#theres nothing feminist about transphobia
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birches-and-hawks · 2 years ago
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the radfem tag would be so nice if we could just weed out the transphobes
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spidermanifested · 10 months ago
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this is not my usual type of post but ive been rotating some thoughts and i guess my blogs as good a place as any to get them organized. okay so this is basically my take on the entire discourse surrounding the "feminine (presumed cis lets be honest) women are uniquely oppressed for being feminine/making female characters quote unquote Less Feminine is antifeminist" thing. which i keep seeing come up. on this internet of ours
context being im a trans guy. grew up largely seen by others as female, probably, sort of. was about as far from a cishet womans feminine as you can imagine. not in a cool tomboy way. not in a way that society had a box for. and thats the thing, is that when you fail at gender, whether youre conscious of it or not, theres this extremely profound loneliness that comes with it. part of it was the autism but i made like 6 real-life friends total from ages 4 to 18 and there were no examples of anyone with an even remotely adjacent experience i could find in the media or irl. anytime a female character skirted a little too close to actual masculinity in a tv show or movie shed get that makeover eventually. i was bullied by both boys and girls but the girls who bullied me were uniformly very feminine.
and so i see people talking about how hard feminine women and girls have it, how the world hates them for being beautiful, and on the one hand its like okay, Misogyny Exists. thats not really refutable thats just the reality of it. society hates women. and as for eurocentric femininity specifically i understand its a hard tightrope to walk!!! you have to put on all these masks BUT make them seem natural, youre forced into these narrow boxes of acceptable behavior and appearance and desires, and if you under- or over-shoot then people get reminded the whole thing is a farce and get mad (often violently!) at YOU for it
........but then my thing is, that on one side of the tightrope, the "overperforming eurocentric femininity" side, the tradwife or girlboss or blonde bimbo side, theres an entire history of structural trope-crafting to break your fall, right. like its a shitty box but its the box society WANTS you to be in. they look at you and go "yep thats a woman. we dont like those but that sure is one". there are known social niches to carve out. theres a script.
on the unfeminine side theres just. nothing. its stone cold concrete down there. and apparently twitter would have you believe its actually that the "more masculine" somebody presumed female appears the more society respects them but that to me is the wildest and most nonsense take on the planet because if people see you as a woman or girl who has not taken the needed steps to justify your place as one of those things you might as well be an alien, or even a monster. theres no script at all. and i feel like this is one of the major experiences that trans and gnc people of every gender share-- god knows trans women get the brunt of the vitriol-- and from my knowledge a lot of nonwhite people too, and also fat and disabled people, like. there are SO many things that affect your ability to achieve even a fraction of success at this aspirational femininity.
ive had to see people for real make the argument that princess peach making an angry face is masculine. i think the most masculine woman anyone on twitter can imagine right now is like a businesswoman in a form-fitting pantsuit and light mascara. maybe the struggle of succeeding at femininity under patriarchy deserves exploration, ive seen plenty of coherent and reasonable points, its not without worth as a discussion. but i do not trust the general public with the topic without immediately sliding into bog standard gender policing and transphobia, and so in closing, when the mainstream feminist take on the whole thing seems to be "the more you perform the femininity expected of you the worse you have it", i get the sensation that nobody told me it was opposite day and im about to feel real silly
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hyenagurl · 5 months ago
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Crypto terf here. What’s the general terf’s opinion on drag queens (to clarify: gay male crossdressers that identify as men, not the new “trans” queens that identify as women AND do drag on top of that ?)
from what i can tell, the view on drag queens on here generally ranges from neutral to disapproving. i myself lean more to the neutral side - i actually was an avid fan of rupauls drag rice all throughout high school into early college until i lost interest, both as i learn the feminist critiques on some aspect of drag queens plus the show got really boring lol. modern drag is now a far cry from what it started as and with it its brought a whole new host of things that deserve criticism - im thinking of gottmik’s emulating double masectomy/“top” surgery scars or queens like detox or violet chachki who play up a hypersexualized/fetish aesthetic and/or get plastic surgery or use prosthetics to emulate exaggerated caricatures of womens bodies. theres positives to drag: men, gay or not, should absolutely be allowed to present however they want and some drag queens use drag as an art form and are masters of their craft (phi phi ohara, bianca del rio).
i think whats ultimately very frustrating is that whenever feminists bring up these criticisms of drag, drag fans willfully misconstrue it as an attack on gay men’s self expression or sexuality, but nothing exists in a vacuum and just because someones self expression is alternative and theyre part of a marginalized group, doesnt mean its automatically above critique - ESPECIALLY if its to be considered an art form. worse, now that some queens have come out as trans women, its even more unpopular to critique drag bc now it can be considered an act of transphobia.
i could go on about some more aspects but i dont want to ramble but if anyone else wants to add anything pls do, and i would also encourage you, anon, to ask more ppl about it. its great to ask around in order to form your own opinions!! you dont have to agree on any one thing, as youll soon find.
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daffodilfool · 10 months ago
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Just wanna make 2 sidenotes also while im at it
1:
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why the fuck are brackets, parentheses and braces not aligned? literally unplayable
2:
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why the fuck is lgb drop the t the most popular lgbt tag right now??? You claim to be "radical feminists", but theres nothing radical nor feminist about transphobia, its just vile.
TERFs arent welcome here. Trans rights bitch.
you know how sometimes you have a crush and
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butchbarbieagainstterfs · 3 years ago
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This post is... hm (its not one of yours)
Wanting to create a "female only" town
Calling for a matriarch to decide the rules
Banning religion and any amab family members
The amount of isolation, the banning openly practicing religious beliefs and creating little to no structure while also talking about some vague-ass "lifestyle" where things outside of it are banned is such an easily abused system.
Also the fact that theres no way to tangibly ban religion. Even atheism is a religion in of itself. All you can do is ban beliefs that you dont agree with.
With how these "radical feminists" are grouped in with each other (literally anyone could put "radfem" in their bio and people would consider them as such. There's no cohesive belief or definable movement between them other than maybe their transphobia), how easily abusive this system is and how there's literally no definable beliefs or lifestyle except only being able to really rely on those within that closed community, I'm genuinely concerned this could just become a cult.
LMFAO remember how yesterday TERFs on Twitter were whining because “we don’t want to be referred to as body parts!!”?
This post literally opens with “hi gyns”, which is a reference to genitalia and the reproductive system 💀
The post also says even if you yourself are a cis woman, you can’t live in the town if you have a male child. Which…yikes.
As a cis woman: you couldn’t pay me enough money to go and live in a town with people who view me as nothing more than a vagina 😭 and where they try and tell me what to believe lmfao
That’s all round just disgusting 💀 and will never work out but hey let ‘em keep trying. She’s 20 now, we’ll see if she’s still even a TERF in 5 or 10 years or if she’s realised how bad they are and got herself out.
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ibelonginthepast · 4 years ago
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i hate how the word radical feminists have been stolen by dumbfucks. i wanna call myself radical, but theres literally nothing radical about transphobia
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izzasecretredacted · 3 months ago
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trans people say this too like all the fucking time (like me i say this)
the claim that terf is anti-feminist exists to point out that the beliefs required to justify transphobia are directly counter to very basic feminist ideas. it has nothing to do with feminism being perfect (white women feminism exists after all), or that individual feminists that have otherwise been pretty widely celebrated havent also been transphobic. its that transphobia cant be a 'brand' of feminism because transphobia is inherently an anti-feminist position no matter who holds it
if we want feminists of the future to not be transphobic (or not be racist for that matter) we need to be hostile to the idea that you can hate trans people and bipoc and still be feminist. any argument about what feminism was once seen as has no baring on what feminism is. if you dojt support transwomen, you dont support women. if you dont support bipoc women, you dont support women. the idea that you can be bigoted towards *some* women but still be a feminist should not be considered.
theres prolly another point to be made about being inclusive to all trans people and to intersex people but im just too tired to work it out yall can yell at me about what that point shouldve been if ya want
hey, can cis feminists stop using the “no true Scots” argument to dismiss criticisms of mainstream feminism being transphobic? you can’t just say terfs aren’t “real feminists” — they are, they’re just a cis/white supremacist brand of feminist. rights & agency & bodily autonomy for them and not for everybody else. you can’t “well REAL feminism respects trans women” your way out of decades of history where that obviously wasn’t the case. stop lying about the past & start building the future dummy.
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thestuckylibrary · 8 years ago
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Hi! As an avid fic reader, there is something that has always bothered me about a lot of fan-fiction I have read in the Stucky fandom or the marvel fandom in general. There is almost always a level of casual sexism against the female characters, for example, in many fics the female characters are referred to as "girls" despite being grown fucking women also is it necessary to talk about how beautiful Natasha or Peggy are in every single fic? Aren't we reducing them to their beauty?
This is actually an incredibly complicated issue. Yes, there definitely is a fair amount of casual sexism in stucky fanfic and in fanfic in general. But on the other hand, compared to general fiction and the world at large, there is significantly less sexism. I’d also point out that the majority of transformative fandom is female identifying, queer, or both, this makes fanfics relationship with sexism a lot more complicated. Internalized misogyny is incredibly hard to sort out and be aware of, because it’s your own internal monologue and in the case of many fanfic authors, your own internal monologue as a woman and (in most cases) a feminist. 
The specific examples you pulled are tricky ones, cause on one hand, yeah theres certainly an element of sexism in there, but on the other hand there also isn’t necessarily a bad wicked thing. In most stucky fics, the narration is third person pov through either steve or bucky, and in the case of two men born in the 1910′s calling grown women girls would absolutely be a part of their vernacular. It’s absolutely sexist, but I’d argue that it’s a strongly internalized attitude and language pattern both of them would absolutely have problems recognizing and or getting rid of. So even if it’s not a carefully thought out choice from the author, it serves as interesting characterization. Also since the majority of fic authors are women, the relationship with using girls isn’t as simple, for one thing it is a part of common english to use women and girls interchangeably and it’s not something that’s closely examined by all women all the time. Also, I think theres as aspect of it’s usage that is reclaiming it in a way. I mean girls isn’t a slur by any means but it’s not free of negative meaning, and by referring to wonderful characters as girls it in some ways seeks to remove those negative connotations- by presenting to the reader a group of people who the reader admires and saying some of them are girls and thats great, it does something meaningful for a woman reading. Using the word girl/s isn’t always something bad, especially when women are using it.
As for calling them beautiful all the time, I’d argue that 9/10 times theres absolutely nothing inherently sexist about mentioning their beauty. I mean it is objectively true, mcu’s female characters are beautiful. Now the reason behind all of them being gorgeous is pretty sinister, hollywood has an insanely toxic and sexist beauty standard and the fact that female characters in movies have to be beautiful in the same way is a whole other barrel of fish and we’re talking about fanfic, we’re dealing with characters who have a appearance and personality not 100% set by the author of a fic. Honestly, I’ve read thousands of Stucky fics and I think I’ve read a handful where women were actively reduced to their beauty. I mean when was the last time you read a novel by a cishet man? It’s absolutely horrifying, the way they treat women is disgusting, and fic is so much better. 
Most of the time in fic, beauty is just one aspect of their character, for example Peggy’s strength and steely determination usually follow any mention of her beauty and Natasha’s dry humour and keen intelligence usually follow any mention of hers. On the other hand yeah, you get a lot of Bucky dancing with a beautiful nameless woman who only appears as an object of desire and jealousy and yeah, thats a problem. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all to mention a woman’s beauty provided shes being not shown as important only because she’s beautiful. 
I’d also argue that the vast majority of sexism in fanfic isn’t calling female characters girls or referring to their beauty, its demonizing or ignoring female characters who are “in the way” of a m/m ship. I see this happen a LOT with Sharon in particular, but also Peggy and Natasha. You don’t see the female character who is canonically with one half of a m/m ship is a controlling, violently jealous, homophobic monster plotline often anymore, but it does still come up. More common is the female character who is canonically with one half of a m/m ship is a endlessly pure, patient, supportive and unconditionally understanding prop who exists only to step graciously out of the way of the m/m pairing. I see that all the damn time and it bothers me. 
Female characters tend to not be as developed in canon and because of that often also remain underdeveloped in fanfic and also tend in both canon and fic to be there only to support the male characters not existing outside that context. That or the fact that f/f ships are incredibly neglected. I mean theres like one f/f fic for every like seven m/m fics. Part of that is the fact that there are so many less women than men in fiction. Part of that is on us for just not writing wlw and favouring mlm or m/f ships. I have really complicated feelings about this as a queer woman, I mean I‘m running a ship blog about two men. I could be putting my time into natsharon, cartinelli or claire temple/misty knight, but I’m here instead. I worked through lots of internalized homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and aphobia while reading m/m fics, not f/f and I spend so much more time and energy on m/m ships. I mean here I am, a wlw and here I am investing almost all my leisure time on men. I mean I love it in this fandom and it’s absolutely my choice to be here but part of me wonders what it would be like if I had gone through that process with a f/f ship instead and what it would be like to invest this time on women. I wonder what it would be like to be in mcu fandom if our source material treated it’s female characters better and had more of them.
You also see barely any not white, disabled, unattractive or poor women in fic, but once again part of that is a distinct lack of diversity within the source material. But you know what, I do not see many fics with Helen Cho or Claire Temple in them at all, let alone as developed characters.
Anyways sexism in fandom is a lot more complicated than it initially appears. Nothing is ideologically pure, even fanfic, but due to the nature of fanfic being written by people who you can easily contact in the sometimes caustic forum of tumblr I think it’s incredibly important to be gentle with authors who violate what you individually see as correct. Much of tumblr’s atmosphere of callout culture has a very black and white view of what justice is and what is correct, when in reality theres a lot of layers to this, it’s not a simple black and white dichotomy. People are at different places in their journeys, theres a lot of reasons why authors write things the way they do that you might not be aware of, broad sweeping statements saying x is always bad are a real dicey area to step into (and yes, I see the irony in saying that)
So while fandom certainly needs to take a closer look at our own internalized misogyny (and racism and ableism and audism and so on), I think theres much more to be gained from larger conversations, self reflection and making an active effort to be kinder to women than there is from things like carefully abstaining from words like girls.
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narcisbolgor-blog · 7 years ago
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Trans Activist Who Confronted Rose McGowan Would Do It Again, ‘But Better’
Rose McGowan, who first went public with accusations against Harvey Weinstein and sparked the #MeToo movement, tweeted Friday she is canceling all future engagements following a contentious confrontation with a transgender activist in New York City.
Andi Dier made headlines challenging McGowan about transphobia and feminism Wednesday. She told The Daily Beast if given the chance, shed confront the actress all over again, but do it better.
Video of the shouting match between Dier and McGowan at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble went viral, showing the women trading invectives with each other.
And on Friday, McGowan turned her ire to her publicists, management and even the audience at that event in another tweet, blaming them for complicity.
Trans women are dying and you said that we, as trans women, are not like regular women, Dier shouted from the back of the room, Wednesday night, to McGowan who was seated on a small stage. We get raped more often. We go through domestic violence more often. There was a trans woman killed here a few blocks from here. I have been followed home.
Hold on, McGowan interrupted. So am I. We are the same. My point was, we are the same. Theres an entire show called ID channel, a network, dedicated to women getting abused, murdered, sexualized, violated, and youre a part of that, too, sister. Its the same, McGowan said.
But Dier wasnt done. You do nothing for them, she said. Trans women are in mens prisons. And what have you done for them? she asked.
What have you done for women? McGowan said, and shouted at Dier to sit down.
Within seconds, security officers told Dier to leave and misgendered by calling her sir, then dragged her from the audience as she shouted, White cis feminism!
After Dier was taken away, McGowan broke down and flew into a rage as she defended herself and bared her feelings about being attacked publicly.
Dont label me, sister, McGowan shouted at Dier. Dont put your labels on me. Dont you fing do that. Do not put your labels on me. I dont come from your planet. Leave me alone. I do not subscribe to your rules. I do not subscribe to your language. You will not put labels on me or anybody. Step the f back. What I do for the fing world and you should be fing grateful. Shut the f up. Get off my back. What have you done? I know what Ive done, God dammit.
Her rant grew more intense despite efforts by members of the audience to show her support.
Im not crying, Im fing mad with the lies. Im mad that you put s on me because I have a fing vagina and Im white or Im black or Im yellow or Im purple. F off. All of us want to say it. I just do.
And you can label this thing as a breakdown. That, motherfers, is a breakdown. Maybe not for me, but for you. I might have information you want. I might know s that you dont. So fing shut up. Please systemically. For once. In the world. You know what Im talking about. Just tell the God damned truth. Stop boxing everybody into s. I didnt agree to your cis fing world. Ok? F off.
Dier told the Daily Beast that she did have sympathy and compassion for McGowans breakdown, but believes the essential reason her words triggered the actress and author was her own transphobia.
Her trauma was caused by men, Dier said. And I feel personally that maybe she has a traumatic response because she really does see us as men.
So what would Dier, who like McGowan is a survivor of sexual abuse, have done differently?
What I would have liked to have said to her, when she told me she was followed home, I would have told her that when shes followed home, what shes afraid of is being sexually assaulted. Well, Im afraid of being sexually assaulted followed by being murdered.
Im fully prepared for the TERFs [so-called trans-exclusionary radical feminists] to come after me like theyve already done before, Dier added.
In response to a question posed by this reporter about the confrontation, McGowan tweeted that I did my best.
When Dier stood up during McGowans talk, she asked the actress and author to explain comments she made on RuPauls Whats The Tee? podcast in July, that Dier and others have labeled transphobic.
"They assume because they felt like a woman on the inside. That's not developing as a woman. That's not growing as a woman, that's not living in this world as a woman and a lot of the stuff I hear trans complaining about, yeah, Welcome to the world."
Actress Alexandra Grey told The Daily Beast she is one of those who took offense at McGowans comment.
I am a black trans woman of color and now an actress in the public eye, so I was very much offended by Ms. McGowans comments on [Ru Pauls podcast], said Grey. I think people just need to learn to watch what they say. Its not necessaryto say welcome to the world. We are in no way asking to be put on a pedestal; in fact we would prefer if people with an opinion just keep their mouths closed. Because they know nothing about what it's like to be us.
McGowan told Trevor Noah on The Daily Show Thursday that she was convinced Dier wasnt there as a transgender woman, but as a plant, claiming Harvey Weinstein and his defenders hired Dier to attack her.
I know it was a plant because people saw that [person] being handed off, she said. Somebody came in to harass me, and scream, and the other person was filming [gestures to show someone with a camera on their shoulder]. It was targeted and orchestrated, a Russian bot thing, they are basically after me.
No, said Dier, denying she was a plant, after a long laugh. Im not powerful enough to know someone like Weinstein. I live in a closet in East New York.
Also, fuck that rapist, she added. (Weinstein has denied the many allegations of sexual assault made against him, some currently the subject of police investigations in the U.S. and Britain, claiming there is a "wealth of evidence" to prove their "patent falsity.")
"Rose McGowan is clearly suffering after having long endured the kind of trauma I wouldn't wish on anyone, said transgender actress, writer, producer and activist Jen Richards, who voiced a concern that the confrontation is being used as just more sensational fodder instead of sincere efforts to heal divisions.
The media's fixation with her in particular does not seem motivated by a serious concern for the issue of systemic gender inequality and sexual harassment, much less the relationship of trans issues to intersectional feminism, but rather yet another instance of a preference for distracting spectacle. As with all women who have suffered at the hands of misogyny, I hope she finds healing and peace.
While Dier has found a wealth of online support from the transgender community for confronting McGowan, not everyone is so positive.
I was so upset by this, YouTube personality and transgender advocate Maia Monet told The Daily Beast. I can't see this as a win for us. She makes us look like asshole bullies. The general public is going to read it and go that trans person was an asshole for making Rose cry. Can't they see she's been abused and is fighting for women?
"I think Rose is a supporter that is just a bit ignorant of a few things. Attacking her for her blind spots is how your turn a potential powerful ally into an enemy. You take a wounded animal and back it into a corner, the results aren't going to be pretty.
I do believe the entire exchange could have happened in a more loving and compassionate way, said Grey. This was a moment for two women from different backgrounds to have a teaching moment. I think Andi had an opportunity there to truly ask and confront Rose, but the approach, to me, came off very hostile.
"I understand the passion and hurt. So let's have a discussion and figure out how we can all come together to stop the abuse, the murder, etc. Let's not make statements that are offensive of each other. Let's celebrate each other and uplift."
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lgbtpolitics · 5 years ago
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Honestly this is so true. Even in terms of actual transphobia it irks me slightly when people are called terfs when they are really far from radical feminists. I saw this argument about whether or not this guy was transphobic but the person who originally postulated this said "hes like a Male terf or something" like as though men are never transphobic. As though all transphobia originates from radical feminism. People swap out the word transphobe for terf.
And yeah it extends even beyond that- some people take every opinion they seem problematic and say its terf rhetoric. Even if you assume all these things are genuinely problematic terfs dont have a monopoly on harmful ideologies. Theres 0 need to try and make it into a terf thing.
I see the same thing with the word incel. Like at this point the word means nothing anymore its just a way of saying you disagree with someone. I've actually seen a direct comparison saying "TERFs are just incels of the lgbt community" which is again the same offensive notion that TERFS are all lgbt women (and let's be honest they mean lesbians), and what do these ideologies even have in common at all? Two things can be harmful in different ways we dont need to equate them. The only thing they have in common is being constantly misused when you've ran out of arguments.
queer pride
so, in honor of pride month: please remember that ‘queer’ has been a fully reclaimed, non-slur identity for decades now, and queer studies is a legitimate academic term, and it’s only been in the last decade that TERFs have pushed to reclassify it as a ‘slur’ starting in online spaces. 
because ‘queer’ is such a broad and flexible term, it’s much harder for bigoted, trans-exclusive, bi-phobic, a-phobic people to interrogate the queer community and try to divide it into who deserves respect and who deserves to be expelled. the queer community is extremely diverse, extremely accepting, and it’s entirely opt-in. no one can say you’re not really queer, because if you say you’re queer, you are. 
this is extremely frustrating to terfs, who want a very narrow and rigidly policed LGB community (minus the T, A, and Q+, of course), so they have been working to reclassify queer as a slur. they target young isolated girls online, and take advantage of their earnest desire to be helpful and unproblematic, and they get them to repeat ‘queer is a slur’, and it’s incredibly sad and frustrating for us queers to deal with.
lesbian, gay, and queer are all slurs. they’ve all been used to insult us. and they’re all reclaimed. people that don’t want to be called queer don’t have to be, but tagging posts with q*slur is an insult to everyone who identifies as queer. breaking into posts where queer people call themselves and each other queer and refer to the queer community of queers who call themselves that to let us know that ‘queer is a slur’ is itself bigoted, TERF-aligned behavior. 
please reblog this post, and accept that queer is a valid term with decades of history and millions of proudly self-identified people. the next time you see someone say ‘queer is a slur’, let them know that phrase is manufactured and propagated by TERFs as an attack on the queer community. we’ll all have a much happier pride month if we stand up for each other against the real sources of hatred, rather than letting them get us to chew on each other for another year. 
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