#this is a leftist issue as are all other bigotries

[bisexualamy]

idk I just get frustrated when people act surprised that elon musk is being more openly antisemitic when this is a very well worn truth. the ruling class has been weaponizing antisemitism for over 2000 years. they make jewish people into scapegoats for their economic (and sometimes literal) violence. quick, look over there! aren’t the Jews the real problem?

[omegawizardposting]

By the way, any time I say, "I want to be a good little leftist, but--" I am saying it with maximum sarcasm. I do not ever want to be a "good little leftist". I want to be someone with compassion and more than one brain cell who doesn't hate Jews and Natives.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

I cannot actually believe I have to say this but older events are not irrelevant to modern issues when those events caused widespread damage to countless people and left permanent impacts on the populations targeted. Historical context, especially in the case of violent persecution and its lasting impact caused by bigtory and hate that are deeply ingrained in society, IS important and needs to be talked about.

The Trail of Tears took place in the mid-19th century, almost 200 years ago. The 13th amendment to end slavery was ratified in 1865, more than 150 years ago. Are those events suddenly irrelevant to current society because they happened so long ago? Is the expulsion of indigenous people from our lands no longer important? Are we supposed to forget slavery? What about things like European colonization that happened hundreds of years ago? Is that too old to care about?

Of course not, because we know the reality is that even if those events are "over" and have been for a long time, their impacts are likely to going to be felt forever and the bigotry that led to them happening in the first place is built into our societies and cultures and actively still hurting the groups affected. But it doesn't escape my notice that the "it happened so long ago, just move on" is being weaponized against Jewish people specifically, especially by leftists who would never even dream of saying that to any other marginalized ethnic and racial groups (and many other groups who AREN'T affected by generational trauma).

The Holocaust is still relevant. The global expulsions of Jews from countries all over the world are still relevant. The pogroms that devastated Jewish communities all over the world for hundreds and even thousands of years are still relevant. Acknowledging that doesn't mean approving of or justifying the Israeli government's actions, just like acknowledging other historical events doesn't mean accepting or justifying the bigotry and violence of other marginalized groups. It's not about justification, it's about understanding and remembering so that we can move forward without repeating that violence.

I'm just absolutely blown away by the callousness and cruelty I've seen from people and their absolute refusal to acknowledge the fact that antisemitism is a real and very active danger. If you think that people just talking about ongoing antisemitic violence is propaganda, then you have some serious and deeply-held bigoted ideals that you need to be acknowledging and working on.

[xclowniex]

I know i shouldn't have expected much from Jessie Gender considering her last video on the topic, but it is really annoying that her video ended up as just pseudo intellectual word salad meant to justify to herself and other goyim that they aren't antisemitic, and that antisemitism is not a big issue on the left as it's only *some* leftists and she doesn't claim that handful of leftists.

And, a lot of the issues with her video could have been avoided if she dedicated even 30m of the 4 hour long video to a jew to explain in their own words, zionism and the rise of antisemitism.

I've talked before about how the western idea of zionism is hyperfixated on khanism as the definition of zionism, instead of the Jewish idea of it being a bad and unpopular branch of zionism. And that zionism as an idea has nothing to do with Palestinians, and only when you get into how to implement it, do Palestinians become involved. As well as that two state solution zionism and land for all zionism is the most popular form of zionism amongst jews.

It seems like instead of gaining a Jewish perspective on zionism, like the one I just gave, Jessie decided to focus on only deforming things to fit the preconceived belied she has. Even with antisemitism, she again went into things ignoring any jewish perspective.

Just like how with any form of bigotry, the group not targeted by it is going to not notice it as much, which is still very much true with her. She is not Jewish, and therefore doesn't notice antisemitism as much as jews do. This is usually remedied by people listening to jews. Except, she didn't do that.

I do understand that she consulted two jews on her video, however I do not think that speaking to only two jews gets a big enough picture on any topic relating to jews as a whole. This is because A) two is not a good sample size for community opinion and B) not every jew is knowledgeable on everything relating to jews and judaism. It would have been nice for her to have reached out to some jewish organizations to get a wider picture.

Overall, I think she had an opportunity to get things right, but didn't go for it so she could soothe her ego from the antisemitism allegations (which are true).

[dykeulous]

the infantilization of men is so severe, so mind-blowing and so present in all parts of leftist spaces, and we should be calling that out more often. cancel culture tends to be very flawed itself (i’m not saying that people shouldn’t face repercussions for their wrongdoings, and i’m obviously not talking about actual bigotry & crime here, that isn’t cancel culture– cancel culture is made up of snide people who want to appear to stand a high moral ground, picking on anyone who makes a small mistake, or even just generally on anyone who they deem weird, cringe & unlikeable– refusing to let people move on from their *unproblematic* past), and a lot of people point out how it does a very bad job at addressing actual problematic behavior & instead focuses on ostracizing and partaking in cringe culture as its brother culture– but what is often swept under the rug is how cancel culture entertains & platforms heavily problematic men, even allowing rapists scot free– while its focus is primarily directed at women. cancel culture wishes to bully & tear down any woman it deems unlikeable, and this is not an overstatement, nor is it an unnecessary exaggeration; cancel culture proves itself time and time again to be very forgiving, and even forgetting of actual crime and bigotry committed by men, and in turns infantilizes said men, while it pays special attention to micromanaging & twisting women’s words. cancel culture is misogynistic, and it is based on the First Rule of Misogyny: Women are responsible for what men do.

this issue extends further from mere cancel culture. the rigid problem regarding the infantilization of men, and the encouragement of micromanaging & surveillance of women is extended to leftist & progressive spaces in general. the superiority complex of leftist men is set aflame & left to keep burning joyfully as it wishes, leftist men believing they are more intelligent, more progressive and tolerant than leftist women ever will be. all a man has to do in order to be considered a hero and an activist icon is say something that supports queer capitalism here & there, and for a woman to even be referenced once, she has to be a highly intelligent sociologist & activist politician, completely compliant & submissive, inconsiderate of her own emotions & boundaries and willing to debate her own basic human rights with a smile imprinted on her face. leftism is not exempt from misogyny, and leftist spaces aren’t sexism-free, especially given the inflated ego of leftist men & the tendency to treat female liberation as a side quest, and female oppression as a bystander to other systems of oppression, being extremely primarily class reductionist & failing to analyze the categories of “woman” and “man” as two classes with their own oppressive relations connected to labor. female socialization; women being nurtured to be more kind, more considerate, more gentle, more nice– all of this is being efficiently used against us in the very end, waiting to bite us with lethality. women are expected to be perfect advocates, perfect activists– and when we fall short in any way, when we dare show even the smallest signs of being human and not working as robotic vehicles 24/7 made to solve world problems– we get called misogynistic slurs, and smear campaigns ran against us.

the insane infantilization of men within leftist spaces is a problem that needs to be fixed, immediately. leftist men are not exempt from criticism. feminists are tired of having to do the majority of work and still being stabbed in the back by our supposed allies, while genuinely dangerous and horrible men are being allowed to conceal in the shadows by leftists, and sometimes they are even celebrated. the male hero, male savior, perfect male activist icon– mainstream leftist spaces infantilize & idolize the men they crown the movement’s heroes of the week, painting them as infallible, misunderstood, Cool Cute Quirky Little Guys; and if those men end up being racist or misogynistic, and even if they are accused of something as severe as rape, their fanbase will be ready to fight wars for them & sweep the evidence under the rug, say there is no evidence, say the evidence is not enough, not neatly provided– their fanbase will do anything to preserve these grown men as their perfect celebrity gods, incapable of wrongdoing, incapable of being scum and danger. this issue further extends to men who aren’t leftists at all, who aren’t popular or celebrities at all– it extends to normie men, to ordinary men. this can be observed when a teen person wants to come out as gay or trans to their parents, and they record/track this process on their social media– the observers are usually more likely to critique & be suspicious of the person’s mother, despite the fact that men are usually the perpetrators of violent homophobic & transphobic hate crime. the person’s father is often presented in such a light that will give the audience an overview of men being such cool & chill creatures, such rational creatures. people will often post text messages of them coming out to their fathers where their father acts confused but supportive, or says something as simple, disingenuous and uninteresting as “i don’t care”– and the viewers will go crazy, presenting this father as such a cool father, as such a supportive parental figure for commiting such non-actions; while in the same breath bullying mothers & calling them cringe when they buy rainbow products for their children.

you need not go in deep details, searching for specific scenarios– you get the idea of what is being said here. this is not a non-issue, and it must be fixed. leftist women do so much for this movement, yet they are unappreciated & straight up degraded when they slip even a little off the current mainstream standards, being presented as monstrous and bigoted, and downright evil. a woman can do so much actual activism, for gay & trans people alike– but as soon as the micromanagers of her words find something to be mad about, or accuse her of wrongthink– it is over for her. it all goes in the trashcan, all of the work she has done– all the while literal rapists are allowed to run free. class reductionists are going to yell leftist infighting! at me, but if leftist infighting is when women point out valid criticisms of how the people within our movement are treating us, then we will never be truly united in tackling systems of oppression. stop coddling men.

[kick-a-long]

your post from a few days ago about the defeatist logic of antisemitism raises another point:

as you said jews are a concrete target. i would also add that we are the easiest target. there's only .2% of us and we are seen as inherently alien by everyone (most ppl have never met a jew so we're sooo unrelatable and mysterious to them) which leads to antisemitism being ignored/labelled unimportant.

because antisemitism is seen as unimportant and gets easily dismissed this leads to an interlocking of all other bigotries with antisemitism being the odd one out. leftists can care about racism because it's something everyone faces and the same applies for homophobia (which is seen as universal), islamophobia (there are hundreds of millions of muslims and it's viewed as a form of racism) and the list goes on. but antisemitism is labelled and viewed as a jew only problem. so why must anyone else care? its the easiest thing in the world not to. for the longest time i saw non jews pair antisemitism with every other form of bigotry as if trying to make it relatable so people can view it as a real problem.

these are really important and good points. as you said, the problem of "antisemitism always needs a chaperone" is both that antisemitism is not treated as important as there are so few jews and it's treated as trodden ground. "not important" if it's on it's own, but also that antisemitic attitudes never travel alone either. it's always the structural underpinnings of violent extremism and the hatred of any other group and it needs to be addressed as THE issue behind the escalation to violence. jews are seen as both an easy target but also a worthy (aka powerful) one that makes an extremist look like they are going up against something much bigger than they are.

that jews are rich and powerful is also widely accepted as true even by centrists.

the end of discussion, dissent, and figuring out how to improve obvious problems in society, and the beginning of random mass violence is antisemitism. people need to recognize that it's where the violence is coming from. you don't need jews around to have antisemitism. not only that, but you don't need to be jewish to catch a bullet because of antisemitic theories that say violence is the only way to defeat (((the jew))) as imagined in antisemitic conspiracy theory.

look into any mass shooting, terrorist attack: black, white, brown, blue, red, purple, green... you will find antisemitism tying it all together and demanding blood, soil, and death.

[giritina]

A shocking amount of people who claim to hate radfems are in my mentions pushing the idea that transness is purely socially constructed. Like. "Gender is purely a social construct with no innate factors" is literally one of the basics of terf ideology. That's why they say you can't transition genders, because there's no such thing as "feeling like a gender." This debate is a repeat of the debate on innate sexuality that brought us conversion therapy from the right and political lesbianism from the left. As a person who previously fell for the idea of political lesbianism - the idea that sexuality was not innate but a political and moral choice - I can tell you that this idea leads to nothing but self-denial for the sake of group inclusion. It also leads to biphobia and other bigotry on the basis of the person's "choice" to "frame" their identity in the wrong way.

Even if we ignore that connection, the insistence that transness is a purely metaphysical, mysterious force that inhabits the body at random through no particular means is anti-science and anti-intellectual. It encourages the party engaging in systemic analysis of transmisogyny and transphobia to simply shut up because transness is unknowable. They imply there is no point in considering "man", "woman", and "nonbinary" to be categories born from a complex intersection of biology and culture. There's no point having any discussion at all about anything. Everything we perceive is a construct, and a construct can't be analyzed as something that has a comprehensive reality or impact. According to this type of reactionary constructs aren't useful tools to frame human experience, they're just get out of jail free cards for thinking about anything. Like other forms of science denialism, it positions itself as counter cultural while being perfectly in line with the status-quo. The science denialist leftist and the conversion therapist are alligned in their belief that transness can be changed within a person. They simply disagree on what should be done about it.

Your opinion about issues should be impacted by science. Otherwise, you'll be basing your theory on Vibes. Check out The Biological Contributions to Gender Identity and Gender Diversity: Bringing Data to the Table for a systematic review of the subject.

[anamericangirl]

Calling pro-choice people uneducated when you think "Abortion is never necessary to save a woman’s life" is pretty fucking stupid. Any health care provider who isn't going from a strictly biased "christain science pray away the cancer" type mindset will tell you that yes abortion is sometimes necessary and the best way to ensure a woman lives. Ectopic pregnancies, severe preeclampsia or cancer (since most cancer treatments will kill a fetus) are just a few of the conditions.

Any health care provider will not tell you that because it's not true and your bigotry towards pro-lifers makes you ignorant because the only way you could possibly think the only type of healthcare provider that would confirm abortion isn't medically necessarily are "Christian Science pray away the cancer" type proves you've never researched this issue, never talked to a pro-lifer, know nothing about this topic and got all your naive views from other ignorant leftists on Twitter.

Ectopic pregnancies are not treated with abortions. Any health care provider will tell you that. Even Planned Parenthood, the scumbags you pro-aborts idolize, explained that on their website for years and only recently changed the wording after the overturning of Roe because they wanted people like you to think abortion was necessary for ectopic pregnancies but their description of the treatment still doesn't describe abortion. But here's what their description for ectopic pregnancies was for years before they slightly changed the wording:

So unless you think Planned Parenthood are "Christian Science pray away the cancer" type you'll have to take the L here and admit you don't know what you're talking about. If a woman is experiencing an ectopic pregnancy she should go to a hospital, not an abortion clinic.

Preeclampsia also does not require abortion. That is treated by monitoring the health of the mother and baby and, if necessary, an early delivery. Getting the placenta out is usually what stops the symptoms and there are other treatments the mother can use until the baby can be delivered so there's no need to kill the child.

Cancer does not require abortion, either. Women can be treated for cancer while pregnant and it’s obvious you’ve never researched the issue because it definitely can be and is treated without killing the baby or the mother. Killing the baby doesn't make the cancer go away.

So yeah, pro-aborts are uneducated and you just proved it.

[a-very-tired-jew]

We have to talk about Leftist Antisemitism

One of the things I have been grappling with since Oct 7th is the rise of antisemitism in Leftist spaces. Often we find ourselves falling into the same old position of blaming the Right for these issues. However, over the past few decades minority voices have pointed out that the Left has issues with bigotry in its own way. For myself, and likely many other Jews, growing up in Leftist spaces I heard antisemitic jokes and lines all the time. However, they were never the overt hate fueled rhetoric I would hear from the Right. Conspiracies were relegated to "The Rothschilds control the world" rather than "The Jews control the world." Regardless of how you feel about the rich, the Rothschilds are a dog whistle for Jews. Hell, my own family members would say this same line because the majority of us are on the Left. So obviously we take a position regarding the ultra rich. However, this Rothschilds line isn't the only dog whistle. Often there were jokes at your expense from outside your in-group. Common refrains that *insert Jewish dog whistle* couldn't be trusted due to *insert conspiracy coded in Leftist language*. That's the issue... The antisemitism on the Left is coded in a language that makes it more subtle than overt rightwing antisemitism. But how did we get here? It definitely predates Oct 7th. We can partly lay blame at this at the feet of something that feels like an old and tired trope at this point: Russia. In particular, the good ole USSR. You see, dear reader, regardless of how you describe your sociopolitical and economics leanings, and regardless of whether or not you reject USSR style Communism, their style and impact still influence you and the rest of the world. As Leftists we often stand opposed to many aspects of Western capitalist ideals, which in turn exposes us to many of the anti-Western writings, philosophies, beliefs, etc... The issue is that the USSR has a very sordid history with antisemitism. Some of you may be saying "but wait! There were Jewish Bolsheviks! Stalin even supported Israel!", don't you worry. We'll get there. While there may have been Jewish Bolsheviks and members of the party post revolution, it does not change the policies and actions that preceded and followed. Robert Weinberg, Dara Horn, David Nirenberg, and other historians have all written extensively at some point or another about this very issue. I highly recommend Dara Horn's latest piece for the Atlantic "Why The Most Educated People in America Fall for Antisemitic Lies". She briefly covers this topic. If you can't access it, well here we go. Zionism as a concept had already been around for a few decades by the time the Communist Revolution occurred, having been solidified by the Dreyfuss Affair in the late 1800s. Zionism is/was also considered Jewish nationalism. While a Jew could be a Russian Jew, German Jew, or any other "nation" Jew, they were still considered an other and thus they could never truly be a nationalist for that country. Only for Israel/Zion. As such, Jews in the USSR were not trusted as it was argued they could not be truly devoted to the Party. Jews were then labeled as Zionists. Zionism was considered anti-Communist, and racist due to the Party purposefully putting out that the "chosen people" line meant that Jews were supremacists and believed themselves to be better than others (The chosen people line actually refers to us choosing to adhere to certain laws). As such, Zionist activities were shut down as they were an act of treason and betrayal. This means that synagogues, shuls, business, and more were shut down as a means to disrupt the "Jewish conspirators". It did not matter that Jews were involved in the revolution, if you were Jewish you were an other and could not be trusted. pt 1.

[gowns]

all other issues aside, it's troubling how much homophobia and anti-trans bigotry fueled these election results.

--

people are wondering why latinos voted in larger numbers for trump this time. the answer is homophobia and anti-trans bigotry (with a good dose of misogyny, racism, and "kicking the ladder behind them" when it comes to immigration policies (which is certainly not the case for the majority of latinos, but i would wager plays a part in those that were extra-motivated to vote for trump)). you investigate the root of that, it's catholicism. because of spanish colonialism. think about an entire diaspora of people who were crushed by colonialism and forced into christianity (and with it, so much homophobia) ...

--

i don't know. when i think about my time trying to re-convert myself (!) to catholicism, i get so sad. that was like a proxy for doing conversion therapy on myself. i thought it was about "cultural traditions" and "finding progressive potential in theology"; it was all just bullshit, trying to cram myself into a more reductive role.

--

44% of polled swing state voters said that they thought kamala was "too progressive." that's fucking depressing. whatever flavor of leftist you are, that's depressing. no matter what you think of the american state and its validity, the fact is that homophobia, transpobia, and misogyny are rampant in this country. it's rampant worldwide!!!

--

the key to our liberation lies in continuing to fucking exist, and thrive. together we can break through all the layers of repression. and there are so many. and it's all tied to hierarchy and keeping people complacent with it.

[originalleftist]

More and more, I come to feel that denial of Jews being indigenous to the Levant is the cornerstone, the Big Lie, on which Leftist Anti-semitism as a whole rests.

Granted, I am not Jewish, so maybe my perspective is completely off on this. But:

Right-wing Anti-semitism is easy enough to grasp, I think, at least on a basic level. It rests on general xenophobia combined with specific Christian bigotry toward Jews, both of which fit very well with the Right-wing Christo-fascist worldview.

But how do you get supposed "Leftists" and "progressives" cheering for the expulsion or extermination of a group of people from their homeland, harassing and racially stereotyping members of a tiny, persecuted, marginalized group, while claiming that they are being anti-racist and anti-genocide? You have to reframe the issue, in a way that will make the bigotry seem morally acceptable and even obligatory to a Leftist.

You have to frame Jews "Zionists" as the oppressors- as "colonizers", not indigenous people who have a right to self-determination in their homeland according to those principles which are generally accepted on the Left.

All other Leftist Anti-semitism rests on this foundation, this central lie. It has to, because without that underlying lie-the denial that Jews are indigenous to the Levant-Leftist Anti-semites would have to either abandon their Anti-semitism, or admit that they are no longer good Leftists.

Of course, even this doesn't explain, much less excuse, people glorifying r*pe and massacres of civilians as "resistance"- there are some things that I believe no decent person can condone, regardless of who the perpetrator or the target is or who is the oppressor. There are supposed to be some rights that are universal, and laws even in war. The failure to grasp this by so many on the "Left" is something that I cannot explain as anything other than the common human tendency toward collectively demonizing and punishing people by group, the thrill and feeling of power and safety derive from being a part of a mob, and the desire to justify that mob mentality by finding an "acceptable target".

[nekropsii]

Ask Game Speed Round!!

[For the Unpopular Opinion Ask Game!!]

These are all a bunch of smaller ones I thought would be too cumbersome and spammy to post on their own... Enjoy!!

Content Warning: Long.

While I do really like Dave's character as it exists in the comic- no clue what version of Dave most of the fandom is talking about, but I don't know him- I kind of like the themes in Davesprite's character more than I do Dave's. It's another Hal situation.

Dave's character tackled a lot of things very personally relatable to me in ways I'd never seen illustrated before, but Davesprite is more interesting to think about, and seems a little more fun to write. Dave was great representation for me, as someone who grew up in a very bad home, but Davesprite just has that extra oomph with his talk of humanity and individuality. Really like that guy.

---

@lupinecalibrator

This may come across as crass, or stepping out of my own lane, but I don't think giving them either multiple sets of pronouns, neopronouns, or both actually rids them of the bigotry in their characters. Lipstick on a pig situation. It just seems like a lazy, incurious fix. Yes, trans headcanons are great, but more and more often I see people use it as a cure-all to the issues a character has, either in a Doylist or Watsonian way. Queer friendliness does not eliminate racism. If a character is a bigoted caricature of a specific group of people, then slapping on a leftist layer of paint by saying "actually they're a minority icon in this other way" doesn't actually... Get rid of the problem. It's just kind of... Tone deaf.

We see this often with Transmisogynistic Caricatures getting claimed as Gay Icons, and people just saying that because they've just claimed them as a campy gay queen, the transmisogyny has been nullified- you can't talk about it anymore, they're the real good leftist in the room, you're a killjoy, and they've defeated bigotry. Not how it works.

---

Kind of tired of how some act like her only character traits are Silly Ditzy Furry Girl. Jade is an incredibly, incredibly intelligent young girl, an excellent marksman, and so, so deeply lonely. We need to talk about Jade's chronic loneliness more.

Also, I think she's some kind of Psychotic. One of the flavors. It just feels right to me. It feels canon-adjacent. Or, at least, a textually valid way to read her character. I have a whole post about it somewhere. Mituna and Jade shaking hands on the Psychosis.

---

Taking this opportunity to defend Aranea. Some people really need to stop acting like she's worse than Vriska. We all know what Aranea did was justified. Maybe not correct, but justified. And fucking awesome to watch.

Like, look. She spent an unfathomable amount of years being shot down and ignored and belittled by people who were supposed to be her friends... Aranea had to literally pay Meenah, her own best friend, to listen to her infodump, and even then Meenah couldn't afford to give her own best friend enough respect to just listen to her talk about something she's passionate about for 5 minutes.

I need you to think to yourself, genuinely. If you spent thousands- and I mean thousands upon thousands- of years getting ignored and walked on by everyone around you, even your own friends... If you spent thousands upon thousands of years getting called boring and a doormat to your face by even your own friends... Wouldn't you go crazy, too? Wouldn't you snap? Wouldn't you want to do something drastic just to get people to look at you? Just to be seen as something other than weak and boring? Just to be seen as worth even an iota of interest, a shred of someone's time? Wouldn't you? Because I think any normal person wouldn't take thousands upon thousands of years. I don't think you would last a decade. I wouldn't either, and I'm a pretty patient person.

Y'all are just jealous you can't play billiards with planets using your mind when you're mad. That shit was so awesome.

---

@searedtroutpeacharugula

This is not an Unpopular Opinion, or even an Opinion, I'm just pointing this out. Do you ever think about the fact that we hardly got any conversations between Rose and Jade? I do. This haunts me. This fucks me up so bad. We get plenty between John and Dave, and Dave and Jade, and Dave and Rose, and Rose and John, and Jade and John... But hardly anything between Rose and Jade!! This is so fucked up. We were robbed. I need to watch them hang out.

---

Okay, this is less of an Unpopular Opinion, and more of an Unpopular Fact, but... Mituna doesn't just throw slurs at people. That's one of the things people jump to when they're talking about Defanging Mituna- they always say something about how he "calls people slurs every two seconds". He literally doesn't. That is legitimately not a thing he does. If you heard that before and believed it, you were literally lied to. That is straight up demonstrably not true.

Like, if you're trying to think of something Mituna does every two seconds unprompted, it's either sex jokes or apologizing. Slurs aren't a thing he just slings around casually. He said a grand total of one slur... To Meenah... And it's a fake troll slur. And then we get it defined to us... Aaaand it's the troll equivalent to "Cracker". That's it. That's the crime he's committed- calling someone a word that is immediately after defined to us as "Someone who is at the top of and benefits from the furthering of the oppressive Fuchsia-Down power structure, and the Lowbloods that help enforce it." That's the slur he used. That's what made people start declaring that "he would totally say the N Word" with full and complete confidence. Absolutely ridiculous. He's called no one else any kind of genuine slur. He just called Meenah a Wader once, and then she and Kankri got upset about it, because they are both, by definition, Waders.

---

Leijon Hot Take Party Pack: If you think Nepeta shipping her friends together is fine, or even adorable, but then sneer at or get grossed out by Meulin doing the same thing, you're a hypocrite. I don't care if you say "Meulin's writing Friend Fic, though, that's weird!!" the problem with Shipping Your Friends and Writing Romantic Fanfiction Of Your Friends is at the same root.

The problem with these things isn't the presence of writing, it's the presence of, you know, shipping your friends? If you're fine with Nepeta doing it, you've gotta be fine with Meulin doing it. Be fine with both or neither. It's the same damn thing. I'm pretty sure both friend groups are fine with it, too, so it's not like this is a boundaries issue or anything. Both or neither. Pick one.

---

Observation: I do think it's cool how Jane and Jake are related and have similarly opposing relationships with their gender. Jake's oft presented with Feminine themes and imagery, and Jane with Masculine themes and imagery. Very cool. Wish more people made that correlation.

---

Okay, that's all for now!! Thank you for reading, if you did. Have a nice rest of your day. :)

[woman-respecter]

the similarities between hatred of women and hatred of jews is crazy because misogyny and antisemitism are both treated as "a weapon meant to silence" and if people especially on the left are accused of either, they immediately jump to "everything is antisemitism/misogyny now🙄"

of course this applies to all hatreds but it's worse for us because to the left racism is inherently important (even though they are RACIST AS FUCK) but misogyny and antisemitism to them feels made up and stupid lol (in some cases people even treat homophobia this way by saying you can play straight but you can't hide your race).

i wish i could put this better but the example that comes to mind is leftist men. leftist men do not take misogyny or antisemitism seriously (or anything tbh). when i talk to "leftist" men in music forums and i tell them hey you're being misogynistic (women have to teach them how to be human beings apparently), they go "nooo i can't be. also. white women like taylor swift cry misogyny all the time!" THIS PISSES ME OFF SO BAD.

it gets worse. this one time a gay guy tried to tell me he couldn't be misogynistic because he had a stan account for women LOL. he also said "women on stan twitter call everything misogyny when it comes to their faves". so? SO?! (off topic but as a lesbian, queer culture is so misogynistic and it's such a shame because yes this does include drag queens/trans people but how can we even try to fix it when you have the conservatives on one side and the terfs on the other ugh. i want to criticize my people without those groups thinking i'm one of them! this is a serious issue because every time i do, a transphobe appears like fawk off but then other queers don't want to acknowledge the misogyny)

i could go on and on but anyways i hate men and the gay community is a mess!

oh yes i feel this completely, i feel like misogyny and antisemitism are so much more widely accepted than any other type of bigotry on the left and it drives me crazy. at this point it’s almost REQUIRED to belittle women/jews to be taken seriously as a leftist.

and holy shit many such cases of those leftist male “music fans” with terminal taylor swift derangemenr syndrome that use her as a target/excuse for misogyny. i kinda wish all of them were tied to a chair and forced to listen to me! until they blow their brains out

[velvetvexations]

This is how I rationalize FHJY.

If a trans man or intersex person pings both the trans and feminine flags to a transphobe they can very well expirience transmisogny while not being transfem. I genuinely think TMA would be effective and important if it were unifying people who expirience severe transmisogny regardless of gender or sex or identity! And in that case we probably wouldn't even need TME! If we are just talking about specific people who share this expirience of oppression then there is no need to define an out-group, the very definition implies one, and the lack of an outgroup term fixes the issue with intersexism by not creating an unneeded binary! But as it stands it legit just means "amab transfem" and thus there us NO reason you can't just say "transfem" like? What is the point if this term? Why do we need a word that seems to cover a broad spectrum of people if it legit only means transfems? We can still say "transmisogny primarily targets transfems" without TMA, and we can just say transmacs and cis people if we're talking about people who aren't transfem without TME. If a word for what you are or your expirience or your community as a whole doesn't exist, like monosexism or transandrophobia or allosexual/romantic, then yes we need new terminology, but if you are just adding another term that means the exact same thing and is even MORE exclusive, harms intersex people, and is clearly being used as a bludgeoning tool to hurt other trans people...then I don't see the point at all.

Being used as a bludgeoning tool IS the point.

Thank you, anon. <3 It wasn't good for either of us.

A lotta people still really cling to the idea that misogyny is the root of all evils an it's weird to see that happening in the trans community but I guess it ain't surprising cuz everyone here experiences misogyny in some form or another... Tho I guess that idea spooks some people too, shooting back with "you can't call that misogyny you're just misgendering yourself" when guys like me say we still experience misogyny, but w/e. Transphobes misgendered me first it's not some fucked up internalized transphobia to say they think I'm a silly girl who wants to escape my station. An even if I were misgendering myself, that's fine actually. I can misgender myself if I wanna. It's nobody else's place to say whether I can or can't misgender myself while addressing my interpretation of the bigotry I'm faced with. It's weird that that's even a criticism to begin with tbh methinks somebody's projecting their dysphoria onto others.

I do genuinely want to see civil war between the extremely online leftists who think all transphobia is misogyny and all transphobia is racism.

[burnitalldowndarling]

https://www.tumblr.com/burnitalldowndarling/744870483940524032/whats-been-particularly-vile-to-me-is-this-group

#alladis#the left started to die when the white people took over#obama derangement syndrome hit them just as hard#they've just displaced their bigotry in more convoluted ways Really? How so? /genuine

Short on time so not a lot of links or theory, but I think a major example of what I'm talking about is the white leftist dismissal of "identity politics." What they mean by idpol is marginalized people taking pride in their identities or talking about bigotry, which white leftists typically frame as a distraction from more important issues. Thing is, the "more important" issues tend to be those of primary importance to white men, such as UBI or copyleft -- but it's not idpol when they do it. Another example is the embrace of class-centered (also called "class first" and "class reductionist") leftism. Addressing class disparities and economic justice does help marginalized groups as well, but do remember that the people who stand to gain the most from class uplift are those who were already well-off -- as white cis people tend to be, in America, thanks to historical and systemic bigotry. The rising tide floats all boats, but those who already had speed boats in the water are still going to do better than the folks surviving on inflatable rafts.

Identity-centric politics such as anti-racism have always addressed class and economic justice issues, but had the added benefit of centering the most vulnerable groups. The idea was that if you address the needs of/reduce harm to those groups first, everyone still benefits, but you save more lives. In their rejection of idpol, the American left now often ignores harm reduction, denigrates incremental improvements that benefit marginalized groups, and weakens the whole coalition by permitting established power hierarchies and bigotries to run rampant. See the "dirtbag left". See also Bernie Sanders' own 2016 campaign staff revolting because he failed to address racism, racial and gendered pay disparities, and sexual assault. How's he going to build a progressive national coalition when he can't even get his own house in order, progressively?

And I blame white leftists, along with white conservatives, for Trump's election in 2016. These are the people who kept pushing third-party voting, "boycotting" voting, and accelerationist nonsense like the idea that letting Trump get elected would hasten The Glorious Revolution -- never mind if it killed a few poor or brown people along the way. These are people who attacked and dismissed marginalized people online (especially Black and queer women) whenever they pointed out the dangers of a Trump win. They were absolutely vile in their sexism toward Hillary Clinton and anyone who supported her. In a lot of cases these were "leftist" influencers and such who embraced Gamergate and other harassment campaigns, and used the techniques of same against their fellow leftists -- and surprise, surprise, several years later a whole lot of the most prominent ones have come out as fascists. They got right-wing radicalized during the 2000s and 2010s same as white conservatives, in other words; they're just as racist, just as gender essentialist, just as anti-semitic and classist and so on. They just like UBI too. And they're better at using therapy-speak or communist-speak to hide their bigotry.

Tl;dr, while there are plenty of white leftists who are doing the work and doing it right, the most prominent face of leftism for the last 10 years has been the dirtbags, the brocialists, the accelerationists, etc -- people who IMO make the left weaker, and who are frequently dangerous to the very same vulnerable groups that the left should be centering. And way too many of them have become very wealthy from doing so, at which point a lot of them stop being progressive. Almost as if they were only ever in it to advance themselves, in the first place.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

As a disabled person, I've definitely had my issues with some things the right (as a general group) have said (things like 'being left wing is a disability/mental illness' is an example I've heard from some righties). But then I've also had my issues with the left (again in general). Like the tankie idea that after the Glorious Revolution (tm) disability won't exist because it's a social issue.

Both are shitty and ableist. I also don't like when people use disabilities as a gotcha in the abortion debate. Pro-choicers going 'what if they're disabled? we NEED to abort them then!' (aka eugenics) and the pro-lifers bringing up that argument as a way to smear the entire other side (often acting like eugenics is a hypothetical and not something really happening).

The difference between me and the OG anon is that I don't blame the entire political group for the shittiness of SOME members. There are ableist assholes all over the political compass. It's why I don't really identify with any particular political group. I have my beliefs, and just follow people all over the place (like this blog) to get an idea of what others think. Being a hateful little shit doesn't help anyone. Blaming solely the left/right for bigotry doesn't solve it! We have to tackle the issue wherEVER we see it, not just from "The Enemy (tm)".

Anyways, I don't think you (the blog this ask is sent to) have ever been ableist. At least I've never seen it.

If the "conservatives are abelist" thing has even a shred of "truth" it would be because some people, yourself included, see something like "liberalism is a mental disorder" as abelist. But most conservatives don't. And I don't either. Just like I don't think calling something "gay" as an insult is homophobic. It's not abelist to point out that a lot of leftists act like insane, reality denying psychopaths. That doesn't mean we hate disabled people or want them all to die or whatever nonsense lefties try to claim when they have no real arguments.

But you're right that every group has its assholes. You can't judge a group by its worst members unless those worst members are also supported by most of the group. And most conservatives just don't care about things like wheelchair ramps or accessibility. Certainly not enough to protest those things existing.