#that's the cause of a lot of society's ills

[todayisafridaynight]

I’m fairly new to the fandom, but I do have a question if you can answer it! Why do people ship Daigo with Aoki / Masato? I tried looking to see if they’ve interacted before, but couldn’t find anything! Sorry for asking I’m just </3 dumb AND I LOVE YOUR ART OF THEM!!! Nerd looking ahhhhhh

hi ! welcome to the community i hope you're having a lovely time so far and ty for enjoyin my stuff :) no need for apologies it's a very fair question to have :]

i cant speak for everyone (all. ten people into masadai anyway) but Personally To Me i just think the idea of them together is very funny. thats quite literally it im afraid..

[mejomonster]

I started reading Billy Bat manga by Urasawa Naoki (u may know him as the guy who did Monster) and jesus christ its wild. Absolute experience. Judas and Jesus are in it, so are ninjas, so is lee harvey oswald (technically at least 3), theres a bat thats satire about how evil mickey mouse and disney are, there's lying cartoons galore, there's the civil rights movement, the oppressivr terror of the ku klux klan and the structural damage of segregation and fucked up laws, and the pervasiveness of advertising and the coca cola company ("golden cola") there's real events sprinkled with gratuitious fictional shit about manipulative God Billy Bat (or perhaps "administrator/guide to the human race"), a scroll that could control the world, Fake walt disney has hired killers, the looming brutality of imperialism and corporations buying out poorer areas, killing in other countries and breaking laws and whatever else is needed to acquire what they want, there's a cartoon dog kennedy assasination, a baby kevin inherits the powers of an older kevin, there's ninjas and priests, there's a small town out west full of cowboy larpers who are this comic artists biggest fan club, a secret agent Smith with a heart of gold (one hopes), a teenager named jackie whos seeing visions, there's a good and evil fake "mickey mouse" bat but frankly theyre probqbly both evil cause either way they lie and manipulate to get people to do what they want, judas cameos not only in his jesus arc but as a little kiddo, and like. Im not even halfway done. Einstein JUST showed up.

[maxellminidisc]

Silly but the DūnM3sh nonsense around the last episode has me thinking about how like idk mostly white autistic folks (of the vairety who are not in need of higher assistance) online act like ALL autistic folks exhibit the exact same symptoms and behaviors in social settings when like I find mostly other poc and a lot of women regardless of race have very different experiences with the sort of "stereotypical" reaction and behavior that's most often associated with autism. Which leads to a lot of you assuming we are neurotypical and then this line of thinking extends into your reading of autistic characters, be they headcanons or canon characters. Rest of this is going under a read more

Like idk for a poc, theres already very little grace given to us in social situations, especially when around white people. You guys dont realize but we are consistently aware that no matter what, when we enter a space with y'all there will always be an internal bias present in white people that will deem any behavior of confrontation as inherently aggressive or mean.

So we learn to navigate social situations with an already high level of need to analyze so many of the behaviors and cues of the people around us out of complete necessity. Neurodivergency or not, this becomes a matter of survival. And for some people, like me, the need to do this and possibly avoid and save yourself the pain of having people who's racism is a potential harm to you becomes a priority in your brain more than anything else you have going on. You cant completely shut everything else out about your neurodivergency but you learn enough to keep yourself safe. It's what I was forced to learn when I was like 5-13 because I was relentlessly bullied for my race and ethnicity, and later for my incapacity to not understand certain social cues or even break rules until I was about 12/13.

I'm not completely without symptoms and if anything some of them have gotten worse. I struggle now with knowing when to stop talking until I notice people start looking bored or annoyed and I sometimes dont talk enough for fear of being annoying to people I'm close to. Not to mention I'm ALWAYS double checking what I say in a way that's almost like a compulsion. Like constantly, to the point where before I say something with say like factual information, I like quadruple plus plus check everything on Google before I say it (and even then I might get shit wrong and my reaction to that is....oh boy). And even then I sometimes end up not saying anything because I'm too scared I said something wrong and mislead or upset someone. Or worse, this information is unwarranted and annoying.

If anything I'm someone who's neurodivergency made them OVER COMPENSATE the need to pick up on social cues, eye contact, sociability, etc because it was a way to defend myself (by making it harder to pick on me without push back) or keep myself safe.

But at the end of the day the constant need to keep up with ALL of this burnt me out by the time I was in college and it made me incapable of masking very many noticeable things anymore, especially my over sensory and stimming when I'm stressed (which isnt helped by the fact that I have synesthesia), the anxiety it produces, and ultimately that it leads me to having a panic attack and has me in the place I am now where that shame of freaking out in loud spaces gave me agoraphobia. Now my threshold for "neurotypical behavior" is like SIGNIFICANTLY shorter when I leave my house.

And I constantly apologize for sharing information when I do. Like I have it instilled in me now to say sorry for information I share because I think I'm bothering people. And my capacity to understand jokes is flawed if the person I'm talking to isnt someone I'm consistently around because I haven't completely been able to process the way they speak or their sense of humor. I sometimes take jokes that are lies, unreality, or sarcasm as literal and people have to say "oh no I was joking I made that up".

When I first meet people I'm actually told I'm way too quiet and kind of intimidating because I guess people can sense that I'm analyzing them like a lil computer and I look them in the eyes TOO much. Funnily enough one of my close friends in high school didnt like me very much at firsy because she asked me if I liked her after very little time of being introduced and I straight up said no without much thought as to why that would offend her alskdkdmkfkd but after a while of getting to know her more, we got close, and like most people, after a while they say I seem pretty "normal" and "nice".

And this isnt even touching on my emotional responses and my horrible rejection sensitivity. That would make this even longer. But the one thing I'll say is it's made my relationship with my family VERY bumpy, and especially tumultuous when young, and it's something they struggle to understand still A LOT.

And outside of situations where I cant mask anymore from exhaustion, I get why it's sort if unsurprising to me when I've met white autistic folks who mistakenly assume I'm neurotypical because I can just navigate conversations with a sheen of "normalcy" (and lol racism), until we talk and they're like oh shit I get it now (usually white people with ADHD can pick up on my neurodivergency much faster which is funny lol) where as other people of color with adhd/autism dont ever make that assumption, they just get it. They pick up on ME analyzing them and we just look at each other like 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♀️

[chainfen]

I want to preface this with the fact that response came from myself and OP directly discussing this post, and me offering to further elaborate on my own opinions on a universe I too enjoy very much.

As I've delved into the HDG universe over the last few months, I've found myself struggling to understand why I find a lot of the writing I'm really enjoying to in some way still be unfulfilling. Reading this piece helped me realise that for a lot of them, it's because they simply do not cement themselves in fantasy. As a group of widely diverse both creators and readers, whether that be race, gender, sexuality- we are choosing to engage in a collective universe, with established boundaries and context, that is high fantastical. That's the entire point of it, is it not? the concept of being allowed to build a version of yourself that is your 'idealised' form; free from the economic constraints of capitalism, the socio-political constraints of wider society and social perception, for some even the limits unbreakable by species.

I don't, like you said, want to put down the idea that there is a catharsis and a rawness in being able to do that. The things I would do to be able to do that. The sheer escapism that the HDG universe offers me- a chronically ill, disabled, transsexual butch plural system, is something I would struggle to find anywhere else. But it feels like there is trend within the content in the universe to build it's women out of a generic base model, one that I see every day on every billboard all around me. There's an almost sterile nature to it, that makes me feel uncomfortable. A woman is small, submissive, feminine, hairless... perfect.

Tangential talk about noncon here, but it's relevant. I'm willing to roll with the idea that noncon as a concept exists within the HDG universe because the Affini believe that they do things for the best interest of the sophont in question- this is not something I'm trying to bring into question. However, as we know it is very thematic for this override of control to include egg cracking, HRT, removal of body hair and body modification that ranges from minor health related changes, to limb changes and additions, as well as full SRS. And whilst I as a reader can not only enjoy these elements, but understand the necessity of them within the storytelling, it once again removes me from the fact that this is meant to be fantasy.

What does it mean to 'be feminine' or be made 'girly'. How does one define those words? How does one separate them from gender, if you can? I can understand that the responses to those questions might be different for each person- but putting that aside, the only actual prerequisite to being 'girly' is to be a girl. I am not ignoring the social implications of being called 'girly' and it's wider use to often mean effeminate, or weak, but I am calling to attention the idea that there is no one look to what is perceived as 'girly'. In regards to femininity, as a GNC butch who has femininity often imposed on me societally because of my stature, there is a pain in the norm of associating these things with the ideal woman without a much wider commentary on why we feel the need to do this.

The Affini are bound by a collective and paternal duty to, well to put it short, care. To ensure the safety, happiness, and realised potential of all xenosophont races they domesticate, every individual, even those who resist it the most. I don't want to have to suspend my disbelief in my escapist fantasy world to believe that they, as an entire race, believe that the best way to treat the damage done to transgender Terrans is to reinforce and comply with the standard that caused them the very damage and trauma they're trying to undo in the first place? This idea of what a woman should be. This perfect model of ideal sterilised femininity who is gorgeous, ageless, hairless and always youthful. That the path to healing the insurmountable harm humanity has committed against transgender, non-binary, and GNC people is to reinforce their home world stereotype that was constructed around an imposed colonialist view of gender that centred the subjugation of women as a gender and ensuring they would be subordinate

and a note, for those in the comments saying OP is 'holier than thou' for the way they express their trans-femininity, or their thoughts on hair removal. I need you to reflect on the fact that your perception of an ideal woman is racist. I am not, in any way saying that it is wrong for you to feel the way you do or to want the things you want. But there needs to be a reflection on the values you apply to womanhood. Idealised white femininity intentionally devalues non Eurocentric features and labels them as masculine to dehumanise and devalue women of colour. You are not being radical or subversive by continuing to uphold these values in a fantasy universe that is meant to be for all.

Trans Feminism and the Human Domestication Guide

Or

Wishing on a misogynistic star won't make your dreams come true

Thesis: A running theme in some parts of the HDG sphere is the unintentional chase and valorisation of misogynistic standards for women in the pursuit of validation.

“The most radical thing that any of us can do is to stop projecting our beliefs about gender onto other people's behaviours and bodies”

― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

I would like to open by declaring my own identities, both as a shield against a particular kind of bad faith criticism, but also to demonstrate that I’m operating in good faith here. I’m a fat, hairy, physically disabled, transgender, butch dyke who writes within the HDG setting with great joy and greater love for the community. I’m also hot as fuck. That established, I’ll continue:

There is a particularly pernicious lie that revolves around the state of women's bodies; that there is a correct way to have one and that those who do not meet these standards are unfeminine or otherwise worthless. It must have a vagina, of course, but it must also be white, thin, able, hairless, youthful, fit but not strong and, of course, soft. 

Trans feminism, and by that I direct my attention to feminist speech within trans and gender non-conformist spaces, has managed to, if not defeat, then at least combat one of the great evils of cis sexism, the necessity of the vagina. The ongoing and necessary validation of the girl cock as beautiful, as wonderful, as feminine is a wonderful, joyful thing. We (trans feminine people) exist as part of the spectrum of womanhood, and that means that our bodies also exist within and without that spectrum of womanhood as well. 

However, trans feminism of a particular kind has - rather than continue the work done to uplift the gock - has embraced a particular kind of ugly lie we’re taught. In many cases - due to a perceived desire to be as close to flawlessly woman as we can be - the focus will instead fall on a particular kind of trans feminine person who manages to engage with and evoke those standards aside from the obvious. To paraphrase Julia Serano in illustrating this point:

“Whether unconscious or deliberate, the gatekeepers clearly sought to … ensure that most people who did transition would not be “gender-ambiguous” in any way”

― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity 

One of the beauties of the class-G is that it allows the character to experience their body in an idealised form. I recognise and applaud this position, it is beautiful to see a writer able to imagine themselves completely idealised, completely transformed into something that doesn’t hurt. However, therein lies the rub; the ideal depicted displays some of that ugliness, some of the roots of misogyny that thread their ways through our brains like poison and make us into useful fools for its goals.

The thought that brought about this essay is a repeated phrasing that appears across several works within the HDG milieu; that to be hairless and soft is to be feminine. A character will have their body hair, all their body hair bar that on their head, removed and thus will be made ‘girly’. They, and other characters, may remark on how much more they feel like a woman, unconsciously or consciously linking womanhood to that hairlessness. 

You may note that this directly plays into another cis-sexist standard of beauty; that to be feminine requires a certain girlishness, a pubescent budding that belies the possibility of cellulite or wrinkles or the consequences of living a life where one is not simply a doll.

What is my objection to that? Surely, every writer has the right to depict their own wish fulfilment fantasies. Certainly yes, but also… one must ask at which point we celebrate their dreams and at what point we ask people to engage with their biases and question what they consider to be true. Women, all kinda of women, are hairy. Women have pubic hair, arm hair, leg hair, chest hair, even facial hair. The seeming desire to be completely hairless is as ‘unnatural’ a goal as any other, as ‘unnatural’ as any expectation set for us by the white supremacist culture most of us are steeped in. To return to whipping girl:

“Rather than question our own value judgments or notice the ways that we treat people differently based on their size, beauty, or gender, most of us reflexively react to these situations in a way that reinforces class boundaries: We focus on the presumed “artificiality” of the transformation the subject has undergone.”

― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity 

It must be noted that at least part of this problem is with what the reader brings to the table. When something goes unstated, we resort to the baseline of our biases and, due to the way society is structured, that baseline is generally white, thin and physically able. Beauty and femininity are racialised concepts, and I think we fall into traps headlong that white supremacy establishes for us. I am not the person to write an essay critiquing race in HDG, but I recognise the consequences of race and the expectations of white femininity on the work. Thus, then, we must consider the text, and the text is very often pretty clear about its characters.

How many protagonists of a human domestication guide story are textually fat? How many are stated in the text to be people of colour? How many of them are, if not stated to be, then implied through lack of mention, white, and thin? These questions ignore the many that are actively identified as those things. (I will pause here to note that Dog of War - notable as the most popular piece of work in the setting - features a protagonist who is both brown and fat, and I’m extremely happy to see it).

Collectively, as writers, we have seen a future where everyone is accepted and have created a world where the depictions of acceptance come with conformity to modern misogyny. We create a world without boundaries, where a person can be digitalised or made into a dog, and our characters are still aping their ancestors of five centuries prior in seeking validation of self. We are, I would argue (and borrowing heavily from Butler), ‘uncritically mimicking the strategy of the oppressor instead of offering a different set of terms.’

This is not, I would like to be clear, an attack on any particular story. You may recognise elements of several stories in this essay, and perhaps there are particular things I am drawing on, however, this essay does not charge the product of the writer's work with anything. That body of text can exist and be critiqued, but does not exist as a thoughtful, philosophical actor. Rather, I would charge us writers, all of us, with being more thoughtful as we engage with what femininity means to us and what is and is not feminine in a world where anything is possible.

Finally, a quote from Gender Outlaw that I direct at myself as much as anyone else:

“Let's stop pretending that we have all the answers, because when it comes to gender, none of us is fucking omniscient.”

― Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation

[justaholeinmysoul]

Empathy and sympathy for weird, different and weak people are decreasing so alarmingly tbh .

I can't believe that people freak out for some slur on a TV show and tits but let others post online the most ableist, eugenics and disgusting shit

[ronispadez]

Guys that people only like in Fanon

[freddyfreeman]

Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I truly believe that heavy metals are a leading cause for both chronic and mental illness…

[thequeenofsastiel]

This reminds me of that irritating post encouraging people to be okay "just not liking people" without doing any kind of introspection about why. Just like. If you're having a negative reaction to someone, take a second to analyze why, and if they really deserve whatever hostility you're directing their way. Even if you think you're hiding it people can usually tell if someone doesn't like them, and that can wreak havoc on their emotions and self esteem, depending upon their level of confidence and shit giving about the opinions of others. Don't fuck with someone's emotions because you don't want to do the bare minimum of figuring out why you don't like them.

You gotta learn when to take a step back and say "this isn't actually about you, it's a reaction caused by something or someone in my past which you accidentally triggered" or you'll keep projecting whatever bullshit happened in your past onto new people who had nothing to do with the trauma in question.

[cinnabeat]

also i really want to know what the color coded discovery notes mean...

[cherry-shipping]

ok Heres some thoughts now that im not stupidly sleepy anymore. i like thinking about dreamys first encounter with miles after entering his universe, freshly mutated and not having any real idea of whats going on, confused as fuck. so they see spiderman on the news and go “shit, thats the guy i gotta talk to, how the FUCK do i get in contact with him” and then IM THINKING they do something very silly and dramatic which is to stage a crime like an armed robbery or something so hell show up, then as soon as hes there they drop the weapon or whatever and go “oh good it worked. sorry about scaring everyone i just needed to talk to spiderman for a second ill find some way to pay for therapy if anyone needs it after this” and then telling him about their own powers so he can help

[wilsons-hotlittleprettyboymouth]

Okay listen I have another disability related thing that’s important!!

If you have any disabilities linked to tooth decay/erosion, through direct cause or secondary symptom, it is vital that you get one or both of the following items: Sensodyne toothpaste and enamel repair mouthwash

This includes health conditions such as acid reflux, diabetes, thyroid conditions, fibromyalgia, chronic pain & mental illnesses such as depression that create poor hygiene routines, sensory issue disorders like autism and ADHD, and any health condition that causes frequent vomiting / increased stomach acid, including eating disorders and migraines.

All of these disabilities will erode the enamel of your teeth, not only opening you up to cavities but making it very easy to chip your teeth from such simple things as biting the wrong way on the tines of a fork. (I’ve chipped my teeth at least 4 times this way).

The toothpaste on the left here (sensodyne pronamel) is gentle on your teeth, won’t cause painful sensations from any extreme mint flavor, and will even protect your gums if they’re sensitive from any of these conditions.

The mouthwash on the right (Crest enamel repair) will, as it says, repair your enamel — which is marvelous, because the technology to repair your enamel at all is relatively very new to society! — but it is most importantly non-alcoholic. Meaning that it works well as a once-a-day rinse without any of the burning sensations of antiseptics that typically discourage people with sensory issues from taking care of their teeth.

I know remembering to do these things every day can feel like a lot when you’re sick and exhausted, but I promise a collective three minutes out of every day is going to save you an incredible amount of pain and money in the future. If your teeth are susceptible enough to rot, you can actually die from infection. And as they say, with how little insurance actually covers dental —

Not brushing your teeth??

In THIS economy???

[emkini]

Thinking about c!beeduo

Horn Headcanons:

My c!Tubbo is a ram and his horns grow in an arc: first up and back, then around and out. They're functional for fighting by the time he's around 16, and you would be hard pressed to deal any sort of head trauma to this guy. The horns grow continually without shedding, though growth slows down significantly once Tubbo reaches maturity. The tissue inside the keratin sheath is live and will bleed if insulted.

c!Ranboo has enderman horns, which are designed to deal piercing damage and aren't particularly functional in combat. In enderman society horn size denotes prestige in both age and magic power, and some elder endermen can have truly massive horns. Ranboo, being only half enderman and not having the same range of powers, will never see this level of growth. Just like Tubbo, the tissue inside his horns is live.

Misc Headcanons:

Tubbo's ears were floppy until he was around 14

Ranboo can unhinge his jaw, but usually only does so when he feels severely threatened

Tubbo is naturally very fluffy. Lots of fur. A pain to clean but delightful for spouse snuggles

Both Tubbo and Ranboo need regular hoof trims, and they do it for each other because it's easier + bonding time

Tubbo is extremely sure-footed and can walk unimpeded on almost any terrain

Ranboo looks a little like a chihuahua with teary eyes due to the water burns and it gives him a terribly pathetic vibe

The firework explosion took out Tubbo's right eye and disfigured the right side of his face. The scars cause pulling unless they are regularly medicated, and are sensitive to sunlight (this is part of the reason he wears his bangs so long). The less severe wounds fade over time.

Ranboo's development is as follows: Sickly Victorian Child -> Normal Young Man With No Issues At All No Sir -> Milf. I will not rescind my statement

Tubbo has an incredible sense of smell

Ranboo is prone to illness from stress, and this sometimes manifests as hoof infections in the corium and digital cushion

[theculturedmarxist]

In 2020, Robert Kuciemba, a woodworker in San Francisco was infected with covid by a co-worker after his Nevada-based Victory Woodworks transferred a number of sick workers to the San Francisco site for a few months. 

Through the proceedings of the case it turns out that the employer knew some employees might be sick but they transferred them anyway and ignored a San Francisco ordinance in place at the time to quarantine suspected covid cases.

Kuciemba was subsequently infected and he then infected his wife, who ended up in ICU on a ventilator.

The California Supreme Court just ruled against Kuciemba on the basis that a victory, while, in the court's words, "morally" the right thing to do, would create "dire financial consequences for employers" and cause a "dramatic expansion of liability" to stop the spread of covid.

There’s a few stunning details to note in this case. First, the court agreed that there is no doubt the company had ignored the San Francisco health ordinance. In other words, they accepted the company had broken the law. And then concluded “yeah, but, capitalism.”

Secondly, the case was so obviously important to the struggle between capitalism and mass infection that the US Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobbying organisation got involved and helped the company with its defence. Remember, this is a tiny company in a niche industry. The involvement of the biggest business lobbyists in the country tells us a lot about the importance of the principle they knew was at stake.

Thirdly, the defence of the company is very telling. They said “There is simply no limit to how wide the net will be cast: the wife who claims her husband caught COVID-19 from the supermarket checker, the husband who claims his wife caught it while visiting an elder care home." 

Well, exactly. Capitalism couldn’t survive if employers were liable for covid infections contracted in the workplace, and the ripple effect of those infections. And they know it. 

This case is something of a covid smoking gun, revealing what we always suspected but had never seen confirmed in so many words: the public health imperative of controlling a pandemic virus by making employers liable for some of that control is, and always must be, secondary to capitalist profit. 

This ruling is also saying out loud what has been obvious to anyone paying attention for the last two years: employers don’t have a responsibility to keep your family safe from covid. You have that responsibility. And if you give a family member covid that you caught at work and they get sick or die – even if it was a result of law-breaking by your employer – that’s on you buddy.

It is the same old capitalist story: the shunting of responsibility for ills that should be shared across society, including employers in that society, onto individuals.

This ruling essentially helps codify workplace mass infection and justifies it as necessary for the smooth functioning of capitalism.

This is not new. This is where the ‘just a cold’ and the ‘mild' narrative came from. It came from doctors and healthcare experts whose first loyalty was to capitalism. Not to public health. To money, not to lives. Abetted by media who uncritically platformed them.

While this ruling tells us little that we couldn’t already see from the public policy approach of the last two years, it is revealing (and to some extent validating) to see it confirmed by the highest law of the land in the United States. 

[communistkenobi]

“transphobia hurts us all” is an analytical statement. It is making a claim about how a specific bigotry operates in the world, and its supposed analytical value is in revealing something about transphobia that appears on the surface to be counter-intuitive - “while you might think transphobia only hurts transgender people, that isn’t the case; it hurts cisgender people too.” The follow-up to this statement, sometimes implied and sometimes explicit, is a moral imperative - transphobia is a social ill that hurts us all, so we should seek to get rid of it.

This analytical-moral chain of logic isn’t unique to this statement; a lot of analyses of the social world come from a broader desire to “figure out what to do.” When we investigate a social phenomenon to uncover its inner workings, and in this investigation we identify the scope and impact of the harm it causes, we are in a better place to understand how to reduce harm in the world. Of particular interest in this investigation of transphobia is highlighting its illegitimacy - if transphobia also harms cisgender people, this is evidence of its illegitimacy as a social force in the world. We have uncovered some fundamental contradiction in the workings of bigotry, and this contradiction provides a rational ground for us to oppose it. Of course transphobia is irrational and must be opposed; it harms other groups of people who are not transgender.

This is also why people object to this statement on analytic grounds - disagreeing with the argument that transphobia hurts everyone is a critique of analysis. Importantly, it is not a dismissal of empirical evidence; we can see many direct real-world examples of cisgender people being targeted for transphobic abuse, such as cis people being attacked in bathrooms for “looking transgender.” A critique of the claim that transphobia hurts us all is a methodological critique, it is a critique of analytical framing; we are operating from the same set of social facts, but reaching different conclusions. The reason for this is because we are using different investigative and theoretical tools in our analysis. And these differences are not trivial; how we define the social phenomena under investigation directly informs how we understand the facts in front of us.

So first, we must settle the problem of definitions - what is transphobia? Simply defining it as a hatred of transgender people is insufficient for all parties. If it does indeed also hurt cis people, then this definition doesn’t do us much analytical good. Where do we go from here? Perhaps a better place to start is to investigate its origins - what assumptions does transphobia operate from? Where do those assumptions come from? This is where we start getting somewhere. Transphobia draws its core assumptions from cissexualism - the belief that there are two mutually-exclusive and irreconcilable sexes, sexes which are immutable and biologically hard-wired, meaning that it is a difference in human beings that exists independent of the social worlds that human beings build. This idea is bound up in many forms of power, one of which being patriarchy; yes indeed there are two sexes, and one of them is better than the other. And because sex is hard-wired, then patriarchy is likewise a simple fact of nature. These assumptions are also bound up in reproduction; one sex impregnates (this is the powerful sex) and one sex gets impregnated (this is the weak sex). These ideas and assumptions structure much of our social world, being embedded in many social, political, and economic institutions, from family to labour to dating to census records to political office, and so on. 

Transphobia is thus an output of these logics - if sex is biological, and sex determines your place in society, then attempting to change your sex means you are thwarting the natural hierarchy of human beings. You are either trying to rise above your station, or abandoning your post. Either option is grounds for punishment. Why would you go against nature? How dare you?

So, transphobia is a bigotry that comes from cissexualism. We could investigate further where cissexualism comes from (and indeed those investigations are taking place), but for our purposes we now have a much more analytically rich definition. Transphobia is a social technology of discipline; it performs a regulatory function for the continuation of cissexualism, much the same way that misogyny is a regulatory apparatus of patriarchy, and homophobia is a regulatory apparatus of heterosexuality. These bigotries perform a very ‘rational’ social function; they reproduce existing forms of power by policing their borders and brutalising anyone who does not behave in accordance with their logics.

We now return to the original question: does transphobia harm everyone? This question now feels methodologically inappropriate, because we are ignoring the role cissexualism plays in producing transphobia. This is as absurd as describing homophobia without mentioning heterosexuality. The question should instead be: does cissexualism harm everyone? The answer of course is yes - we can see how cissexualism produces the social conditions for people to assault someone in a public bathroom for “looking transgender,” for an adult to force a child to report what their genitals ‘really look like’ so they can continue playing soccer, and for a billionaire to spend the latter half of her life dumping money and resources into political legislation that makes it more difficult to, among other things, correct administrative mistakes on your birth certificate. 

But because we are now talking about cissexualism, it is much easier for us to see how its violence is differentially applied across groups. Cisgender people can point to their cisgenderism as grounds for being exempt from transphobia - “don’t target me, I haven’t done anything wrong! I’m following the rules!” Their societal position as cisgender allows them to argue that they are illegitimate targets, that they are being unfairly treated. This animated much of the surrounding discourse around Imane Khelif - I can’t believe JKR is targeting a real woman! Can’t you tell she’s biologically female? Here’s her birth certificate to prove it, and anyway, don’t you know it’s illegal to be transgender where she lives? 

This is a defence that transgender people cannot mount for ourselves - we are by definition fraudsters in the cissexual regime of gender, we are abandoning our stations, we are perverting nature. And in this difference we come to see that it is not transphobia that harms us all, but cissexualism; we are all subject to scrutiny under cissexual surveillance, but cis people can generally pass the test. Transgender people cannot. 

This distinction also has implications for the second sequence in this investigative chain: what do we do about transphobia? Again we see that this call to action is methodologically inappropriate - you cannot “deal with” transphobia in society while leaving the cissexualist structure that produces it intact, in the same way that getting rid of misogyny without first getting rid of patriarchy is impossible. You cannot get rid of an output without destroying the machine that produces those outputs. This is also where many cis people, even those who count themselves as trans allies, become uncomfortable; abandoning the idea of a metaphysical property of being, hard-encoded into their DNA, means abandoning a whole host of other ideas about identity, about social organisation, about institutional operations. Even minor reformist calls by transgender people, such as removing sex markers on birth certificates (which determine your ability to access all kinds of administrative and civil services), is met with intense hostility by cissexuals - how will we run our hospitals, how will we raise our children, how will we track population data, how will we do anything without sex markers? You people are insane! Look how you deny reality! What is wrong with you freaks? Why can’t you just be happy with the way you were born? And on and on, ironically refusing to concede the fact that states, hospitals, child care, and census data are not natural facts of the world and can be changed. Because if those things can be changed, perhaps sex is not this monumental biological destiny after all!

“Transphobia hurts us all” is an analytical statement that advances a set of cissexual assumptions about the world, and as a consequence, it is severely limited in its value for advancing a moral imperative about how to resolve the problem of transphobia. It is not a neutral statement, nor is one that is helplessly subservient to “the hard facts.” We know those facts - describing them is the role of the social scientist. Whether you are in a laboratory or on the street, you are doing social science by analysing social phenomena. And when you say transphobia hurts everyone, you are doing a poor job of it

[ciderjacks]

(The bottom one is the tweet she responded to originally)

Like honest to god if this is how you think then you should just give up on living at this point bc tbh you’re wasting valuable air that a woman could be breathing instead

me reading the comments on Jenny Nicholson posts

[open-sketchbook]

an interesting thing that has happened to me the more i read is like

that whole 'people were just as smart in the past as they are now' thing is... it's useful to avoid thinking about the past as being being the domain of a universally inferior Other, but also like

i don't think people really appreciate the ways in which a lot of people living right now are way, way healthier than a lot of the people living in the past, in ways that have enormous effects on people's ability to think about stuff

the effect of iodized salt alone! and we don't put lead in everything anymore!

i'm saying this because its important to understand that a much much larger proportion of people in the past were regularly struggling with illnesses and deficiencies that today we think of as health emergencies

that's gonna affect things even before we get to questions of social technologies for learning and experimentation...

so like every once in a while when i see some shit in a history book and i'm like 'wait seriously' i remember the people they're talking about are largely illiterate, most of them experienced childhood malnutrition of some kind, and intellectual curiosity largely wasn't useful because in many cases answers better than 'idk ghosts' did not yet exist.

like, even the stuff they were experts on they still understood primarily through just-so stories because their society just straight up lacked the tools to examine the causes and effects more closely, right? if you don't know what nitrogen is but you do know what four-crop rotation is, you have to make up a story to explain it.

and if you believe that story is true, you might make decisions based on that story that go very poorly for you.

so like, people in the past weren't stupid, yes. but it's also important to recognize how people here in the future are smarter in ways you might not realize, and you gotta temper your despair about The State Of Misinformation Today or whatever with the recognition that we are, by and large, much much better equipped, physically socially and technologically, to deal with misinformation and find the truth than the majority of our ancestors