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undertale-data · 3 years ago

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[Image Description: An Undertale chat box that has “WHY FANS LOVE UNDERTALE” at its center. Next to it are a line chart and an Egg from the Dating Hub on its left, and a CRIME measurer (also from the Dating Hub) on its right. End I.D.]

[Image Description: a pie chart titled, “LEVEL OF LOVE FOR UNDERTALE.” The textbox on the top right reads, “On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the least and 10 being the highest, how much do fans enjoy Undertale?” From the top going clockwise, 12 or 0% chose 5 and below; 23 or 1% chose 6; 98, or 4%, chose 7; 325, or 12%, chose 8; 529, or 20%, chose 9; and 1664, or 63%, chose 10. End I.D.]

It’s clear from all of the data analyzed so far that fans who took the time to answer our survey love Undertale. It is unlikely that they would have taken the time to answer so many questions if they had not, and even less likely that they would have come across our survey in the first place. Naturally, it comes as no surprise that 63% of our responders gave their love for Undertale a score of ten out of ten. 95% gave their love for Undertale a score of eight or higher, and only 12 responders responded with five or below, a number so small that their responses had to be lumped together to be visible on the pie chart. Of those, only 3 responders gave their love for Undertale a score of 1, and based on those responders’ other answers, it is likely that they were only intending to troll. We are very fortunate that the vast majority of responders took the survey seriously, enough so that responses like this are barely a blip in the data.

Now, for our final analysis post of the event, we will delve into the reasons that fans love Undertale so dearly.

(Essay and highlights under the cut.)

There have been countless essays on the impact that Undertale has had on people’s lives. I can hardly add more on the subject than what has already been said, but I hope this summary can provide a brief overview of what stood out among the over two thousand answers given in response to this survey. That said, due to the sheer volume of answers, I could not read every single one in depth—however, I did skim all of them, and some that stood out or were representative of several responses have been highlighted below. If you would like to see what every fan who consented to share their response had to say, you may view the full list of responses here. Note that these responses have not been edited in any way. This document may take a long time to load, as it is over 100 pages long.

(Warnings for mentions of suicidal thoughts in the following essay.)

Several responders loved the theme of choices mattering in Undertale. Whether people played the pacifist, merciless, or neutral routes, they enjoyed how the game reacted to their actions. For some, it even made them consider their own morality. One touching response explained the impact that the theme of mercy made on them. “I realized that Mercy isn't something that's given to those who deserve it. Flowey didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it myself. Shoot, we ALL need Mercy in our lives.” Many fans left similar comments about how the themes of Undertale made them better people.

Undertale changed how its fans treat others, and it also changed how fans treat themselves. The theme of staying determined and the messages of hope in the game were a light to a very large portion of fans. I cannot list all of the fans who said that Undertale helped them out of a dark place, or that they would not be alive if not for Undertale. “DETERMINATION became a metaphor for not killing myself at a really rough time in my life and I’ll always cherish that. Undertale isn’t afraid to go to really dark places but at the same time holds on so tight to its hope.”

Undertale brought fans together in unexpected ways. Some said they met friends or significant others through the fandom. “I wouldn't have met my now husband without Undertale,” one fan said. A different fan who is non-native English speaking mentioned that the game and the fan community helped them to learn English.

It would be impossible to discuss Undertale without mentioning the fan community. Whether for good or bad, many responders mentioned the fandom in their responses. Overall the feelings towards the fandom seem positive, though many made references to “toxic” parts of the fandom without specifying which parts they consider toxic. Others rejected the idea of toxicity in fandom. One response said: “[SLAMS FIST ON DESK] I KNOW MOST PEOPLE SAY THE FANDOM IS TOXIC AND CRINGE OR WHATEVER BUT OH MY GOD. The Undertale fandom, both the UTMV and the actual UT fandom, has been so much fun to be a part of. I've met countless friends because of our shared interest in something related to the game! The art people create can be breathtaking and so inspirational, and the fanfics are so so good!! I've seen people write incredible things for this fandom and it's what made me continue writing!”

One thing that makes the Undertale fandom unique is the way it embraces various AUs. Some fans are tired of AU content, but the majority of responses show a love for the creativity behind AUs. “Roll your eyes at the 50th AU Sans all you want, it's encouraging people to step outside the boundaries of fanart and pushing people to make their own ideas! I mean, hell, it was how I gained the confidence to start making my own original content.” The lack of a judgemental atmosphere seems present in the AU community, according to the responses we saw. There is an interesting balance between AU and canon (sometimes referred to as “classic”) content that another responder pointed out: “The fandom helped keep the game alive all these years, with all of its AUs. Although personally, I always enjoyed AUs that kept characters as close to the classic material as possible (dancetale, outertale) I do appreciate the creativity of the fandom. They almost created entirely new stories with new characters of their own! If it weren't for those people, the Undertale fandom would have probably not been as active as it is now. I do feel like we're getting a resurgence of classic content now too! (In 2021)”

Regardless of the many AUs the fandom has created over the years, the original game of Undertale still feels like home for many fans. They wished they could reclaim the feeling of playing the game again for the first time, but even though we can’t reset time in real life, there is still a special feeling for fans each time they play Undertale. One fan said, “Even the best fics I've read can't capture that feeling of nostalgia/almost-"coming home" that comes with hearing the music and talking to the characters.” This feeling is one that can be cherished time and time again. In the words of another responder: “It always feels welcoming like home or like comfort food that I never grow tired of no matter how many times I go to it.” Others pointed out the strength of the found family trope in Undertale, which likely contributes to this feeling of “home” as well.

As mentioned briefly earlier, the music is part of what makes Undertale feel like home for fans. Even when responses focused on other aspects of the game, many would throw in a comment about the soundtrack at the end. One comment focused on the music said “IT'S SO GOOD like I will literally go through the entire thing over and over and not be bored with it. It makes my monkey brain so happy you have no idea.” Like with the game itself, the music has incredible replay value, an amazing feat considering most of the tracks use the same few motifs. “I think what I like the most about Undertale is how the music attaches you to the story,” another responder said. “They're simple melodies that stick with you throughout the whole game, and they can remind you of both good and bad times.”

If the music sticks with fans in their hearts, then the game’s lore sticks with fans in their minds. Even six years after the release of Undertale, fans are still creating new theories and digging up new secrets. The way the game breaks the fourth wall in particular intrigued many fans and has stuck out through all these years. The awareness that the game shows for the RPG genre makes it memorable. The game plays with the player’s expectations and turns them on their heads, all while reminding the player that they’re in a game. There are few other games that do this on such a large scale, so it’s no surprise that fans cite this as one of their favorite things about Undertale.

Lastly, the LGBT+ representation in Undertale has been a huge draw for fans. Especially in 2015, the sheer volume of non-cishet characters was unprecedented, as one fan pointed out: “It's practically unheard of to see so MANY from just one source, especially during its heyday in 2015-16. Hell, you can't even GET the true pacifist ending without helping two gay couples hook up. It's really nice to see all of them being accepted for who they are and not judged for their sexuality or gender, at least in-canon.” The LGBT+ cast including Frisk, Chara, Napstablook, Monster Kid, Mettaton, Alphys, and Undyne each connected with fans in unique ways. It’s clear how important this is from responses such as: “There are canon nonbinary characters 🥺. i have never seen representation of myself before.” “It made me gay and trans so thanks for that.”

Once again I am overwhelmed with just how much there is to say about Undertale. One responder really understood when they compared Undertale to an iceberg, explaining that there are so many layers to the game that there is something for everyone: “everyone can find something to enjoy in the lore/game regardless of what kind of fan they are! Being able to appeal to various types of fans—from simple happy shipper people to deep dive lorediggers—is the mark of the coolest games!” I would have to agree with them.

It’s been six years, and despite everything, it’s still you. Thank you for reading, participating in this survey, and above all, staying determined.

Highlights:

DETERMINATION became a metaphor for not killing myself at a really rough time in my life and I’ll always cherish that. Undertale isn’t afraid to go to really dark places but at the same time holds on so tight to its hope.

I think the coolest thing was having the opportunity to watch the AU community grow from its bare roots. It's nearly insane how big and complex it's gotten, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Roll your eyes at the 50th AU Sans all you want, it's encouraging people to step outside the boundaries of fanart and pushing people to make their own ideas! I mean, hell, it was how I gained the confidence to start making my own original content.

i love how the lgbt rep is so naturalized... there are just gay people! and its nobodys business!

The music is my go to answer, but what I really really REALLY love is how the minor characters have so much personality to them when you talk to them. They aren't incredibly important to the overall story, but they're all so likeable and diverse that you just can't help but like them immediately!

I think it was the first videogame I have played that broke the fourth wall that much. Of course there has been other videogames that broke it but just for one or two tongue-in-cheek jokes. The guilt of killing mama goat was also something intense as well that I appreciated as an experience and that I didn't think a videogame could cause on someone.

I love how no character can be seen as completely bad! Everyone builds up Asgore as some horrible villain, but he turns out to be a 'fuzzy pushover' who's broken and just wants his family back by the time you meet him. Then you think Flowey's an irredeemable killer who engineered the suffering of the monsters across many timelines, and he is... but he also used to be the kind and beloved Prince Asriel Dreemurr, traumatized by his death and subsequent rebirth, projecting his best friend onto you.

The fact that choices matter in the game. Your first playthrough and getting the golden ending for the first time. I can never replicate those feelings again, wish I could erase my memories and replay the game from the start.

I wouldn't have met my now husband without Undertale.

(Toxic parts of the fandom aside) The community is possibly one of the kindest I've ever met. Cringe culture is completely dead, and I feel like I can be myself. I felt a very close connection to many of the characters, and I loved consuming content about them when I was in a rough patch in my life.

just everything, the whole game has just impacted my life so much. i know it sounds really lame, but when the game first came out, i would purposely put my hands in my pockets and sway slightly, like sans' idle animation. of course i dont do that anymore haha, but undertale still really impacts me to this day, and i wouldnt have it any other way :)

it made me gay and trans so thanks for that

I realized that Mercy isn't something that's given to those who deserve it. Flowey didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it myself. Shoot, we ALL need Mercy in our lives.

The thing I love most about Undertale is no matter how many times I play or watch a playthrough it always makes me genuinely happy. It always feels welcoming like home or like comfort food that I never grow tired of no matter how many times I go to it. Toriel still makes me feel all warm and cozy in her home, the Skelebros always make me laugh, and I still cry on the inside watching Frisk comforting Asriel. And on the flip side the No Mercy run still invokes the negative emotions in me as well. In short Undertale just feels like a second home to me and I always wish I could stay.

The reader inserts are my favorite way to decompress after a hard day

I think Undertale helped me discover my love for 8-bit games, and made me realize how IMPORTANT music is in video games.

the worldbuilding and character design are my favorite parts of the main game apart from the music! I’m also a huge fan of the random AU music- not for like underswap or underfell i like the stuff where someone makes a megalovania for a random au where gru from despicable me replaces sans as the character. i think its funny

Just... the vibe, honestly? Even the best fics I've read can't capture that feeling of nostalgia/almost-"coming home" that comes with hearing the music and talking to the characters.

there are canon nonbinary characters 🥺. i have never seen representation of myself before.

[SLAMS FIST ON DESK] I KNOW MOST PEOPLE SAY THE FANDOM IS TOXIC AND CRINGE OR WHATEVER BUT OH MY GOD. The Undertale fandom, both the UTMV and the actual UT fandom, has been so much fun to be a part of. I've met countless friends because of our shared interest in something related to the game! The art people create can be breathtaking and so inspirational, and the fanfics are so so good!! I've seen people write incredible things for this fandom and it's what made me continue writing!

There's a scene where Frisk (the player) is going towards what is presumably going to be their death. They will fight Asgore and he will use their human soul to break the barrier and free his people. The music, despite the player's impending doom, is... triumphant. You are not the triumphant one here, and yet, the score invites you to experience the monsters' joy and happiness as they tell you the tale of their subjugation. The monsters are going to be free. This is their victory, but they don't hate you or want you to die. They're just... happy. That scene has always struck me very deeply. I feel it represents the best parts of Undertale.

I loved how well thought out the Geno route was. It really made me feel like I was doing something horrible, and the characters were very obviously reacting to dire circumstances.

I dunno? I like Undertale for it's characters, story, music, secrets and many more. I am not good with Headcanons but I also like the neutral endings and how different they can depending on who you spare and kill

I was very bad at english before, i thought i couldn't progress because i was very shy and not confident. But my sibling and i wanted to have the best experience with this game so we wanted to play it in english. It's this game and the fandom which helped me to make huge progress in english !

THE SOUNDTRACK. IT'S SO GOOD like I will literally go through the entire thing over and over and not be bored with it. It makes my monkey brain so happy you have no idea.

to avoid writing an essay i will say one word. Mettaton

It is like Toby specifically made the games to fit the iceberg meme and it's awesome, everyone can find something to enjoy in the lore/game regardless of what kind of fan they are! Being able to appeal to various types of fans - from simple happy shipper people to deep dive lorediggers is the mark of the coolest games!

I love almost everything about Undertale as a game on its own. The music, the art and especially the characters and how they interact. They made me feel at home. Undertale means a huge amount to me. (I even got a tattoo of the castle when you and MK walk together!) The fandom helped keep the game alive all these years, with all of its AUs. Although personally, I always enjoyed AUs that kept characters as close to the classic material as possible (dancetale, outertale) I do appreciate the creativity of the fandom. They almost created entirely new stories with new characters of their own! If it weren't for those people, the Undertake fandom would have probably not been as active as it is now. I do feel like we're getting a resurgence of classic content now too! (In 2021)

the mystery. toby fox refused to give answers to anything and i think thats very sexy of him.

I just feel guilty for liking it so much when I'm in my 30's. But I recently got diagnosed with ASD, so I guess it explains things a bit. Many ppl consider Papyrus to be neurodivergent, and some adult fans are too, so seeing that makes me feel a bit better.

i think about "Despite everything, it's still you" everyday of my life.

I like how it's just as funny as it can be serious. All routes are this way. I laughed as much as I cried when I played the Pacifist route and then once I opened the game again and Flowey was telling me to let them be happy, I immediately turned off the game. I somehow felt bad.

The Found Family Trope

The True Pacifist Ending is just...man. And the fanworks about saving everyone even when the game doesn't let you? MANNNNNN

I think what I like the most about Undertale is how the music attaches you to the story. They're simple melodies that stick with you throughout the whole game, and they can remind you of both good and bad times.

there's honestly a LOT to love about this game, but i think one of my favorite things about it is just how many lgbt+ characters there are??? i can think of alphys, undyne, frisk, chara, mettaton, napstablook, monster kid, asgore, mad mew mew, the dress lion, the royal guards, and arguably even papyrus off of the top of my head, but im sure i'm forgetting a few from just undertale alone (there's even MORE in deltarune)!! it's practically unheard of to see so MANY from just one source, especially during its heyday in 2015-16. hell, you can't even GET the true pacifist ending without helping two gay couples hook up. it's really nice to see all of them being accepted for who they are and not judged for their sexuality or gender, at least in-canon.

[Image description: A wordcloud in the shape of the capitalized word UNDERTALE. The text is white on a black background, and uses the font found in the game. Some of the most visible words are: Game, Love, Music, Life, AU, Store, Friend, and Feel, which represent the most common words in the essays people wrote about their love for the game. End of ID]

#undertale #analysis #results #undertale fandom census

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katyldamusic · 3 years ago

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Måneskin: No one should feel exluded (interview for onet.pl)

Please forgive me any mistakes. It’s 2 am.

"Our image is a form of expression. We stand behind everyone who gets hurt. People shouldn't judge anyone because they can hurt someone a lot," say the members of the Måneskin. The group recently won the Eurovision Song Contest and will now perform at the Polsat Sopot SuperHit Festival. "We want people to understand our message being "no one should feel excluded," they add.

-Måneskin won the 65th Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam with the song "Zitti E Buoni"

-The group's sound is defined by musical eclecticism - from rock through rap, hip hop, reggae to funk and pop. All of this is linked by Damiano's phenomenal voice

-"We can be very proud of ourselves, because we owe our success to hard work" - say young musicians who came to Poland, where they will perform during the Sopot SuperHit Festival

Q: Congratulations on your big success at Eurovision. Were you surprised or the rumors that you are the favorites calmed you down a bit?

Victoria: We were nervous until the last second. Until the end, we did not believe that we could win. We are not a typical band that can take first place in this competition.

Damiano: Ethan's face said everything (laughs).

Ethan: Exactly. No one should have doubts that the win surprised us (laughs).

Q:After the competition, it was huge buzz about a glass that you broke. Has this "scandal" stopped shocking your fans?

Damiano: I hope so! We didn't understand at all why everyone was so surprised that we broke a glass (laughs). In fact, we were well aware that rumors like this always set the biggest fire. It's just part of our popularity.

Q: How did your friends react when you told them you wanted to participate in Eurovision? This is quite an unusual idea for a rock and roll band.

Victoria: We never took the Eurovision Song Contest lightly. We did not even think that our style did not fit there. For us, the most important message was that rock and roll never died. For two years we have been constantly trying to prove to everyone that guitar sounds are timeless

Many people threw obstacles at our feet and told us that we had no chance to be successful. We went to Rotterdam and showed them that we are capable of anything!

Q: So plan to conquer Eurovision was well thought out?

Victoria: Of course! That is why we performed at the San Remo festival. It was the beginning of our evil plan (laughs). Later we went to Eurovision and proved that even at such a mainstream concert rock'and'roll will be the top! I guess we did pretty well.

Q: But you probably did not expect such popularity. There are huge crowd in front of the building where we are talking. On TikTok, your music breaks records of popularity. Are you ready to conquer the world?

Damiano: I don't want to seem very cocky(*tricky to translate, "cocky" or not very modest"), but we've always dreamed about it. Of course, we did not care about fame, but we wanted our music to reach the widest audience possible. We really did everything to get to this place. We can be very proud of ourselves because we owe our success to hard work.

Q: Meetings with fans must be very enjoyable experience.

Damiano: It's really crazy. We love our fans and hope that there will be more of them over time.

Q: Many countries in Europe are very conservative. Your image may still shock many. What would you say to your *?(*tricky again. literall translation - opponents, but i think "people who are against you" fits better)

Damiano: First of all, I would like to emphasize that we do not feel like people who would dictate anything to someone. Image is a form of our expression. Of course, we stand behind everyone who gets hurt. People should not judge anyone because they can do great harm to others. We will not change the world overnight. However, as people whose music reaches so many people, we know that we can change reality a litlle bit.

Victoria: We want people to understand our message is, that no one should feel left out. Our image has no boundaries - which is why it may still shock some more conservative audiences. Let's be honest - how is a man with painted nails different from a woman?

Q: Måneskin performing at the Pride Parade - a dream for many of your fans. Would you agree to play on one?

Damiano: Of course! It would be a great honor for us! We are aware that a large proportion of our fans are members of the LGBT community and we are very proud of it.

Victoria: It's stupid that some bands still ashamed of Parades. After all, i'ts a great honor.

Q: Let's change a subject for a moment. Today we are in Sopot. The seaside capital of music in Poland. Have you had the chance to lie on the beach?

Victoria: Are you kidding me! We got here about two hours ago. We don't have time for anything. We say this almost every day, that it would be fun to do a little sightseeing in the places we visit during our promotional tour. We are going back to Milan soon, so Poland is the last stop of our adventure.

Q: Well, you are going on another tour in a moment. Tell us what we can expect at your concerts. I understand that the performance at the festival in Sopot will be just an innocent announcement (laughs), and we will see your true face at Open'er Park?

Victoria: Our concerts we are definitely crazier.

Damiano: We missed performing on stage. We haven't been able to perform for a long time due to the coronavirus pandemic. That is why we are really grateful that we can play at such festivals as the one in Sopot. This is another part of the plan we mentioned earlier (laughs).

Q: You won Eurovision. If, however, you took second place, who would you give the "crown" to?

Måneskin: Ukraine!

Damiano: I think Go_A did more or less the same as us. They showed all of Europe that rock music is still crashing the system! They didn't try to please anyone. They were themselves and this won the hearts of many fans.

Q: Vicotria, there are only guys in the band! How do you feel as the only woman surrounded by gentlemen?

Victoria: Great! I can't imagine our band looking any different. We are a wonderful family and we support each other every day.

Damiano: We understand when Victoria has her moods (laughs).

Victoria: Stop it! I feel no different from you. I'm just a member of Måneskin. I don't feel any different!

Ethan: Besides, everyone knows that I am the real woman in the band (laughs).

Q: If you weren't making music, what would you be doing?

Ethan: Music. There is no force in this world that prevents us from making music.

Damiano: Exactly! We are musicians who do not see each other in normal work.

If I couldn't make my own music, I would probably be a producer who would come up with melodies for other artists.

Victoria: Or we would teach to play instruments. People need to understand that music is part of our lives and we cannot imagine that there could be a reality in which we do not create.

Q: You are traveling a lot now. You are in a different city almost every day. What was the craziest thing that happened to you on this tour?

Måneskin: SWEDEN!

Victoria: There were some crazy events during our visit to Sweden. Security services had to close the entire street because so many fans showed up outside our hotel.

Damiano: At one point, the police were called and they had to control the crowd.

Q:Now you are going back to Italy. Does that mean fans can expect even more new music soon?

Damiano: We are currently promoting us the mini-album "Teatro D'ira. Volume 1", but you are right, when we come back we lock ourselves up in the studio and work on new music. However, we don't want to reveal anything because that would spoil the surprise for our fans.

Victoria: We need time. We don't want to feel pressured because then the music will lose its value.

Damiano: Be patient.

#måneskin #maneskin #maneskin interview #damiano david #damiano maneskin #victoria de angelis #victoria maneskin #ethan torchio #ethan maneskin #thomas raggi #thomas maneskin #my translation #forgive me any mistakes #i'ts 2 am #i'm going to sleep #goodnight

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evesbeve · 4 years ago

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Hey there, you said your ask box was open for Justin Min's whole thing? I guess I just slept through the whole thing, honestly - could you just go over a gist of everything that happened? I get that it seems like a PR team didn't know how to use twitter (which, mood) and f-ed things up for him, but what were they "cleaning up" in the first place, who's Anna what did they do that warranted such a bizarre thread from the PR team, etc...? 😳

Hey! Okay so this is going to be a lot, so buckle up.

Right off the bat, I just want to say that Justin isn’t cancelled. The situation has been mostly resolved right now (more on that later).

So around a week ago, Justin Min started deleting his replies to fans. Depending on whether you’re on Twitter or not, you might know that Justin is one of the most interactive people of the cast. He knows a lot of fans by name, he has inside jokes with us, and he just interacts a lot with his fanbase. So you can imagine why him suddenly starting to delete his replies was a bit upsetting. There was nothing we could do about it though.

And suddenly, two days ago, Justin deactivated his account out of nowhere, which caused all kinds of drama to go down.

People started pointing the finger at specific accounts saying it was their fault that Justin deactivated (don’t even get me started on that logic; why a grown-ass adult deactivate because of a few teenagers is above me, it literally made no sense), even sending death threats. Others suspected that he got suspended because Twitter’s algorithm saw all these tweets get deleted and was like “welp, bot time.” Long story short, lots of misinformation was going around.

And then out of the blue, Justin’s account was reactivated, and he made a thread directed at Anna.

Now, who is Anna? Anna is a stan on twitter, whose @ I won’t be sharing for privacy, but here’s how they’re relevant in this:

Remember when I mentioned the inside jokes? Well, one of them was between a fan called Matt and Justin. Matt kept commenting on Justin’s tweets asking him to say trans rights. On the one year anniversary of Matt asking Justin to say trans rights, Justin finally said it. Then, Matt made a poll asking other stans what he should have Justin say next, and lesbian rights won.

Around a month ago, Matt replied to one of Justin’s tweets, and Justin responded with something along the lines of “haha, i know this is just an attempt to get me to say lesbian rights,” referencing the inside joke. People started commenting that the way he phrased it was a bit :/ so then he replied to his own tweet with something like “well, i’ll delete this before i get cancelled,” and that’s when things spiraled.

[id: Justin Min’s tweet #1: i see that you are trying to butter me up to say lesbian rights, nice try, matt. nice try.

Justin Min’s tweet #2: oh, here we go. this is an inside joke between myself and matt, if you’ve been a part o fthis fandom for more than a few weeks. but alas, i will have to delete this now before i’m cancelled by the end of the day. keep loving, everyone.]

Lesbians get spoken over and looked down upon not only by straight people, but also the LGBT community. So when Justin tweeted that, lesbians were like “this sounds as if you care more about your own self image rather than our community.” Then, non-lesbians got involved and started either a) calling Justin lesbophobic (which lesbians never did) or b) blindly defending Justin and saying he did nothing wrong.

(Side note: I am not a lesbian, and I’m not trying to speak over lesbians in this situation. But I did talk about this to some of my friends who are lesbians, and they told me that what Justin did wasn’t as big of a deal as Twitter made it out to be. These are their words, not mine. All I know is that it was definitely not bad-intentioned, just a huge misunderstanding.)

Anyway, Anna made a thread explaining to Justin why him defending himself came out as harmful towards the lesbian community, and then Justin apologised and that was it.

Which brings us back to yesterday (26/9/2020).

Everyone is freaking out, posting misinformation, panicking. I don’t exactly,,, know how, but the #justinminisoverparty hashtag started being used for actual hate towards Justin for deactivating, and some people (including Anna, though I think their tweet was in the context of a joke? please take this with a grain of salt though. update: it was in the context of a joke) mentioned that Justin is a lesbophobe.

A few hours later, Justin reactivated his account, tagged Anna, and said this (though it was actually his PR team, more on that later):

[id: Justin’s Tweet: @ [redacted] quickly jumping back on here from my twt break because i’m receiving messages that you’re continuing to spread misinformation, so i want to clarify.]

[id: Justin’s Tweets: 1. all of my interactions with you were deleted because of the need to set clear boundaries due to the fact that your incessant messages and replies from multiple accounts over the last several months were veering into stalking/harassment.

2. for someone who appears to pride themselves on reminding their friends/followers on a daily basis to be careful of the language they use on this app, you seem to be fine with flippantly labeling someone as homophobic/lesbophobic as if they’re cute little adjectives to give to someone, not realizing that such labels have real-life consequences.]

[id: Justin’s Tweets: 3. also noting here than in your original thread, you stated that you neither considered me nor my words to actually be lesbophobic, so a bit confused as to why your story has suddenly changed.

4. i realize you’re young, so i’m genuinely hoping you use this opportunity to learn and grow andbe a little more mindful the next time you decide to tweet.]

The next twenty minutes were pure chaos. Justin deactivated again, everyone started freaking out because that was very out of character for him. People were cancelling him because this could have easily been resolved in DMs, or tweeted without the mention of Anna (a minor) from a mainstream Twitter account.

And then, Justin Min DMed another fan on Instagram (her name is Em) about the situation.

Who is Em? For starters, I’d like to say that I personally know Em and that she’s one of my best friends. I’ve known her for more than a year now, and I can personally vouch for her. Everything that she posted is 100% true (if you want the thread where she posts proof of the DMs, please send me a different ask because I’m scared tumblr will not post this in the tag if I include it here).

The reason Justin DMed her out of all people is because he also kinda knows her? As I mentioned, Justin interacts with us on Twitter a lot, and Em is the one person he’s responded to the most, so he knows who she is. (He’s tagged her more times than other cast members, at least before all his tweets were deleted by his PR team.)

Anyway, this is what Em tweeted:

[id: Em’s tweets: please read this !!!

justin dmed me on instagram and basically the gist of it is that he hired a pr team and they tweeted the thread at anna without knowing everyone could see it. all of the tweets being deleted/ him deactivating was also them.]

Below is the image Em attached to the tweet:

[id: Justin’s DM to Em: hey. this is justin. i’m just hearing about what’s happening on twitter right now. for context, i was asked to work with a team of people to “clean up” my twitter in the past few weeks. they’ve taken the liberty of deleting a bunch of my responses and posts in order to safeguard me (whatever that means) as well as deactivating my account to comb through other things.i believe they accidentally sent anna a message and mistakenly believed the function for her to comment only would mean that she would be the only one to see it as well. needless to say, i’m no longer working with this team and want to personally apologize to her. do you know any way i can get into contact with her?]

And then, in a follow-up tweet:

[id: Em’s text at Justin: sorry for dming you again. is there any other way i can help? i just feel really bad about this whole thing and i know how quickly this stuff can spread if it’s not taken care of

Justin’s text: i mean, i guess you can share the information i’ve given you? it’ll take a bit of time for me to take back ownership on everything as i sever ties with that team, so maybe the sooner the better people know.

Em’s text: okay ! is it okay if i tweet a screenshot

Justin’s text: sure.]

Then Justin’s account got reactivated an hour ago (almost 24hs after Em’s tweets), and he tweeted this:

[id: Justin’s tweet: hi. it’s me. thank you for all your messages. this has been an incredibly tough week for me on multiple fronts. some things you might already be aware of; many other things you don’t know about.asking for a bit of privacy as i take sometime to unplug. hoping to be back soon.]

And that’s all, I think? There’s lots we don’t know about what happened yet, so please please please try not to spread misinformation. This is a stressful situation for us on Twitter, and especially for Justin, and misinformation going around is the last thing we need right now.

tl;dr: Justin Min hired a PR Team that started deleting all of his tweets and deactivated his account. Misinformation started spreading, people started cancelling Justin for no reason. The PR Team decided to respond to Anna, made the response public, deactivated again. Justin DMed Em and explained the situation, and an hour ago, he reactivated and said he’s taking a small break to sort things out.

If anyone has any other questions/clarifications, my askbox is open! Hope this shed some light on the situation <3

UPDATE 28/9/2020: Justin has DMed and apologised to Anna for the situation, and Anna has accepted the apology. Anna posted all of it on their account, but again, if you want a link, send me an ask!

#im gonna go to bed now so ill respond to any follow-up asks tomorrow #i hope this made sense #ask #anon #evelina nonesense #the umbrella academy #tua #tua cast #justin min #justin h min #justin h. min #ben #ben hargreeves #tua ben #the horror #tw: drama

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selfship-pride · 4 years ago

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Pride Parade Spotlight: Mothblush!

Our first spotlight post is going to Tumblr user @mothblush ! They are a nonbinary artist and writer here in the community with a fun and innovative artstyle (their art above can be found here!) They’re also a big fan of video games and crocheting (the happy creator of 2 blankets and a hat no less!)

Moth is a friendly and open minded individual with lots of love to give! They said that their work is always LGBT+ friendly while being especially Trans positive!! They encourage more trans representation in media and hope that with their work they can bring more light into the lives of trans people by creating and supporting them, even if they’re just one person! Way to go, Moth!! You’ve brightened my day already!

Under the cut is an interview I had with Moth about their ships and any advice that had to give! Check it out!

What does pride mean for you and your F/Os?

Moth: “Pride for me and my F/Os means self-expression and positivity. It's important to remember the roots of pride and where it came from, but the fact that it's evolved into people celebrating and being proud of themselves speaks to me. While we understand in real life that LGBT people are marginalized, we still have the courage to come forward and be proud of who we are. I think that's huge. I think seeing LGBT selfshippers in the community is super important, because it brings us together as a group with solidarity. I at first felt pretty alone before seeing and meeting other LGBT selfshippers, so I speak from that experience! And the fact that everyone has been so supportive of my ships and content is something I will always thank my lucky stars for. My main F/Os are LGBT as well! All of their relationships paired with my S/I or OCs are unique in their own way. I always want to portray happy, healthy LGBT relationships. I personally feel like there's not enough of that. Kabuki is Pansexual, shipped with my S/I Moth who is nonbinary and bisexual. Jumba is a bisexual, transgender (trans man), polyamorous Pleakley is nonbinary & questioning/still unsure. Both (Jumba and Pleakly) are shipped with my OC Jackson who is nonbinary and genderfluid. The alien trio are all polyamorous! Since they're aliens I don't think they'd conform to human standards! Piers: Gay, and shipped with my OC Ridley, who is a trans man.“

Oh I think that’s wonderful! Poly pride! In your polyship, what is the dynamic like for all of you? Must be exciting to be living with those two!

Moth: “It’s a pretty good dynamic! Jackson comes from a world that’s unfamiliar with the technology available on the planets their S/Os are from. They’ve had to learn a LOT of things, but thankfully both have been extremely patient and helpful. It definitely was a culture shock, but any obstacle in their relationship has been handled with grace.

At home the three of them love to relax; sometimes together, sometimes separately. When you have a trio of introverts sometimes the three of them just need to have their me time and recharge!

There’s a lot of love, respect, and understanding in their polyam relationship, and boundaries are seen as priority. Communication is key. The best way I can describe it is the buddy system, but with three- so they’re a team. It’s worked out for the three of them so far and they’re living that happy domestic life we all dream about. 💕 (Sometimes Jumba and Jackson debate about ridiculous things, though. They made him extremely riled up when they claimed a fish fully submerged underwater isn’t considered “wet.”)

That sounds like a healthy and nice dynamic to have with loved ones! You're a lucky one!!!

Moth: “Yeah! For clarification though, Jackson's just an OC I project traits and desires into, same with Ridley. Moth is definitely the closest thing to an S/I, but moreso in personality! I also think it's just less confusing than shipping one character with ALL of my F/Os, haha. Though Jackson DID start off as an S/I, their appearance and character changed enough over the years to evolve into their own character!”

It sounds like you have a healthy understanding of yourself and your F/Os!! Do you have any advice for any LGBT+ selfshippers who are going through a rough time or are struggling with their sexuality/identity?

Moth: “ Thanks! And my advice to LGBT+ selfshippers, especially in their youth: You don't have to come out if you're not ready, but remember that you're still loved regardless. In your darkest hours, remember there are people who will love and support you for who you are. It sounds cliche, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It's also okay to put your safety first. Whether or not you're out and a member of the selfship community, as an LGBT+ selfshipper, I will ALWAYS support you and welcome you with open arms. If you ever need solidarity, I'm with you- I hear you, I see you, and even if I don't fully understand you, know that I empathize and will do my best to listen. Do not feel ashamed for being you. It is not wrong or abnormal, and to come out and share who you are with the world is an incredible act of bravery that many of us under the LGBT+ umbrella will love and support you for. No matter what the world says, we are an incredible, diverse group of individuals whose love shines brighter than any star. And of course: Your F/Os love you for you. They would never judge you or think of you any differently, and they would be ecstatic and over the moon to support you, and flattered beyond belief that you trusted them with something so personal and meaningful to you.”

WELL SAID!!! I think your words will really move some people and make them feel welcome to be themselves. Do you have anything else you'd like to add before we bring the interview to an end?

Moth: “Thank you so much, I'm so glad to hear that!! I'm glad to offer great words of comfort and support to the community. Anything else... well, shameless self promotion, follow me! I talk about Crossing Animals and Gay Aliens a lot. However I'd also like to give a shoutout to my friend @shinobishiba for being my biggest cheerleader and supporter in this community. I'm so glad to call them my friend! (And they are also LGBT and an extremely talented artist, so check them out!!)”

BIG thank you to Moth for sharing their 2 cents with us today and giving us some of their insight! They were a phenomenal first guest for the pride parade and I look forward to promoting more and more LGBT+ friends across the community! Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next spotlight!

#pride parade spotlight #mothblush #self ship pride #lgbt pride #THANK YOU SO MUCH TO MOTH!

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rosalesbeausderholle · 4 years ago

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I get why we (lesbians) are distrustful because the lesbophobia on all sides is off the fucking walls and you never know who might say what and getting caught off guard by people who you thought actually accepted you and were on your side hurts a lot. But the healthy response to that is not "well person of X sexuality said something mean about lesbians/did something awful so that means I can never ever trust people of X sexuality again" (or people of your own sexuality who had different experiences than you). Simply put, that's just... it's not healthy. It's never good to generalize but in this case it's simply not healthy mentally, because if you approach the great majority of people with distrust and then immediately write off anyone who you thought was on good terms with you because they share something in common with someone who hurt you, if you go through life like that, who are you going to be able to trust, at the end of the day?

And no, by "trust" I don't mean "have to date", I don't even mean "have to be best friends with". By "trust" I mean "not completely write off a person who just happens to have something in common to someone else who hurt you" and not going "all [bi women/gold stars/non-gold stars/lesbians who had X bad experience] are bad/mean/paranoid/liars/lesbophobes and I can't trust them!" because there's people within those categories who will certainly have done/said bad things, there will be people within those categories who will be bad people. But there will also be people within those categories who are people who you might completely be able to get along with so just immediately expecting them to do you wrong is neither good for you (it's mentally exhausting) or for them (might make you offend them or get into fights with them for no reason whatsoever).

I talked about this with my therapist, how I've felt very betrayed by the lgbt community as a whole due to their homophobia, because one of my hang ups is the idea that I need a group in which I belong, with people who accept me and love me just as I am (which, in my damaged mind, "normal" people can't do). And I thought the community was that group, and so what they did was the ultimate betrayal.

In a way, I was right, some parts of the community have hurt lesbians and gay men. Very badly. But if I were to write off everyone who belongs to the community because of that? I'd have literally two straight friends and no one else lmao. So what I do is to not look at things on a community level but on an individual basis level. I have friends who aren't homophobic towards me, but who have different beliefs on gender than I do, I have a friend who identifies as asexual, who I disagree with on some topics, but with whom I have a relationship built on mutual respect, I have other lesbian friends, and bi friends, all with different experiences and point of view, some who I agree with completely, others not with everything. I still don't really consider myself a part of The Community (I am part of it, demographically speaking, because I'm still an L. I just don't make it a huge part of my life to be involved in orgs and stuff for obvious reasons) and I set my own personal boundaries over what lines people who I'd like to have for friends and potential partners can't cross because it would break my trust in them (and they supposedly have the same with the people they relate to, because setting boundaries in interpersonal relationships is healthy and necessary).

So yes, set those boundaries, but setting boundaries doesn't have to mean building an inherent distrust and dislike to every single person who's not exactly like you. We have to be willing to give people chances (again, I stress, not to date them or even be their friend, simply in a "respect each other on a basic level" way) while also holding onto the boundaries we've set for our own protection, simply because building yourself into a fit of paranoia about the ways in which everyone else could hurt you is not healthy for you.

#mental health #and fhis my friends is radblr's n1 problem #problems with relating to each other in a normal way #which i get so many of us are damaged i did almost completely isolate myself for the better part of my teenage years #because of severe bullying and being scared that people would hurt me again #it lead to being suicidal #we need healthy interpersonal connections and we can't do that if we're holding everyone accountable for wrongs someone else committed

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theamateurblogger · 5 years ago

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Hewwo I love your stuff. Can you do a male s/o with all them slasher boys. Hcs but if you want you can do like, Tommy for a one shot. Idc if its sfw or nsfw

Thank you!!! I hope you like this!!!

Otis Driftwood

Otis is a thirsty ass fucker, not gonna lie

From an outside perspective, it would be easy to assume that he’s only with you for the sex

But let’s be real, if he wanted just sex, he would’ve stuck to his corpses

He loves you, whether he wants to admit it out loud or not

Constantly has his arm around you or touching you in some way

Just a way to stake a claim around others (and to prevent you from running)

But deeeeep down, he does it to make sure you’re okay

Always has to keep you in his sights “to make sure you don’t do something stupid” (like run)

Hugggge exhibitionist

Seriously. It’s an issue. So, you’ll need to get real comfortable around the rest of the family

Chop Top

Chop Top is an actual dream to be in a relationship with

Plenty of arguments about who has better music taste and who gets to pick the playlist/radio station

Out of everyone on this list, he’d be the most likely to propose

He’d want a full on wedding with the family watching and victims’ bones used as decor

Kind of a traditional guy (besides the whole cannibalistic and maniacal tendencies ya know)

So expect some hesitancy from him to get serious with you

His knowledge of the LGBT+ community is very slim

But let’s be real, he had some fun with his fellow soldiers during his time in the war

When he does give in to his love for you, he is absolutely obsessed with you

He’d tell victims stories about you and compare everything to you and things you do

He likes your ass

A lot.

Expect to have it groped, slapped, and ogled at constantly

Would probably be super into roleplay (*cough* the Sonny wig *cough*)

He’s not good at it.

Michael Myers

Michael is…Michael?

You’ll be pretty confused with this guy

He just keeps following you around and you’re not dead yet???

You become more comfortable around each other and it just turns into comfortable silence and occasional situations where you need to ask him to hand you something

You’ll have to be the first one to initiate sex

It’ll be very awkward at first because you’ll have no fucking clue whether or not he’s even into it so you’ll just stop and walk away

And he kind of just doesn’t acknowledge any of what happened??? For like a week???

You’re aggravated and confused. (Told ya)

It takes you both a long time to navigate through your relationship

It doesn’t help that you can’t just…talk it out?

It’s all trial and error, but eventually you have a pretty domesticated relationship

He’s like a cat that is gone all day but comes home to you when he wants a nap

Freddy Krueger

Much like Otis, Freddy is a nasty fuck

And it would be hard for me to believe that your relationship isn’t prodominately about sex

We all know the backstory of Fredster and he’s not afraid to take what he wants

Very little boundaries

He’d go after nearly anyone who you come into contact with

It’s like a game to him

You’d honestly have to be just as batshit crazy as this guy

He really appreciates the element of surprise

Taking a bath? Now, you’re getting raw dogged at 3am, water splashing out of the tub

Trying to take an exam or you’re waiting in line at the DMV? He’s fucking with your mind the entire time

Walking down the hallway, trying to get a glass of water? BOO! Now he’s laughing his ass off at how much of a pussy you are

Charles Lee Ray/Chucky

Chucky is genuinely kind of an asshole

And I don’t think you’d change that

Buuuuut, that’s kind of what attracts most people to him right?

He’s kind of new to these feelings toward you

And it really fucks with his ego

Internalized homophobia anyone?

It’ll take time and patience for this guy

But I think it’ll be worth it in the end

He’d steal you all kinds of cool stuff

Plus, Chuck’s a total switch and I think it’d be fun to finally take him down a peg in the bedroom

Bubba Sawyer

Such a sweet baby

Please don’t ever hurt him

Bubba would bring you flowers and little trinkets he made from bone constantly

When he first meets you and wants to impress you, he makes sure to fix up his mask realll nice with his favorite lipstick and wears his best clothes

Even now that you’re his, he still just wants to make you happy and make sure that you know he’s putting in effort because he cares ya know?

Constantly needs reassurance from you

As much as he likes giving you affection and gifts, he nearly cries when you do those things for him!!!

Please spoil that man!

Loooves listening to music! Chop Top, Bubba, and you almost always spend your nights together listening to the radio

From everything I’ve read online as well as some choice scenes from the movies, I’m a full believer in the fact that not only is Bubba 100% pan and open to alllll kinds of lovin’, but he also has the biggest oral fixation known to mankind!!!

Thomas Hewitt

Thomas is a very different man than Bubba

He’s more rough with you and has full knowledge of what he’s doing

Definitely knows his size and will pick you up whenever he pleases

At the end of the day, he makes the rules

Doesn’t mean you can’t persuade him to do things that you want to do though

You’ll just have to make it up to him so he won’t be in a foul mood

Is a bit awkward with things

Especially around his family

I’ve said this already but Thomas definitely grabs things off of victims that he thinks you’d like!!!

Will probably try to wrap the items up! Will probably fail!

Nubbins Sawyer

Nubbins is such a cutie!!!

He loves you so much

I’ve said this before too, but Nubbins would definitely have a box full of photos he took of his S/O

He treasures them the absolute most

You know those little cute polaroid walls? He def has one of pictures of you and him

He’s also the most likely out of all the slashers to have a Pride flag hung up

He’s also an absolute handful.

Expect to wake up alone pretty often, because this dude just wants to take impromptu trips throughout Texas allllll the time

Sometimes you go with though

As he picks up cool roadkill from the side of the road, you pick up cool plants and maybe a lizard

As far as sex goes, he’s an absolute goof

He’s just so excited to have someone who wants to do these things with him

Lots of laughter

The Collector

Definitely a bit of a strange one

Literally. Stranger danger.

He first met you at a wildlife museum

And he just kept following you around

He even started targeting people that looked like you?

He just wanted the body parts to add to his collection

Without having to ruin the original

Eventually, he would kidnap you and lock you in his own personal “museum”

He’d show you his pieces every time he completed one

He’d bring you your favorite foods though which is nice

Then he’d watch you from the security cam he set up in your room

Brahms Heelshire

Such a needy boi

He likes to watch you

Secretively, in the walls

Orrr just sitting across from you, cross legged

You could be changing or you could be reading/watching TV

It doesn’t matter.

He’s always so infatuated by you

I really wish I could get behind the idea that Brahms is a huge sub and would call you daddy

But I just can’t???

He likes to have control.

There’s no way he’d want to give that up

You essentially have to trick him into doing anything around the house

So enjoy being his slave

The Other

I guess this kind of depends on how far your relationship has been established

You probably started off as neighbors or maybe just acquaintances that ran into each other at the grocery story every once in awhile

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that he appreciates a good age gap and has more than enough experience with the opposite sex *wink*

def a bi boi

His attraction to you didn’t go far beyond sexual at first, but then he seen how well you interacted with his daughter and that’s what broke him

I swear it’s like he has two personalities

When he’s out with you and your guys’ daughter, he’s a typical suburban husband/dad

Has a retirement plan, pays the bills, works his ass off in an average blue collar job, drinks beer with the bois and complains about your nagging

Also brags about how good you are to him and has no shame in his game

Purely domestic

But then??? When it’s just you two, it’s like a switch goes off where he doesn’t need to put on the act

He controls every aspect of you and your body; much like Brahms, he won’t be able to give up his control

He’s an absolute dom

Christian Grey ain’t got shit on what’s in his garage.

#slashers headcanons #slashers x reader #slashers #brahms heelshire x reader #the collector x reader #The Other x reader #bubba x reader #thomas hewitt x reader #leatherface x reader #otis driftwood x reader #freddy krueger x reader #michael myers x reader #chucky x reader #chop top x reader #nubbins x reader

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buzzdixonwriter · 4 years ago

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Closing The Window

In the aftermath of the election, I think there’s a major lesson for the entire country to learn with two big offshoot lessons, one for each party.

I think very few people voted for Joe Biden this year.

I think a lot more people voted for Donald Trump.

But I think there was one helluva larger number who voted against Trump than voted against Biden.

Catch my drift?

THE BIG LESSON:

Americans by and large are centrists.

They do not want their daily lives disrupted.

They resist change, but once change occurs and they see how little effect it has on their daily lives -- viz women voting, civil rights, LGBT+ rights, etc. -- they accept it and roll on.

Americans actively seek change only when something is going Very, Very Wrong.

Trump trailed in the popular vote in 2016 because most people correctly read his character: Shallow, impulsive, self-centered.

They recognized he lacked both the temperament and the discipline to effectively lead a nation of 323 million people in a world facing rapid social, political, and climate change.

The next three years bore this out repeatedly, yet Trump managed to hold on despite his bunglings and betrayals simply by not adversely affecting the daily lives of the large minority who voted for him.

Trump’s base can most charitably be described as people anxious about their position in America, and Trump -- to no one’s great surprise, not even those who voted for him -- simply lied and promised to make everything better even though he lacked any clear plan for doing so, much less the actual talent and ability to follow through on his promises.

And for three years, it didn’t matter.

While others could see the great harm he inflicted upon America’s long term interests, by and large he let his base feel they were no longer slipping in their standing, that their lives were stabilized and ripe for improvement.

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

To be 100% fair to Donald Trump, he neither created the pandemic nor could he stop it from eventually reaching America.

But he could have followed the effective pandemic response plan put in place by GWBush.

Doing so would have disrupted Americans’ daily lives, to be sure, but could be offset by the truthful claim it prevented an even greater disruption.

Most importantly, instead of nearly a quarter million dead Americans as of this posting, the fatality rate would be only in the tens of thousands.

If Trump followed the pandemic response plan, he would have cruised to an easy re-election victory.

But as anyone who observes him knows, he is incapable of the foresight and discipline needed to serve his own best interests.

Biden didn’t need to be better than Trump to beat him.

All he needed was to be “not Trump”.

This is why Biden didn’t have any coattails in this election.

The Democratic Party’s lesson:

Right now, America wants stability.

Trump’s cheesy theatrics aside, until 2020 he didn’t disrupt the average American’s life.

The bad things he stirred up were by and large just continuations of already existing bad situations, not new problems.

And yes, those already suffering from those situations continued suffering, and in many cases it grew worse, but it was not a new thing.

This doesn’t minimize or mitigate their suffering, it simply marks it was not a radical change from the status quo.

But killing a quarter million people through deliberate lies and bungling, then seeing the nation’s economy go into the dumpster due to lack of a coherent national response to the pandemic?

That disrupted a lot of people’s lives.

Right now the best thing the Democratic Party can do is create a semblance of order and stability in the face of the pandemic.

It won’t be easy, but it can be done.

The Republicans will try to paint them as radical leftists determined to undermine everything that makes America great.

This is because the far right in America has spent decades trying to shove the Overton window further and further to the right.

The GOP’s problem is this: They engage in magical thinking, presuming that if they wish for something rilly rilly hard enough, they can make it a reality.

The truth is the Overton window is not a rigid frame that can be repositioned but a stretchable boundary.

The reality of what the populace wants will not move greatly from its fixed cultural point.

And for the overwhelming majority of Americans that fixed cultural point means some form of health care available to all that doesn’t render people destitute if they get ill, some sort of social safety net for the elderly and those who want to work but can’t find employment, an environment as clean and as safe as possible to live in, and the freedom to live their daily lives unmolested so long as they show the same courtesy to others.

These are all things the GOP claims represent progressive radical socialist COMMUNIST ideas.

That’s a lie, of course.

But today’s GOP leadership is nothing if not disciples of Josef Goebbels.

The Democratic Party must not rise to the bait.

The Democratic Party must present the political desires of the majority of Americans as what it is: Reasonable and sane centrist policies.

It will be difficult, because the GOP will continue lying, and will be quick to blame every setback and mistake as a grievous failing of the Democrats, but success will lay in embracing those centrist values and making the Overton window snap back to its real position.

And the leftists and radicals in the party who chomp at the bit to push things really further to the left?

Just getting back to a true centrist position is going to address most of their concerns.

The Republican Party’s lesson:

There’s enormous potential for conservative gains among American minority groups.

Case in point: Crime-plagued communities want effective law enforcement.

They do not want a police force that acts like an occupying army, treating every member of the community as a criminal suspect.

Learn that lesson, and you’ll peel off huge numbers of Democratic voters.

Right now the GOP thinks it holds the American center.

It doesn’t.

It holds a reverse Venn diagram, a wide circle that goes around the center but doesn’t truly occupy it.

It holds a few extremely wealthy plutocrats concerned only with making more money -- and keeping more of what they make, as well.

It holds so called “conservatives” who are so ultra-right wing as to shoot right off the scale of libertarianism and plunge into virtual anarchy -- only they lack the self-awareness to acknowledge that,

It holds a rapidly shrinking organized religion contingent that is rapidly losing members to uncommitted centrists or the new burgeoning pseudo religion of conspiracy fanatics.

It holds an increasingly aging and rapidly dying generation of mostly white voters who feel threatened by the inevitable change going on around them, and cling to any false promise that the America of their perceived fondly remembered childhoods can be restored.

It holds bona fide hate-mongers and bigots of a wide variety, all of them itching to inflict harm on groups and genders they don’t like and not particular about what policies are used to do so.

This is not the healthy formula for a long lived viable political party.

America can benefit greatly from a real conservative party, one that acts with fiscal responsibility and tries to preserve everyone’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It can’t benefit from the GOP as it’s currently constituted.

For the GOP to thrive in the remaining years of the 21st century, it needs to regain the ability to compromise and when necessary, embrace change.

It’s about to find itself outside a window that’s about to snap back to the middle, and if it’s not already there when the snap occurs, it’s going to have a hard time getting back in.

#politics #election

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wosoenthusiast · 4 years ago

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Webinar: Celebrating LGBT+ Inclusion at Chelsea

I know this event was not recorded so here are some notes from the “Celebrating LGBT+ Inclusion at Chelsea” webinar. Please note: these are NOT direct quotes!! I didn’t start taking super detailed notes until a few minutes into the panel, sorry about that. And I did a quick read through but I apologize for any typos or grammatical errors.

The panel included Chris Gibbons (moderator), Pernille Harder, Sara Matthews, Graeme Le Saux, and Funke Awoderu

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Chris: introduced each panelist and talked a little about rainbow laces

Graeme: (general point: we’ve made a lot of progress in the last 5-10 years, especially since I retired. Sorry, I wasn’t taking as detailed notes right at first)

Funke: (general point: Authentic support is so important.)

Sara: Sport brings people together. Chelsea is a brand with international following and a huge platform. Zero tolerance policy for a long time, internal and external. Demonstrating by doing not just by saying. Want to understand their demographic, look at areas where they are less diverse and how to address that. Look at who works in football, show a different type of recruitment.

Chris: I was nervous about being an out gay man coming into working at the FA. I asked in my interview about whether it was an open environment for a gay man and got a very thorough answer about anti-discrimination policies. Has that developed?

Funke: Yes, if you can’t see it, you can’t be it. Data tells us something. Use it well to inform you plans. Proud of the LGBTQ+ people in the FA and their contributions. Don’t want to put people in boxes so we are trying to build a progressive, diverse environment. Learn from others and people’s lived experiences. Listen to the stories people tell. We’re on the right road. If you can’t see it, you can’t be it. And it needs to happen on the leadership level.

Chris: Welcome to Chelsea, Pernille. I want to understand your experience of culture in the women’s game- previous clubs, international, and now being new to Chelsea. Women’s game is known for being open. What are your thoughts/experiences?

Pernille: Women’s’ football has always been open about homosexuality. Locker room and fans are very open. In Denmark environment- I wasn’t out, not comfortable. No one else was homosexual. It’s important that you don’t feel alone. I felt a difference right away when I came to Sweden, it was so normalized. I felt I could be myself which is the most important thing.

Graeme: I agree so much. If you feel you’re isolated, it stops you being yourself and others being themselves too. Infrastructure and support and work being done outside the game holding football accountable. Learning from other environments that are further ahead in inclusivity. Pernille, I’m curious, do you think not being out in Denmark held you back?

Pernille: It might, I didn’t think about it at the time. [After coming out], I felt more calm and secure and like I could be 100% self. I felt more honest with myself. It feels better when you trust yourself and what you’re doing. It reflects when you play too.

Chris: Where does it come from? Fans, locker room, Chelsea? What creates a positive, inclusive environment?

P: All individuals are open minded. No one uses sexuality or religion in a negative way. Comes from teammates, staff, everything around you. [It’s important that] the highest leaders in the club are inclusive, affects everyone underneath and what values to act from.

Sara: Reading on stonewalls website 43% of LGBTQ+ people don’t feel welcome at public events (not sure about this stat), such a shame. Being at Kingsmeadow, wow, what a different number that would be. A great place to come enjoy sport and feel very welcome and be a positive perception change.

Chris: We have lots of women’s team fans with us. Go to Chelsea women’s games!! (Mentions Chelsea Pride group and a few other groups and initiatives.) Graeme, why is a group like this so important? Why did you want to be a patron?

Graeme: To get honest feedback from people, get perspectives. Groups of different communities and perspectives are so important. They are a signpost for people who don’t have the confidence or support around them in their own lives. Can help people get into watching football and know that it’s a safe space. Every space should be safe of course, which is the next chapter- people don’t have to work under and umbrella to feel safe and welcome. It’s all built on trust and openness. Willingness to admit you might not get everything right all the time.

Chris: Pernille, you haven’t had much chance to engage with fans at Kingsmeadow, but why do you think these groups are important?

P: It’s important to feel a part of something and not alone. Groups like that help with this. Yesterday, we finally had fans back, 700 I think. I can’t wait to get more. In women’s football, fans love football, they don’t care who you are- sexuality, skin color.

Chris: Funke mentioned before the diversity of LGBTQ+. Trans people still feel a lot of barriers in taking part in sport. In 2014, the FA published policy on trans participation. Do you think football is becoming more inclusive for trans people?

Funke: This is one area that the whole game needs to collaborate better. LGBTQ+ identities are all lumped together right now. Lots of differences in LGBTQ+ community that we’re not considering, more conversations around gender identity, inclusion, education- we need to do the work around the journey for LGB work and apply it to trans inclusion. Now more than ever. There’s so much toxicity and miseducation. If we’re true to ‘the game is for everybody’, we can’t leave trans community behind. To come out as trans is not an easy thing to do, LGB people can pass but trans people sometimes cannot. Educate ourselves, use that to inform policy

Chris: How does that reflect what clubs are doing?

Sara: On the subject of intersectionality- we have to be honest. The data we have today is very recent. People are reluctant to report honestly, there may be fear. From an employer of choice perspective and perception- it’s about fairness, change the stereotype (like who works in football). We’re talking about diversity and inclusion every day. Huge range of departments which means you can bring in a huge range of people with different skills and experiences. You can create a different culture for the organization. Starts at recruitment, put forward the culture of the organization. When she sits in interviews, people ask about DEI, sustainability, corporate social responsibility. People expect their organization to have a narrative and verbalize what they think and feel about discrimination. Chelsea has stepped forward and said zero tolerance but message needs to be confirmed internally. Much more to be done. Education and information- it was not too long ago when women weren’t prevalent in the workforce, but it’s changed. Change happens fast. Lots of new and different people entering the workforce. Listen to people with different perspectives and points of view. We can create a better employee environment by making it so no one is ‘the other’, which comes with diversity

Chris: People have seen news about fans booing when people kneel and other negative reaction and that’s what sticks. What more needs to be done to tackle culture of hate in the stands? ..... Pernille, do you hear much discriminatory language in the stands at women’s game? What’s your experience?

P: No, fan culture is very different in men’s and women’s football. Men’s football is so big so there are a lot of different football fans. It’s difficult to say what to do to change it. It’s important to do something and act. Responsibility of players and other fans- trying to create a different fan culture. Standing up when you hear something. Players need to be stubborn and must stand up for each other.

Chris: Do you think if there was abuse, the response form the women’s game would be robust and quick? More solidarity [than in men’s football]?

P: I don’t know because I haven’t experienced it. I guess so

Graeme: It’s great that you haven’t experienced that. That’s a really big plus.

Chris: Chelsea was the first club to introduce fan re-education (like if a fan was banned for certain language anti-Semitism, they’d have a chance to learn more about why that language was not acceptable). Player re-education exists. How do we get fans to understand this better?

Graeme: It’s important to understand context of where it’s coming from, help someone overcome prejudice by learning something new. Doesn’t send out the right message to just throw someone out. There are a lot of things we grow up with contribute to this ignorance, so figure out where it’s coming from. Set boundaries of what we will and won’t tolerate. Give people a chance to own up to their mistakes. I’ve made some big mistakes in my career and been punished. I was taught to be honest, deal with consequences, and move on. That might remove external pressure. Make transition a bit smoother [as football moves forward], bring more people along

Chris: Funke’s been involved with the Rainbow laces campaign since early days. What impact do you think it has on the pro and grassroots game?

Funke: Immeasurable impact. Every start of the campaign gets better and better with the amount of support. It connect with adult and youth football. People love what the campaign stands for and want to get behind it and support it. Normalizing the playing field, this is a great opportunity to demonstrate the values and culture of your club. Challenge: how to continue to innovate and be creative in conversations and take it to the next level. It continues to grow and grow. More and more, people are taking a personal stand and educating themselves. Campaign has been a success but we won’t rest on our laurels. We must continue.

Chris: I tell youth players about the rainbow laces campaign and they sort of roll their eyes because they learn about and talk about this in school (and with their peers). The culture moving forward will be much more inclusive with the next generation of players. Do you think this will happen in clubs? (I didn’t quite catch this question but I think this is what he asked)

Sara: Yes. People wanted to be associated and show support, bummer we aren’t working at Stamford bridge in person. The next generation is going to be so important. There’s a lot of hate, and standing up against all of is important. People do want to learn- the more you learn, the less afraid you are to ask questions. People are still afraid of offending sometimes too but we’re moving toward really celebrating difference.

Chris: (reads a submitted question out loud about how Pernille is a role model and inspired this person to come out and be themselves) Pernille, how does it feel to be a role model for LGBTQ+ people, not only in sport?

Pernille: It’s great to hear this question. When I was younger, I missed some role models who were homosexual. I try to live as if it’s nothing special. I’m just myself, not hiding anything. That means showing pictures with my girlfriend and just acting normally. I don’t want to do something that doesn’t feel genuine. A lot of people like that I’m just myself and not embarrassed [about being homosexual].

Chris: There are people out there that think you’re a role model too, Graeme. Do you have a sense of the importance of role models?

Graeme: Once you have a profile, you recognize responsibilities associated with that. Whether you like it or not, you become a role model. None of us set out to be a role model. If you take money from sponsors because they think you can sell the product, you should be happy to be a role model, comes with the territory. Some people are more suited to that so it’s important to not hold people to go beyond their comfort. I take great pride in my ability to support things I believe in. I support in public and private and I don’t share everything about myself in public. Stand up and support values and principles, even when it’s not related to me. I was very alone in experience of defending myself [from rumors of being gay] while supporting people around me. It’s a big challenge in many ways. I will always do what I do out of principle. With a profile, you can reach more people.

Chris: Another question for Sara and Funke- what is the club’s response to supporters who have troll comments on rainbow laces posts? Should the club work harder to block and remove those comments?

Sara: The club won’t be dissuaded from doing the right thing. Follow discrimination laws- we will support and take action. Block and report when they can on social media. We do see other people who are posting challenge those comments. Those are important parts, have to work with social media companies, it’s not just trolling in football. Social media companies have to help as well to help manage this

Funke: Any organization driven by principles and values, there will always be haters sharing their view. We take the same measures that Sara just said. Year to year, the ecosystem conversation, calling people out, challenging people back. We know those comments will come. Work with social media companies to have more coordinated effort to take things down. Threshold for football is higher compared to those organizations [social media companies], makes it challenging to take things down immediately

Chris: Graeme and Pernille, do you deal with trolls?

P: yes, there are a few. There will always be haters, especially when you speak up about your opinion. I mostly ignore them and focus on the positive. More positive than negative, positive people will comment on the negative which is amazing

G: yes, I do. I don’t like to give those people oxygen. As soon as you start engaging, you risk it escalating. Turn to social media companies for support too.

Chris: That’s the end of the hour, thanks all for your time! I’m so looking forward to where these conversations will go in the future.

#chelsea #pernille harder #LGBT+ inclusion #chelsea fc #graeme le saux #the fa

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herefortheace · 6 years ago

Text

Masterpost: People in “Ace Discourse” DO Hate Aces and Aros

And it’s despicable and scary and it needs to stop.

I’ve made most of this post before, but I’m creating a new one because 1) I didn’t expect how long it would get and failed to include a by now much needed “read more” at any point and 2) tumblr won’t let me update the old post anymore via reblogging.

So before I copy the old links and add new ones, a not so brief explanation of why this is necessary.

People, for some reason, after years of blatant evidence to the contrary still claim “ace discourse” has NOTHING to do with anyone hating aces and aros, that not even a single person involved (or anywhere) does. By blatant evidence for people here hating aces and aros, I mean everything from pathologizing our identities to comparing us all to violent misogynists and white supremacists to wishing harm and death on us. Yet the anti-ace/aro crowd will claim we’re just making it all up because we’re hysterical liars who “wanna be oppressed”. It’s a blatant and nasty silencing tactic, but sadly not ineffective because people fall for that shit.

Which is why I originally made this post and am now making it again.

A too influential bunch of people on this site have spun a wild narrative wherein aces and aros are this super privileged group of people who essentially can’t be harmed and whom it’s therefore funny to treat like shit. They also act, over and over, as though asexuality and aromanticsm are some sort of evil idoelogy rather than minority orientations.

A lot of us - most of us I see around - belong to various oppressed groups, but the anti-ace/aro crowd has worked hard to erase that, because it becomes very obvious very fast that it’s not funny to sexualize aces and aros or compare us to Trump or claim our orientations give us an “oppression fetish” when you keep in mind who exactly they are saying it to (I’ve spoken at length about the anti-ace/aro crowd’s efforts to erase aces and aros of color and how they make me furious as a WoC here, but you’ll find plenty proof among the links below). This is not just incredible bullshit, but harms especially the most marginalized of us.

As does the more general willingness of the anti-ace/aro crowd to throw misogyny, racism, ableism and all sorts of bigotry around as a weapon against us. A ton of the links here contain some seriously dehumanizing shit.

Whatever else you may believe, asexuality and aromanticism as identities do not confer any social privilege and do not make people impervious to or deserving of harm. And frankly I should not need to say this.

But apparently I do, and I also (after all this time still) need to prove we’re not just making it all up for attention or to trick people, so here we go. I’m mostly copying the old parts (1-8) of the list as-is because I don’t have time for anything else. Also, while my point definitely isn’t that every single person involved loathes aces and aros, this crap didn’t suddenly come into an already existing “ace discourse” (by that name) either - it’s a huge part of how it got started and was a deliberate move by many to make it gain traction.

This is by no means a complete list, but the shit the anti-ace/aro crowd on this site has pulled includes:

Comparing aces and aros to Trump (and pretending this is funny)

Comparing aces to Pence

Comparing aces to Ronald Reagan (and pretending this is funny)

Comparing aces to a literal slave owner

Making fun of aces not being accepted by their parents and of aces finding this upsetting (making it into a crytyping “joke”)

Making aces feel shitty/shaming them for telling their parents they’re ace because it’s supposedly “unnecessary”

Saying if we tell family about being ace, it’s no wonder if they send us to therapy

Doing their best to sexualize the orientations of aces, in so many cases. The link before these two is also connected to that. They treat our orientations like (graphic) details about “our sex lives”, frequently acting like if we want to talk about them ever we’re gross/creepy

This one is also “nice” re sexualizing aces (one of many examples of ppl also engaging in sex-shaming while they’re at it, saying only one’s partner should know anything about one’s “relationships with sex”. Except this person goes kinda even further)

More sexualization, when I say this freaks me out as a WoC, I’m told this white person gives no fucks and wants me to be miserable

Another person who says the identities of aces but also of aros need to stay between them and their Partners because they’re “TMI” and inherently sex-shaming somehow

Oh yeah did I mention, much the same with sexualizing aros and ppl frequently link our identities to misogyny and to using people while they’re at it

Making light and fun of ace WoC asking to not be sexualized because don’t we know aces have done Bad things and so we deserve it/don’t get to complain

One of many examples of white people who hate aces+aros talking over PoC and trying to erase us from our communities (+usually when we call that shit out they don’t care. This is actually one of the more cordial responses I’ve come across despite the lack of apology lol.

Another example of white ppl in the anti-ace/aro crowd talking over aces and aros of color here complete with that person condescendingly lecturing a PoC about racism

People like this saying outright they hate aces

Saying sex ed shouldn’t teach about asexuality

Outright stating they think being ace/aro gives people privilege (because supposedly aces+aros both benefit from conservatives pushing for abstinence)

Outright invalidating the identities of aces (who don’t have the attitude towards sex they think they should have)

Calling asexuals demons

Outright calling aces and aros a “plague” and saying aces/aros regardless of other identities all need to be kicked out of the LGBT+ community.

Erasing the identities of people who speak out against anti-ace/aro shit to declare them “straight” or “cishet” …or saying that treatment is what they get for being “traitors to their own community”

Ignoring the boundaries of aces/aros who have them blocked and don’t want to be vagued to make fun of them …

…or even to continue sexualizing them after they have made it very clear that shit freaks them out (cheerfully doing this to a WoC)

Someone saying asexuality does not exist and “encourages slut shaming”

Spamming the ace positivity tag with vile hate (ppl have talked a lot about how this harms and endangers especially mentally ill ppl)

“aces are embarassing“ in the positivity tag

Posting nsfw content in the ace positivity tag and being completely unapologetic, apparently using the reasoning that our identities are inherently nsfw anyway (see the “TMI discourse” aka people sexualizing our identities)

Calling aces and aros a “sexuality fandom” while pretending we’re a group full of people with every privilege imaginable, bored of being accepted by everyone and of having no Actual Problems in our lives. This kind of nasty erasure constantly goes on and is a big tactic in this mess tbh

Wanting aces to be “exterminated”. For good measure putting this in the ace positivity tag

This disgusting vile shit that I don’t even know how to sum up but it includes wishing death on someone

Talking about wanting aces/aros dead after somehow misunderstanding(?) a post that was very clearly not about asexuality or aromanticism

Graphically telling aces to die

Specifically telling ace kids to kill themselves

Did I mention that many people in this mess have wished death on aces and aros and that they often put it in positivity tags. Some of the most messed up shit I’ve seen is missing because I didn’t reblog/respond to it at the time or can’t find it right now

And I know anons don’t count as hard “proof” for anything but have the less graphic one of the death/rape threats I got in my inbox for speaking out against anti-ace/aro shit (still kinda eerily detailed though. Not linking the other one because it is extremely graphic)

Part 2:

Comparing aces to a literal white supremacist (in the positivity tag)

Again someone invalidating the identities of aces who don’t have the attitude towards sex they think they should have

Sexualizing aros again, not caring about how it affects particularly aro PoC. And here two other ppl sexualizing and demonizing aros, like in posts further above claiming (non-ace) aros just use people for sex (said on positivity post).

Someone sexualizing aces again and engaging in sex-shaming at the same time, as usual with the claim that literally no one but a partner “needs” to know our orientations

Those Rachel Dolezal comparisons I mentioned made by non-black/white people who want to use antiblackness for what they call “ace discourse”? Yeah here is one white person doing it and here is another, even worse example where a white person goes “this is like if I pulled a Rachel D. and put on blackface and used the n-word…” (paraphrasing here). Here is the latter person utterly dismissing me being upset by their antiblackness (because black ppl’s pain only matters when it’s useful)

[For ppl who don’t know: Rachel Dolezal is a white woman who pretended to be black and built her career on it. White people sure as hell do not get to compare this shit to anything that is not antiblackness and use black people’s pain for their own purposes.]

A white person using antiblackness as a weapon against aces and aros in general (aka “ace tumblr”), acting smug regarding how supposedly we’re all so racist and “get triggered” by black people existing. (I am so tired of white ppl using racism as a cheap “gotcha” against aces and aros - groups which include PoC. And who then ignore or belittle PoC who call them out)

White person randomly informing WoC aces/aros can have white privilege

Again someone claiming ace privilege exists and here another person doing it adding to the post further above, claiming aces/aros have privilege for being ace/aro and that this is the case bc people who don’t have sex are privileged (wrong definition of asexuality… also of aromanticism??… and also no. No.)

What I mentioned about ppl telling us asexuality/aromanticism are not orientations but only ever modifiers? It’s happened a lot but here’s one example. And here’s someone outright saying aro aces don’t have an orientation but only modifiers.

Here’s the same person who said aro aces don’t have an orientation later turning around saying the orientation of aro aces is determined by how they behave and who they have sex with.

Another person putting nsfw shit in the ace positivity tag (link is to nsfw text)

And people try really hard to justify despising aces and aros by pointing to shitty people who share our identities/orientations. Honesty is secondary in this. Here you have someone taking a shitty post from an obvious nasty troll blog to say this is why ppl hate aces, and later when having the troll thing pointed out to them saying they already know. The post got over 3k notes.

“asexual shouldn’t even be a way people identify themselves”, with a second person in the thread agreeing

Part 3:

Someone saying they hope all aces “get checked out by a doctor” first (holy shit)

Saying asexuality is not a sexuality aka more invalidation like in posts further above

Someone calling aces a “turbo virgin club”, then declaring if an ace gets upset about it this shows their immense privilege

I’m 96% sure this is a troll and/or worse but here’s someone using absolute bullshit reasoning to claim asexuality is an inherently racist/antiblack identity (…on a black person’s post)

Speaking of racism, someone claiming vile crap and utter bullshit about aces including that we are all white

Once again a white person trying to use (extremely vile) antiblackness for so called “ace discourse”

Another incident of a blatant troll post getting nearly 3k notes because people wanted to use it to demonstrate how horrible aces/aros are, since we supposedly made up the fake slur “arobot”. Explanation in link, but basically no, “we” didn’t, it was an ancient pretty blatant troll post.

Again someone linking aromanticism to misogyny and to using people for sex

Someone in our positivity tags basically claiming aces and aros in relationships are selfish leeches who demand things but don’t give anything back. Talking as if we don’t deserve “time, effort, attention and love” and as though people in relationships with us are to be pitied

People spamming the ace positivity tag with nasty negativity and hate (once again)

Someone repeatedly wishing rape and like so often death on aces and aros (among other things) in our positivity tags. This person also put nsfw content there and spammed the tags

Again someone specifically wanting ace kids dead, talking in the positivity tag about hoping they get hit by a bus

After someone in this thread talks about the worry of being sexually assaulted for being ace, a person responds with the vilest victim-blaming, claiming shit like “it is easy to learn how to defend yourself“ and worse that I don’t want to put here. If you want details check the link

A number of screenshots of extremely vile posts, out of which two older ones weren’t listed here before: one is about wanting aces/aros to have “full blown panic attacks” and “cry themselves to sleep” over being marginalized/erased by society;

the other utterly disgustingly talks about wanting aces/aros to face torture and medical experimentation and death (the person brings in concentration camps)

This anon was also among the screenshots just now: extremely graphic torture and death threat I got from someone because they hate all us “ ~uwu~pure~smol~aceys~”. There’s wanting to peel the skin off my body as well as gun violence and sentiments that echo the post above

Since we’re already talking anons, somewhat graphic rape/death threat I got in my inbox, this time using the “dare I say meme” that is frequently employed to shit on aces and aros (still leaving out the most disgustingly graphic threat I’ve received bc I don’t want to link it)

Part 4:

“I would actually fucking slaughter aces if I could“

Listen this crap is terrifying and at this point I’m just tired. I could add the same sort of shit to this list over and over. Yet there’s still a huge crowd here denying any of this is happening, who’ll come to posts about ppl hating aces and aros to declare that no one does and we’re all just making it up or too clueless to understand what’s Really Being Said, because that’s how they like to paint aces and aros and anyone who supports us. It’s unbelievable and so so horrible and draining.

It needs to stop. I hate putting this negative crap on ppl’s dash but what’s going on is just so harmful and there’s not much else to do about it I can think of. Aside from people condescendingly explaining to us all the time none of this is happening (or outright calling us liars the moment we don’t put the links directly on a post and claiming we’re making this all up to make other aces/aros feel unsafe holy shit), I’ve also had ppl come to this very post (the original version) saying it’s just “mean words on the Internet” so I shouldn’t talk about -isms here and ppl literally wishing us dead.

Please help get word around that this is happening and a serious issue if you can? (But also if you can’t please don’t feel bad about that)

Part 5:

Someone saying ppl only get to headcanon extremely privileged characters as ace/aro

Someone spouting the incredible, unironic line: “isn’t that the point of being ace?? to desexualize yourself??“

Telling aces to date non-aces otherwise they’re automatically abusive for “taking sex away” from their partners (holy shit)

As I mentioned, if we speak about the anti-ace/aro shit on this site, ppl love to try and shut us up by coming to our posts acting like we don’t know what we’re talking about or are deliberately lying for example because they’ve not personally seen what we’re talking about, and they can get really utterly horrible about it

Someone making up an insult (”stiff”) for aces to mean “a prude who cant keep their trap shut abt it “ (the person also posted a screenshot of a dictionary entry of the word in the positivity tag where “a dead body” is listed as one of the definitions)

Same person saying aromantic means “a boring person nobody will ever love”

Yet another person sexualizing aces, making fun of how supposedly we constantly talk about wanting to “fuck”… and about wanting to be led around on a leash in public

Two people defending hating all aces and comparing this to statements about privileged groups like white people, because ace/aro privilege I guess

A white person mocking me having experienced racism in “ace discourse” while heavily implying I must be lying (while demanding proof and no I’m not saying asking me for links is the problem)

Another person outright defending hating aces, except it’s okay and not bigotry according to them because it’s… not our existence that’s the problem but us existing as aces??

Part 6

Saying ace/aro identities belong in the DSM

And also a post I really want to talk about that made me add to this post again:

Saying asexual/aromantic people are “weird” and “ugly as fuck” and we id as ace/aro because “no one wants us” (I got an extremely vile anon once that made a similar “argument” and this line of thought is neither new nor harmless)

The thing about this post that makes it especially horrible and made me put it here almost right away? The notes. There are tons of people who responded to that post with approval and if you check, you’ll see them acting like aces/aros being treated like this and getting upset about it is just one big joke. There are many people going “lol that’s mean but true” and “lmao careful they’ll use this as proof they’re oppressed haha” (paraphrased) and otherwise talking nasty shit about aces and aros. This is fucking vile and the kind of shit you’d expect from anti-sjws, but nope, “ace discourse” everyone

Someone saying ace awareness week should not be a thing because they’re already “painfully” aware we exist

Did I mention when we talk about any of this people immediately in big numbers rush to silence us, dismissing and mocking us out of hand and painting us as hysterical liars who “just wanna be oppressed“ because who gives a shit about aces/aros saying they’re being harmed

As a bonus, let’s return to the anons for a moment, which I’ve not talked about much before:

Someone telling me to die after I made more posts calling this sort of anti-ace/aro shit out

Someone telling me they want to ally with conservatives and shoot me and also other aces, calling aces a “plague”

Someone telling me sending the above to a black person has nothing to do with racism, and also that asexuality is a symptom of mental illness/trauma that needs to be corrected, not a sexuality. They tell me to “get fucked” so I’ll be fixed

Right after these asks I also got a nazi in my inbox (”88″ is nazi code). Make of that what you will

Another person coming to my inbox calling aces a plague and wanting us all dead

“Tumblr aces are deserving of every drop of loathing they get”

And now back once more to the posts people actually put their blog names on (aka most posts by far on this list, so no one skimming better try to claim this is primarily about anons just because I put a few in)…

Reacting to hateful vile anons by claiming we must have sent them to ourselves (why? because they say so), such as graphic anon rape/death threats. Nasty on so many levels and encourages people who hate us further to send shit like that

Part 7

People thinking it’s appropriate to tell a black ace woman (me lol) she has an “oppression fetish” just based on her minority orientation, in response to her asking ppl to not do EXACTLY that

Someone comparing asexuality to a kink to mock the idea of and paint as gross aces talking to family or anyone not involved in “their sex life” about their orientation

Same person in a wild post calling all aces “demons” (as ppl keep doing)

Someone not only as so often comparing aces to Trump with a moodboard, but also including the word “fascism” in ace colors in it (this is an older post)

Someone coming up with the wild conspiracy theory that people upset by aphobia (along with inclusionists) are actually largely the alt-right trying to disrupt activist communities wtf I can not make this shit up (the person being ace themselves does not make this better or any less anti-ace/aro. This is fucking vile)

Someone mocking all aces by calling us “aceys” and talking about wanting to fight us, and another person approving of this and calling aces speaking out against it “dumb” and my legitimate anger “cute”. Also apparently being upset by this at all means I’ve “deluded” myself into thinking I’m oppressed

Same person who said the above claiming aro aces are somehow straight

Mocking aro terminology and aros for calling their partners (who they may or may not be married to) anything but “friends”

People (once again) painting aros as monsters who by virtue of being aro treat their partners without basic respect and decency. Also making aro identities all about wanting to “fuck” people without loving them, or caring about them in any shape or form. This shit is both sexualizing our identities (as usual) and nasty as hell in general

Another person outright saying they hate aces and trying to justify this by comparing it to venting about a privileged group, as if ace privilege exists rather than asexuality being a minority orientation

Someone (as too many ppl have done) comparing aces to “incels”, dangerous misogynists who are frequently rape apologists/rapists

Silencing tactics still include viciously mocking aces/aros speaking out against any of this shit and painting us as irrational, Senselessly Angry, and evil like in this bullshit “parody” post of what I (and two others?) have supposedly been saying. Apparently when I make posts like this one, that is what the OP gets from that… somehow. People keep doing shit like this to me, and painting black women as hysterical and angry for no reason when we’re legitimately upset is not a new move?

While we’re on the topic of antiblackness and misogynoir, remember how ppl love to send me graphic anon threats? Yeah this person purosely invoked the image of lynchings while doing so, aware themselves it’s racist and admitting they don’t care, as long as they can tell a black person they’d like to “hang me from a tree” and then also all other ace ppl, because “ace discourse” has proven to them we’re evil apparently

Part 8

Saying there’s somethong “wrong” with aces and aros and that we need to get professional help, and that our orientations are “unnatural”. There’s way too much pathologization among these links

Comparing aces to Ayn Rand, a racist rape apologist among other things. Apparently it makes for a fun moodboard about how we’re evil (and hate poor people?? wtf)

Once again someone comparing aces to incels (for some reason people love associating aces with misogynists, rape apologists and rapists, hmm)

Someone sexually harassing a user for simply saying to ignore/block aphobes, putting extremely explicit sexual content into the post’s notes, very possibly trying to deliberately trigger the OP. This is disgusting af

Someone saying asexuality isn’t a real sexuality (again)

As usual someone putting negativity in the ace positivity tag like we don’t deserve to have positivity - this time about how we’re “idiot aces” and all “cishet”

Talking about how this masterpost that, you know, has literal death threats on it and not few of them is hilarious

Here we have someone after being linked to this masterpost defending the Ronald Reagan and Trump moodboards (while completely ignoring all the other shit on this list)

Someone spewing the old bullshit notion that conservatives love aces for our supposed “celibacy”, with the typical implication of ace privilege or at least the idea that being ace makes those of us belonging to various oppressed groups less oppressed (or that we don’t exist at all lol)

Here’s an older post where someone cruelly made fun of an anon on an ace blog non wanting to get a pap test, presuming it’s due to internalized oppression and treating that as funny and inherently mock-worthy (the post got lots of approving notes at the time), because haha aces “valuing their virginity more than their health”, even though 1) the anon said nothing of the sort and 2) even if they had, people not wanting to get health care due to messed up ideas surrounding “virginity” is not funny either. (And this sort of ridicule is nowhere near comparable to correcting actual misinformation)

Making Kylo Ren ace/aro moodboards because aside from real life fascists it’s fun to compare us to fictional ones

Since we’re on the topic, another, older post that has a lot of people comparing aces to various fictional abusers, mass murderers, fascists, etc., “joking” about how these are the characters we can have as “ace representation”. And then ppl going “lol it’s just a joke haha silly aces not getting the concept of humor” in typical bigot fashion, something the anti-ace/aro crowd does A LOT

Meanwhile once when I in response to someone comparing aros to Voldemort (based on him being incapable of love) made an aro-spec Hermione positivity post using the same meme the Voldemort post had used, emphasizing her good qualities/sense of justice, a whole wild mess happened that included people making jokes about (house elf) slavery on my aka a black woman’s positivity post and calling one of the most commonly hc-ed as black characters demonic and equating her to Taylor Swift… for among other things the evil trait of having an issue with, you know, slavery.

(Later a white person tried to in a separate post paint me as hysterical/irrational for getting upset about this, completely [and deliberately] erasing the fact that it was about race at all in that retelling of things. Not that it’s not bullshit and extremely telling to gleefully heap negativity on a positivity post like this in general, but damn.)

But back to comparing us to real life fascists, someone literally said “cishet asexuals act almost identical to white supremacists and nazis” because saying this about a minority orientation which includes aces TARGETED by white supremacists isn’t fucked up at all I’m done

For the xth time someone outright saying they hate aces

Here we get tons of misogynoir again from someone making a sort of Nicki Minaj ace moodboard that compares ace inclusionism to her breasts/”silicone implants“, and someone else approving of how hilarious that supposedly is. It’s pretty fucking gross tbh, the OP even put it in the Nicki Minaj tag

Fitting in with the above nicely: someone suggesting that subsets of aces and aros be called “breeders” (this is an older post)

Calling asexuality and aromanticism “cults” and comparing them to scientology among a ton of other vile shit including once again pathologization

Calling (non-ace) aros “objectifying assholes”

More demonization of aros, claiming as so often that being aro is the same as fetishizing and using people

Once again someone calling aces (or well just ace girls this time because misogyny is fun) ugly and claiming we’re all white (because racism is also fun)

Part 9

And here finally the new part that tumblr wouldn’t let me add to the original post the usual way. Not to repeat myself but I’m exhausted. And pissed. Remember these are all just examples. And I’d like to say there won’t be more in the future but who am I kidding.

Making light of comparing aces to incels, who are still dangerous misogynists/rapists/rape apologists. How dare aces and especially ace women be upset about it

Another person making light of (nasty moodboards) comparing aces and specifically ace teenagers to vile af dangerous bigots

Again someone comparing aces to incels (....who apparently no longer oppress women, at least if they’re ace)

They really love that incel comparison

They love it a lot. Yet another person comparing aces to incels (while defining asexuality as “not wanting to fuck”). Someone else joining in and going, “Is ‘turbo virgin’ better for u”

The same ppl as in the link above continuing to be horrible+apparently thinking ace and aro WoC are no longer oppressed by racism and misogyny. Did I mention I could not make this shit up

Also if you scroll a bit, there’s a link there to one of them telling an ace to “get laid” to be fixed (this link here leads to the same thread as the one above)

Once more comparing aros to Trump

White person thinking it’s a good idea to equate aces/aros of color upset about being compared to white supremacists with white ppl upset about jokes about white ppl

“asexuals go to hell”

Claiming it’s just “crying racism” and funny that I call call out, you know, all this pretty blatant racism, such as comparing aces and aros to slave owners/white supremacists to give just one example of the literal dozens here (even sth on the level of that anon wanting to lynch me apparently doesn’t count as racist for the OP there what the hell even)

Pathologizing our orientations, saying aces all have some “underlying issue” and that we just id as asexual as an excuse bc we don’t wanna “work through” said issues

Again someone claiming aces can’t have sex, making fun of ppl saying otherwise (apparently we physically can’t this is so wild)

Again ppl claiming aces and aros are basically all white, hurting (and pissing off) aces and aros of color bc that’s always fun. Also I’d argue some not that subtle misogyny there but decide for yourself

Among other things claiming aces are obsessed with sex which uhh uncomfortable+creepy. If ppl’d stop sexualizing us that’d be fucking nice

Another nonblack person comparing ace inclusionists to Rachel Dolezal (not giving a shit about black ppl’s opinion on the matter)... and then claiming antiblackness isn’t racism (when coming from other PoC)

Claiming asexuality is a “specific sexual preference” that no one wants to know about and also the same as “not fucking”. Literally saying (as ppl in this mess do so often) we should literally mention our orientations to NO ONE but our partners bc of this. AND not giving a shit about being told this sexualizes aces including aces of color

As usual pretending we make all the shit documented in this post up (and let me repeat this post was just meant to have EXAMPLES, there’s way more horrible crap out there)

Ace girls are apparently “like straight girls, only worse”. And that regardless of other identities

Using the term “acehets”

Another person referring to “acehets and arohets”

Apparently asexuality and aromanticism are “technically het” now

Calling aces (explicitly+deliberately ALL aces) a “cancer to the lgbt community”

Saying a black aro ace woman wouldn’t have time to be “melodramatic” (=make posts like this one lol) if she had more sex. I CAN NOT MAKE THIS SHIT UP it’s so incredibly sexist, racist, and creepy omg. There’s already examples further above of this person’s misogynoir BUT DAMN

Here we have some pro Trump, pro gun person after going “fuck tumblr ace culture” talking about how aces aren’t oppressed (especially those of us to whom guns or ppl like the president they support are an incredible danger I’m sure lol) and how dare we make our orientations “our entire personality”. This is all so wild help me??

Remember when we talked about how ppl like to when we talk about this despite all the easily available proof accuse us of lying/being hytserical/just “wanting to be oppressed” as a silencing tactic? Yeah here we have someone calling me speaking out against some of the (racist) shit listed further above “delusional”

Linking being ace to being a nazi (”Been noticing a lot of these “Asexuals” are also nazis”)

More linking being ace to being a nazi (”You can't spell asexual without axis power”). Did I mention the anti-ace/aro crowd is wild and despicable af

The solution to people being this horrible to us is CLEARLY for us to “log off” so why the hell are we whining

This white person wants millions in “emotional damages” from people with ace headcanons for characters belonging to various oppressed groups, including characters of color. Because clearly others acknowledging the existence of aces of color must be incredibly painful for them. Wtf is the anti-ace/aro crowd even. Also, this is what aces and aros of color mean when we talk about constantly being erased by ppl wanting to pretend our orientations are somhow “white” identities - frquently like here under the guise of protecting us from those evil aces and aros aka ourselves.

Putting “your flag is ugly and so are you“ in the ace positivity tag

Same person posting in the ace positivty tag about wanting subsets of aces to get hit by a bus

Okay I know further above I’ve directed you to such unbelievably vile anons they must be getting old but I’m gonna put just one in this part: wanting aces dead but it’s our own fault because the ace community on tumblr made them into a shitstain devoid of decency who thinks fondly of people dying based on them sharing a minority orientation!! They had no problems with aces before!! And it’s just if we’re on tumblr that they want us dead really!! Using this site like other people makes us... wait for it... “incel equivalents” apparently

Aaand here the nonblack ppl go again with the comparing ace inclusionism to antiblackness/Rachel Dolezal, one of them specifically complaining they got called antiblack for it when clearly this white person also doing it proves it’s okay

After as the anti-ace/aro crowd loves to do pretending none of this is happening, this person admitted that yeah sure their crowd compares aces and aros to misogynists and racists, but it’s not because of our orientations but because we’re Bad, and if we claim otherwise we’re manipulative and just wanna victimize ourselves!!

racism and comparing PoC (because their asexuality continues to not magically turn aces of color into white ppl) to their oppressors are apparently still funny (”date an asexual who thinks reverse racism exists“)

Someone talking about wanting “porn of aces” where aces are raped and turned into “hypersexual sluts”. The person adds, “ESPECIALLY if it’s real”. This shit is VILE AND DISTURBING AF HOLY CRAP

And apparently aces who have sex are by virtue of this themselves rapists now, along with anyone who consensually sleeps with people they’re not attracted to?? Wtf even. (These people REALLY want to villify us and for us to not enter relationships - if we don’t have sex with a partner, we’re absusive, but if we do, we’re rapists. We’ve had both these “arguments” now I fucking can’t.)

Again someone posting (in the ace positivity tag) about wanting an “ace concentration camp”

“asexuals get death challenge”

And listen I WISH I was making this shit up and that these posts all didn’t exist. Then I’d not have to deal with the knowledge that a ton of people here don’t even see aces and aros as human beings, constantly throwing -isms and nasty af shit in general at us and pretending when aimed at us it’s somehow okay. People are doing all this to us, and trying to claim we deserve it, based on our MINORITY ORIENTATIONS.

It’s wild, it’s despicable, and it needs to stop. And I’m going to say it as many times as necessary.

#ace discourse #aphobia #asexuality #aromantic #masterpost #crapcourse mess #rape cw #abuse cw #sexualization /#suicide baiting cw #death threats cw #rape threats cw #concentration camp mention //#victim blaming mention /#long post

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a-polite-melody · 6 years ago

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It's "interesting" that polyam people are usually one of the go-to "NEXT YOU'LL BE SAYING WE SHOULD INCLUDE THEM!" groups for regs, considering one of the primary arguments abt excluding anybody who isnt exclusively attracted to their own gender is basically "but they dont get marriage inequality!", when bigamy is an actual literal crime pretty much everywhere, and one that can lead to time in jail regardless of consensuality...

Ooh boy am I likely going to get some shit over fleshing outmy thoughts on this matter. But you know, I think it’s important I do moreproperly solidify my thoughts, and the easiest way for me to do that is towrite things out, so let’s do this... And this is probably going to be long,ramble-y, wordy, and whatnot, so it’s going under a cut.

Anon, that’s always been something that’s bothered me too.Like. Not even just people we’d typically consider REGs - like aspecexclusionists, multispec exclusionists, nonbinary exclusionists, transexclusionists, truscum, TERFs, etc. - do this, but people who would considerthemselves to be against gatekeeping also do too.

Especially when you consider just how much of the polyamcommunity is queer beyond their being polyamorous, and also consider the amountof shared history between polyamory and queerness (because when you see theformer you almost always see the latter as well - in terms of individuals andgroups/collectives), the amount of using “including polyamory” as a slipperyslope argument, as well as just the general disdain for “including polyamory”is... sketchy at best to me.

I guess it comes down to what we think the LGBTQ+ and queercommunities are as a whole. How do we define those? And with that definition,where do we put things like polyamory? And are we defining things well ifgroups with a lot of shared history and a lot of overlap in issues areexcluded?

Let’s take a look at some definitions of what exactly theLGBTQ+ community is and how those boundaries are put up, starting with theleast inclusive I’m willing to deal with and going from there:

1. The popular aphobic REG definition:

The LGBT community is for combating homophobia andtransphobia. Therefore, the LGBT community is for people who experiencehomophobia and transphobia.

I take huge issue with this, because I think that multispecantagonism has a lot of difference from homophobia and cannot be grouped as a“subset” of homophobia. There are issues that have to do specifically beingattracted to multiple genders - regardless of if the individual experiencesattraction to the same gender or not. The same goes for exorsexism being itsown separate issue and not a “subset” of transphobia, because of, for example,our genders being completely erased and believed to not exist at all.

Then, there’s the issues related to orientation beingexcluded entirely, such as aphobia, and the issues related to sex and genderbeing excluded entirely, such as perisexism.

Under this definition, only lesbians, gay people, bi people(with the caveat of bisexuality requiring attraction to the same gender, if notyou’re not bi, even if you’re nonbinary and (potentially) included because ofthat, because it’s totally fine to erase orientations if you include forsomething else???), and trans people (with, being completely generous and notincluding truscum or exorsexist beliefs on top of this, the caveat that ifyou’re nonbinary you must consider yourself trans) are part of the community.

While I despise this definition entirely, I do get thatthose who do favour it are exclusionary of polyamory as being a qualifier asbeing part of the community... because they’re exclusionary of quite a lot ofthings.

2. The one that essentially “MOGA”:

The LGBT+ community is a community for people ofmarginalized orientations and gender alignments/identities.

Basically, this boils down to... Having an orientation thatis not straight (and regarding split attraction, having at least oneorientation that is not straight) qualifies you for being part of the LGBTQ+community because you have an orientation that is marginalized. Also, having agender that is different from the gender you were assigned at birth qualifies youfor being in the LGBTQ+ community because you have a gender alignment/identitythat is marginalized.

This is better, but it still excludes issues surroundingperisexism. There are other issues I have with this one, but they’re alsoissues I have with the next definition, so I’ll leave this and move onto...

3. IMOGA, MOGAI, or just typical unnamed inclusionism:

The LGBT+ community is a community for people ofmarginalized orientations and gender alignments/identities, AND because ofshared history and issues, also people who are intersex if they feel as thoughthey want to be part of our community.

Essentially, this is the above, but includes issuessurrounding perisexism, and therefore includes intersex people if they feelthat they want to be part of the LGBTQ+ community specifically because of theirbeing intersex.

This seems to be where a lot of inclusionists sit in termsof their definition for the community. And this set of beliefs is conducive tothe exclusion of things like polyamory, even though there are shared issuesbetween these two communities - like the given example of marriage equality.You might get a, “they’re separate but related communities,” when you bringthis up. That reads... similarly to, “aspec people should have their own communityseparate from the LGBT community,” to me. I suppose you could justify that,because polyamory isn’t an orientation and so it’s different. But I still takeissue with that.

For me, the big issue here is that in all of this discussionpeople have pointed out, time and time again, usually related to argumentsagainst the use of “queer community,” that the LGBTQ+ community is a coalitionof the lesbian community, the gay community, the bi community, the transcommunity, the queer community, and so on. And so... why are we drawing theborders here - at orientations and gender alignments/identities that aremarginalized... oh, plus intersex people because of shared history and issuesstopping there in terms of shared history and issues? Which brings me to...

4. The definition I subscribe to:

The LGBT+ community is for combating pericishetero-society.Therefore, the LGBT+ community is a community consisting of many differentaligned groups or smaller communities that all differ frompericisheteronormativity, which individuals can choose to opt in or out of.

Same deal, where the LGBTQ+ community is a coalition betweenmany interconnected communities, linked together by differing frompericisheteronormativity.

And that covers... a lot.

Perinormativity: the assumption that everyone falls withintwo distinct categories biologically of “male” and “female” with all of sexchromosomes, gonads and other genitalia, and hormones being aligned from birthwith one of those categories.

Cisnormativity: the assumption that everyone identifies withthe gender that they were assigned at birth, and by extension, that there areonly the two binary genders of man and woman, and that people will present insuch a way as people can know which of the two binary genders you are.

Heteronormativity: the assumption that everyone is attractedto the opposite binary gender, and by extension, that they are only attractedto one gender, experience that attraction as both romantic and sexually, andexperience it regularly as part of day-to-day life, that there is a goal as theresult of this attraction to be in a romantic and sexual relationship thatlooks and works a certain way with a single individual.

Basically, besides perinormativity targeting prettyexclusively intersex people, cisnormativity doesn’t just target trans peopleand heteronormativity doesn’t just target gay people.

Cisnormativity’s primary target may be trans people, but italso harms nonbinary people regardless of if they consider themselves to betrans, and people who are GNC.

Heteronormativity’s primary target my be gay people, but italso harms multispec people regardless of if they are attracted to the samegender, aspec people regardless of other orientations they may have, polyamorouspeople, and - *gasp* - kinky people - how dare I!?

So yes, my view of the LGBTQ+ community is that it includespeople that tend to be not included by people who consider themselvesinclusionists. It includes people who are cis but are GNC. It includespolyamorous people, even if they’re cis and het with no split attraction. Itincludes kinky people, even if they’re cis and het with no split attraction.

Stay with me. I know this sounds out there but hang on.

It includes these groups because they directly opposepericisheteronormativity.

But that doesn’t mean I think cis people belong in transspaces and can speak on trans issues just because they’re GNC. And that doesn’tmean I think het people can belong in spaces for people of marginalized orientationsor can speak on issues surrounding marginalized orientations just becausethey’re polyam or kinky. Just as aspec people shouldn’t speak on issues aboutbeing gay or trans (if they’re not also gay or trans, that is), for example.

A coalition of many smaller communities.

Sure, we could say that the polyam community is separate butadjacent to the LGBTQ+ community since they do share a history and some of thesame issues. But why if we’re also including being intersex as part of thelarger LGBTQ+ community because of a shared history and shared issues (whichI’m 100% supportive of, by the way, as long as they would like to be included)should we exclude these other adjacent groups as being entirely separate? Whycan’t they exist within the larger umbrella of the LGBTQ+ community?

And really, quite often, they actually do exist within thelarger umbrella of the LGBTQ+ community. For example, my campus has a kinkcollection as part of our LGBTQ+ library. And this, as far as I know, is pretty commonplace. Because of a hugeshared history. Pride parades quite often have some form of kink pride - hell,there’s even a leather flag. Same goes for polyamory. And gender non-conformityhas similar connections.

There’s one part of the above definition I haven’t reallytouched on yet - besides for intersex people - and that’s the “whichindividuals can choose to opt in or out of.” That part is important. Not justin terms of the inclusion of intersex in the community because there are someintersex people who do not feel that being intersex makes them part of theLGBTQ+ community, but also in terms of, well, removing the boogeymen, so tospeak.

Being LGBTQ+, as much as so many people in the communityseem to be trying to say otherwise (only when it suits them, mind you) is thatthere are people who don’t belong who want to invade. The Straights will callthemselves trans, or nonbinary, or bi, or pan, or ace, or whatever just becauseit’s “trendy” to be LGBTQ+. And. Just. What???

It’s even more odd when you consider the whole “only when itsuits them” part. Because other times The Straights actually despise us and useour terms derogatorily. And... that doesn’t line up. If it were “cool” or“trendy” to be LGBTQ+, why would queer still be used as a slur? Why would “gay”have become a synonym for other derogatory terms like “stupid”? Why would “nohomo” have been such a huge thing?

Straight people, people who conform topericisheteronormativity, want to distance themselves from us at all costs. Tothe point of going way out of their way to be sure that people know they’rejust our allies and not one of us because they don’t want to be seen asactually one of us.

So those “straight frat boys who use aromanticism as anexcuse to fuck tons of women and then ghosts them all,” and “straight men whouse polyamory as an excuse to cheat on their girlfriends,” and “straight menwho have five girlfriends who all aren’t allowed to have other boyfriends,” and“straight men who get off on hurting their girlfriends,” and “cishet men whosometimes wear eyeliner,” aren’t going to call themselves LGBTQ+. Because theydon’t want to be one of us.

Sure, there will be het-attracted aspecs who are part of thecommunity, and straight polyamorous people who are part of the community, andstraight kinky people who are part of the community. But they’re the ones whodon’t conform to pericisheteronormativity. They’re the ones interested indismantling those systems. And hell yes I think that they’re just as deservingof a spot in the larger community discussions on how to accomplish that.

Anyway, that’s my position on the whole thing. Please directyour angry comments about how “wanting to hit your partner isn’t LGBT” or“wanting to fuck multiple people isn’t LGBT” to my ask box where they will doabsolutely nothing to change my mind or my position on the matter and will onlybe answered specifically in a nice tone if you want to pay me $20 to put inthat effort.

(And before anyone decides this includes pedophiles and people into bestiality... Nope! The object of your attraction being an individual who can’t consent doesn’t mean you’re going against pericisheteronormativity! Nothing in what perinormativity, cisnormativity, and heteronormativity are includes the age or species of individuals you’re attracted to!)

#ace discourse #bi discourse #pan discourse #queer discourse #nonbinary discourse #trans discourse #literally all the discourse #considering this is literally a breakdown of what I think is the 'boundary' on the LGBTQ+ community #my post #anon #asked

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wrong-shaped · 7 years ago

Text

something that’s become a meme in terf circles is “pattern recognition” and how we should all recognize “patterns” a trans women as male abusers. i can write this off personally as pseudo-intellectual posturing with no basis in any coherently articulated theory about anything, because it is, but that doesn’t make me feel any less anxious about how potentially effective that type of rhetoric is so i will.. try to explain what i think is effective about it, and hopefully undermine it to whatever extent i can.

the way that the point is generally put is basically, you are all pretending that trans women aren’t really male predators and abusers, and hiding behind phony theories about how to think so would be transmisogynist or to buy into stereotypes of trans women as perverts, but if you just look around you’ll see that actually, no, trans women are dangerous sexual predators. not all of them, but enough of them that they shouldn’t be trusted not to be any more than men. “how many trans women have to be outed before we all collectively recognize a pattern at play?” is the big rhetorical question.

aaand, it’s not meant to be answered. the answer is, there have already been so many that you’d have to be fucking naive to think that the pattern isn’t evident! the answer to the rhetorical question is a monolithic rhetorical plenitude of trans women who have used bogus libfem queer theory to “break through the cotton ceiling” and it doesn’t matter how many exactly.. just a fucking lot of them!

so what if we uh, actually fucking try and answer that question. how about twenty? thirty? a hundred? i mean if we go back and look at the past few years of lgbt/trans/feminist/whatever social media there have been probably about a couple dozen cases of relatively prominent trans women being outed as being sexual predators of one sort or another, that is true, it would be pointless to deny that and it can basically be empirically checked so whatever. and so like, that’s a high number right. so many! clearly enough to establish a pattern. well.. is it?

the thing about talking about pattern recognition is that, well, like anything to do with cognition or epistemology or whatever, it requires a lot of thinking. like a lot a lot. more than people regularly do on fucking tumblr. i’m not going to pretend i’m an expert in the field, but rather say i “know enough to know i don’t know very much at all.” i know that the way we detect patterns is pretty fucking context-dependent and subject to all sorts of things related to the way that general cognition is structured, like affective biases and prejudices, assumptions about the boundaries of reality and about what kinds of meaningful entities exist. in other words.. no you certainly cannot just “recognize a pattern” without a lot of critical evaluation lol.

so like, back to the semi-regular social media shitstorm wherein some trans woman who is somewhat prominent gets outed as a sexual predator. we can all acknowledge that this happens a few times a year, i think. or maybe not idk, but it’s something i personally cross paths with on about a monthly basis. i’m not talking about the “prisoner gets sex change and gets moved to womens prison” type stories, specifically trans women in “activist” circles who write or post a lot about transmisogyny, and end up outed for some serious sexual impropriety. more often than not there is to some degree of a defense of her behaviour, or rather a denial that accusations are true because they seem to resemble transmisogynistic stereotypes and therefore simply cannot be true. more often than not she loses credibility as the accusations gain it, occasionally the accusations turn out to be actually kind of horseshit, sometimes to a greater or lesser degree she continues to leverage a “following” who believe her to be some sort of martyr to transmisogyny, but most of the time she just ends up getting pushed out of the community in disagrace because she’s a fucking sexual predator, it’s pretty ritualized at this point.

so, pattern right? this happens way too often to be a coincidence, we have to stop pretending the theory of “““transmisogyny”““ is real or that trans women are anything other than testosterone crazed males and a very real threat to females. lol. the problem with all of this, is that there are a lot more patterns than just, trans woman abuses innocent cis women/trans men/whatever afabs happen to be available to her in her position. [as a side note in my experience most trans woman abusers most commonly abuse.. other trans women, not directly relevant but yeah].

as huge as the number of instances seems on a gut level (hence, “how can you possibly denny it?”), it’s not as statistically significant as it “seems” affectively. there are a lot of trans women out there. not as many as there are stars in the sky, but still a lot. there are a lot of trans women with blogs, trans women who do activism, trans women who talk about misogyny/transmisogyny/whatever, trans women who write theory and have followings. seriously enough that a dozen a year [that number’s arbitrary but i’m going with it so yeah] being outed as sexual abusers is not the most statistically significant thing in the world. my own little mental test for these sorts of things is, how does this compare to the statistics for traffic fatalities. like the sheer number of people who die gruesomely in car accidents is high as fuck, but as a statistic it doesn’t move us to get rid of cars or fear for our lives every time we pull on to the highway. it’s just not actionable in that way. and uh, i’m not going to claim anything super empirically valid here, but based on my own observations of trans women being outed as abusers in different contexts, and how this seems to play out statistically, i wouldn’t say it is either.

so. why’s the argument effective then? well, none of this shit is about statistical anlysis lol. it’s totally gut level. and when it feels like “it keeps happening” then it feels like a crisis. a crisis that needs to be fixed. by getting trans women the hell out of women’s spaces, communities, discussions, etc. same way that whole websites list every conceivable criminal offence by a trans women (or a man who may or may not wear women’s clothes, or whatever), where it’s not about any kind of analysis of what’s actually happening, it’s about how many mug shots you can load on a web page, it’s about what i described before as the monolithic rhetorical plenitude. what it’s about, it the sense of a lot. and i’m sorry but if you truly believe that’s sufficient to actually ground decisions about anything let alone about the nature of lgbt politics, you are fucking dumb.

as a kind of personal aside i will just say - i know a lot of trans women. i’m not going to say anything categorical about people or about myself or my experiences, but i will say that of the relatively large number of trans women i know, no one is a sexual predator as far as i know. i know a lot of people who have been vicitimized in one way or another sexually who are trans women, however. and like, i can honestly say i’ve witnessed a lot of emotional abusive, maladaptive coping, manipualtive behaviour, etc. from trans women, towards each other and towards non-trans women but like.. that is very fundamentally different at every level from being “men” or existing in the kind of dynamic that men exist in towards women in terms of sexual violence. like if you’re a cis woman who follows a few trans women on tumblr, i can pretty confidently say that i know more about the dynamics that exist for trans women than you do, because i am one and i exist in this space in one way or another, and i get a picture that’s more “authentic” (i hate that word but yeah) than you whether you’ve decided that trans women are perfect angels uwu or evil predators based on shit you’ve half-encountered in lgbt “discourse”.

anyway, i mentioned earlier “more patterns” so i uh should probably elaborate on that. i am not going to name any names, but suffice it to say this is about a thing that’s happened in the last few days as of this post being written where a trans woman got media attention for calling out a celebrity for saying dumb transmisogynist shit, was seen briefly as some shining light for activism, was called out for sexual abuse, and then the whole thing turned into a social media Thing. this is of course a unique case as anything is, but it does seem to have a discernible resemblance to some others, so yeah.

what i will say most disturbed me about the whole ordeal is how easy it was for the person in question to just completely dismiss accusations by essentially stating “i am a trans woman, these accusations are false because they sound vaguely like transmisogynistic stereotypes and terfs are saying them.” like it’s such a fucking unhealthy dynamic when that can actually work to some degree. and for the record, i am constantly tempted to post petty shit about like Trans Woman Social Media and just the level of intellectual dishonesty and theoretical indiscipline that’s totally pervasive, not because i think it’s horrible in and of itself but because, seriously, it’s fucking derealizing and it leads to a bizarre fucking situation where instead of just discussing things as though they are real and people have any kind of autonomy or responsibility or place in any sort of meaningful social system, they are just part of some narrative mythology.

and like that happens with the “discourse” around transmisogyny. but it’s not because the concept of transmisogyny is bad, or because the idea that trans women are unfairly stereotyped as sexual deviants is bad, or because the idea that trans women deserve to be “included” or treated in good faith in whatever sense is bad. it’s because the standard of application for all these ideas isn’t very rigorous, and people within this community (by which i mean pretty much everyone lgbt) have a lot of emotional issues that make their judgment fucking poor. it’s because there are trans women who see a theoretical concept that they can manipulate to make themselves absolute victims and incapable of abusing other people, and hide behind it because they’re charismatic or whatever. that, more than anything, is the pattern that i see. and if there’s one thing that will not fix that pattern it is sewing more paranoia and hatred than is absolutely necessary.

all of which leads me to, what exactly is the point of all this “pattern recognition” shit? well as i said the intention seems to be to inspire people to reframe the way they think about trans women from a paradigm of theorizing about transmisogyny to seeing trans women as inherently male in some sense and, per the pattern, inherently threatening to byologycal fembales. that is why, when terfs write callouts about the aformentioned trans woman, they don’t just say, this person, bad, no good, they specifically make a point to say “it’s not just this person, it’s all of these people.” hence “pattern recognition”.

what i will say about most callout posts i’ve seen is there’s a certain sense of.. grief? about them. people don’t want to marginalize someone they thought of as a friend or someone worthy of synmpathy or they admire or whatever, but they know that some kind of harm reduction has to happen if that person’s behaviour compromises others in some way. i flat-out don’t get that sense from terf calliuts of trans women. it’s schadenfreude, nothing more nothing less. i mean, doing a bit of a thought experiment, we know (and terfs certainly know) that a trans woman can easily leverage the sense that accusations against her are a “terf conspiracy” into some kind of support, so wouldn’t a harm reduction approach sort of discourage interspersing callout posts with boilerplate terf rhetoric that would in all likelihood make it easier for a person to deny the accusations as terf hate?

but in the case of all the terf posts i’ve seen about the particular trans woman in question (and about any given trans woman) they’re blatantly not “really” about bringing down that particular trans woman, they’re about the pattern. what’s important isn’t that the lgbt community be made aware of an individual predator’s behaviour, or even that the broader and more nuanced issues that promote dysfunctional and even predatory or abusive behaviour within the community be addressed, but rather that the “pattern” be fed into. what is ultimately most important is that cis women be made more and more paranoid about trans women, so that any meaningful community that does form and does have meaningful practices and discussions around abuse exclude trans women from the get-go, insofar as trans women are of course inherently not capable of participating without threatening real women’s safety.

i don’t really know how to finish this other than to say, trans women are trans women, we exist and will continue to exist in one sense or another, and i think we deserve to be a part of communities and be treated with good faith and have our experiences and needs and desires taken seriously. there is going to be some awkwardness in that but it’s workable. if you really don’t think it is, you are a terf, and you are a coward whose praxis is centered around giving hollow intellectual legitimacy to ignorant prejudices and keeping trans women cordoned off in the most abjected and dysfunctional zone of existence because you don’t have the empathy or imagination to see us as a part of your community, and you’re too fucking weak to actually hate men so you fucking take it out on us. stop it. jesus.

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