#these people are subjected to violence on account of being women --not on how they see themselves which isn't the prerogative of oppressed

[saintkevorkian]

NB:

trans theory presupposes male and female personalities. Some might consider this most basic premise rather dubious

trans women say trans women are women

many cis women say trans women are not women

per trans theory, this difference of opinion amounts to a zero sum game: that is to say, choosing to align with one group silences the other.

if one entertains the possibility that trans women might be men, then one has according to neoliberal orthodoxy done the expected thing and silenced the oppressed group, on the order of the oppressor, for speaking out against their oppression. (of course it is also possible the reverse phenomenon has taken place; if one is unwilling or unable to entertain possibilities however unpalatable they might at first seem--no, sorry; these are weasel words. if going against the grain is too difficult, then what are you doing philosophising honestly)

(in parentheses because it isn't a fact, but a likelihood relevant to the coherence of the argument -- the purpose of philosophy is not to while away the hours but to use all available mental strategies to answer difficult questions.)

there isn't any sort of net material advantage to be gained from becoming a woman

worldwide, the female body is seen as an object into which men implant pregnancies. There is a strong culture of disadvantage and disrespect that comes with this perception, and forms an ineluctable part of womanhood for all but the luckiest women. This is tied to simply having a uterus and being seen through the lens of farming and husbandry (next bullet point). It isn't clear how someone's personal feelings about their preferred social or sexual roles opts them into this reality

women have been oppressed since the stone age, in which the oldest known written document describes gifting a male ruler with a child bride. the possibly sudden and apparently worldwide oppression of women correlated with civilisation and settlement and may not have much applicability to nomadic groups as recently as a few hundred years ago (nomadic groups require a more maverick mindset than agrarian societies, particularly established ones -- as such nomads possibly cannot afford to oppress half the population).

women were the last group to be allowed to own property in most countries, and (this isn't a fact but most people would agree--) in a non-collective society, if you cannot own, you are liable yourself to be owned.

the different treatment of women (which as far as science can tell might be the only thing to account for any large-scale personality variations between women and men) most likely arose from the time it takes a woman vs a man to produce children, the strong, almost causal connection between wellbeing of mother and child in early life, and some amount of physical disability in the last months before childbirth

just like 'wiggers' aren't black despite feeling theyve had 'the black experience', it's not clear that any marked group contains an opt-in. an indicator of being marked is to find oneself without options, and to opt into not having options contains not only an element of absurdity but also, in fact, an apodictic prerogative. (if one chooses to burn all bridges and complain of the isolation... one still had a choice*)

(trans men are men, at least in english. it's mankind; we are all men. the extent to which those who do not fit neatly into one category or could pass as another but may have traits of both suffer discrimination and possibly violence is determined both by how each individual is perceived and by the authoritarian inclinations of the surrounding population. NB, strictly policed language and attempts at policing thought indicate increased authoritarian sentiment)

*Obviously, some choices are so cursed and miserable that there's not really anything to choose between the available options. But in cases where a certain path appears preferable, one assumes upon calculating the odds of certain outcomes it has been assessed as the optimal course for the group or ~representative subgroup. Alternatively, if the subgroup are acting against their own interests, one begins to suspect they might have been subjected to organised persuasion.

[lemurchick]

Every year on the tourist island of Borkum in Germany, locals organize a celebration called Klaasohm, the purpose of which is to beat women.

On December 5, unmarried male members of the prestigious association “Boys of Borkum” wear huge, up to a meter high, masks decorated with horns, fur and feathers. First there is a ritual fight in a closed hall, where only those born on the island are allowed. Photos and videos of the fight are forbidden.

The winner chooses his assistants and they scatter around the island hunting for women. Any woman who gets in their way will be beaten, I'm not kidding, with cow horns in which grain is poured for additional weight. Bruises remain for weeks. It's fun for men, and pain and humiliation for women.

This brutal tradition is believed to date back to the days of the whalers. They would return to their homes in the fall and beat their wives, reminding them who was in charge of the household. The custom has survived to this day, but outsiders are not told about it: the male population of the island does not want it to become known. Only about 5,000 people live on the island, and those who break the conspiracy of silence will face public condemnation and stigma. But some find the courage to speak out anonymously on social media:

Many islanders hate the festival and are forced to keep their mouths shut because of social pressure.

"As a Borkum native, I have been telling people for years that this actually still exists on the island and no one wants to believe me."

"Everyone has to participate, and those who don't want to, too. They're afraid they'll get hurt if they speak out."

"This island is a big village. I think everyone here knows how communities like this work. If you speak out against it, the whole town will talk about you, you will be ignored and sometimes persecuted. I've seen what it's like for people who have been ostracized. Many people are afraid, which is why this festival is not publicly criticized. The journalists will leave, but you'll still have a reputation as a traitor."

Defenders of the tradition argue that in order to avoid being beaten, women simply need to stay out of the house. However, there are many accounts of men letting the masked participants into houses and apartments or even pushing women out into the street.

For many years, information about the barbaric custom did not leak out. In 2018, journalists tried to report on Klaasohm, but they were literally kicked off the island. This year, however, almost all of Germany's leading media outlets covered what was happening on the island.

Faced with nationwide criticism, the mayor issued a statement emphasizing that “in order for Klaasohm to remain an important holiday and festival that shapes the identity of the people of Borkum, awareness must be kept low. It has always been the task of the association to maintain silence around this tradition. Please be respectful and do not spread the word.”

Borkum's Equal Opportunities Commissioner supported the statement, and the police noted that no woman has contacted law enforcement in the past five years. Perhaps this is because police officers, doctors, court officials and teachers are heavily involved in the festival and women realize that there is no point in coming for help from someone who held you down yesterday, subjecting you to beatings.

The statement from the Mayor's office only added fuel to the fire and within a day the Young Men of Borkum Association issued a new message:

"We categorically distance ourselves from any form of violence against women and apologize for what has happened in the past."

They also noted that the festival “is more than just a celebration - it is a living expression of our community and an integral part of life in Borkum. It is a time when the whole island comes together.”

As we know, nothing brings men together like hunting women.

(translated from russian channel (the author lives in Germany) Damn Ambivalence )

German Sources: video: Das Schweigen der Insel - Wenn Borkum Klaasohm feiert (https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/panorama-die-reporter/das-schweigen-der-insel-wenn-borkum-klaasohm-feiert/ndr/Y3JpZDovL25kci5kZS8xMzExXzIwMjQtMTEtMjYtMjEtMTU) Hei kummt Klaasohm! (https://www.mare.de/hei-kummt-klaasohm-content-446?srsltid=AfmBOooQQfoiSEBEKzBp1VL0M4ZXkMh_bo3jlfz-vy7IUJOjfxmDLfTS)

Wirbel um „Klaasohm“: Wird Frauen auf Borkum der Hintern versohlt? (https://www.rnd.de/wissen/klaasohm-skandal-auf-borkum-maskierte-maenner-jagen-frauen-tradition-oder-problem-44QIIXJFZNB4JNI4L6LWUNUFSM.html)

Wie ist das Klaasohm-Fest auf Borkum wirklich? (https://www.stadt-borkum.de/index.php?object=tx,3480.5.1&ModID=7&FID=3480.34396.1)

Der Klaasohm – Brauchtum auf Borkum (https://www.dein-niedersachsen.de/regionen/klaasohm/)

Klaasohm-Fest auf Borkum k��nftig ohne Schläge? (https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/panorama/aktuell/Borkum-Frauen-Schlagen-bei-Klaasohm-soll-abgeschafft-werden,klaasohm106.html)

[liatkolink]

For people still in denial whether Israel has committed war crimes, here is a comprehensive list of war crimes Israel has committed both before and after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the list being taken from the Wikipedia article of war crimes with some notable missing examples being the usage of chemical weapons, famine, disease and apartheid. The 7th of October attack did not occur in a vacuum, but is the product of decades of Israel not being held accountable for its war crimes.

Killing civilians:

Israel/Palestine: Unlawful Israeli Airstrikes Kill Civilians by Human Rights Watch on 15/Jul/2014

‘Not a normal war’: doctors say children have been targeted by Israeli snipers in Gaza – The Guardian on 2/Apr/2024

Israeli attack on Rafah tent camp kills 45, prompts international outcry by Reuters on 27/May/2024

Intentionally killing PoWs:

Israel’s Hush-Up Machine in Action: Denying Story Israel Executed Egyptian Prisoners by Washington Report on Middle East Affairs on 8/Apr/2010

Torture:

Israeli government report admits systematic torture of Palestinians by The Guardian on 10/Feb/2000

Israel/OPT: Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees amid spike in arbitrary arrests by Amnesty International on 8/Nov/2023

Israel: Palestinian Healthcare Workers Tortured by Human Rights Watch on 26/Aug/2024

Taking hostages:

Infographic: How many Palestinians are imprisoned by Israel? by AlJazeera on 17/Apr/2022

The thousands of Palestinians Israel arrests, tortures, holds even in death by AlJazeera on 17/Apr/2024

UN report: Palestinian detainees held arbitrarily and secretly, subjected to torture and mistreatment by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 31/Jul/2024

Unnecessarily destroying civilian property:

Israel destroys Gaza tower housing AP and Al Jazeera offices by Reuters on 15/May/2021

Israel targets infrastructure in Gaza to ramp up civilian pressure on Hamas, report claims by PBS News on 11/Dec/2023

Widespread destruction by Israeli Defence Forces of civilian infrastructure in Gaza by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 8/Feb/2024

Deception by perfidy:

Israeli soldier gives 74-year-old Palestinian woman water then shoots her in the head by Middle East Monitor on 20/Jan/2015

Israeli special forces disguised as doctors kill three militants at West Bank hospital by The Guardian on 30/Jan/2024

NBC News investigation reveals Israel strikes on Gaza areas it said were safe by NBC News on 26/Apr/2024

Wartime sexual violence:

Stripped, beaten and blindfolded: new research reveals ongoing violence and abuse of Palestinian children detained by Israeli military by Save the Children on 10/Jul/2023

Israel/oPt: UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 19/Feb/2024

‘Everything is legitimate’: Israeli leaders defend soldiers accused of rape by AlJazeera on 9/Aug/2024

Pillaging:

The Biblical Pseudo-Archeologists Pillaging the West Bank by The Atlantic on 28/Feb/2013

Jewish Soldiers and Civilians Looted Arab Neighbors' Property en Masse in '48. The Authorities Turned a Blind Eye by Haaretz on 3/Oct/2020

Israeli soldiers boast about looting from Gaza by AlJazeera on 14/Feb/2024

Any individual that is part of the command structure who orders any attempt to committing mass killings:

Netanyahu incites violence by casting protesters as clear and present danger by Middle East Eye on 30/Jul/2020

Israeli minister's call to 'erase' Palestinian village an incitement to violence, US says by Reuters on 1/Mar/2023

Netanyahu cites 'Amalek' Theory to justify Gaza Killings by Times of India on 29/Oct/2023

Database exposes 500 instances of Israeli incitement to genocide in Gaza by TRT World 4/Jan/2024

Genocide:

The Genocide of the Palestinian People: An International Law and Human Rights Perspective by Center for Constitutional Rights on 25/Aug/2016

Genocide Warning: Israel & Palestine by Genocide Watch on 21/May/2021

A top U.N. court says Gaza genocide is 'plausible' but does not order cease-fire by npr on 26/Jan/2024

‘Reasonable grounds’ to believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, UN rights expert says by CNN on 27/Mar/2024

Is Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza? New Report from BU School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic Lays Out Case from Boston University Today on 5/Jun/2024

Ethnic cleansing:

UN Human Rights Council: ‘Israel engaging in ethnic cleansing’ by the European Union Parliament on 23/Mar/2011

Israel's ethnic cleansing in Palestine is not history - it's still happening by Middle East Eye on 22/May/2019

UN expert warns of new instance of mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, calls for immediate ceasefire by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 14/Oct/2023

‘Plan for ethnic cleansing’: Israel’s north Gaza siege sets off alarms by AlJazeera on 22/Oct/2024

Granting of no quarter despite surrender:

White Flag Deaths Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead by Human Rights Watch on 13/Aug/2009

Investigators: Israel fired on Gaza civilians carrying white flags by The Electronic Intifada on 28/Jan/2015

3 hostages killed by Israeli soldier in Gaza were waving a white flag, Israel says by npr on 16/Dec/2023

A group of Palestinian men waving a white flag is shot at, killing 1 by NBC News on 24/Jan/2024

She was fleeing with her grandson, who was holding a white flag. Then she was shot by CNN on 26/Jan/2024

Two brothers shot by Israeli forces in Khan Younis, white flag ignored by AlJazeera on 29/Jan/2024

Conscription of children in the military: First one where I couldn't find anything. Way to go, Israel!

Flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity:

Israel violates the principles of necessity, proportionality in its attacks on Gaza by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor on 13/May/2023

Enough: Self-Defense and Proportionality in the Israel-Hamas Conflict by Just Security on 6/Nov/2023

War Crimes and Accountability: The Case Against Israel’s Military Operations in Gaza by JURIST News on 5/Jul/2024

[gothwineaunts]

I tried my best to replicate the post that Tumblr ate earlier.

It’s not as good but you'll get the jist I think. :’)  

---

Hi again! I wanted to follow up on my post from yesterday. I’ve been mostly offline since then, and I feel much better now, especially after seeing the thoughtful responses y’all left. Where did you all even come from!? I don’t think I’ve ever posted this account anywhere, haha. But thank you so much. I’m horrendous at taking a damn compliment but I read all the replies and reblogs and I’m just incredibly humbled. You all brought up my mood a lot and highkey made me feel sane again. I’ve been so confused at why everyone in the WEBTOON comments seems to be so mad all the time, it kind of does my head in if I’m being honest.

But please don’t worry about me or Flynn. Or about Nevermore! We’d never change the story to fit what we think the commenters want us to do, for a lot of reasons. The most important of which is. If we had to do that, I think we’d rather just stop making it. What they seem to want is a story we’re not really interested in telling.

Wholesome wlw is a wildly important thing to be able to find if you’re looking for it. That really cannot be overstated. Until very recently, queer characters have been subjected by popular media to a disproportionate amount of anguish and violence. So the concept of seeing two women just, living a safe and fulfilling life together? I get why people want to see that so badly. And there’s so much beautifully written aspirational content for queer audiences out there now, and I’m pleased to death over it. But the thing is, it’s just not what we’re making.

Nevermore was always intended to be a dark gothicky romance with horror elements. Like Wuthering Heights, or Phantom of the Opera. Because those were the stories that always inspired us when we were young. Bloodsoaked stories of melodrama, intrigue, grief, and passion. Those stories would captivate me and get me asking all kinds of questions. Why can’t the Phantom be a beautiful woman? Why does Christine have the agency of a desk lamp? Why can’t sapphics have something cool like this?

So we decided to make it. Nevermore is not a wholesome romance. It doesn’t try to be. The point was never to explore sapphics having a healthy and (heavy air quotes here) “normal” relationship, like heterosexual couples get to have in real life. We already have that, together, Flynn and I. We live it, everyday.  In Nevermore, what we wanted most was to explore a sweeping sapphic romance full of danger, like heterosexual couples get to have in fiction. That’s why we love those kinds of stories so much, because of how divorced they are from the mundanity of real life. They’re fantasies.

I know that I'm preaching to the choir, aha.

But my point is: if you go to a hardware store to order a cake, you’re probably going to be disappointed. If what you crave is aspirational wlw content, there are so many bakeries you can go to that will give you exactly what you’re hoping for, and more. I especially recommend Muted by Miranda Mundt. It’s also on Webtoon, it’s completed, and it’s free to read.

And please know that I’m not saying to stop reading Nevermore, just maybe to adjust your expectations a little bit. We don’t sell cakes here, but I am pretty sure I've got a few 12ft tall skeleton lawn ornaments in the back if you're interested.

[genderkoolaid]

Why is it hard to understand that men do not care about women in this way? It’s literal history. Women had been oppressed for thousand of years, violently, and men didn’t lift a finger. Actually, women actively died in trying to gain rights from them, because they didn’t want them to. Men were people when they were forbidding women from having bank accounts and voting, too. Men were people when women couldn’t leave the house without them. They were people who wanted to own women and assault them legally, for thousand of years. We can’t to do this together because they don’t care about helping women, quite the opposite. We have never done this together because they’ve never cared (unless to actively forbid women for gaining the same rights they stripped them of). Men hate women, it’s literal history, it’s modern history too. Take a look at Afghanistan, men made more of a fuss about not being able to wear jeans than they did about women being forbidden from speaking to each other or be in public at all. And I’m supposed to believe those are my allies? That I can turn them into allies by loving them? A woman the other day was harassed to suicide in Korea because she was accused of being a feminist. And let’s not even mention the other terrible ways they are terrorizing women in Korea, you know, the telegram chats? And compared to these men, how many are there that are defending women, are the numbers even comparable? Come on.

If they cared, they would’ve helped when they weren’t expected to be feminist, they would in countries aere feminism isn’t mainstream. If they cared, they would care right now, worldwide but they don’t. Instead, not only are they compliant, they are oppressive.

Those were only some examples of countries where women are being oppressed horrifically today and the men don’t care! if they aren’t participating (which they are) they certainly aren’t helping! How is it fair to ask women to love them and to humanize them (which they are, already, in most women’s eyes. unlike women are in theirs) when they show day after day that they don’t give a shit about us, even the supposedly good ones?

It's simply untrue that no man cares about women in that way. It's untrue that no man cares about misogyny. Even just talking about cisgender men. Things are not as black and white (misogynistic violence exists and is widespread, therefore no man cares about women) as you are making them appear.

Take your issues "love" up with bell hooks. I'm not going to rehash this same argument every single time someone wants to argue about the "we must love men quote" instead of. idk. reading her very extensive writing on the subject of love in politics and how she navigated this subject in light of her own experiences with misogynistic and racist violence.

[matan4il]

I’m muslim but I’m upset with the free Palestine movement especially as a woman. they are only making it worse for Muslim women subject to governments which are misusing the teachings of the Quran. they do not care even about Uyghur or Rohingya Muslims

I'm a day late, but I hope it's still okay to wish you Jumaat Mubaraka, lovely Nonnie! *hugs*

I feel you. A few years ago, I took a course and ended up becoming friends with the lady who happened to choose the seat next to me. She's a Muslim Israeli Arab woman. She had the audacity of divorcing her husband. She has a son who came out as gay, and she had the audacity to accept him as he is. Under Hamas or the Palestinian Authority's rule, she could be severely punished socially for either. Worse, her son would likely be terrified for his life, and might have ended up like one of my gay Palestinian friends, who have been forced into heterosexual marriages because the threat to their lives was so great. Instead, her son lives in Tel Aviv, is openly gay, and is an advocate for both the State of Israel and gay Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. She's an advocate for the State of Israel and Israeli Arab Muslim women. She gets to speak and be heard because she's an Israeli citizen. And it's not by chance that she is one. Her family made a choice in 1948, to stand by the Jews, rather than join the Arab attack on them. She once opened the Quran, showed me a specific surah, and told me, "This is why I know that as a Muslim, I must love the Jews, and stand by their state."

She has her own agency in choosing her position on the State of Israel, she has her well being, her son's, and that of many other Israeli Muslim Arab women and gay people to consider, and the anti-Israel crowd doesn't care about any of that. She's just an obstacle standing in the way of the narrative they've chosen, she shows reality is more complex than the black and white framing they embraced, which allows them to openly hate Jews while inflating their own egos, as if they're being righteous.

Not to mention coming up with ridiculous stuff like, "Palestinian men beat their wives because of the Israeli occupation!" This is honestly one of the dumbest things I've ever heard, only topped by "Israel is using cow/dolphin spies." But think of the practical implication. It means as long as Israel exists, no one's gonna hold Palestinian men accountable for the violence they're committing against their own wives. It's a betrayal of Palestinian women, all supposedly in the name of helping Palestinian nationalism.

(on top of the criticism voiced by UN Watch, it's insane how one of the speakers blaming domestic violence against Palestinian women on Israel is the UN representative of "Etat de Palestine," state of Palestine... What an easy way to avoid a state's duty to protect the women living under its rule from any and all violence, including domestic! If you're an independent state, and deserve recognition from the world, then you also have the responsibility to tackle domestic violence. If you're not independent, then why are you demanding to be recognized as such?)

And yes, the lack of care for actual Israeli Arabs and Palestinians is what I often talk about, but you're right that the damage caused by the anti-Israel crowd is bigger than just to Jews, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinians. Holding up an Islamist cause, backing up the Islamist movement and showing them how the west can be easily won, this will only serve to harm more people. Including Muslims who are more vulnerable to human rights abuses, like women and gay people.

In the vid above, as another example, the UN Watch speaker asks the UN to compare the data on domestic violence suffered by Palestinian women, to that suffered by Jordanian, Lebanese, Egyptian women and so on... Maybe if they couldn't use Israel as their punching bag, they'd have to look at domestic violence against women in the whole region, and actually do something about it. But nah, it's easier to write off Israel as the guilty party when it comes to Palestinian domestic violence, and pretend like that's the only place in the entire Middle East where this violence stands out as an issue. And that's before we talk about observing the levels of anti-women violence in non-Arab Muslim countries, such as Iran, where the government itself has imprisoned and even killed women for not wearing a hijab correctly. This is a betrayal of Muslim women at large.

And in addition to all that, like you said, this crowd also doesn't give a shit about the Muslims being persecuted in any conflict that doesn't allow the blame to be laid on the 'evil Jews.' Even when the numbers targeted are much greater, and the scope of abuse far more severe.

Thank you for the ask, and I hope you're okay! I hope the world cares more about Muslim women, rather than posturing as if it does, but only when it can be used against Jews. xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[txttletale]

I'm only saying that because when people made jokes and badgered me about being trans, it made me not wanna even come out :/ like people speculating if I was a girl or not

Hey I'm newly Transfem and have a lot to learn so I wanted to follow up on the previous ask about Aaron and his gender identity. Is it disrespectful to speculate on his gender because it could be misgendering? I don't think transfem is insulting, but I fear that a projection of transfemininity on aaron could be misgendering and disrespecting the identity he chose in death for whatever reasons he chose. Thank you for your thoughts and words.

i mean, i'm sympathetic to your personal account and i've heard many like it! but on the other hand i've equally heard people telling stories about how they felt unable to broach the subject but kept hoping one of their trans friends would say something or give them a push they felt they couldn't take themselves. i've gone back and forth on this kind of thing and i do think ultimately it is something where you cannot make a single proclamation that covers every circumstance. every person is unique and has a unique social circumstance--the only real answer when it comes to asking or joking about someone's gender is that 'it depends on the person and who you are to them and their stated comforts and discomforts and how well you know them and a thousand other things'

however that is all to do with interpersonal interactions -- i don't think any of this applies to bushnell, who is not going to be discouraged from coming out because he martyred himself for palestine and who is not here to read posts and be affected by them because he martyred himself for palestine. i don't think it's "misgendering" -- i don't think you can meaningfully 'misgender' cis people, because what misgendering is when done to a trans person is an implicit threat of transphobic/transmisogynistic violence, an implicit denial of the social reality of trans people's own self-understanding and an implicit voicing of support for the politics of depriving and subjugating trans people into the grave or the closet.

i think that is all aside from the question of whether it's wrong to speculate about bushnell's gender. obviously i don't think anyone should be making super bold definitive claims about his identity, or digging into his private life for information, or talking about his identity in exclusion to talking about the cause at hand. but i haven't seen anyone do that, is the thing. i've just seen a handful of trans women have what i think is a natural and obvious reaction to hearing that someone with the name aaron had a twitch account called lillyanarkitty and then being treated like they're spitting on his grave for doing so, which leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

[girlactionfigure]

The Settler Violence You Don’t Hear About

We all know about the Turkish occupation of Cyprus and the hundreds of thousands of Turkish settlers living there since the Turkish invasion and occupation of part of the island in 1974. Actually no, most people have never heard about the illegal Turkish settlement of Cyprus, but that’s a subject for a different story. I want to talk about a more recent Turkish illegal settlement, one that is both ongoing and far more severe.

In June 2024, while Turkey was frothing at the mouth about the treatment of Arabs in "Occupied Palestine" – that is, Israel – Syrian refugees, also Arabs, were being lynched in Turkey for allegedly harassing a Turkish child. This was nothing new. According to EuroMed Rights, this was "yet another example in a series of anti-refugee discontent and violence. Turkey has previously experienced waves of lynching and attacks against refugees in 2014, 2017, and 2019, alongside individual offences that often go unpunished due to a pervasive culture of impunity."

However, this time the Arabs didn’t take this lying down.

Syrian militias allied with Turkey launched several attacks against Turks in Turkish-occupied northern Syria, resulting in Turkish fatalities. This is where it gets interesting, so let’s talk about this occupation for a little bit.

The Turkish-occupied region of Syria is around one-third larger than the West Bank and is rife with human rights abuses that are simply ignored by the Western media. In fact, in 2021 the NYT was accused by Kurdish and international activists of whitewashing Turkey’s occupation…which I bet you didn’t hear about either.

In 2018, Turkey invaded the majority-Kurdish Afrin District of northwest Syria ostensibly to prevent Kurdish attacks against Turkey in what was ironically called “Operation Olive Branch.” To quote Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, "What can that terror army target but Turkey? Our mission is to strangle it before it's even born." So, very proactive self-defense.

Kurdish refugees leaving Afrin in Northern Syria

As many as 510 civilians were killed in the operation. Other atrocities included the mutilation of a female corpse by Turkey's Syrian National Army proxies, indiscriminate bombardment of civilians by Turkish forces, and shooting of refugees fleeing into Turkey.

However, the worst was yet to come. After Turkish-led forces had captured the Afrin District in 2018, they engaged in a wide resettlement program that included moving Arab settlers from southern Syria into homes that belonged to the displaced Kurdish and Yazidi locals. The previous owners were then prevented from returning to Afrin to reclaim their stolen homes. This wasn’t a chaotic process but a conscious ethnic replacement by the Turkish government and its SNA proxies.

Al Amal 2, one of the Arab settlements build in Afrin.

Paragraph 47 of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic submitted to the UN Human Rights Council noted that "multiple accounts indicate that the property of Kurdish owners was looted and appropriated by Syrian National Army members in a coordinated manner. For example, in September 2019, civilians in the Shaykh al-Hadid subdistrict (of the Afrin region) described how members of Division 14, Brigade 142 (the Suleiman Shah Brigade) of the Syrian National Army had gone from door to door instructing Kurdish families with fewer than three members to vacate their houses to accommodate individuals arriving from outside of Afrin." It was also reported by Al-Monitor and Arab News that Yazidi and Kurdish women and girls have been kidnapped by the SNA for ransom, rape, or forced marriage. It stands to reason this was also done to “encourage” Kurds to leave the region.

Following the Turkish invasion, as many as 200,000 indigenous Kurds and Yazidis fled from the Afrin District while an estimated 458,000 settlers moved into their homes. According to a GenocideWatch article from 2020, the size of the indigenous population of Kurds in the Afrin region dropped from 97 percent before the occupation to 34.8 percent.

This is an ongoing process. According to a report by the Hawar News Agency from 2024, “Within the aim of separating Afrin from Syria and annexing it, the Turkish occupation continues to commit crimes, intimidate the people, and trade in their property by Turkey's settlers and mercenaries. Local sources said that a settler from the southern Aleppo countryside sold a house belonging to the citizen Issam Hussein, a resident of the village of Andariyah, in the city of Janders to another settler for $1,500.”

But wait, this gets even crazier!

Many of these settlers are Palestinians.

That’s right. Even as you read these lines, illegal Palestinian settlers are moving from the West Bank into stolen Kurdish homes in an occupied region, displacing and replacing the indigenous population… and they’re proud of it!

According to a 2022 article from the Afrin Post, “the first part of a residential community constructed in Jindires district was opened, with direct funding from the residents of Al-Zaeem village in the occupied city of Jerusalem. The project plan consists of 75 housing units, each of which consists of 4 houses, to accommodate about 220 families. Today, 32 housing units (about 128 families) have been settled in, while work is underway and preparations are being completed to start the second part of the project.”

"Funded by Al Zaim donations, in Quds Town.”

According to exiled Kurdish politician Abdulrahman Apo, all the villages of Afrin have been “turned into settlements. In addition to Syrian Arabs, 10,000 Palestinians are stationed in Afrin.”

A spokesman for one of the Palestinian settlements said, "Today, we arrived from Palestine to the airport, and from there to northern Syria, to deliver the housing units… [We] know the meaning of occupation, displacement, asylum and home displacement."

He sure does! He’s actively engaged in it! He’s doing exactly what the Palestinians falsely accuse Israel of doing, only on steroids.

In just a few years, more than 100 settlements have been built by Turkey and funded by Gulf countries and Palestinian associations in areas under Turkey’s control. In fact, one of the settlements is even called “Palestine Ajnadine.”

What can I say? The man is a master of irony, almost as much as the genius who called the whole thing "Operation Olive Branch."

Western liberals make so much noise about Israel, they silence the screams and pleas of tens of millions of victims of severe and ongoing human right abuses all over the planet. This obsessive tunnel vision creates the ultimate smokescreen for a plethora of atrocities that dwarf anything Israel may be involved in. Be honest, I’m sure you’ve never heard about Palestinian settlements on Kurdish land before you read this article. Why would you? Western media never talks about it. Western intellectuals never talk about it. It seems no one cares about it except the Kurds themselves.

This obfuscation by fake moral outrage is a big reason for Turkey’s ostensible obsession with Gaza. It’s less their concern for the Palestinians or objection to settlements, and more their desire to distract from their own ongoing crimes. I’m sure the Kurds, as well as the Greeks, Cypriots, Syrians, and other nations colonized by Turkey, would appreciate it, if Western liberals could spare some of their moral outrage for the occupation and colonization of these nations.

URI KURLIANCHIK

DEC 3

[yunhogosailing]

women’s rights, stan culture, and “idolization”: what the fuck are we doing here?

tw: sexual abuse

i am absolutely dismayed to hear of the ongoing situation involving taeil, despite knowing very little about him as a person and having surface level knowledge of nct 127 as a group. i am even more dismayed at the discourse surrounding the way nctzens, especially taeil stans, have been reacting to the news since the announcement this morning.

i dont want to rant and ramble bc that helps nobody. i’ve read my fair share of thinkpieces on various platforms—some well thought out, some covering the bare minimum at best, and even more demonstrating a complete lack of understanding as to how we need to approach these subjects both as fans and as consumers. i feel as if everything that needed to be said has been said, but i do want to touch on a point of my own, and tell you all how you can help support the ongoing korean feminist movement.

it is not healthy to go about your entire life assuming that you will see the worst of someone eventually.

this is true for anyone you meet: an idol, a family member, a friend, and a complete stranger. i’m exhausted by all of the Hot Takes admonishing those who feel a sense of loss, sorrow, and disgust upon finding out that someone who they were led to trust could potentially be capable of doing something as heinous as what is being alleged against taeil.

“you don’t know these people” you’re correct! i most certainly do not.

“don’t put these people up on a pedestal” nobody is doing this by virtue of simply being a fan.

“as a boy group stan you should always keep in mind that men are shit.” are you starting to see my issue, yet?

you are not naive or stupid for believing the best in someone, even if this is a person you have never met and will never know on a more personal level than as a fan of an idol. i am exhausted with the seemingly popular belief that its somehow healthy or normal to navigate through life operating under the assumption that everyone around you has the capacity for violence and harm. it is not healthy. as a survivor of sexual abuse and harassment, one of the first things i had to regain over my life was a sense of control and sanity. this meant ridding myself of the fear that i could be re-victimized at any moment. statistically speaking, it was always a possibility. but realistically speaking, i was doing far greater harm to myself throughout my recovery when i was afraid of the men around me.

if you are an nctzen, if you are taeil biased, do not feel bad about being blindsided by this. do not start assuming that the other members must have been aware, or must be involved, or must have committed some crime of their own; that is simply not how the real world works. if you are a fan of boy groups, keep your standards high but do not view this as a reason to be hyper vigilant of the people you stan. do not assume the worst until they present you with the worst. expecting people to be decent is not idolizing someone. its when you refuse to hold them accountable to the actions that they have done that you cross the line between being a fan and being an enabler.

why is this important to keep in mind?

we as kpop stans are in a particularly unique position. we are consumers of a byproduct from a culture that is undergoing a severe women’s rights crisis.

just recently, a series of telegram groups were discovered in which hundreds of thousands of users created and shared artificial explicit materials (deepfakes) involving women and young girls spanning from kindergartners to university students to adults; family members, classmates, coworkers, etc. the figures of the perpetrators involved could potentially be as high as 300,000 individuals, and a overwhelming majority of those in these chats are believed to be men.

this incident is coming right off the tails of another, more infamous group of telegram rooms nicknamed “the Nth rooms”—where a number of men helped to orchestrate one of the largest cases of digital sex crimes in south korean history, victimizing over a hundred women and young girls for the purpose of disseminating violent sexually explicit materials.

even before the original Nth Room case, korean women had more than enough reasons to fear for their safety; molka (hidden camera) crimes were on the rise, with over 30,000 cases being reported between 2013 and 2018. korean women were being assaulted and killed in their homes and on the street for no reason (significantly high femicide rates are still an issue in south korea today). women were being prosecuted over the mere belief that they may be involved in the country’s feminist movement—experiencing professional repercussions over accusations such as reading a book, having short hair, or making a gesture. in the wake of this anti-feminist backlash, it became increasingly common for men to voice their discomfort for what they believe to be “radical” measures taken by korean women to ensure their safety and improve their futures. see, for example, rapper San-E who wrote a diss track towards feminists and is still able to walk these streets relatively unharmed due to his position of privilege.

the notion that you should always assume that every man you meet is a potential sex criminal or a misogynist is harmful simply because that is the exact reason why korean feminists have been working so hard to change the legislation surrounding sexual crimes for the last two decades. the ultimate goal of gender equality is having that reassurance that no matter what gender motivated crime is committed against you, you will be entitled to justice through the courts and free of the stigma of being a victim in society. korean women want to be able to interact with their brothers and fathers without worrying about ending up in a deepfake video. korean women want to be able to venture outside their homes at night without fear of being followed and abducted. korean women want to be able to use the restroom at work without having to check the stalls for microscopic recording devices. the idea that you should be weary of those around you and those who have gained your trust is detrimental to your mental health, and with this knowledge, korean women have been actively working tirelessly to ensure a future where they will not have to worry about this.

it could be your faves, but theres no guarantee that it will ever be or that it will never be. rather, work today to uphold the standard that women should be protected and hold those who have violated their rights as human beings to the full power of the law. keep the names of those who have suffered or died from violent crimes against women alive and their stories in the media. south korean feminists are asking for our help in spreading the news about the recent deepfake Nth rooms, because they are facing silence and noncompliance from domestic media outlets to do their due diligence in investigating this matter.

they are suggesting that you take korean news articles surrounding the deepfakes, or korean feminist posts discussing the telegram groups and any events that are being planned to protest for women’s rights, and run them through a translator if needed in order to share them with english speaking news media. the idea is that as long as international eyes are on the atrocities being committed against women in the country, the korean news cannot suppress their voices.

here are the twitter accounts that i know of who are taking the risk to share their stories and that of other south korean women:

link to profile

link to profile

link to profile

link to profile

link to profile

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

You are not ACAB. You're an asshole

SO this post has been a long time coming and I have sent a rant to several people to look over it for me just so I could get opinions. And most agreed with what I had to say. However it was mean, callous, and too "I'm ok being an shithead" for my taste.

If I am being 100% honest, people hate cops just to hate cops. It's not because there are cops that do wrong. It's just because they are told to/programmed to hate cops. Ok, so why do I say that?

Well a few reasons.

For the past 40 years *minimum* it has been a point of the media to showcase any time a cop does anything bad. Because what better way to "Reach the people" than to assuage them with a "Hello fellow Americans. Doesn't it suck with cops get on our ass about stuff".

Social media has been using bait for years in order to get more traffic to more links and articles. This alone has made rage baiting as an entirety more of an issue.

Because of both of the above, there was a time when alt media *at the time* and social media worked in tandem to constantly show off instances of cops being assholes or outright doing things that were illegal.

So what does this mean. Well it means that you are under a notion that is already provided to you. "Cops are ruthless bad guys that don't do anything for anyone at all".

Except that's not even remotely true. What is true is that often, any positive stories involving cops is buried or glossed over and only ever talked about in very local reports. What's more a cops job is to do the right thing. So when a cop does do the right thing, the understanding is that they are not meant to receive praise. However, that is lopsided in how it works. It more or less means that you are under the LARGEST of microscopes, and if you fuck up at ALL, then you end up as a youtube video that reinforces that "Cops are bad guys" or "Cops are stupid and annoying". Rather than the truth which is that cops themselves are human beings.

Now. I can already see the comment from the shitheads. "ACAB EXISTS BECAUSE-" Shut it. I don't care. Unlike most of you I understand nuance. And more than that, I've had poor run-in's with cops. I have also had to work along side them as private security as well. And my mother, who's not shy about telling people they fucked up, worked as Dispatch and as a Secretary for the PD in the small city we lived in. "Oh well then your brainwashed", you can say that but it does not make you right.

Unlike you, clearly I'm able to think critically about subjects where as you are not. Am I a "Back the Blue" cultist? Absolutely not. I'm solely in the camp of Abolish Unions and hold officers to account for what they do wrong.

However, having said that, Cops duty to uphold the law sometimes manifests in ways that we don't like. Like Uvalde. The cops were in their rights to stop the shooter, but the top brass would have decimated any officer that decided to not follow his order of standing down. I don't think that's ok. Hell that entire chain of command should have faced a lawsuit. But where they DID properly enforce the law, is stopping parents from going in. Because had a parent gone by cops in order to stop the shooter, at that point, it legally could have been considered vigilantism.

Regardless of the moral implications of that, fact is, that's the truth.

So why am I making this post? Mostly because ignorant people exist in this world and their only reason for living at all is just to hate. "All cops are bastards"? Are you so sure? I wonder how many people in the US over the past 100+ years have been saved by cops. I wonder how many kids have been rescued from abuse. I wonder how many women have been saved from rape. I wonder how many kids have been save from gang violence or drug dealing.

Saying, "All cops are bastards" is no different than saying, "Yes all men". Functionally you are saying the same thing. And while you may say, "Hey that's not the same one is an immutable trait and the other is a job", to which I'll say, sure. Except you are making a gross generalization. Which IS the same. And ignores every single decent, good, great cop that exists out there. And every single good cop that has ever existed.

In my last post talking about this, I stated that people that are ACAB don't really hate cops. They just hate that they can't break the law without consequences. And I still believe that, but let me add a bit of nuance to that.

Most of the people that hate cops are programmed to hate cops. Because, like the media does, it picks something that will engage you, and will put it in front of you any way it knows how to. There are also a lot of people out there that hate cops because they can't break the law. That's also very true.

However there is another group that exists and it's Anarchists. Now, I have followers and people that I follow that are Anarchists. And while I view them as different from Tankies, Fundamentally they share the same, "Ideal Utopia" idea. Which is that, "Under my ideals, the world would be better". Except it won't be. It will be warlords and dictators forming groups. Assuming that we don't get taken over by Islamic Extremists, China, or the UN. Their ideals aside, they hate "The State" in all it's forms. And if you are fine with any form of "State" they will quite literally go off on a tirade of why you are a bootlicker. *Sigh*

Now, the last of these groups is just people that either 1) Do not understand what goes into being a cop and just hates them based on baseless notions, or 2) People that have had bad run-in's with cops and take that notion out on ALL cops.

So for these last two sets, things are difficult to deal with. Because they will go out of their way often to not care about how hard it is to be a cop. What do I mean?

Well for starters, cops are expected to be perfect at all times.

Perfect Aim

Perfect knowledge of all laws both federal and local

Perfect judgement at all times

Perfect execution of force at all times

Perfect response at all times

Perfect awareness of surroundings at all times

Perfect ability to listen to the law but also not piss off people breaking the law

And I could go on. Humans are fundamentally imperfect. They always will be. So expecting a cop to be perfect is like asking your SO where they want to eat every day for a month and them knowing right away. Unless you're a LIAR it's not going to happen. Same such, cops can't be perfect. Combine that with having to both uphold the law AND be sure to follow the law at the same time, then combine that with the dangers of the job, the fact that human beings are ANIMALS that are violent by nature, and unpredictable on top of which, with use of force laws. And yeah. You don't have a good time. It becomes a huge issue of people that are like, "Why didn't just just tase him?" or "Why didn't you just shot the gun out of his hand" or better yet, "He only had a knife and was threatening to kill someone. Why'd did you have to shoot him, you are not judge jury and executioner."

And that's where you are both right and wrong.

Right in the fact that they are not a Jury. Wrong about the fact that they are not acting in their capacity to judge a situation, and execute those that are too great a risk to subdue. And if you ever talk to a person that does MMA, subduing a person is not as easy as you think. More over, Tasers are not considered, "non-lethal". In a lot of cases they are considered lethal because you are delivering a shock, meant to incapacitate someone. Meaning that you have the risk of permanently injuring them, OR killing them if their heart stops. Hell you could also in theory turn them into a vegetable.

But sadly no one considers all of these things. And only people familiar with cops and how their jobs work, know any of this.

Am I justifying bad, or even evil cops with this post? No. I think cops fundamentally need more training. I also think that they need frequent psychological evaluations to see the effect of the work on them. Because some of the things you see in your capacity as an officer can be gruesome. Dead bodies. People that have been mutilated. Dead kids from drugs or gang shootings. And the list goes on and on and on.

Recently I made a post talking about how since the summer of 2020, there have been less good cops. And fact is, because of the 2020 riots, a lot of good cops did quit their jobs. That's a fact. Many actually put in for early retirement. And not because "They were being held to account". No. It was because they were told, "If you do your job, we will riot outside your station. Firebomb your cars and homes, and we will find a way to railroad you into prison".

So what do we see in NY and LA? Car break ins. Looting. Beatings in the streets. Cops that will literally stand down while people are being hurt. Why? Because why the hell would anyone be a cop when you are under a microscope SO LARGE, that even the SMALLEST twitch in the wrong direction could end your career and possibly your life.

It's easy to say, "Yeah I'd stop those looters and assaulters". Sure. Right up until the are a protected class. Then enjoy your media crucifixion, loss of work and likely stint in jail. As well as your family getting death threats for years to come. So given all this, I made a point that a lot of hires over the last 3 years have probably been scraping the bottom of the barrel. Because in truth, knowing all the above, why WOULD anyone be a cop? Certainly there are still good cops. But a lot of the good ones quit.

What's more, Now a days it's better as a cop to just NOT enforce the law. Because why risk everything I mentioned. You protect the law and you make the conservatives happy but piss off the woke. And the woke currently more or less control law and media. Good luck getting shanked in jail. If you don't uphold the law, you piss off people who want you to enforce it but you probably get to live another day.

At that point you may say, "OK so why be a cop at all then", and the answer is easy. It's a job. And it pays. Why excel at all when you are expected to be a bastion of perfection? What's that? Didn't use the PERFECT amount of force? Death Penalty. Oh? You shot a guy that pulled a gun on you and you didn't just take the shots to the chest? Well clearly you deserve to be put in jail for the rest of your life.

Cops are treated like they are supposed to be absolutely perfect at all times and it's stupid. I HATE police unions mind you. But you know what I hate more. People that have no idea the risk to their lives that cops are put through day to day just for putting on the badge. The fact that cops NEED wiggle room within the law in order to enforce it.

Remember "Hands up don't shoot"? Yeah. So do I. I also remember that it was a fucking lie, and that there are people to this day that still believe that lie. And if not for Police Unions, he might have rotted in jail for the rest of his life. There is no PEFECT in this life. Not for cops, not for anyone. Cops are not superheroes. They don't swing in on a web shooter and punch the bad guy JUST hard enough to knock him out without killing him. And with morality as fucked up as it is in the west, even just in the US, Law enforcement is in a no win situation. At all times.

But I want to find every person that has ever been saved by cops, and force you to tell those people that all cops are bad. And tell them about how whatever they were saved from doesn't matter because "ALL cops are bad". Tell the women that were possibly saved from rape, "You should have just been raped. Cops are all evil." Or tell the kid that was saved from the person that kidnapped them, "Yeah no, you should have just been a sex slave. Cops are bastards and clearly they didn't WANT to help you". Stop making assessments about ALL of any group of people. Because the likelihood that you'll be right is near zero.

There are good cops. And there are bad cops. Police Unions need heavy reformation. Accountability needs to actually be able to happen. And people need to understand how hard cops actually have it. All of these things can be true at the same time. And none of it is justifying evil or bad cops or even ones that don't enforce the law. It's a nuanced topic. And as such, it should be treated so.

[incorrect-jojolands-quotes]

Hot take but I think what we saw in chapter 13 was necessary.

I don't think a lot of people realize how important it is for Araki to portray what he did, even if it extremely difficult to take in. Let me explain.

Araki has discussed about topics like racial and class disparity through both Steel Ball Run and Jojolion, but JOJOLands is different because the discussions are now very direct. We had Chapter 1 open up with police brutality and Chapter 13 open with intense bullying; both acts were committed by people of higher social standing/power and seemingly White (or white passing) and both are harming a dark-skinned queer individual. Not only that, remember that Hawai'i is an island stolen and colonized by the US and many indigenous individuals who were supposed to live and maintain kapu are being forced to endure housing problems, loss of culture, etc. due to gentrification and exploitation of its lands. 2020 was when we saw global protest towards the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor due to police brutality, which has spread as far as Japan in terms of demonstrations and rallies. Araki has made it clear that he tries to take real world experience into his writing, and this is no different. He is also no stranger to portraying law enforcement throughout his parts without glorifying or downplaying their behavior.

As a mutual of mine (who themselves identify as a black GNC individual based in US) has put it, those who identify or even appear as Black while identifying as trans-femme or women are subjected to some of the worse kinds of oppression possible in America. Queer women of Color are one of the most susceptible to sexual violence-- especially when they are young, and the darkness of their skin really plays into it. This is transmisogynoir; it is a hard pill to swallow and acknowledge, even if it feels excessive, and its a multilayer of oppression that connects a person's racial identity, gender, and sexuality as targets of discrimination. It's the fact that one is POC, a woman, AND queer that makes one a target--- not just one or the other. You can’t turn a blind eye to this because it happen constantly throughout America's history and American society even today, but you can't simply water it down or downplay it. In fact, many victims of transmisogynoir have no choice but to downplay their experiences because of their Black identities or because they appear too dark to be taken seriously; when they, especially if they are Black, try to hold people in power accountable, these individuals are suddenly labeled aggressive, indignant, etc. and they are further discriminated for attempting to speak up. Dragona downplaying the bullying isn't them just trying to avoid further conflict but a reflection of how many who were in similar situations like Dragona are forced to simply forgive and forget the trauma they have to endure. To downplay it ourselves is reinforcing the narrative that individuals like Dragona in real life should remain silent and endure their harassment rather than rightfully protect themselves and others from it.

Another thing to add is that the way Japan portrays and treats the LGBTQ community, particularly the trans community. In Japan, the process to legally change your gender is complicated and requires a lot of steps that include, but not limited to, being diagnosed with gender identity disorder, proving you have no kids/guardianships, and sterilization. This causes a lot of individuals to be forced to quickly transition as a means of getting their gender recognized, which takes away the time to let them explore at their own pace, and this is due to how the process can lead to hindering career and life opportunities that wouldn't be hindered had they already transitioned or stayed closeted. Many Japanese trans individuals unable to go through the process quickly either remain closeted or move away from Japan to transition at their own pace. So, as a result, the trans community and its struggles is not as noticed compared to outside of Japan. Another thing to add is that the trans community in Japanese media is often portrayed as comedic relief or a gag. Oftentimes, the trans character or character who diverts from gender conformity (i.e cross-dressing, acting more flamboyant) is the butt of the jokes. Some thing to note is that, when Dragona was first introduced, a lot of people thought that Araki put Dragona in simply for comedic purposes. I had people joke about how Dragona is just there because they believed Araki is trolling. Not only that, the racial issues that Japan has often results in jokes towards non-Japanese individuals in media, especially if they are of darker skin color.

So, Araki putting Dragona in these difficult situations is also meant to subvert expectations that his Japanese, and possibly Western, audience may be expecting. The expectation was to laugh and toss Dragona aside as a single-dimensional character, but Araki instead forced us to face the trauma through Dragona's experience head-on. We are made aware of Dragona's situation, how real and difficult the struggle is, and we end up emphasizing with it rather than laughing at it. Through this, we get a glimpse into real life experiences of trans POCs without it being downplayed and have it show how Dragona is a fleshed-out character with importance to the series. As some have put it, this chapter proved that Dragona isn't just a side character but arguably a complex individual on the same level of importance as Jodio. I don't think it would have been easy to have the same impact if another approach was taken.

While talking to others who identify as trans and/or GNC about their thoughts on the chapter, I was told by many of them that, while Dragona's experience hits close to home and was hard to digest, they appreciate seeing it being expressed and hope it will help other people understand their struggles. One noted how the introduction of Smooth Operators with the backstory as empowering, seeing the Stand as a symbol of surviving the trauma that comes with trans discrimination. I do find this a bit telling with how many people online who are against Araki's portrayal barely mention what trans/GNC people have said about it.

My main concern, as well as what I see people have rightfully critiqued, is the excessive trauma reinforcing the fetishization and violent voyeurism towards trans individuals; it also reinforces the problematic narrative that dysmorphia can only happen as a result of trauma and the trans experience can only be full of pain. There's also the issue that Dragona's experience also happened while they were under age and their harassment is similar to that of Lucy. It's a common trope in Western media to put marginalized people into these situations while upping the ante simply for clicks and pleasure, and even worse when the character portrayed is a minor. As I reiterate, it is a very uncomfortable chapter to read and I don't find it enjoyable at the slightest. Just because I understand why it is necessary doesn't mean I condone the approach done. I also understand Araki as a Japanese man can only relate and portray a queer American's experience to an extent. But, at the same time, the exposure was necessary because it gives us the awareness and a voice to trans people that is lacking within media even today. We need to be aware and acknowledge what our BIPOC trans community goes through as a means of being better humans--- and especially our younger community members. We need to make our society safer for them so they can thrive and have the respect they deserve. Oftentimes, that starts with how they are portrayed and how their experiences are portrayed. While it is still a journey and not every representation will be perfect, we can't simply toss it aside and bash those who try to show something realistic just because it is uncomfortable.

I only hope that Araki wrote Dragona and these scenes as a result of doing extensive research and reaching out to actual POC queer individuals, particularly transfemmes/women, to understand their experiences and have their blessings to use their words to shape Dragona. I feel like that would show that Araki was serious about discussing these issues through his characters rather than simply using Dragona's traumatic experience it for entertainment. I have higher expectations for Araki now, knowing that it may not be the last time he shows a character experience harassment and possibly have Dragona be harassed again, so I will keep my eyes open for this.

[molsno]

hii so im kind of confused about the general inner workings of transmisogyny as an extension of transphobia and was hoping you could clarify. basically, transphobes & terfs in particular say that trans women are men, however they treat trans women differently than men, dehumanizing them on the basis of their gender. i always interpreted this as a form of gender discrimination that aims to define trans women as a lower or subhuman class, a third gender of “not quite men but undeserving of the title of woman”. does this conflict with the concept of bioessentialism, i.e. that trans women are fundamentally men? i see people say that “transphobes see trans women as men” but from experience that’s not quite true. men receive privilege and rewards for being men that trans women don’t. sorry if this is incoherent im just trying to get a better understanding of it

your understanding is pretty good to be honest. trans women are a separate gender class - an underclass to be specific - and transmisogynists are aware of this, even if they claim to see us as men. does this conflict with bioessentialism? not necessarily, but in some ways it does.

the thing is, though, logical consistency doesn't particularly matter to bigots. that's why basically all of the laws designed to oppress trans women, despite all of the fearmongering about how some technicality in how they're worded will result in them targeting cis women and other tme people, are ultimately only going to be enforced to the fullest extent against trans women. for example, tme people would rightfully be furious if a teenage cis girl was subjected to a genital examination due to the suspicion that she's trans and playing in a high school girls' sport. this would unambiguously be sexual assault, after all. but ultimately, she would be allowed to continue playing (not that she'd likely want to after something so traumatizing, but I digress), and she would probably (not certainly though) have some kind of recourse available to her due to the backlash this incident would cause. if this happened to a teenage trans girl, though, would anyone care? would there be outrage about this? she would have gone through the exact same kind of sexual assault, but the law in that scenario would be functioning exactly as intended. no form of recourse would be available to her. sure, you could make the case that a cis girl might not be able to sue the school district due to financial or other barriers, but a trans girl would have no ground to stand on, legally speaking; she would have broken the law, no matter how unjust and discriminatory the law is.

so violence against trans women broadly isn't recognized as violence against women because we aren't viewed as women. but we're not viewed as men, either. for another example, let's work through the lens of sexual assault again. if a tme person of any gender accuses a trans woman of sexual assault, there is little to no doubt that she will be viewed as guilty automatically, both by other tme people and by the law (the trans panic defense is still legally admissible in many places). in the best case, this will lead to her ostracization and isolation, putting her at higher risk for instability and suicide. in the worst case, this will lead to her imprisonment or death - REGARDLESS of if the accusation is actually true or not. the justification for this is that trans women are secretly perverted men who are trying to prey on innocent cishet people, but the basic idea underlying that premise isn't even something tme people truly believe! if they actually viewed trans women as men, then her guilt wouldn't be quite so certain. men can commit sexual assault every day and face no consequences for it, even when brought to trial with clear and damning evidence, because patriarchy ensures that men won't be held accountable for their actions. of course, this isn't always the case, marginalized men often do face intense scrutiny, many times involving violence. but even adjusting this analysis to account for additional factors such as racism, trans women still receive absolutely none of the same solidarity, leniency, or respect that men of the same demographics as them do.

fundamentally, trans women aren't treated like women or men in society. we're treated as a disposable and undesirable underclass of women that everyone else is free to abuse without consequence. any claims by transmisogynists about what gender they see us as is posturing. we are treated in unique ways as a result of our status as transfeminine. that's exactly what we mean when we talk about how transmisogyny is a unique form of oppression. bioessentialism certainly plays a part, but its contradictions are so obvious that it can only be understood as one piece of a much larger puzzle.

[familyabolisher]

Hi, Ave! Loved your post about gendered socialization, though there was one part I didn't fully understand: "even in its most charitable form, it attempts to present a complete account of "womanhood" and account for transfemininity only after the fact via hamfisted exceptionalism, rather than beginning with transmisogyny as the lynchpin of gendering and developing itself from there."

Could you please explain how transmisogyny functions as the lynchpin of gendering? I've read a decent amount of trans feminism and Marxism but don't remember coming across this idea before.

so what i was describing in the first part of that sentence was a tendency to articulate a particular discourse of structural gendered violence & the oppression of women into which trans women/TMA people are then kind of axiomatically deposited; it is a kind of feminism which considers itself ‘inclusive’ of trans people on the surface but is still, in its essential apparatus, hung up on ‘men’ and ‘women’ as immutable categories, and thus finds itself kind of skirting around necessary questions of how transness problematises these essentialist understandings of patriarchy by, as i said, falling back on tautology and circular reasoning. the logic goes something like—women are oppressed; trans women are women; therefore trans women experience women’s oppression. but the first statement has under this discourse become a complete and comprehensive construct without accounting for transmisogyny in the first place. within that, there are (sometimes) some gestures made towards the specific subjective experience of being a trans woman, but it’s always, like … womanhood is a preconceived category into which trans women have then been discursively slotted, rather than figuring womanhood as a category within which trans women are an essential component. there’s this baseline reluctance to admit, i think, that cis women can be agentive within and beneficiaries of gendered violence, just as much as they can be subjugated by it.

anyway, what i meant in the second half is that i think this discourse has it the wrong way around. there is no womanhood without trans womanhood, is maybe the best way of putting it; the kind of abjection that transmisogyny enforces is an abjection necessary for cis womanhood and cis manhood to make sense of themselves. transfemininity comes to stand as like, the worst thing someone can possibly be and thus as a discursive space onto which the ultimate incoherence of gender and the violence of being a subject within it can be siloed off. for example, the sexual subjugation of cis women (cis women being raped, cis women coerced into marriage, coerced into having children, cis women being denied sexual autonomy) becomes coherent (bearable, arguably) to cis women through the sexual abjection of trans women (denied access to the socially elevated status of the childbearing wife in the nuclear family, afforded sexuality through peripheralised sexual relations like sex work, reifying heterosexuality by threatening it). similarly—and this one is pretty straightforward—cis masculinity is affirmed and bolstered through the abjection of femininity in those coercively regarded as ‘men.’ so basically, writing a script for gendered violence and then tautologically inserting trans women/TMA people into an already-finished product is a limited and incoherent understanding of how gendered violence actually works. others have explained this better than i could and if any of you can dig those posts out i will be v happy, but. i hope this goes some way towards explaining what i meant.

[fuck-hamas-go-israel]

Ok so I have watched multiple videos on the history of Israel - Palestine and honestly? Go Israel.

The only thing I am not able to understand is, why is the whole world in the support of Palestine? Even Tumblr? (Yes the death of innocent people is bad but it's happening on both sides, why are they pretending that everyone in Israel lives in idk, rocket-proof luxury rooms?)

And people are purchasing books on history of Israel - Palestine, and still violently supporting Palestine. And not even seeing a shread of "blame" on them? :(

This is just an observation, but wherever muslims are in majority, they won't let the minority in peace, no matter what — they're not the “peaceful” community the world tries to show them as.

There is whole history on how they are ruthless, tyrants, who can not accept let alone tolerate another religion in their proximity.

I JUST don't know what will it take for the world to see the actual history and stop viewing Israel like The Evil Nation.

That’s a good question, but a very difficult one to answer.

As you’ve said, the information is out there in the open, available to anyone willing to put in the time to read and understand.

However, it takes a lot of mental effort to wrap one’s mind around the historical and geopolitical nuances of this conflict. As a result, it’s definitely less of a mental burden to get information from reading headlines, reading tweets, and watching TikToks.

Of course the information isn’t always accurate, and if someone absorbs news from these sites that all have the same bias, they’ll be inclined to think a certain way. But even still, it’s digestible, and why put in the work to make informed opinions of the subject when these smaller, bite-sized pieces of info are being spoon-fed to you easily?

You can tell people to “educate themselves”until the cows come home, but the chances of them actually going to read up more are pretty slim. After all, it’s more comfortable and safe to maintain your opinion than actively seek out information that challenges your point of view.

That aside, I think the Israel-Palestine conflict in particular has elicited, or rather, uncovered a very worrying hypocrisy and double-standard, and caused a rise in antisemitism that’s alarmingly reminiscent of 1940s Europe.

Those who support Hamas claim to be on the side of “human rights” and “protecting the innocent”, yet turn a blind eye to or rejoice at the slaughter of innocent children.

They present this issue as intersectional with other liberalist movements such as feminism and LGBTQ+ rights, yet Hamas rapes and parades the naked bodies of women around to publicly humiliate them, and calls the LGBT community “sinners” that will be “punished by Allah”, and refuses to allow any LGBT person on Palestinian soil.

Yes, it is baffling to see people defend a terrorist group that has such fundamentally incompatible ideologies with them, and would kill them on sight. Normally I wouldn’t just tell them to go to Palestine if they like it so much, but if they can’t see the irrationality of their own beliefs themselves, if they can’t see that their parroted platitudes are of no use and don’t make them immune or exempt from the hate-filled violence of Hamas, then maybe going there to see for themselves is perhaps the only solution.

So maybe there isn’t anything that can be done, unfortunately. It’s very telling that many pro-Israel accounts are sent hate mail daily, and instead of being presented with the opportunity for discourse on the complicated subject, it’s just crusty anons calling for the end of Israel and telling them to kill themselves for supporting Israel.

If someone calls for your death, then there’s little to nothing that can be done anymore to have a rational discussion. All you can do is stay safe and stay informed, and don’t stoop to their level because they’ll use that as ammunition against you to justify calling for your death.

Am Yisrael Chai 🇮🇱

[amateurvoltaire]

In your brilliant review of Vaincre ou Mourir, you mentioned that Reynald Secher's research methods happened to be rather sketchy... I got curious, what do you mean by that? What did he do?

Thank you very much for the question. What better way to celebrate Bastille Day than by answering a question about the French Revolution?

Before I begin, I'd like to note—perhaps unnecessarily—that the study of history is inherently subjective. It's in the very nature of the subject for different individuals to interpret events differently. For instance, Mathiez and Leuwers will invariably have slightly divergent views on Robespierre, simply because Mathiez wrote during the Third Republic while Leuwers is a product of the Fifth.

This brings us to the crux of the matter: a historian's interpretation of history is deeply influenced by their own context and motivations. So, who is Reynald Secher?

He is a right-leaning French historian, best known for a section of his doctoral thesis, titled Le Génocide franco-français (translated into English by George Holoch as A French Genocide). In this work, he proposes that the events in the Vendée could be classified as genocide. There are several reasons I disagree with this assertion—which I'd be glad to elaborate on in a separate post if anyone is interested—but in short, what occurred in the Vendée was tragic for its residents but constituted a civil war, not genocide.

That being said, the fact that I happen to disagree with his thesis doesn’t make his argument invalid or his research sketchy. The way he supports his argument does. The fact that he misrepresents sources does. The fact that he has a financial incentive to be as inflammatory as possible does.

Allow me to explain.

(In the interest of transparency, I should mention that my observations are based solely on Le Génocide franco-français/A French Genocide, the only book of his i've read.)

Cherry-picking Sources

Arguing any point is straightforward if one only considers one side of the argument. Off the top of my head, I could list at least ten sources to write an article to convincingly argue that Robespierre harboured ambitions to be crowned king and that the Thermidorians were heroes for stopping him. Of course, I wouldn't do that; it would be highly disingenuous. Quickly into reading Le Génocide franco-français, it becomes evident that Secher isn’t burdened by such scruples.

I learned in high school that not all sources are created equal. Secher seems to have missed that lesson. With all due respect, if your book consistently references 19th-century local memoirs and anecdotes, treating them as facts without examining their veracity, perhaps it shouldn’t be taken as serious historical research. Also, how can one write a comprehensive book on the Vendée using 19th-century sources and overlook the 12-volume epic, Histoire de la Guerre de la Vendée by Chamard, Deniau, and Uzureau? In short, what surprised me most in the bibliography was the abundance of sources with very little integration into existing historiography—a definite red flag.

As such, his seminal work comes off more as a catalogue of republican violence, dwelling on horrific accounts of women burned for fat, people skinned for officer breeches, drownings, bayonet-stabbed babies, and massacres of villagers. While acknowledging attacks by Vendéean forces, he dismisses these as natural responses to republican aggression, completely ignoring events like the massacre of Republicans at Machecoul.

Cherry-picking extends to his treatment of the Convention’s attitude towards the Vendée. While Secher rightly highlights the extreme rhetoric in the Convention during 1793, he fails to acknowledge its moderation post-April 1794. He also takes this rhetoric at face value, neglecting to contextualise it within the broader proceedings of the Convention. Even a novice to the French Revolution would understand that much of what was said in 1793 was mere posturing and political theatre; it’s disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Misrepresentation and Oversimplification

He tends to oversimplify complex topics and tailor narratives to suit his predetermined conclusion of a Vendée genocide. Thus, he does not represent that neither the First Republic nor the Vendée were monoliths. Just as the Republic under the Committee of Public Safety differed from that of the Directory, so too did the Vendée under Cathelineau in early 1793 differ from that under La Rochejaquelein in early 1794, and from Stofflet and Charette in 1795-1796.

Financial Incentive

And it makes sense that he simplifies; simple books with “Genocide” plastered on the cover tend to sell better than a collection of academic essays with serious historiography. Le Génocide franco-français was published in 1986, on the cusp of the bicentenary of the French Revolution—a time when the legacy of the Revolution was contested between the right and left in France. The timing was opportune for a fresh graduate to write a simple, highly readable book that “proved” the republican government committed genocide against its own people. This book has become central in shaping the genocide discourse and the entirety of Reynald Secher’s career. From what I've observed in his more recent works, he continues to tread a similar path.

I hope this answers your question!

[she-is-ovarit]

The assertions of, "If you are not posting just as much about X group as you are Y group, then you aren't coming from a feminist perspective" is an inappropriate form of controlling behavior and simply not coming from a feminist angle, period.

Anyone is welcome to post about as much or as little about a conflict, topic, group, etc. as they please. We can only be accountable for what we shed awareness on or what captures our interest and how often we discuss a topic. You are not responsible for what people do or do not post, or how frequently they post about it.

Creating a culture and climate on a social media platform filled with teenagers already subjected to social pressure from peer groups in which everybody needs to be meticulous about posting the exact same amount on the harms done to one group of people as well as the other is unhealthy and rooted in social cout. It shifts the intention from genuine care about an issue or learning more about a subject to a bunch of teenagers and young adults feeling about how often they do or don't post shit and is a performitive form of social justice.

And it's both a form of fallacy and an impossible standard to hold people to. Why are you all not focusing on the mass genocide and rape of Ughigur Muslim women in China going on right now? They are being paired with Chinese men by the Chinese government to be raped. Do you not care? Are they not as important to you as Israeli and Palestinian women? And what about the Ukranian women? You are not currently posting about them as much as you are about the Israeli and/or Palestinian victims despite the Russian invasion still occurring.

When a certain issue, event, or conflict captures our focus it does not mean we lose compassion for other populations. When I see a woman posting frequently about male violence done to Israeli women, this information tells me she is currently holding Israeli women in her mind and that the violence this group of women are experiencing has piqued her focus—it does not tell me she hates Palestinian women or does not care for them. I feel the same when I see users posting about the violence done to Palestinian women and not as much about Israeli women. I do not hold it against them for electing to not concentrate on Israeli women too.

For those of you who are attempting to practice a female-centered perspective, defending one group of males as either better adjusted or more oppressed than the other is not coming from a female-centric place. IDF soldiers have done horrible forms of sexual violence to Israeli women and the Israel state has sterilized female Jewish immigrants. Palestinian men are driving Palestinian women to sucide—the Palestinian women are stating they aren't able to wait around for liberation. Source. The female-centric perspective is that women and children experience horribly depraved forms of violence by men, especially during times of war when rules are off the table.