#thinking about it they may have just been saying that trans people are PERCEIVED as a third gender

[floweringpopcat]

getting gradually more frustrated because this documentary i'm watching for my gender class is labeling every identity other than man and woman as a "third gender". like?? trans women and men are not a third gender they are women and men

[jaidenk-nox]

Elizabeth midford

Shitty 2AM rant on the Misogyny that Lizzy has faced since the very start but it's the perspective of someone who has witnessed the horrors of Misogyny in Spanish speaking fandom

I should mention that English is not my first language and I'm not very good with it either, so most of this was done with Google Translate and I tried to correct what I could, I hope it's at least readable

I've never seen enough people point out the fact that Elizabeth midford character also defies the "Girlboss" archetype, she is definitely physically strong and can protect herself, but she is A 15 YEAR OLD GIRL, who manages her emotions like someone her age would and also exhibits many neurodivergent traits. I have always been bothered by the way physical strength is misunderstood as a "girlboss" trait, the simplest example I can think of is Ran Mao, she possesses brutal and superhuman strength. but it doesn't make her a girlboss, in case anyone forgets Ran is a girl who barely reaches 18 years old and is exploited by an opium trader who also seems to be involved in human trafficking (implied in the manga). Is she really a girlboss? girlboss when her physical strength is more of a requirement to SURVIVE while working as an assassin and sometimes seductress (which u can tell she doesn't enjoy much)? Obviously Ranmao's social reality is very different as she is a woman of color from the underworld, unlike Elizabeth, who is a white woman from the nobility. However, her physical strength has always been a double-edged sword for herself. Lizzy longs to get married, like any other girl her age, she longs to be protected but says goodbye to it the moment Ociel returns.

I may seem a bit exaggerated, but the way your sociocultural background affects the way you perceive and treat a character has me slightly traumatized, I wish I could give proof of the horrible and degrading treatment that Lizzy has received from the Spanish-speaking fandom.

I am a trans boy of color who grew up watching my female relatives being encouraged to rip their hearts out of their chest from the moment they turned 8yo for the simple goal of caring for and protecting my cis male relatives. household chores, cooking for them, washing their clothes, taking accountability for their actions. Their freedom and childhood as little girls were taken away from them. but none of that was ever valued, I never saw anyone recognize it as sacrifice.

Elizabeth is not a woman of color, nor does she have those demands as a woman of nobility, but she SACRIFICED stuff to try to protect Ciel on her own way, I have seen many people underestimate her backstory in book of Atlantic because "High heeled shoes aren't reason to cry." Everything Lizzy has done for Ciel is devalued, all her suffering has been minimized. losing so many family members in such a short time, losing the boy you were raised to marry your entire life. People truly forget that lizzy is still just a child, that she has the right to mourn everything she lost that day. She had to mourn publicly as a noble girl,she probably heard that she would never be able to get married or would never achieve happiness, I've never seen any adult to stop and think about how heartbreaking and soul shattering that must have been as a 11yo

I have seen how EVERY thing Lizzy does is judged. how her behavior, personality and temperament are criticized. but other characters like Soma just get a pass while doing the same stuff, but this does not just stop at gender, but also at age. people HATE girls and afabs who act like children when they are literally CHILDREN.

How is it possible that Lizzy has faced such harsh judgment from the fandom when there are other characters like Maam red, Lau, Grell, Undertaker who are universally ADORED or atleast respected in the fandom.

I love u Elizabeth midford but ur character makes me violently ill omfg

[cl0ckworkqueerness]

in the wake of the reveal of the "pills that make you green" comic's creator revealing her true colours (something I've been aware of for a while but haven't had much specifically to speak about until now), i think it's important to take a step back and look at some of her claims about transandrophobia, as well as many anti-transandrophobia (or transandrophobic) talking points, and analyze them critically without, in any way, demeaning transmisogyny as a concept. let's start with some of the things i've seen on her blog and go from there

first of all, there's a lot of talk about how activists who are vocal about transandrophobia are "derailing" conversations about transmisogyny. while i'm certain there are some legitimate examples, many of the examples i have seen that i presume she is referring to are speaking about her comics that specifically strawman the stick figure who is an allegory of a trans man or transmasculine individual.

in these comics, this stick figure is often unjustly cruel and even oppressive of the lime stick figure, an allegory for trans women or transfeminine individuals, while simultaneously whining about how they also experience oppression and should be focused on instead. this frames trans men and transmasculine individuals as loud, taking up space, oppressing transfeminine people (who are More Oppressed), and simply cannot understand that they do not face as terrible of treatment as the other.

the problem that most people, myself included, take with this is that the author seems to be living in an alternate world where trans men, somehow, are a legitimate, strong, oppressive force over trans women, and want to take up all the space in the trans community's discussion to ourselves. there are definitely people who abuse the term transandrophobia to say transmisogynistic things, without a doubt, but in my experience most of us simply want to say that we, too, experience terrible types of oppression as a result of intersectionality that a trans woman, transfeminine, or trans person who's perceived as either of those things may not experience. transandrophobia is not meant to overtake transmisogyny, it is meant to stand beside transmisogyny and further prove that different trans people can experience different types of oppression, and thus should unite against both.

another thing i've seen on the comic author's account is how the idea of androphobia is anti-feminist and comes from MRAs or something, which... uh, again, i don't know what planet you're living on, but here on earth, there are men who are discriminated against and even treated with violence because of their ties to masculinity, femininity, both, or neither. and again, it is not our problem if MRAs decide to appropriate actual, useful terms in order to spread misogyny. we should not have to keep changing our language every time a bad person uses it. if we did, we would have no language, and thus once again be silenced.

since i don't have the time or the spoons to go through everything she's ever said or reblogged on her account, i'll just go over one more thing. no, the discussion and desired visibility of transandrophobia is not some kind of psyop or massive conspiracy to kill the idea of transmisogyny. if we didn't believe in transmisogyny, we'd have no reason to believe in transandrophobia either, after all. for me, at least, talking about transandrophobia is equally as important because trans men, like myself, have been forced into silence for so long and erased from most of history. trans men weren't even well documented until much, much later in history.

additionally, i doubt this needs to be said, but if any of you are actually intentionally ignoring transmisogyny in your discussion of intersectionality, you have no place in this discussion

and finally, to the author of these comics, i doubt you're reading this, but if you are, please reconsider your hostility. framing the discussion around transandrophobia in the way you are is not only equating trans people who face detrimental oppression to the people who are trying to oppress us and force us into silence, but you too are actively advocating for the silencing and erasure of, and subsequently the lack of resources for, trans men, transmasculine individuals, trans people who are perceived as either of these things, or anyone who primarily faces transandrophobia. i don't blame you for being defensive, and i will absolutely take your side should anyone be transmisogynistic towards you or anyone else, but you don't have to drag trans men who just want to talk about our shared experiences through the mud in order to support your point of transmisogyny's danger, especially within the trans community. if you want to have a genuine, mature discussion about transandrophobia and its dangers, and transmisogyny within the trans community, i'm sure someone would be happy to discuss that with you. but with the way you're treating and talking about trans men, it is unlikely that you will take anyone up on that offer

idk man. i feel like it's important to talk about transmisogyny and transandrophobia at the same time, as well as all other forms of intersectionality. we should be turning transphobes into couches instead of whatever the hell this is

[knifedog-machina]

Being Human: A Species Identity Compare and Contrast

Written by Gavin on June 27, 2024.

Hey, I'm Gavin, and despite hanging out in various alterhuman spaces, I'm 100% a human person. I live in a system with two headmates who are also human, but identify as other species as well - Max as a velociraptor therian, Jude as a dog archetrope and an android. In contrast, I specifically, completely identify as human.

What's so special about that, being human? Statistically, it's nothing remarkable - most people on Earth identify as human after all. I think what's really interesting is that, over the past year, I've been connected to communities that all contain people (or non-people, as the case may be) who partially or fully identify as nonhuman - otherkin, therians, a solid number of fictionfolk and some alterhumans. Therefore, I feel like I can compare and contrast my species identity to the experiences of others, in a way that most people who philosophize on what humanity is don't get the chance to.

We tend to think of humanity as The Default, a non-identity, since the majority of self-identified nonhumans were raised as human, and we all live in human societies. Most people don't bother clarifying that they are human unless they're dehumanized, because it seems obvious that being born human means you're human. Given humanity's position as a default state, a lot of nonhumans see it as an opposing and fundamentally different experience from nonhumanity.

In this way, species identity is similar to gender identity - cisgender people, who identify with the genders they were assigned at birth, are often assumed by transgender people to have a fundamentally different understanding of gender. I feel like both of these assumptions are oversimplifications, ones that miss out on a lot of nuance, and throughout this essay I will be comparing gender and species, as a trans man whose species is as important to him as his gender.

There are some common threads I've noticed when it comes to having a sense of identity. I wouldn't call them universal experiences, I can't read minds, but they're frequent enough to be significant. They may be more obvious when it's an identity at odds with your body (e.g. being transgender or nonhuman) - but I'd go so far as to say that plenty of cisgender (and human!) people also experience these feelings, and simply don't have the words or desire to describe their feelings with these terms.

First off, identity euphoria - the internal sense of alignment, joy, and contentedness one gets from presenting and being perceived as their identity. A trans man might experience gender euphoria from presenting and being treated as a man, and so do many cis men. Think about how thrilled many guys are when their beards fill out; that's facial hair as a presentation of masculinity, and gaining it is a gender euphoric experience. In a very similar way, a nonhuman experiences species euphoria from being perceived as their species - and so do I, as a human being.

I’m trans, so I know how gender euphoria feels for me. I find that the more I'm just treated as a man, the more that the bright elation of being correctly gendered turns into a sense of quiet satisfaction - this is what I am, and everyone knows it, and all is right with the world. There's no reason to think too much about it unless something calls attention to it, and then I feel confident and comfortable enough in myself that other people's judgements are more annoying than hurtful. I exist peacefully in my body, happy with the way people see me in it, and sometimes I'll do something that feels extra masculine and grin about it for five minutes.

My species euphoria falls into the same sort of category - I feel content with my body, the way it matches how I feel internally, and the way other people treat me because of it. I feel fundamentally comfortable with my human body map and movements, having a flat face and hands and nails, walking upright on the soles of my feet. I feel comfortable when I'm acknowledged as a human and a person, when I do something that’s known to be human - when I wear different clothes to express myself and keep out the cold, when I cook a meal to eat with people, when I sing for the fun of it, when I write and draw to share something creative, when I interact with human technology and invention and creation. Humans have been making clothes and foods and songs and adding marks to the world for about as long as they've existed, and we're still doing it, and if I think about it too long I get emotional. I’m human and I feel deeply connected to humanity, and most of the time I don't think about it because I'm treated as one, but sometimes I’ll notice that I'm doing something that just feels fundamentally human, and it's really nice - sometimes species affirmation can be in the little things, like wearing a beat-up jacket or writing a personal essay.

On the flip side, there's identity dysphoria, the distress experienced when one's identity doesn't align with the way they present or find themselves perceived as. A trans woman might feel gender dysphoria because of her body hair; many cis women also feel less feminine if they don't shave. Species dysphoria is a well-known experience in the nonhuman community, the distress of being seen as human or having a human body when you don't identify as one. Given what I said earlier, hopefully it doesn't come as a shock that people can have the opposite experience - feeling distressed about being seen as nonhuman. I get this kind of species dysphoria.

It feels odd to talk about species dysphoria when I’m not nonhuman, but I still feel it. Mostly it comes up in the context of being in alterhuman spaces, being accidentally mislabeled as nonhuman through proximity to those who are, and I've also felt it in the context of playing around with visualizing myself as nonhuman in art. My body map doesn't have nonhuman features, parts like wings or tails or claws or pointy ears. Picturing myself like that feels wrong, it feels like sandpaper, like there’s this foreign thing attached to my body and I need to cut it off so I can stop this crawling sense of my body not being my own. I used to have an awful amount of gender dysphoria, and I feel like the two are very comparable experiences - the distress of feeling like your body doesn't match your mind. I got top surgery, so the gender dysphoria is gone, and thankfully my body is actually human, because I would be just as distressed about being seen as nonhuman as I was about being seen as a girl.

It’s kind of fascinating that I feel this way, that I can’t picture myself as nonhuman without feeling incredibly uncomfortable. On the other end of the spectrum, there's the entire furry fandom, a subculture of people - most of whom definitely identify as human beings - who regularly depict themselves as nonhuman animals for fun and self-expression. We’re all human, what gives? Do they have a more malleable sense of species identity than I do?

Maybe, maybe not. I don't have a straightforward answer to that - like I said, I can't read minds, and I'm just one person. But I do have a couple thoughts on the way humans interface with nonhumanity, on the topic of enjoying it.

See, I get dysphoric about being considered nonhuman, but I've found some loopholes in there. I’m completely fine with my fictional counterpart - the character getting tossed into different AUs for our personal enrichment - being turned into a vampire, a werewolf, a selkie, an android, a person with wings. How's that any different from other expressions of nonhumanity? Well, for me, those stories don't induce dysphoria because they're about humanity, at the end of the day - how people cope with being seen as or turned into monsters, the way they treat one another and the way they treat supposed outsiders, the ways society might change if humans were slightly different animals but still called themselves human. If I were a werewolf, I'd still be human, just one living with the consequences of also being a wolf. If I had wings in a world where all humans have wings, I'm still human in the context of that world. That baseline sense of humanity is what’s important to me.

In a similar vein, I can't stand seriously being seen as nonhuman - but pretending to be nonhuman? Roleplaying? Dressing up in a costume? I can do that. I feel like there’s something very human about being fascinated by the abilities and strengths of every animal that's not your own kind, and wanting them for yourself - the human desire to fly like a bird, swim like a fish, hunt like a wolf, run like a deer.

I think a lot of what people like about fursonas is this sort of wish fulfillment, of having the cool traits of all these fascinating animals, and having that animal self-portrait still being anthro - human - enough to relate to. It's animality through an anthropomorphic lens, through how fun it can be to play pretend and express yourself as a cool deer-wolf-lion hybrid. And usually, those animal choices are symbolic, and the fursona reflects the personality of the person who made it - more often than not, it reflects the cultural stereotypes of what that animal is, instead of being true to what the animal is like as a living organism. It's about the way humans see themselves in animals, not necessarily the way we are animals. So, ironically, being a furry tends to parse as a very human thing to me.

So far, most of this essay has been a comparison, since I see a lot of similarities between identifying as human and identifying as nonhuman. Putting my species into my list of self-identifiers, like how I'd list my name and pronouns, has cemented it as a crucial part of how I view myself and want to be seen. That's the same way a lot of nonhumans think about their species. I have a strong sense of species identity, it just so happens to align with being human. Contrasting the categories seems harder to me.

I could list a bunch of different nonhuman traits that I lack, but it would be on the same level as saying one kintype is different from another. I don't care about walking on all fours, and neither does Max as a raptor. I don't instinctively try to bite a threat, I’d rather kick it, and I know a horse would agree with me. I don't long for the sky and neither does Jude, they're a dog. I don't have a prey drive and neither does a hamster. I don't feel like a nonsapient animal, and neither does an elf.

When it comes down to just being a certain species, there’s not that much of a difference between identifying as a human and identifying as a dragon. There's a bunch of traits that feel correct, and a million others that don't feel right at all.

I could say that I don't understand feeling like I don't fit in my own body, but I do - I had gender dysphoria. I have species dysphoria. If one of my partners is having a phantom shift while co-fronting with me, I invariably end up either leaving front or nullifying their shifts, because I just don't feel comfortable if our combined body map is nonhuman. I don't have memories of being a different species than I am, having abilities that I don't have in my body now, but those aren’t necessary to be nonhuman in the first place.

Do I need to find a contrast that makes sense? Does there need to be some fundamental difference between human and nonhuman identity?

I don't think so. It's all identity, at the end of the day.

[intersexcat-tboy]

hello! this question may come off as ignorant and i apologise, but what's wrong with the terms tme and tma? i know what it means but i dont really understand the (for lack of a better word) issue with these terms.

i looked it up and it didn't really help me all that much :<

I could've sworn I had several posts tagged w it explaining a few reasons why but now there's only 2? 🤔

Here's a starter (link)

There are a few reasons, on their own it's whatever ig, but it relies on the assumption oppression is based solely on identity and not ever considering how your oppressors see you. There isn't a "ableism immune" or "homophobia immune" bc we understand hate crimes are based on PERCEIVED or actual status, not just actual. What's happening to Imane Khelif is being called transmisogyny everywhere, so clearly it's not limited to just transfems, but many will then turn around and say those who were AFAB can't experience it. Some have discussed using "targeted" to convey how it's disproportionately faced rather than arguing how people are incapable of facing it, and I understand that argument better but....

One of the big things is the issue of how people use them. I wouldn't have an issue at all if they were solely personal descriptors, similar to AGAB, to describe your own experience. Instead, people use them to deny violence and oppression. People thinking they get to determine others experiences.

On another side, it's basically used as the Top Misery Award and The Mild Expierence. If you're TMA, it's treated as facing the most or worst oppression, if you're TME, are you really oppressed? Actually, you're privileged (not HAVE a privilege, ARE privileged). This aligns with white feminism believing misogyny is the root or worst oppression.

Most of the people who use it tend to think trans men don't have their own type of oppression faced disproportionately, oftentimes erasing that violence as well. A lot outright deny intersexism and refuse to engage with any points made by intersex individuals about how it affects us as well.

Then there's the whole aspect of how it's "supposed" to mean everyone but transfems (which is kinda a weird thing to want a word for when calling similar ones co-opting), but they only ever use it to mean trans people who were AFAB. You can tell this by how things are said (tme being used for intercommunity), or something like "TRANS TMEs since I guess I have to say that to make it clear 🙄"

There's also the fact everyone defines it differently. Some way you need to have been born w a penis, others say you need to have been AMAB, which contradict each other as someone who was AFAB could have been born w a penis, and some people have multiple AGABs (such as at birth and then a few weeks later)

If you only use it to describe yourself, idrc

[trans-androgyne]

tbh i fucking hate the terms tme/tma because it just centers one oppressed group while disregarding the other. transmisogyny is important to discuss but it's also important to talk about transmisandry/transandrophobia??? and it's hurtful that one is seemingly placed as more important than the other, as if trans fems' pain is more important than anybody else's, as if we're not all in this together!! trans fems can be more visible sometimes which may lead to more attacks, but trans mascs' invisibility is not good either and doesn't protect as much as people think and frankly makes it so much worse in many cases. just. hate the binary of it. when it's so much more complicated. also one of the arguments i've heard is that transmisandry can't exist bcs misandry doesn't, as in men don't suffer from patriarchy which???? i can't agree with this notion. men may not suffer from it in the same way or to the same extent, but toxic masculinity is a term for a reason!!! "boys shouldn't cry", "boys shouldn't have these and those interests", "boys shouldn't act like this and that". people will often say that it's a derivation from misogyny bcs they're seen as lowering themselves to the level of 'weaker gender' when they shouldn't according to society's standards, but like. when girls are told that they shouldn't act so and so bcs it's 'boyish' and 'unbecoming of her' we still call it misogyny. in patriarchy women are often seen as frail and weak but men are often seen as brutish and cold n aggressive. patriarchists may call both of the gender 'dumb' and 'stupid' when it suits their needs because it's built on hypocrisy and pretending otherwise is ignoring the root of the problem.

Yeah, it’s really clear that some people use tme/tma because they believe transmisogyny to be the worst possible oppression, while the transphobia faced by trans men and mascs is assumed to barely affect them in comparison, since it’s “just transphobia” or “just misogyny” when they’re treated similarly to women. A lot of intracommunity transandrophobia seems to stem from the people not understanding/refusing to believe that men and mascs (and people perceived as such) can very much experience sexism and even gendered oppression. Cis men face sexism when they’re told they can’t have been the victim of domestic violence, especially at the hands of a woman. Trans men and mascs experience gendered oppression as their maleness/masculinity is non-normative and marginalizes them—makes them transgender. That can all be true without implying that we don’t live under a patriarchy/that hegemonic manhood isn’t privileged over other genders.

[genderkoolaid]

Okay so. I have a problem with this.

Not the statement that trans girls & women can and do experience real trauma from being closeted, that's very true & should absolutely be recognized. The closet can be traumatizing. I would say that it's true that it is straight/cis male privilege to be able to be "normal" in society without having the weight of internalized phobias & the fear of being outed. Growing up trans is very rarely straightforward or free of conflict, internal or external.

But that's not the extent of straight/cis male privilege. People can see you, assume you are straight or a cis man, and then treat you in ways you would not be treated if you were seen as queer. That doesn't negate the areas where you AREN'T benefiting from privilege. It's just that privilege is way more nuanced than "you got it or you don't."

There are, undoubtedly, situations in which a closeted trans girl got some kind of better treatment because she was perceived as a cis guy. But her resume getting preferential treatment because it has a male name on it doesn't mean she doesn't or will not experience transphobia, misogyny, trauma, etc. or that experiencing male privilege at Any Point Ever makes her a privileged male oppressor. That's radfem thinking.

Once again I am asking people to read the section On Male Privilege from The Transfeminist Manifesto which talks about this & why trans people don't have to have an all-or-nothing relationship with male privilege in order to be recognized as oppressed. We have to get out of this black and white thinking on privilege & recognize that marginalized people benefiting from it at certain times or in certain situations does not mean they are not oppressed. Privilege is a patchwork of experiences; the experiences of a cis straight gender conforming man are going to build to a different overall experience with male privilege than a GNC gay trans man. Our idea of & language for (what we currently call) privilege desperately needs an overhaul.

(Also, any trans group's experience cannot be reduced into a single narrative. There are transfems who have always been clocked as queer from a young age, and grew up painfully aware of their femininity & were punished for it. There are also transfems who weren't super feminine as a child, who grew up perceived as a normal cis boy, who may even feel that they were a boy and grew up into a girl/woman. Transfems don't need to have had a traumatizing childhood of being obviously feminine & harassed for it in order to not be a Male Oppressor. there's no Trans Trauma Quota you, an individual, need to fill to prove trans people are Really Oppressed)

[pocket-deer-boy]

can you maybe help me understand something please?

i don’t quite understand how TME/TMA terminology is helpful. anyone can be a victim of transmisogyny.

you can’t say cis women are TME because not all cis women are. they could be mistake for a trans women. especially cis women of color.

you can’t say cis or trans men are TME for the same reasons.

not everybody fits in the boxes of TME or TMA. i don’t understand how those are helpful terms.

this is not meant to be rude in any way, i’m just confused.

Ok so this is kinda messy and shitty but whatever i’ll bite.

First, yes, anyone can have transmisogyny targeted at them, mistakenly or not. I like to compare it to ableism. Anyone can experience transmisogyny, but when you’re TMA transmisogyny is specifically inescapable. There is nothing you could do to escape being a victim of it short of denouncing your whole transition. I’ve been mistaken for a woman before and catcalled under the assumption that i am a woman, those are sticky situations to be in if you’re a queer man. But these situations are easily avoided by being more visibly masculine for me. If you’re a trans woman, this means going back into the closet, or even detransitioning to avoid this danger. That’s obviously completely unrealistic and insulting if you’re transfem.

Similarly, anyone can be inconvenienced by structural ableism when a building doesn’t have an elevator or ramps. However, the building would be specifically hostile and unusable towards people with wheelchairs. The difference is in wether you’re a target of exclusion or violence vs. simply momentarily inconvenienced by its presence. I.e. if someone says something transmisogynistic towards me i could still say in full confidence that i am a man, and that might buy me some safety. The person might apologize, saying they were confused or something. A trans woman would be misgendering herself in doing so. If there’s no elevator in the building and i’m carrying heavy groceries, i could still walk up the stairs. It might be heavy and inconvenient for me, but a wheelchair user couldn’t get up even under normal conditions.

They aren’t entirely cleanly defined boxes of course! But they are useful categories for discussing differences in how transfems get treated differently, in the intersection of being both perceived as a woman and also in being trans. It’s been compared to misogynoir, a term used to describe how black femmes get treated differently in specific ways from black men or white women. But i’m sure misogynoir still hits different if you’re mixed black, different people may experience it differently.

Similarly there’s some degree of ambiguity to who is and isn’t TMA from my understanding? But the primary targets of transmisogyny are obviously people who like, transitioned towards femininity. You know? The people who are gestured towards when people make man in dress caricatures. I don’t think cis women fall into that category, except maybe if you’re intersex, but i’ll bare my ass and admit that’s not something i know much about.

In short, the terms TME and TMA are helpful because a lot of the time, people who are queer or even trans still fall for rhetoric (i am not wholly immune to this i’ll admit that) that paints trans women as either hypersexual predators or unserious hysterics, and it’s useful for people who are victims of this specific type of bigotry to have names for the people most likely to by all means be queer inclusive of everyone but trans women.

[whiskrs]

Despite this being a VERY long post, I’m not really gonna add much of value to the conversation regarding Imane Khelif that hasn’t already been said. This is more…a case study on intersectionality based on tumblr posts and news articles.

If you have trouble conceptualizing or accepting the concept of intersectionality and why it’s incredibly important, just read through the “imane khelif” tag here while paying attention to what exactly the op is defending/arguing. You’ll see mostly 3 things:

First, Imane Khelif is a WOC. In addition to the white western world seeing non-white features as masculine, she is forced to endure an increased level of scrutiny before the starting bell even rings (exacerbated by the fact her opponent was white and cried.) This is the power of white woman tears. This is an issue of racism.

Second, Imane Khelif is collateral in an ongoing war against trans people. All the usual suspects have come out of the woodwork to galvanize an increasingly violent reactionary right wing group into escalating restrictions and hatred against trans people under the guise of protecting women. This is an issue of transphobia.

Third. Imane Khelif is assigned female at birth, but maybe* has higher levels of testosterone and is rumored* to have xy chromosomes. Whether or not this is true, she is being discriminated against for her perceived DSD. This is an intersex issue.

*based on the findings of an unsubstantiated corrupt test that honestly shouldn’t have been given in the first place

The thing is all three of these are true. Fully and completely true. However any truth here taken by itself will miss some of the picture. You need to put it all together for the full story. I’m a white trans woman in the US, so I’ll look at it through that lens, but you can honestly fit these pieces together in another order, that’s just my life experience so I can speak on it.

This would make the whole story:

Imane Khelif is a woman who won an Olympic boxing match. She is from Algeria, which means that; as far as the US white republican is concerned, she’s black. And due to centuries of institutional racism, black is seen as inherently masculine and violent. But they aren’t self reflective enough to realize that they’re being racist or even that that’s a racist belief. “Racism is bad and I’m not bad!” Why does everything have to be about race??” They’ll say. (Note: this is VERY SPECIFICALLY about the subconscious perception of black bodies as violent that like. My dad holds. Your aunt. White people who don’t understand their racism and don’t ACTIVELY and CONSCIOUSLY act on it)

Unsurprisingly, the same kind of person who has ingrained racist body standards are also violently anti-trans, and for now it’s still “ok” to hate transgender people. There is no “transphobia is bad and I’m not bad” here. In the states, republicans (and too many centrists and liberals) are in full on “these things are degenerate and need to be gone” mode. It’s in vogue, it’s what they’re reading about on twitter, it’s what their fave influencer is rage baiting about.

So they see a black woman, perceive her to be violent and masculine, THEN they hear that she may be intersex or she has high testosterone. Which means nothing to my dad or your aunt, but it sounds like what they’ve been mad about! My dad is more likely to think intersex is a new gender than know what Swyres Syndrome is. So this, in their racist perception, violent and masculine person is pretending to be a woman! Trans ideology woke mind virus save the women etc.

They’re using racism as an underlying force, aimed with intersex allegations, to attack trans people.

Or just as easily from a perspective I can’t speak on:

They’re using trans hatred as an underlying force, supported by intersex allegations, to attack WOC.

And:

Intersex identities are being used as a tool for hatred while being whole sale ignored in a discussion that directly affects them.

So where does that leave us? Well personally I think the intersection between these groups/identities/people is easy to see when scrolling through her tag. When one person is talking about race and the next post doesn’t even mention where she’s from, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

If we can’t take all of these points into consideration, and instead (like I’ve see in more than a few posts) claim one groups oppression to be “what’s actually happening” then you miss the whole picture of what’s happening to YOU. Without intersectional thinking, I missed the component of racism that is fueling this fire, and the intersex component that was the starter. How am I meant to put out a fire if I can’t even figure out if it’s grease or electrical? Im too busy burning to wonder how it’s gotten this far

[mars-ipan]

God I feel you on this. There are so many avenues for people to get sucked into bullshit infighting too.

I s2g every time I engage with trans content my for you feed starts serving me a ton of discourse about intercommunity transandrophobia or w/e and like... if people are being weird about trans men that's worth talking about sometimes, but I get the impression there are corners of the trans community that are doing nothing but scream at each other in some pointless transmasc vs transfem war. Meanwhile I'm sitting here on TERF island, transfem people right beside me, hoping our HRT and shaky legal rights don't get nuked in the next 5 years 💀

I feel like a general online discourse rule should be that if you're putting more energy into fighting your own community/policing language/etc than fighting people that materially affect our lives, something's gone wrong and you're at high risk of radicalisation into bigotry. Or might already be there.

ghhrgh LITERALLY….. like .

from what i’ve seen a lot of this transandrophobia debate came up in response to seeing trans women talk about transmisogyny. my theory is that a portion of tme folks saw that people have been discussing transmisogyny and felt that they were having their unique experiences erased. which, like, look . i get it. erasure is something i’ve experienced kinda my whole life. i understand that it feels Bad to have your struggles downplayed. i had that same worry at first. BUT. we GOTTA be able to examine how your own fears and anxieties and biases may be coloring your perceptions!!! bc yes being trans does not make you immune to transmisogyny!! we live in a transmisogynistic world implicit bias is Going To Happen.

like. transmisogyny is a real thing that happens and disproportionately affects transfems. transmisogyny is not something non-transfem people experience unless they are falsely perceived to be transfem. it is a uniquely transfeminine experience coming from the intersection of being trans and female (or female-adjacent). it is not just a unique kind of transphobia, but rather the intentional combination of transphobia and misogyny.

is this to say that transmascs don’t experience their own unique kind of oppression? no! but it’s not an intersectional oppression and it shouldn’t be treated as such. also, the name of “transandrophobia” just gives off. a really uncomfortable energy. you’re not being oppressed because you’re male. you’re being oppressed because you’re trans. i don’t feel like we need to give this type of transphobia a name because it is just transphobia. similar to how misogynoir is a word but we don’t have a word for the specific type of oppression black men face because that’s just racism. just because transphobia impacts you in a certain way doesn’t mean it’s a special type of transphobia, and really why are we playing oppression olympics in the first place? we’re ALL hurting. can we just like… help each other out? can we stop accusing transfems of like…. deliberately trying to overshadow transmasc issues or whatever? and for the love of god if we have to argue can we STOP misgendering and degendering each other mid-argument.

like. at the end of the day this is all trivial shit because In Real Life we’re being targeted by horribly cruel legislation and social movements. it’s like we’re in a burning house and i’m watching my brother and sister argue over black mold. like yes that’s a problem but i think !!!! we should focus on putting out the fire !!!! like i live in texas. lawmakers have been trying to pass anti-trans bills here for ages, and a couple of them have gone through! i remember being sat down in gsa in my freshman year of high school and having the club sponsors tell us that if a bill that was up for ratification mandating that teachers out their students to their parents was passed that they would do everything in their power to keep us safe. i have to be careful about how i dress when i go to certain places. and i’m not even someone who’s transitioning medically— lord knows what kind of bullshit hurdles people on hrt have to go through to get it. and we’re arguing over what we want to call our oppression? we’re all facing transphobia at the end of the day can we PLEASE fix that instead of dividing ourselves into little easy-to-eliminate factions please and thank you

[traumaticemphaticfantastic]

I have delved into the art of “Memes” today, something that I do not normally do but a medium that I believe best suits today’s conundrum.

Today I present to you a really quite peculiar kind of phenomenon that I haven’t seen talked about very much, something that I have come to call “Jewish-deadnaming” or “Jew-naming” which is a kind of really odd tactic employed by certain members of the far-right against Jewish people that I’ve noticed bares a most striking similarity to the trans concept of “Dead-naming” wherein a far-right figure or otherwise ignorant individual will use the birth name of an otherwise passing individual as a sort of “Gotcha” that reveals said individual’s perceived inferiority.

In this meme I use the historical figure I have seen this tactic applied to the most, the Bolshevik and (ex)Soviet leader Leon Trotsky, or as his birth name reads, Lev Davidovich Bronstein as an example. The right-wing (Especially on the internet) really love to bring up Trotsky’s birth name, when you read their comments and posts there’s almost always a kind heir of smug superiority, as if they’re revealing some kind of “Big secret.” This I can only imagine, is most likely due to Trotsky not only being Jewish, but also being connected to the Bolshevik army and in-turn the communists, which plays very well into the Neo-Nazi conspiracy of “Cultural Marxism” which directly evolved from the “Cultural Bolshevism” conspiracy coined by the original Nazis proper. And the fact that Trotsky changed his name to a more Russian “Less Jewish/ethnic minority-sounding” one (Which I may add has been done by many people, not Just Jews, throughout history with a variety of languages and reasons) could and has been interpreted by antisemites to be a nefarious way of “Hiding in plain sight” and so spreading around Trotsky’s birth name becomes a sort of “Honourable” thing to do in the minds of the far-right, as a sort of means of “Exposing” the Jew for who he really is and in-turn exposing a “Larger conspiracy.���

As a trans girl myself I really can’t help but notice just how similar this is to deadnaming, in that the process of “Jew-naming” is done with a sort of venom that you don’t really see as often as say, referring to Lenin as “Vladimir Ulyanov” for historical purposes, most of the time when I’ve seen people going out of their way to Jew-name Trotsky, it’s very explicitly to denote his Jewishness that would otherwise be “Hiding” behind his Russified chosen name. And of course, Jews changing their names historically to “Fit in” better with the society they wish to be a part of goes beyond Trotsky, and maybe you have seen other examples of this? But for me, I see it the most with Trotsky, I’m thinking for the reasons stated above.

Sorry this one is a bit of a dark one today folks, if I can tell you a secret: This whole Jew-naming thing doesn’t particularly bother me personally too much, I find it to be more of a chronically-online curiosity than anything else, there’s definitely things that bother more than this these days haha. But, I wanted to share my observations with you all anyhow, as I do find it all quite batty.

But anyways, that will be all for today, be well!

[mint-in-the-moonlight]

revivalist approach to Artemis

disclaimer: this is intended to be a revivalist take on Artemis and some of her domains. i am only suggesting some ideas that you can freely discard if you do not find value in them. yes, these further interpretations may not be based on historical sources - that, in my opinion, is the point of revivalism. a lot of this is UPG.

while doing some research into Artemis, i started thinking about how certain deities' domains could be brought into our current world and modernised. our understandings of many things have changed over the millennia and as pagans in the 21st century, it may be a good idea to rethink some ideas to make them more relevant to today. that is not to say there isn't wisdom or value in the ancient interpretations, but i find it more difficult to connect to a deity that traditionally presides over something that is completely unfamiliar to me. so, this post is just me thinking aloud (in writing?) about some of these things specifically in relation to Artemis.

*note: this research was originally done as i was looking into the Roman goddess Diana. since the sources were focused on Artemis, i will refer to her in this post, however, some of these could also be applicable to Diana, depending on your personal interpretation and/or level of syncretism.

virginity

as i personally believe that virginity is a patriarchal invention meant to oppress us all, i do not want to necessarily associate the goddess with it nowadays and want to offer an alternate interpretation. in greek myth, Artemis can also/instead be interpreted as presiding over those who had not had and/or do not want to have sex. she is sometimes described as being "immune" from love and lust, leading to my further interpretation of her as a patron of asexual and aromantic people. furthermore, Artemis is depicted as protecting people from sexual assault and punishing those who commit those acts. this is another role that we could assign to her, as shielding from that kind of unwanted attention and harm and punishing those who carry them out.

the hunt

there is much less need for hunt in modern society. in europe, where i live and am from, hunt is more associated with the rich and the elites using it as a means of entertainment, which can also threaten the local wildlife. for this reason the hunt may not be a domain that is as important to us now and could even have negative connotations. in a more modern spin, i would like to propose then Artemis as presiding over wildlife conservation, which is also supported in ancient sources (where she would make sure that the wildlife could reproduce and continue to exist). you may still find value in associating Artemis with the hunt if it is relatable to your life or if another relevant situation arises, for example, if you are eating meat that comes from a wild animal.

archery

archery has become an obsolete means of hunting nowadays. however, it still exists as a sport alongside other methods of shooting. so while it may be less relevant now, i think this aspect, while transformed, could still be applicable.

giving birth and motherhood

this one could still be applicable to many today, so i only wish to expand it with my interpretation. this domain should not be exclusive to cisgender women and i think it could include trans people as well (if they are comfortable with that). that, of course, depends on personal comfort and interpretation but i suggest you think about it if you are interested.

young women/girls

as with the previous domain, i want to expand on this one. here as "young women/girls" we could think about any kind of person, beyond cisgender women/girls that is comfortable with that label. for example, as a transmasculine person, i see myself having been perceived as a girl once and thus this label could have applied to my younger self and their experiences. this may also be more important in relation to transfeminine people who may not have had the opportunity to present feminine when they were young/a child.

i was reading Artemis: Virgin Goddess of the Sun & Moon by Sorita D'Este while writing this post so credit to it for most of the research and inspiration

[manstrans]

“Queer men aren’t oppressed for being queer men”

Sodomy laws.

Discrimination for Plasma and Blood Donation.

Both of these explicitly target Queer Men. For being Queer Men.

You can’t separate that concept from them.

Idk what that person is talking about “queer men aren’t oppressed for being queer men”.

They need to get out of the white 2nd wave feminism talking points and learn other axis of oppression rather than just womanhood.

And internalize that.

Before they start moving into other bigoted talking points.

Transmisogyny and Queerphobia discussions got fucking ruined by white women, who saw radical feminism and dove headfirst into it.

Now they’re trying to literally erase other forms of oppression by going “women are more oppressed” but wrapping it up in a progressive lens.

Women ARE the more oppressed class when comparing social classes, experiencing unique forms from their male counterparts, who ALSO experience unique forms from their female counterparts, in that it is an intersectionality between gender and another form of oppression.

Nuance when discussion levels of oppression is important and this isn’t a game where one type of oppression is negated by one type of privilege.

I wish other people understood this for the conversation.

You, yourself, do not need people who can’t grasp basic intersectional oppression information, consistently challenging you for something that… has been known for the better part of, I want to say three decades now? Maybe a bit longer.

But for them to do that, they’d have to acknowledge that Anti-Men positions, tend to swing from a position of privilege rather than oppression. (White able bodied perisex cishet women being a grand example.)

And that those that started these conversations, didn’t care about race or queerphobia and they ate it up because it is easier to perceive oneself as only a victim rather than a perpetrator and that even the one that harms you faces a unique harm you may not comprehend.

THIS !!

(disclaimer not aimed at anyone specific: I don't think that trans women are the ones causing this problem. 99% of the time it's cis perisex white women)

[shyolet]

Hello. I'm sorry to bother you, and if this is too personal you can delete it. May I ask if you are on hrt? And if so, how did you acquire it, as a mute person?

I'm also in my late 20s and diagnosed with selective mutism, and my perceived hopelessness of the situation has made me repress it for so long. Attempting to share any meaningful information about myself or give responses over one word to my parents or other authority figures (i.e. doctors) makes me feel nauseous and lightheaded, or like I'm stabbing myself. For reference, I live with my parent and my inability to communicate makes me almost fully financially and materially dependent on them.

I have a handful of friends that I'm capable of speaking to, but I still struggle to share personal information even with them, and I can't bring myself to talk about this with any of them because none of them are trans women.

Again, if this is all too personal or forthright coming from an anonymous stranger you can ignore it. I'm extremely reluctant to reveal myself, but if this is something you feel would be best talked about in private I can try, though it may take me some time to come forward. Thanks in advance.

It’s not a bother or too personal at all <3

I am on HRT, yeah ^.^ For my hormone appointments I schedule online since phone calls aren’t an option and tend to have everything written in a notebook ahead of time, explaining that I’m trans and unable to speak vocally if it’s a first time I’m seeing a doctor. I’ve never had to specify that it’s selective mutism that causes my inability to talk, and tend to refer to it just as a communication disorder (being a bit more vague helps me with my own difficult time revealing personal information). Doctors have never asked for more information about it, but it might be valuable to have a page to explain ahead of time in case you don’t have a pre-written answer for a question asked and you’re unable to write while there. (I also recommend handing the notebook over since, idk if you’re the same but my hands shake too much from fear to read otherwise)

I’ve also never had a doctor who has rejected me getting hormones, I don’t think SM is a reason they would, if that’s a worry of yours. If communicating through a notebook is more anxiety inducing than speech for you like it is for some people, having pre-written notes to read off of in an appointment is something a lot of people even without SM do, and it allows for ‘rehearsing’

As for being almost fully financially and materially dependent on your parents, I’m sorry to say I don’t have as much advice for that… Finding income without the ability to speak is *tough* on its own without the debilitating anxiety too >.<

For my own parent I spent weeks writing and rewriting a note to come out through, and nearly passed out handing it over before hiding for a few days. I don’t know the specifics of your situation, or if your parent would be accepting and willing to help materially support you in getting HRT, but something I do for things like that is try to remind myself that the panic attacks and feeling like I’m dying will pass and that afterward it’ll have been hopefully worth it for a longer period than the fear lasts.

There’s no pressure at all to come off of anonymous or reveal yourself in any way, I know the dizziness and nausea and heart racing that comes with even sending online messages and totally understand (and I’m sorry to say I think tumblr removed the answer privately function from asks else I’d have answered that way x.x). But if you’d like help coming up with scripts for anything in case it’d be easier to not strictly use your own words, or if you’d just like a friend to chat with who is also a trans woman with SM, you’re welcome to continue sending anonymous asks if that’s comfortable <3 And, there’d be no rush at all if you would like to eventually try chatting privately, you’re even welcome to make a burner email/just send single words or emojis or something to start if that’d be easier ^.^

[tenrousei-kuroi]

Hi. I was just wondering how do you perceive canon Sirius? I haven’t read any of the books and I keep seeing different interpretations (psychotic bully top, Regina George, woke gen z etc etc) of this character it really makes me wonder.

Oh, that's a really good question...and you have no idea the novel-length response it's going to prompt from me, lol.

I'll give my short response first and only the brave and masochistic will need to venture below the cut...

Sirius was as good a person as most people can reasonably be. He suffered a lot in his life and didn't handle it very well. While he showed that he logically understood right and wrong, the moral complexity of the world, etc., he was ultimately someone who struggled to live by his own standards. A hypocrite, really, though I say that word a bit more softly than most. He spent half his life in prison for a crime he didn't commit yet still felt guilty for and was never really given the chance to properly mature.

Ultimately the words I would use would be immature, depressed, selfish, and regretful. Very much the poster child for displacement, ie: someone who has been hurt taking that anger and acting out towards others.

We learn directly who Sirius is after Azkaban, through his appearances in the first five books. And we learn indirectly about his Hogwarts years through a few flashbacks and lot of very biased recollections...

Because Harry Potter is the point of view character for the series, we don't ever get to see anyone else's thoughts, and so any interpretations of character motivations are going to get run through two filters: one is Harry's perception, and the second is the reader themselves.

That's a longform way of me admitting that my interpretations of Sirius Black may actually say more about me than they really do about him.

So I can't claim to be right or anything like that when I spout off how I personally feel about a secondary character like Sirius. But I do like to think my ideas are grounded in pretty solid logic. I guess I'll start off with what Sirius Black really isn't:

A woke gen z-er, as you put it lol. There's of course nothing wrong with someone going this route in their fanfics, it's all just for fun, and I like a lot of these works, personally. And I can see how and why people gravitate towards them. But I will warn anyone whose entire experience with the Marauders is coming from fanfics where Sirius Black is helping Timothee Chalamet his brother navigate his trans awaking and calming his lover Remus Lupin down from a panic attack using Tik-Tok approved counseling tricks to not go diving into the actual canon Harry Potter series expecting that....because you will not find it, lol.

An incestuous and abusive psychopath. I gotta' be fair and throw my own works under the same bus here. As much as I think I stick closer to canon Sirius in a lot of ways....the Sirius that pops up in my fanfic shenanigans is just as out of left field. As much as Sirius/Regulus has been my OTP for basically forever, I could never actually see canon-Sirius displaying the level of deliberate, active cruelty or complete lack of basic morality that I like to attach to him. Like other people giving him the vocabulary of a 2020's Tik-Tok star, it's just a fun fantasy on my end.

So I guess that leaves us with trying to figure out what exactly Sirius Black is. At least as far as we can surmise from his canon behaviors.

Full disclosure that I am not including Pottermore or any of JKR's random tweets. As far as I'm concerned, canon is the 7 main books and I don't pay attention to much else. So let's break it down book-by-book:

Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone: He's mentioned once here, just in passing. Hagrid talks about Sirius lending him his motorcycle to get Harry to the Dursleys' faster. With the context we later gain from book three, we can plausibly assume that Sirius Black is incredibly reactive, and quick to go all-in on things in the wake of a huge emotional upset. With his friends dead and Hagrid refusing to give him his godson, Sirius essentially 'throws away' his most prized possession and only getaway--his motorcycle--and then goes away with the Aurors, laughing loudly instead of trying to proclaim his innocence.

Prisoner of Azkaban: This is Sirius's book and he spends 80% of it as the villain, at least until the Truth(tm) is revealed at the end. But even though he's proven not to be a Death Eater or murderer, he still behaves alarmingly. It's explained that Sirius's innocence was the 'unhappy' thought that kept him sane in prison, but it didn't stop him from becoming obsessive. He's so consumed with the desire for revenge against Peter Pettigrew (not necessarily saying I blame him, lol) that he is willing to endanger and even outright hurt Harry and his friends to do so. He does make mention that part of his motivation was to 'save Harry' as he felt Peter being in disguise as a rat living at Hogwarts was dangerous to his godson. But he did almost choke the kid out in that shack when he got in the way of Peter Pettigrew Murder Time, lol. So Sirius was somewhat emotionally volatile. It's clear he doesn't always think things through before he acts.

This is further reiterated with the whole Snape-Lupin-James werewolf fun times fiasco. We don't get a direct and honest retelling of "The Prank" events ever, instead having to make due with different characters giving their opinions on decades-old memories. Dumbledore first presents the issue without mentioning Sirius at all, merely telling Harry in the first book that Snape "never forgave" James for saving his life and then trying to pass off all of Snape's behaviors towards Harry as a sort of begrudging protective role and half-assed effort to make even with a ghost. By book three we get more context and learn that James "saved" Snape after Sirius told him how to get to the Shack. Sirius clearly has a habit of razing things down in anger without thought towards the consequences, and then hiding from the responsibility, possibly from selfishness or guilt or both. We know that Remus, Lily and others were able to forgive him for nearly getting Snape killed and Remus imprisoned, so it's likely that his guilt over the situation was genuine.

Basically here we have someone who does not handle emotions well. Possibly an environmentally learned trait from growing up with the kind of parents that burn pictures of you and loudly declare you're not welcome at home anymore yet never actually disown you from their will...can't say for sure, but...ya' know...

Goblet of Fire: After the immediate chaos of breaking out of prison fades and Sirius has a support group of friends who know and believe he's innocent, he gets to transition a bit, and we see that he is also very protective and eager to be involved. He has a couple moments where he goes full Dad-mode on Harry, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Dumbledore finding him a good hiding spot in Hogsmeade was less of a "hey Sirius come hang out near the school" thing and more of an "okay I know I can't stop you from getting as close to Harry as possible, will you please at least stay in this safe hiding spot I found for you?" concession.

We also see Sirius criticizing Barty Crouch Sr. for not being there for his son. Sirius is able to connect the dots and comes to the logical conclusion that much of Barty Crouch Jr.'s behavior is the fault of his father for being uncaring in the first place. He sees that those around the Death Eaters do--in some cases--bear some blame for not paying attention, for not reaching out, and for ultimately setting them up to join Voldemort. Yet...Sirius does not seem willing to connect this realization to his own treatment of Severus Snape, his younger brother, or even Peter Pettigrew.

Order of the Phoenix: This is where we get the most of his character, I feel, and some of it is subtle. I'll admit that 90% of my characterization of Sirius as actually caring deeply for his brother comes from the sixth chapter:

"...my idiot brother, soft enough to believe them..."

...

"Was he killed by an Auror?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Oh no," said Sirius. "No, he was murdered by Voldemort...from what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do."

Harry asks if Regulus has been killed. And as Sirius corrects his assumptions about Reg being offed by an Auror, he also corrects the verb, from killed to murdered. And generally you don't describe a just killing as a murder. Death Eater or not, Sirius didn't think his brother deserved to die. He also admits that he went actively looking for information about Regulus. Again not the mark of someone who doesn't care.

And while I would describe Sirius as immature, that does not mean he was completely without maturity. He takes a lot of hits in this book, a lot of very harsh words get flung his way. He has to deal with Snape's constant snide remarks about how cowardly Sirius is for staying at home cleaning all day instead of fighting Voldemort, hell, he has to sit there and let the Weasley twins call him a coward to his face just because they're upset that their father has been injured and they're angry that Sirius is safe under house arrest while their parents aren't.

And all this because he's still a wanted fugitive, unable to venture outside safely. He wants to fight but can't. Powerlessness and depression hit him hard in this book.

In the chapter where Harry dives into Snape's pensieve we get our one and only 'objective' view of Sirius as a teenager, where it becomes clear that he was arrogant, handsome, talented, and very popular. He also liked to start altercations. This is actually our first big fissure between Harry and Sirius, and between Harry and his dad.

While James and Sirius are shown as going out of their way to pick fights with someone they don't like, Harry is such a passive and much more emotionally aware character that this causes significant pain to him. To find out that Sirius and James really were bullies is a big blow to Harry, who would never behave that way. He spent most of his childhood being bullied, after all, and I think that in that memory, Harry realized just how much more he identified with Snape as opposed to his own father and godfather and that really freaked him out.

Not to mention how uncomfortable it is to realize that these "bullies" were people Harry loved. Because once you have to come to terms with finding out someone you respect and love has done something cruel, it leaves your opinions on others shaky. This moment wasn't just about making Harry realize there was a "bad side" to Sirius and James, but also the first step towards helping him understand there may be a good side to people like Dudley Dursley or Draco Malfoy.

Sirius is quick to dismiss his past mistakes, he rarely owns up to them. This doesn't mean he's got no conscience, just that he--once again--does not deal with emotions easily. He clearly doesn't respond to his own guilt very well. So he brushes off his treatment of Snape and even his dismissal of his own family. In Sirius's mind, he and James are "allowed" to have matured out of their past bad behaviors and deserve to not be criticized for them...yet Sirius is unwilling to extend this grace to others. Everyone else around him is permanently stuck as how he first perceived them.

Sirius never finding out the full truth of Regulus's death is a huge disappointment to me, as I would have loved to have seen how he reconciled his inability to change his mind about his family with such an obvious act of heroism.

Ultimately book 5 shows that Sirius is, like a lot of us, very susceptible to "being a good person in theory". He very easily falls prey to cruel behaviors against "bad" people. He treats Kreacher the house elf terribly and uses his position as Kreacher's master to control and belittle him, using it almost as an opportunity for revenge against his family for what must have been a rough childhood. Yet he would never do that if Kreacher were nice to him.

It's a sort of complicated hypocrisy. Sirius treats people based on his personal feelings towards them, not based on what is right. Snape was "a little oddball up to his eyes in the Dark Arts", and that is how Sirius justifies his and James's behaviors. The reality is that Sirius wanted to be good, clearly saw himself as a hero, and was more than willing to die to protect the people he loved (he literally does die in this book to help Harry). But he still gave into the same kind of selfish cruelty he complained about growing up with.

It's not just that he was "an idiot at the age of fifteen", as he describes it. Most of us were. Anyone who claims they were always an enlightened progressive-minded justice fighter constantly standing up for the marginalized is just not remembering age twelve very well. The true mark of Sirius's character is that he can't handle the guilt. When the topic comes up, he hides from it, brushing people off quickly and making excuses. He is unable to openly and honestly confront his own mistakes.

Sirius himself told Harry "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters" and those are probably the wisest words in the whole series. Yet...he was unable to actually live by those words.

Do as I say and not as I do, right? Lol.

Ultimately this character flaw was his downfall. The climax of book 5--and consequently Sirius's death, as well--comes as a direct result of Kreacher's betrayal, a betrayal he was only able to pull off because Sirius, in one of his many fits of anger towards the elf, ordered him "OUT."

He was definitely one of the good guys. I'm not here with any edgy take about how Sirius was somehow worse than the literal wizard nazis. But also...he wasn't perfect, either, and he did and said some very bad things.

A lot of people I think find comfort in that binary split, where characters are either perfect angels or the worst monsters ever. And the meta that get the most clicks are going to be the ones that take those crazy stances of "'[Character You Hate] is Actually a Perfect Angel and Here's Why" or vice versa.

I know that I personally used to write like that, as well. It's actually a touch painful to look back at some of my earliest writings and see just how badly they lacked any nuance...(but boy did I feel like I was making some serious Statements(tm) at the time lol). So it's safe to say my idea of Sirius has definitely grown with time. As have my interpretations of the rest of the characters, too. The more life experiences you have, the better context you can bring to the stories you read. The more diverse people you meet, the more you can start to understand. As your real world grows, so too do the fictional worlds you read about.

So that's my idea of Sirius Black in a very large nutshell. This is the first time I've ever spit all these thoughts out at one time and it was fun to do!

I've seen a lot of different interpretations of Sirius's character over the years and I hope I didn't come across as dissing on any of them. What the reader brings to the table is key. My ideas of why Sirius did the things he did is heavily influenced by my experiences with friends and members of my own family. And the specific areas where my stories jump off from canon into my own little world is equally born of my own life. They come from my memories and from my interests. What ideas I personally like to explore. So when I see someone else's fanfic be just radically off base from how I would have ever conceived of writing the character...I get it.

He's not a real person. So no matter how you see him you can't really be wrong. Each different Sirius Black that pops up on tumblr or Ao3 is just a little window into what's interesting or important to that author.

っ◕‿◕)っ ♥

Love, Ten

[trans-androgyne]

Sorry if this is an irritating ask or anything, but could you please explain to me what people find wrong about the term transandrophobia? As far as I’m aware it’s literally just a word to describe trans men’s oppression. I’m not against the idea that it might have something wrong with it (as a transmasc person), but through all this fighting I’ve never once seen someone clearly explain what the problem is.

I’ve seen people claim that transmascs keep throwing transfems under the bus, but the only thing I’ve ever seen is actually the OPPOSITE way around, and only when I go searching for it (but that might just be because I make an effort to keep my dash free of that kind of thing) again I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I just… don’t quite understand all this.

Sorry abt this rambly ask, I’m just tired and frustrated and I HATE that we’ve been pitted against each other

I will do by best to genuinely present and respond to the main arguments I have heard made against using the term. Apologies in advance for the length.

The most common in my experience is that “androphobia/misandry doesn’t exist,” or “men aren’t oppressed for being men,” based on the terms transandrophobia and its origin, transmisandry. It feels like a non-sequitur to me, completely bypassing the actual meaning of the term. Some people do include androphobia or misandry in their definition of the term, but many more don’t and just use it to describe the intersection of transphobia and misogyny in the lives of transmascs or even just “transphobia against transmascs.” I personally do believe androphobia exists in a literal sense—the fear of men that has serious consequences—but not in the way they mean it. They are attempting to paint us as MRAs, but nobody who gets any eyes on them using the term has ever argued that women oppress men as a class. MRAs are antifeminist, and the transandrophobia conversation is very much a feminist one.

The simplest is just that transmascs just “don’t need a word” to talk about their oppression. Our experiences are called “just transphobia” or “just misogyny” based on whatever they think applies most in the moment. Our theorizing is painted as useless infighting or just being jealous that trans women have a word to describe their oppression. I vehemently disagree with this one, I think everyone deserves language to describe their experiences. I think it’s impossible to ignore the way that both transphobia and misogyny interact to affect us in a new way (the very definition of intersectionality), and that we deserve to recognize and describe that intersection. Even the coiner of the word “transmisogyny” appears to agree with us on this.

Other people will focus on the term’s perceived origins. They frequently call the person who changed the term “transmisandry” to “transandrophobia” a “lesbophobic transmisogynist” and rape fetishist. From everything I’ve been able to put together on the matter, it seems to be that they’re referring to him having engaged in someone else’s detrans kinks as a sex worker on a private blog. I’ve heard from others he may have harassed people, absolutely cannot verify that. To me, it feels like another case of accusing trans people with kinks others find unsavory of being a sexual predator/sex pest, which people generally recognize as transphobic. In any case, even if every single part of their outrage was true, I do not think the behavior of a person who didn’t even come up with the ideas means that transandrophobia theory is inherently transmisogynistic.

In regard to “throwing trans women under the bus,” I think a lot of those ideas come from oppositional sexism. It’s assumed that what we’re saying is true of men must be the opposite for women. Trans women, including the woman who coined “transmisogyny,” have been using trans men’s perceived “opposite” experiences to prove their points for many years. They try to make a claim for transmisogyny by saying trans men don’t experience similar issues (violence, sexualization, demonization, safety issues, misogyny, trouble passing). But the reality is, trans men do experience those issues — some to a lesser extent, some in a different form, some just less visibly due to our chronic erasure — and have other issues of their own that trans women don’t face (like abortion rights issues). An attack on the idea that trans men have it easier is seen as an attack on transmisogyny as a concept. But it isn’t!! Transmisogyny is so blatant and oppressive of a system that it doesn’t need to compare itself to transandrophobia/trans men’s issues to have ground to stand on. Trans people are all harmed by transphobia in different, complex ways and none of us have gendered privilege.

Very few people engage with the actual meat of transandrophobia theory. We have really bad optics, I’ll give them that. It’s hard to like a word with “androphobia” in it, talking about men’s issues puts people on edge due to MRAs, and there are TERFs actively trying to recruit us. (The last part is used against us when it shouldn’t be, they try to recruit transmascs of all stripes for detransitioning and are only using us in particular because so many transfems have been awful to us because of the term. They are trying to widen that divide while most of us discussing transandrophobia are trying to close it.)

We (people who use “transandrophobia”) are often characterized as a unified movement that hates trans women (like in that post that blew up in the wake of predstrogen’s banning). We are not a movement any more than “transmisogyny” or “exorsexism” are. We don’t all believe the same things, the only thing we share in common is that we feel transmascs have a specific kind of oppression and deserve a word to describe it. And, obviously, we are doing our best not to perpetuate (trans)misogyny! The number of disclaimers I have seen people put on their post to make it exceedingly obvious to the piss on the poor website that they’re not talking about trans women is absolutely astounding. I’m sure our circles do have some transmisogyny in them, everywhere does! We do our best to combat it and I know my personal spaces have a couple transfems in them that help keep us in check. If we were being genuinely transmisogynistic, I would ask people to actually point to what they’re seeing that’s harmful instead of just dismissing all of us as evil bigots.

I think what contributes to the backlash the most is simply that trans men do not fit into current understandings of feminism well. People have gotten it into their heads that men are gender oppressors and not gender oppressed — which doesn’t shake out so well when you put being trans into the equation. I grew up hearing “ew men are gross” “I hate men” “kill all men” sentiments due to being in LGBT spaces. Some people really, really do not want to let go of the idea that men are bad and icky and dangerous and women are good and pure and safe, especially when it benefits them as non-men. Many transmascs themselves have internalized the idea that they are gender oppressors, traitors to feminism, more likely to be dangerous/predatory/misogynistic, and take up too much space because they are men/mascs. I sure felt like that before finding these conversations! I sincerely think that as we grow our transfeminism and heal from our gender essentialism a little more, this rhetoric will be left in the past.