'm still trans. Interesting.

I'm also confused as to the 180. I thought, at the beginning, you were talking about medical procedures - something that is almost exclusively done when it is abundantly clear that it will vastly improve quality of life for the minor. And if we're talking about that, then we must talk about how some people have joint surgeries or brain surgeries "forced on them" so we should definitely ban the use in children for those. Some children get their ears pierced without their permission! We need to stop this madness!

Or maybe you only care about trans people. Maybe you're just transphobic. Would you care to admit to that? It would make this conversation much shorter.

Point four:

"[Y]ou clearly listen to USA media[. W,]ell d[id] you know that ABC[,] NBC, CNN[, and] MSNBC all paid out 100s of millions of dollars in just 3 lawsuits for openly [lying] about the story and people in it. ABC even had pay Trump 15 million for a lie they told about Trump. [S]o frankly trusting them is not really an option[. E]ven [] liberals have had to admit they [were] wrong[.]"

I didn't even have to quote this one. I just needed to rewrite it because I physically could not understand it without doing so. I don't like to judge or shame people for literacy, it does nothing but make people feel bad, and this is genuinely painful. There are free grammar checkers online. The grammar makes this feel like a troll.

Anyway, you realize that there are more news sites than these? Again, I don't know anything about this besides that the lawsuits existed at some point. I do, however, know that Fox News has had lawsuits of the same caliber.

On a different note, allow me to just put this right here (https://app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive - imbed wasn't working) for all your validity and bias checking needs.

Point five: Are we being legit right now? My right to my body without having to go through a legislature is a right. My right to my body without having to go through you is a right. My right to my body not being used as a political ploy is a right. And before you say shit about religion: I'm not religious. Keep religion off of my body when I am not religious. Okay? I have a right to religious freedom and taking away my rights based on someone else's religion isn't religious freedom.

And for your gun control point: Please, I beg you, set foot in a school the day after a child brought a firearm in his backpack. Set foot in a school the day after a child has been murdered. Set foot in a school and know that that could be you. That's not even mentioning mass murders by firearm or murders by firearm or the amount of children who accidentally shoot themselves or others because people can't be bothered to lock up their firearms.

When I was in in-person school, I had at least one threat to my school each year from first grade onwards. I had teachers stand at the front of my class and tell us their plan for if someone broke in. I had them tell us to shove books in our backpacks to protect ourselves if it ever happened.

I had a person literally come to school with a firearm in his bag.

Please. Tell me why we need more of these. Tell me why you won't listen to the easiest solution to our biggest problem. Tell me why I had to go to school, scared out of my mind, day after day, because you wanted your rights so badly while denying us ours'.

It is my right to go to school and come home in the afternoon. If your right to owning a literal death machine is invaded because of that, then maybe you shouldn't have had it in the first place.

This is proven to work. This would work. And yet you people act like it would never work and so you just send us your thoughts and prayers while we get to sit in our schools and wonder if we won't come home that night because we all know that fence and those locks won't protect us.

You were nothing but disrespectful that entire ask. I am not OP and I cannot speak on that part of it, but I can say that I understand your takes. The picture really showed where they come from.

You think that you are the center of the universe. Everyone outside of Texas doesn't need to be acknowledged or known or respected.

Your love of the country does not negate the hate you just spewed. You say no hate and yet you sent this. You read this. You think this. You say no hate and yet you just spoke against so many people.

No hate doesn't dispute this. You realize that, right? You can't say no offense and have something not be offensive.

I hope this helped you understand the points. No hate.

Thank you for your time.

Howdy, let me start off with no hate for you just here trying to help clear up a few things it seems from your post you dont know which is normal since you no a US citizen. again just trying to help you understand not an attack just trying help. 1 on the whole nazi wave https://www.tumblr.com/busterballsblog/773398848248987648?source=share also post is not the full clip here https://youtu.be/5e5Dz2EvuOY?si=NPvB0sq5Qjk2NHDK these should help you better see the whole story and facts. 2 UK, CA, GR,FR all have hate speech as a legal thing in the USA its already been ruled by highest court and even liberal judges agreed no such thing as hate speech in this USA. where each of the nations i listed have jailed people based on their words some where even jokes on stage. but in USA we have the right to say anything but a DIRECT call to action. but just as we each have the right of free speech means all sides have a voice to say as they wish. something that very different our rights listed out in black and white cant be taken away by government for any reason where yours and UK, FR and GR can and have been in name of "Greater Good". in USA its about the 1 not the Greater Good when it comes to rights. 3 on whole trans topic here the the issue its illegal to force someone to talk a set way in the usa. just as your name is Erica you cant force people to call you that they can say HEY YOU or they can call you E all they want and no law is broken in the USA. next part of this is wanting tax payers to fund trans medical issues that are not life threatening is not our way not because they trans but because they have no right to my money. also their proof this has been forced on kids ie people under 18 which is in fact grounds to remove and sue a teacher for forcing their views on kids at school. 4 you clearly listen to USA media well do you know that ABC , NBC, CNN , MSNBC all paid out 100s of millions of dollars in just 3 lawsuits for openly lied about the story and people in it. ABC even had pay Trump 15 million for a lie they told about Trump. so frankly trusting them is not really an option even for liberals have had to admit they wrong. 5 you bring up removing of rights https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript please take a look at our rights and can you link abortions to any right you see listed. ( i am assuming this is right you talking about due to your words. mind you while your looking at our rights look at 2A and then notice how liberals seek to remove rights on guns. i use this as example of how the very view that the right seeks to take away rights is not based in any logic and in fact the left is seeking to remove a right openly. again i hope this helps you understand our system in a fair and balanced way. btw i been from quebec to toronto i will say being that im Texan i understand qubec people the best in CA i have a number of pals up their and yea. to give you idea why people like me love your snow is my city just got 3 inches of snow that all the snow we gotten since 2018 and my summers are 110 F or in the 40s C in the shade with 100% humidity. anyway hope this helps you understand better again no hate just trying to help and i will leave you with how Texans see the rest of north America LOL hope you enjoy the fun joke again no hate just trying help you smile. and if you have any question here or DM me is fine just trying share some help.

^^ I give you, the American education system

Look, I disagree with everything you are saying.

If you want to talk about taking rights away, I'll give you this. A lot of pregnant women have died recently because the hospitals are not able to perform abortions. Today, there was a school shooting in Nashville that killed a 17 year old and injured another. If abortions were legal, and you have gun laws in place that weren't written in the 17th century, many people would still be alive. This isn't opinion, this is fact.

Deaths in Canada caused by guns in 2023: less than 300

Deaths in USA caused by guns in 2023: over 43,000

There's honestly too much wrong with your entire message. I don't think I'm the right person to respond so I will leave it to everyone else.

Also, just so you are aware, your "map" did not make me laugh. It offends me. Canada is my home and I would much rather live here (with free healthcare, gun laws that weren't written over 200 years ago, the right for me to make a decision on my own body, and a place where my transgender friends are free to be who they are) than live in fucking texas.

[tiefling-queer]

there is no universal accessibility. there is no one-size-fits-all.

as a genderqueer person, i'd be over the moon if someone looked at my presentation and stumbled or asked what my pronouns are. there are gnc people, trans and cis, who don't present or perform gender in a way that makes it 'obvious' what they are 'going for'. for me, that pause, however performative, is validating and affirming. for me, as a genderqueer person, presentation anarchy and public acceptance of gender nonconformity is comforting.

and on the other hand, i know trans women who are understandably frustrated at people ignoring cues in wardrobe and makeup and opting to degender them. being degendered or misgendered because cues are being missed or ignored is an awful feeling, and this is especially a problem that trans women and other trans fems face.

we've cultivated these protocols that are polite in specific circles that i genuinely believe are used in good faith most of the time, but that doesn't stop them from mimicing bigotry.

i have no answer. ask for my pronouns and don't ask my trans sisters for theirs. there isn't a nice answer.

[irnhero]

if i see one more article, post, or news anchor talking about how joe biden is old, i'm putting my fist through a window. i feel like i've gone through the fucking looking glass.

this is project 2025, trump's plan for what he'll do if elected. whatever you think is in there, it's worse. watch a breakdown of the highlights here. this man wants to unravel the fabric of our democracy for good - this all aside from his vitriolic hatred of poc, his determination to start ww3, and the fact that he can't string a sentence together without telling outrageous and easily verifiable lies. his administration will start their crusade to exterminate trans people on day one, and they won't stop there.

do not talk to me about how joe biden is old, as if that could ever matter to me more than my life or the lives of my friends and family. my little sister is 14, she's trans, and i don't know what to tell her when we talk about politics, because one of these people wants her dead and the other one is old and some of you are still acting like those problems are equals.

i can't fucking stand this. i'm not hearing it this time, we are not repeating 2016. refusing to vote is not an act of protest, it is an act of complacency, and our most vulnerable will suffer for your negligence. vote like your life depends on it, because for some of us, it really fucking does.

[lycandrophile]

do you actually care about trans men or do you relegate male pregnancy to the status of "gross but funny fanfiction trope" at best and "literal body horror" at worst? do you actually care about trans men or have you accepted without question the ideas that bottom growth is a borderline-torturously painful process and phalloplasty is a dangerous surgery with objectively unsatisfactory results because they confirm your implicit assumptions about the violence and horror of masculinization? do you actually care about trans men or do you think testosterone being a controlled substance is fair because you prioritize fairness in sports more highly than transmasculine lives? do you actually care about trans men or do you distance yourself from us as we transition and make half-joking comments about us being traitors because you view transmasculinity as a shift from ally to enemy? do you actually care about trans men or do you get mad at us when we read transmasculine experiences into female characters because you see it as an act of theft and believe transmasculinity is inherently less valuable than womanhood? do you actually care about trans men or is your first thought when you see a transition timeline about how pretty the "before" picture is? do you actually care about trans men or does your interest in our lives begin and end with how badly you want a boypussy to fuck?

do we exist to you as real people or only in theory? do you read the stories we tell, listen to the music we make? how many of us can you name? when we speak, do you listen? would you fight for us? do you trust us to know ourselves best? are you our friend? do you mourn us when we're gone? do you care for us while we're still here?

[genderqueerdykes]

if you hear about lesbian men and instantly jump to taking it in bad faith to assume the worst possible conclusion in your mind, that it means that cishet men can be lesbians, you are catastrophizing, and that is not a healthy response to learning about this knowledge. jumping to the conclusion that your lesbophobic senator now identifies as a lesbian man because we're "allowed men to do that" is catastrophizing, and an unrealistic leap in logic to make.

if cishet men wanted to identify as lesbians, they would already be doing it. cishet men who find lesbian erotica hot are almost always the first ones to tell you how badly they hate irl lesbians and how gross they find us. if cishet men wanted to be lesbians, they already would be.

ask yourself why you didn't consider bigender and multigender lesbians. ask yourself why you didn't consider non binary and genderqueer lesbians. ask yourself why you didn't consider intersex lesbians. ask yourself why you didn't consider trans men who still feel connected to the lesbian community. ask yourself why you didn't consider bisexual people.

you MUST ask yourself: why is my initial reaction to queer identities i haven't heard of before hostility and outrage? why are you instantly taking things you haven't heard of in bad faith? who are you enraged on the behalf of? did anyone ask you to do that? did anyone ask you to stew in rage? is fuming silently alone in your room over something you cannot change helping you?

these are extremely important questions to answer. instead of taking out your outrage on someone else, you must look inward.

if you encounter a bigender wo/man who is a lesbian and think to yourself "well they're a woman so it cancels out their manhood, so they're not a lesbian man they're just a lesbian woman" you are disrespecting that persons identity and misgendering them. if you encounter a genderfluid lesbian who is a man at times, and say "well they're a woman most of the time, so it cancels it out, their manhood isn't a part of their lesbianism," you are disrespecting that person's identity and misgendering them. if you encounter a trans man who is also a lesbian and say "that's not right, trans men can never be lesbians, they're clearly confused/wrong" you are disrespecting that person's identity. you do not have to undermine someone's manhood in order to accept their lesbianism.

why did you choose to instantly jump to the worst possible conclusion (in your mind) and take it in bad faith? to what end? to serve what purpose? to keep the lesbian community "pure"? stop sucking up to rad fems and accept that queer experiences are way more broad than a single sentence descriptor of an identity. queerness does not exist in a vacuum, it is different for every person who experiences it. jumping to assume that lesbian men are "invading" the community is not a queer friendly line of thinking- you are creating an "us vs. them" binary whether or not you realize it.

[starryroe]

All right, let's talk about it with proof.

Recently the transandrophobia tag has gone more and more into being reactionary and believing that the enemy is indeed trans women.

I would appreciate for everyone to look at this and understand how absolutely not okay these things are.

How these things mirror the same exclusionary and separatist rethoric that created (trans) radical feminism in the first place.

No, not "all non-transmascs" hate transmascs. That's separationism. No, saying you love transfems as a little tag doesn't work if your post specifically picks exclusively trans women to say that we're causing every problem. No, calling trans women who are rude to you bitches or cunts or whatever other slur or insult will not make any situation better. No, telling trans women to shut up does in fact not mean you love them. And finally yes, goddamnit, we fucking need each other! Trans women need trans men and trans men need trans women and we all need nonbinary and intersex people and they all need us!!!

So yeah. I would like for everyone in the transandrophobia tag to be careful about we say and do and what voices we decide to reblog and boost. Because these behaviors? They are not okay.

And before anyone comes to tell me "I told you so", every single transmasc I've shown these things in isolations to has agreed that they were gross. Maybe some of these posts have been reblogged because the rest of the text had some insight that was actually important. But the fact still remains, this is not okay.

We need trans unity, now more than ever.

[euniexenoblade]

1) Egg jokes aren't misgendering and they aren't telling someone what their gender is.

2) being compared to trans people is not a bad thing because being trans is not inherently bad, but getting upset at the idea of egg jokes is not your personal experience, it's clearly getting mad that people are getting compared to trans people

3) "people did egg jokes to me and it made me sad :(" sorry to hear that! Your experience is not universal however! Talk about your experiences but when you use them to talk about other people and other friend groups who are fine with it, it's not about your personal experience anymore (some Mario wikis and Chongo blogs fit for this)

4) this dumb discourse has been overwhelmingly used to call transfems terfs, transvestigators, "Christian missionaries," and run them off the site, this factored with the previous poll where tme people overwhelmingly said you're not allowed to tell your friend they might be a trans woman but it's ok to tell your friend they might be a trans man, kinda paints an interesting picture.

5) the discourse keeps getting changed into "don't call strangers eggs" which whatever. No one's walking straight up to a dude on the street and saying theyre an egg. Random bloggers on Tumblr dot com? Sure don't call em eggs I guess.

6) "don't call random people egg!" Kurt Cobain is an egg. Die mad about it lol.

7) "you can't tell people what their gender is" not what egg jokes are but actually yeah you can that's a common thing about trans people who don't realize they're trans yet is you gotta tell em. Yeah not everyone needs that approach but some do. As someone who spent years helping people realize they're trans and find resources, I know this for a fact, I know more about this than random 20 year old bloggers whining on Tumblr. Get over it.

8) "you can't tell people what their gender is" my husband can call me what ever gender he wants so long as its hot when he does it

9) all the "don't tell someone what their gender is egg jokes bad" people keep misgendering us

[hiiragi7]

Reminder that y'all should just say what you mean instead of "AFAB" or "AMAB".

If you are referring to penises, say penis.

If you are referring to having a period, say the word period.

If you are referring to being raised female or male, say that.

If you are referring to the ability to get pregnant, say that.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

The terms "AFAB" and "AMAB" do not tell you anything about a person's reproductive, hormonal, or chromosomal profiles. It does not tell you what body parts they have. It does not tell you anything about their life experiences or what gender they were raised as.

Using "AFAB" and "AMAB" as if they are synonymous with [perisex] "female" and "male" excludes intersex and trans people. Using the terms "AFAB" and "AMAB" in this way is only recreating the sex binary of female and male but masking it as more progressive when it really isn't. Just say what you really mean.

There are trans people who have the same equipment as a cis person of the "opposite" assigned sex. There are intersex people who were assigned a sex at birth while having completely different internal reproductive organs or hormones, or who were raised as a different gender than the sex they were assigned at birth.

There is no such thing as "AFAB" or "AMAB" experiences. AGAB language only describes what you were assigned at birth. It says nothing about your body or your life experiences.

I know that people tend to shy away from using direct language when talking about anything related to sex (even as it relates to biology and not anything actually sexual) but using the actual terms for these things isn't bad. It's extremely counterproductive to movements to view sex as a fluid and broad category when you use AFAB and AMAB as if they are anything more than a sex designation given at birth.

[cumaeansibyl]

The Substance

short version: five out of five stars, I had so much fun, for God's sake read the CWs. there are so many needles in this.

further thoughts: I think the viciousness of this movie rests on Elisabeth (Demi Moore) having built her career on promoting the very same unattainable beauty standards that she finds herself in conflict with. It's no coincidence that she's not just an actress, she's a celebrity fitness instructor. Going on TV every morning to tell us all that our bodies aren't good enough. She threw her lot in whole-heartedly with the beauty merchants, she preened and profited, and then she was shocked -- shocked! -- when they inevitably, predictably turned on her.

It's also telling that once she's injected the titular Substance and generated a new, young, beautiful version of herself, what does she do? She goes right back to the same business as before. Being sexier, fitter, more desirable than anyone else. Telling everyone their bodies still aren't good enough. Well, why not? Even her own body wasn't good enough for her anymore.

Coralie Fargeat has zero fucking sympathy for her and I feel the same. Oh, is it hard now? Is it alienating and dehumanizing and humiliating? Did you never bother developing yourself as a person because you were too busy peddling feminine oppression for Dennis Quaid, of all people? Fuck you! Suffer harder! You are complicit!

I would love to know how this lands for conventionally attractive women -- I never put in a sustained effort of this kind because it was made quite clear to me from a young age that the "right" kind of beauty would not be available to me. That comes with its own pain and its own fantasies about a "perfect" version of myself, but I suspect it's a different set.

I also wonder what trans women think of it, because while it's a very cis woman story (in that Elisabeth has always been a conventionally attractive girl and woman) it's also like... about transforming into a more desirable version of yourself, which, come on.

Finally, I feel like there's some disability commentary to be had in here, though that's not a subject I'm well versed in. I did find myself thinking, from time to time, that to many people it would be very tempting to have a body with no pain, a body that always moved easily and performed all its functions with no trouble. Even if only sometimes.

[queer-reader-07]

i think one of my spiciest takes is that i think cis people should be cis on purpose and not because it’s the “default”

ok hear me out before you go into the notes, i have reasons.

the main idea is that i think EVERYONE should explore and interrogate their gender identity and what their gender truly means to them. because 1) i don’t think any harm will ever come from wanting to understand yourself and your existence on a deeper level and 2) if everyone, including cis people, explored their gender it would be more generally accepted. thus, trans people or people questioning their transness wouldn’t be as othered when they start questioning and exploring their gender.

because here’s the deal. every trans person i know can tell you what their gender means. they can tell you what it means to be a man or a woman or neither or both or some other nebulous concept. they can describe it to you and explain it to you. they can tell you what their manhood or womanhood or neitherhood means to them, what it represents, how they knew that’s who they were.

every trans person i know (including myself) can articulate what their gender is in more words than “well i’m *insert gender* because i’m *insert gender*” (yes i know i’m always saying i can’t be bothered with gender but i do actually have a lot of feelings and words on my own)

i’ve talked to a lot of cis people about gender and they just simply can’t explain to me what womanhood or manhood is to them. so often it’s “well i’m a man cuz i’m a man. i look like a man i act like a man etc etc.” but what does a man look like? what does a man act like? and it’s usually people who consider themselves trans allies saying these things!

people should explore their gender. they should understand it more deeply. i don’t say “explore your gender” as a way to try and force anyone into a realization of transness, i say it because i want people to understand their gender. whether that be cis or trans or whatever.

to understand yourself more deeply is to understand your place in the world more accurately. learning more about who you are, and why you are, and how you are never hurts in the long run.

so yeah. be cis on purpose, be cis because you know deeply that you are cis, because you understand what that means to you.

and be trans on purpose. use the labels you like deliberately. dress in the way that brings you euphoria and mitigates dysphoria because you deserve that.

simply be on purpose. walk through life with deliberate steps, with solidified intent. because without doing so, how can we find our purpose on this earth and in this life?

[spaghettioverdose]

I've never really talked on here about how I figured out my gender, and since this whole egg discourse is going on, I feel like I should.

I'm not one of the trans women who figured out their genders at age 4 and became fully confident of it. Up until around 16 I didn't even begin to consider that I may not be a cis guy and it took me up until almost 19 to fully realise I was a trans woman. Before this, at 18, after feeling particularly shitty for weeks (from what I later learned was definitely dysphoria), I attempted suicide.

I only really started to understand myself once I started hanging out with other trans people on discord servers. My perception of transness was the more mainstream-accepted version (at that time) of "I always confidently knew I was a woman basically from birth and I exhibited x, y and z feminine behaviours at all times etc." which I didn't fit in with, so I always thought "well I can't be a trans woman because that's not me". Being around other trans people, and especially having other trans women point out behaviours I had, and tell me "that's also how I thought before I realised I was trans" helped me immensely.

I didn't get any of the rigid online definitions and examples, nor did I get the perfectly sanitised videos from the handful of trans people who made it on youtube. None of that felt like me at the time. I didn't have any point of reference. I only really understood myself once I related to someone who used to be in the same position. If some trans girl didn't call me an egg, I might still be a completely miserable "cis" guy to this day still, or even dead.

I understand that others have had worse experiences when it comes to this, but we must recognise that the problem in these situations is outing or harassment. The porblem is abuse, and as with all things interpersonal, you can always turn it into abuse. As with all things interpersonal, you have to have some amount of tact and caution.

I don't think we should harass anyone into getting their egg cracked (and this happens vastly less often than people here seem to think but it does happen), but also we shouldn't be constantly agnostic about if someone is trans or not, because in the end not everyone is capable of coming to that conclusion by themselves, and by the time you've "let them figure it out" they might've spent several more years being miserable and not knowing why or they might be dead.

It is also very important to point out that this discourse is only really happening because there is a particular bias against trans women. This isn't a discussion of how to approach the subject, or a handful of people talking about their experiences with it, it's a discourse where one side is trying to problematize another aspect of the transfem community. Notice that people are arguing this when it comes to transfems and not cis gay people or even transmascs. Notice that this website always cycles back to attacking some aspect of the transfem community every couple of weeks.

Do you really think these arguments are being made in good faith? Do you really think it's worth adding to the sea of transmisogyny that is this website and most of the world?

As always, this post is meant for people who are genuinely well-meaning. The dipshits who keep jumping on any excuse they can to harass trans women can go fuck themselves.

[innuendostudios]

New Alt-Right Playbook! This one was co-written with, and narrated by, Abigail Thorn of PhilosophyTube. We talk about the feint wherein a person is somehow rhetorically stronger being wrong on two fronts instead of one.

If you think this is good work and would like to see good work compensated, you can back me and/or Abi on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

Say, for the sake of argument, you’re having a discussion with a coworker about healthcare. (Actually, let’s go ahead and drop the pretence: you’re having a discussion about trans healthcare.) He says puberty blockers should be banned because some study said they're dangerous. And you’re a thoughtful person, so you look it up.

Only when you do, you find the study doesn’t say what he said it does. Maybe it says something close, maybe it says the total opposite! But more than that, you realize - even if it said what he said it did, that still wouldn’t support his argument. “Dangerous” could mean a lot of things - a little? a lot? low risk, high risk? Maybe one study isn’t enough to go on. Hell, maybe it’s bogus for a whole host of other reasons! Maybe it’s written by people with an obvious agenda, or contradicted by a better study he’s ignoring. So you go back and tell your coworker, “Hey, the study doesn’t say that, and even if it did, y’know…” But he simply repeats “The study said they’re dangerous.” He’s not just wrong… he’s 

DOUBLEWRONG

Institutions create policy documents all the time. Anti-bullying policies, climate policies, DEI policies - your job probably has a bunch of them. But a lot of the time these documents exist not to be read or followed, just pointed to. If someone is bullied, harassed, or discriminated against, managers might point to a policy that says, ‘We are committed to not doing that.’ And… that’s it. The more you insist, ‘Hey, these policies aren’t being followed, the problem still exists!’ the more you become the problem.

The document is a dummy argument, a substitute for the real one: ‘There’s a problem’ Vs ‘No there isn’t.’ This isn’t a conversation about what some document says or doesn’t say; it’s a conversation about power.

When your coworker cites a study that doesn’t support his argument, he’s using that document in a similar way. He’s not reading it; just pointing to it. ‘This piece of paper means you have to listen to me.’ The study could be about plankton, or Henry VIII, or squirrel poop for all the difference it makes. (Okay, maybe it matters a little: it has to at least look semi-legit at a glance.) He’s not using evidence to inform his position; he’s decided what his position is and he’s pantomiming evidence to support it.

It’s almost as if we’ve stumbled into The Sorcerer’s Apprentice! Little Mickey’s put on the hat and declared, “I know how this works! You stand up, all big and tall, and say ‘I have a study that says you have to do what I tell you!’ That’s how you always play it. Well, this time I’ve got a study, so you have to do as I say!”

And you can tell him, “That’s not how this works, Mickey: it’s a study, not an incantation. It has to actually say what you claim, and it has to be a good study.”

“Ohhh, look at you moving the goalposts! Look at you gatekeeping! Deciding which studies count and which ones don’t. Well I believe this one’s every bit as good as yours, and I believe it proves me right!”

And is that what he believes? Maybe. Maybe not. Remember: The Card Says Moops - you can’t prove he doesn’t believe that. And for the purposes of ‘You have to listen to me’ that’s all he needs. This is a battle of wills now, not information, each half of the doublewrong argument functioning as both motte and bailey. If you successfully expose that study as bogus he’ll move on to another, and you’ll only be undermining the scientific method in his view: if studies aren’t always to be trusted, if even quack science can get peer-reviewed, who’s to say your studies aren’t as bogus as his? And that’s if he doesn’t change evidence entirely - ‘Okay maybe I can’t prove puberty blockers are dangerous, but this study says trans kids have high regret rates; this one says they’re unhappy; this one says they’re brainwashed!’ 

He’s understood the rhetorical function of science, but not the substance. Or perhaps he’s understood the rhetorical function all too well, enough to know, for the purposes of argument, substance rarely matters.

From here, you can chart the course of the entire conversation stretching out before you: You might rush in, hold the document under his nose and say, ‘Look! It doesn’t say what you said it does! What’s the matter, can’t read?’ Which might be satisfying, but does make you look the pedantic asshole.

Or you can reject his so-called evidence as patently false, inadmissible, and leave yourself vulnerable to being obliterated the moment you make an honest mistake with a citation.

Or you can research every single shred of information he puts in front of you, so you can thoroughly debunk each and every one, which means he simply keeps putting bunk in front of you and drowns you with homework.

And he must see it, too, the conversation laid out in front of him. He hasn’t positioned himself to persuade you, but to ensure neither of you ever persuades the other. What is the purpose of this debate, then? This ritual? What is it you’re really arguing about?

Well, your coworker believes that the government (or a doctor doing what the government tells them) should force citizens from a minority to do something with their bodies they don’t want to do. But he won’t say that out loud because he knows that’s socially unacceptable. ‘I want the government to force people to do what I want with their bodies no matter how many of them die in the process,’ is an opinion that isn’t likely to make friends. So he substitutes the document for the thing he really believes. “It’s not me. It’s just science.” He is appealing to facts when, truthfully, this is a difference in values.

Doublewrong is a rhetorical technique to catch you out, to hide the real argument from you and leave you chasing the substitute. It also protects him.

People deploy these kinds of irrational, paradoxical moves to stop themselves thinking about topics that make them uncomfortable. If your coworker interrogated his values about the proper relationship between the government and minorities he might find he’s not the person he thought he was, or that his friends and colleagues expect him to be. (And you might too - let’s not pretend Leftists and Liberals have the moral high ground all the time - interrogating your fundamental values is an uncomfortable experience for most people.) He probably wants to think of himself as a good person, and yet he also believes (maybe not even consciously) that the government should own the bodies of at least some citizens. He knows he’d probably hate that if it happened to him, but he still wants it to happen to others. Doublewrong relieves him of the burden of forming a rational position. The document is his nice big safety blanket.

This plays on a human weakness that spans the entire political spectrum: we all wrap ourselves snug in faulty information from time to time. We share studies without reading because the abstract conforms to our assumptions; we treat a supposition that is likely as though it’s a proven fact. And this is, after a point, necessary: as informed as you are, you do have to stop researching somewhere. You do, at some point, have to go on assumptions, take someone’s word, trust that a pattern holds, because the video’s due before the end of the month if you want to charge your patrons and make rent!

…sorry.

But we do, sometimes, treat research as a ritual rather than a method. Because, often, we want to appeal to facts, papers, authorities, without having to do any of that pesky reasoning. But that is exactly what leaves us open to a doublewrong attack. The flaw with your coworker’s study is he’s using it to claim trans healthcare is dangerous, and he’s wrong. He has a comeback for every way you could try to convince him, but he’s still wrong. You can’t prove trans healthcare is safe by gesturing at studies, because the opposition won’t read them. And will write their own studies. You can’t prove it with peer review, because they’ll game peer review. You can’t call them liars because they’ll insist they’re sincere. There is no rule they can’t pervert, no system they can’t twist to their advantage. You can’t just appeal to things that signify “reason,” at some point one of you will have to do some actual reasoning to figure out who’s making sense, and, well, it’s not going to be them.

Remember: this is a conversation about values. Presuming you know what yours are, you may have to speak them aloud.

‘I think people should do what they like with their bodies without politicians interfering, and even if I thought puberty blockers were dangerous (which by the way they’re not because on the off-chance you actually care about evidence here’s all the good stuff) I think people have the right to make risky decisions about their healthcare too. If there was a drug with a 1% chance of healing your terminal cancer and a 99% chance of dangerous side effects I’d support your right to take it if you wanted.’ Now you’ve avoided the trap of arguing about what some document says. You’re focusing on the second, deeper part of the doublewrong instead of the first. You’ve also put him on the back foot: now he has to justify his values, which is exactly what he wanted to avoid!

Of course, he may just repeat himself: ‘The study says they’re dangerous!’ This is not a technique for winning arguments. It’s a technique for starting them.