#tma's good and interesting about gender

[jewishjon]

The more I think about my Jon thoughts/hcs the more I realise that they’re less suited to be expressed in my usual form (fanfiction) and more to an actual essay

[ghelgheli]

sorry if you've already answered this but i just read your post about whipping girl and found it so so so insightful!! i was wondering if you have any other recommendations for books/articles/etc. about transmisogyny and the lives of tma people. thank you in advance!!

I'm glad it was helpful! this is the second ask on the subject I've let pile up, because I want to do my best with it but I'm also far from an expert. I think half the work of answering "transmisogyny syllabus" questions is explaining why it's so hard to do so in the first place.

one of the tools of hegemony is the epistemic violence it works against its subjects; this is essential to transmisogyny, thru which we have historically been rendered unable to so much as record our existence, let alone theorize from it. it is incredibly difficult for a tma person to access the institutional devices of knowledge-making, most of all the university. even when we do it is typically for the institutions we work under to shoehorn our work into the hegemonic model, stymieing actual progress. so theories and histories of transmisogyny have had to progress in a patchwork, often informal fashion, upstream and at personal risk. I am not going to be able to give you books that I would recommend without criticism, because the epistemic violence of transmisogyny has made it virtually impossible to write such a book. but with that said, here are some recommendations:

- this post multiplied my understanding of transmisogyny manifold, and was one of the most clarifying things I've read on the subject

- hands off our lives, our stories, and our bodies, is imo essential to anyone interested in a theory of transmisogyny that actually engages with its manifestations in the global south

- I enjoyed My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage by Susan Stryker for the vibes

- two historical excavations of transmisogyny: Trans Misogyny in the Colonial Archive: Re-Membering Trans Feminine Life and Death in New Spain, 1604–1821 by Jamey Jesperson and ‘Selective Historians’: The Construction of Cisness in Byzantine and Byzantinist Texts by Ilya Maude

- Romancing the Transgender Native is good for learning the trappings of ahistorical and idealist "third gender" attributions

- especially (but not exclusively) if you are yourself a trans woman/transfem/tma, consider reading fiction by trans women/tma people, like Serious Weakness by Porpentine Charity Heartscape (check tws) or LOTE by Shola von Reinhold

- Jules Gill-Peterson's A Short History of Trans Misogyny is great for some case studies in global transmisogyny, and a decent materialist approach. but I think she makes the same mistake serano made re: equivocation of transmisogyny with the oppression of femininity, and she would have done well to read the second article on this list. her histories of the transgender child is also good, though not especially focussed on transmisogyny

- follow @ bloomfilters on twitter

if this looks like a hodgepodge that's because it is on account of what I said in the first two paragraphs. I am really not an expert and I am sure there are others who could give you much more. but to echo a friend, you may be just as likely to get something out of a game or a song written by a tma person as you are an essay. every medium can be an opportunity to plunge the roots of our theorizing deeper.

[doberbutts]

about your TME/Imane Khelif post, i believe i can provide some answers (im not transfem myself but im very interested in transfeminism)

first of all, no oppressed/oppressor binary is going to be perfect. POC/white is a useful distinction, but last summer a white man was killed after being mistaken for being arab. a straight man may be harassed for hugging his male friend and being seen as gay, etc. TME/TMA are useful terms to describe the way transmisogyny operates in society, even though like all oppressions, things can occasionally get muddled IRL. it doesn't make those terms useless or incorrect. to go back to the harassed straight man example, that man would certainly be a VICTIM of homophobia, but that doesn't make him gay, or mean that he doesn't have any heterosexual privilege at all.

(you said imane khelif may be sent to jail IF she's ruled not to be enough of a woman. horrifying prospect of course, but that IF is doing a lot! a trans woman would not have that IF!)

just wanted to provide that perspective since you asked very genuinely and thoughtfully. have a nice day

I appreciate the good faith response!!! This is exactly the sort of discussion I was looking for.

I am mostly on board - I have discussed at length how these social categories are muddy at best and do not operate on strict lines, and that people in general are impossible to place into neatly sorted boxes. Similar to your first example, I reference frequently a past love of mine who was white but often mistaken for mixed asian (usually chinese/white) due to his monolids, facial structure, and facial hair pattern. Despite being a white guy, he had numerous encounters with racists that ended quite violently for him, and as a result was probably one of the most sensitive white guys I've ever dated regarding race.

Being mistaken for being chinese, while not actually being chinese himself, is not at all the same as actually being chinese. I certainly agree. However, I think it is wrong to say that sinophobia does not affect him or that he is exempt from sinophobia because he has the ability to say "hey wait a second I'm not chinese I'm white". Mostly because any time he tried to do that, it didn't work, and he still got beaten up anyway.

And I also don't think it means he has no white privilege at all- certainly, we experienced it as a couple in real time because while he could be mistaken as a man of color, I absolutely am one without question. And, furthermore, I'm visibly black, not just "of color", which makes people really double down on the racism. Case in point, any time I parked my car in the visitor spot next to his apartment door, the landlord would run out of their office to chase me away stating the spot was only for approved visitors. Even though she saw me entering and exiting his residence in her pursuit to make me move my car. The town he lived in is less than 2% black, and these were luxury apartments that did not have a single black person in the building he specifically lived in. He could live there, but I couldn't even visit without being harassed.

Similarly, as I said in my post, I can see the logic of stating that there is privilege there even though Khelif is in a difficult situation currently, because yes, she can provide a birth certificate and a blood test and a genital check and be cleared of all accusations. I just think that being forced to submit to embarrassing and invasive testing, as well as being forced to provide personal documents, and having the world weigh in on the judgement of your gender, is not really a good literal get-out-of-jail-free card. It is certainly a leg up that she has the ability to do so. I do not think it is right that she should have to- but then I don't see the problem with trans women competing alongside cis women. I think it's stupid that sports are divided by gender and not by weight/height/proficiency.

And I think that forcing specifically women of color who oddly enough seem to be the vast majority of these cases (esp black women and esp esp black intersex women who didn't even know they were intersex before but w/e) to prove that they're woman enough to be qualified as women is racial violence with interphobia and transphobia as the weapon. Intersectionality and all that.

[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.

[gay-otlc]

On Transmisogyny Exempt Privilege Dynamics

Introduction

I came across the article "On Transmisogyny Exempt Privilege Dynamics" and had a lot of thoughts about it. As a warning, this will include discussions of transphobia, intersexism and coercive gender assignment, violence, abuse, sexual assault, suicide, and misgendering.

Note on language 

This article uses transmisogyny affected (TMA) and transmisogyny exempt (TME) language throughout. I don’t entirely agree with the way the author uses these terms, but in addressing the article, I will use those same terms for consistency and to engage with what the author is saying. I have read a lot of varying perspectives on the use of TMA/TME language but I am not interested in discussing or debating the terms on this post; the ideas themselves are my focus.

The author uses TMA to refer to trans women and other trans people who were assigned male at birth, and trans TME to refer to trans men and other trans people who were assigned female at birth. Intersex people were not mentioned. 

The Disclaimer that apparently isn't

This isn’t an attack on the author. This isn’t an attack on trans women & fems. This isn’t an attack on transmisogyny theory. This isn’t an attack on TMA/TME language. This isn’t meant to be an attack at all. I think the author has good points to make about transmisogyny, particularly in this other article of hers. But I think their perception of the experiences of transmasculine and nonbinary people assigned female at birth is incomplete, and at times, entirely incorrect. I wanted to address these aspects of the article.

Aspects of the article to expand upon

TME trans people represent to the system the affirmation of the very rules that TMA people break and are severely punished for.

TMA people do challenge the societal rule that men are superior to women, referred to as the holy rule of patriarchy in “We Need To Talk About Transmisogyny.” In “choosing” to transition towards womanhood and/or away from manhood, TMA people are perceived as betraying the patriarchy, and punished for it. This is a major aspect of transmisogyny. 

It's also important to note: Trans women & fems also challenge societal rules of gender and sex, that one must fit into a strict gender and sex binary, and your gender must align perfectly with your sex assigned at birth. But TME trans people don’t affirm these rules. All trans people, and intersex people, break the rules of our cisnormative, intersexist society. 

Seen from the patriarchal and bio-essentialist perspective of wider society, the fact that women would rather be men is proof of male supremacy and is — often unconsciously — rewarded by society. They do also — consciously and unconsciously — stand out positively from their systemic inversion, TMA people, who betray male supremacy, whose femininity is considered a transgression, and whose rejection of manhood proves their derangement, dangerousness and untrustworthiness, as they fail to uphold the fundamental truth of patriarchy.

TMA people’s “betrayal” of male supremacy, as said above, is severely punished by society. But “women wanting to become men” aren’t rewarded. They threaten male supremacy as well; if “women” can be men, then how can men be biologically or inherently superior? The patriarchy believes that of course women want to be men, because men are superior, but women can’t actually be men. A woman who wants to be a man must be put back in her place.

Feminist inversion: Within liberatory (e.g. feminist, queer, trans, etc) spaces there usually is an inversion of the male/female hierarchy, privileging women and femininity over men and masculinity. Not as an alternative model to wider society, but as a corrective. These spaces too often trip over the complexities that transness introduces to the simplified models we all have internalized. Few of these spaces can avoid an implicit elevation of TME trans people based on their feminine association and policing TMA people because of their masculine association.

Demonization of perceived association with manhood and/or masculinity is a significant problem in feminist, queer, trans, etc spaces. TMA people are policed and punished as a result of this bias, especially if they are pre- or non-transitioning, and/or have a butch or masculine gender expression. And in many of those spaces, TMA people are viewed as a threat to cis women (and often TME trans people) as a result of transmisogynistic concepts of “AMAB socialization” or “male biology.” This is horrible and should not happen.

But this feminist inversion doesn’t universally elevate TME trans people. Trans men, and transmasculine people who come “too close” to manhood, are very frequently demonized and viewed as a threat in these spaces. In my experience, queer and trans people– even friends of mine– have encouraged me to identify as nonbinary, discouraged me from “becoming a man” because men are evil and dangerous. Moving away from womanhood, and especially “choosing” manhood, was seen as a betrayal of feminism. Most trans men & mascs I know have similar experiences.

For a lot of men their male privilege is curtailed by other axis of oppression. Disabled men, fat men, Black men, poor men, to name a few, especially when combined, experience a lot fewer benefits than the normative white men most people think about when they imagine an average holder of male privilege. Trans is just another modifier in the mix.

The crucial difference between marginalized cis men versus trans men is that, for otherwise marginalized cis men, they are still recognized as men. They may be seen as lesser men, inferior men, or failed men, but men nonetheless, or at least something close. Trans men, on the other hand, are not seen as the wrong type of man; we are seen as the wrong type of woman. As the author states earlier in the article: “They [society] do not recognize us as our self-determined genders or the intention behind and the meaning we give to our presentation and appearance.” 

Since they are, before and often even beyond transition, categorized as women by the system they are afforded access to women-only support, resources and spaces which would be denied to most — if not all — trans women independent of their transitions.

This isn’t always the case; especially after transitioning, trans men are very much denied access to women-only resources and spaces. See this article about transmasculine abuse survivors, and this personal experience of trying to find shelter for a homeless trans man.

And even when they aren’t denied access, that’s not a privilege. Being misgendered isn’t a privilege for anyone; not for nonpassing or closeted/boymoding TMA people, and not for TME people being forced into the category of “women.” TME trans people in these situations are forced to misgender and (re)closet themselves, and in some cases, detransition. 

It’s a major problem that trans women are denied access to “women only” spaces. They 100% should have access. But it’s not a privilege when trans men are afforded access (which is not always the case), at the expense of their own identity. 

Aspects of the article that are incorrect

That this difference is necessarily binary is often used as a supposed proof that the TMA/TME distinction was itself divisive— or worse. But the binary nature is a direct result of how transmisogyny works in society. It is to a large degree based on the binary of the “assigned sex at birth” (ASAB, either male (AMAB) or female (AFAB)), so naming and describing it cannot avoid binaries, lest we cease to talk about it altogether.

Unfortunately, assigned sex at birth is more of a binary than sex itself, as intersex people are sometimes given coercive treatments (nonconsensual surgery and hormones) to force them into a binary. But sex isn’t a binary. Defining TMA/TME as a sex based binary, without considering intersex people who don’t fit into that binary, is a crucial oversight on the author’s part. Intersex people deserve to be acknowledged and included in trans theory. 

There happens a weird and twisted fusion of the worst associations of men and women in TMA people and the best associations of both men and women in TME trans people.

The first part of that is true. The second part isn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. TME trans people are hysterical, confused, stupid little girls who don’t know what’s best for them and need cis men to control their bodies. And TME trans people are disgusting, dangerous “men” who have mutilated themselves, and betrayed women to join the enemy. We also get the worst associations of both manhood and womanhood– just in a different form. 

Stereotypes and tropes about TME trans people being dangerous, scheming, untrustworthy, sexually perverted/predatory or vilifying them in other ways are all but unheard of.

What about "gender traitor" rhetoric? What about the view of trans MLW as perverted butch lesbians, or trans MLM as straight girls fetishizing "real" gay men? What about the fearmongering surrounding famous trans men & mascs on the internet, who are "convincing young girls to transition"? What about the negativity surrounding gender affirming surgery? What about the belief that testosterone makes someone violent and abusive? These stereotypes, though perhaps less prevalent than infantilizing claims that TME trans people are confused and can't think for themselves, absolutely exist.

Visibility

While often enviously and jealously lamented, TME trans people’s transition make them ultimately less visible and hence less of a target. 

The invisibility (erasure) of TME trans people doesn’t prevent the violence against us; it just means that the violence goes unaddressed, swept under the rug. Trans men and nonbinary people with "female" on their birth certificate experience extremely high rates of sexual assault, and trans men have higher rates of violence and abuse from people they live with (compared to trans women, who have higher rates of violence from people they don't live with). We're a less visible target, but a target nonetheless.

Of course, this isn’t to say that the increased visibility of TMA people is a privilege in the slightest. TMA people are subject to extreme negative attention and transmisogynistic portrayal, and it’s horrific. Erasure and hypervisibility are both weapons of transphobia, and they both cause us harm.

There is also a distinct lack of transantagonistic tendencies and movements putting any noticable focus on TME trans people. The maybe most famous transantagonistic movement, trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF), is almost exclusively concerned with antagonism against TMA people. TERFs do not treat TME trans people with hostility, but pity.

Transphobes, including TERFs, are focusing on TME trans people quite a bit. Just look at the rhetoric surrounding "rapid onset gender dysphoria" (ROGD) and Irreversible Damage, the rhetoric about how we are "mutilating our bodies" and "chopping off our beautiful breasts." JK Rowling's transphobic essay talks about how trans men are transitioning because they are confused, mentally ill, often autistic young girls who want to escape womanhood. TERFs want TME trans people to detransition and recloset themselves, something that would leave many of us horribly dysphoric and, in many cases, suicidal. How is trying to drive us to suicide not hostile? TME trans people can also be correctively raped by TERFs to "remind them that they are lesbian women."

Yet there is little policing of their [TME trans people’s] presentation

This simply does not match up with the experiences of TME trans people, particularly trans men & mascs, that I know. Every transmasculine person I’ve ever talked to has had their gender expression policed, often violently so.

Calls for physical violence against TME trans people are next to non-existent.

Please read the archive of violence against transmasculine people. Please look at our sexual assault rate. Our rates of hate crimes and murder may be lower than TMA people, but the violence against us often takes a different form, and is then ignored. It’s not next to non-existent; it’s just erased. Please don't ignore us.

Conclusion/the disclaimer that was

There is this thing that almost all TMA people do when they want to talk about transmisogyny or TMA/TME relations, and that is add a disclaimer, most often right at the start of their text or video, where they wholly commit to the support of TME trans people and pledge their unconditional allegiance to them, affirming several times that nothing they’re about to say could change anything about that, and how much we love our TME trans siblings. You will not find anything like that in a critique of TMA people by TME trans people. Ever.

Huh. I’m a TME trans person. I wonder what that was at the top of my post, then. 

In fact, disclaimers are a common phenomenon among transmasculine people who talk about transmasculine issues. The opening page of the transandrophobia explained carrd is a disclaimer you have to agree you've read before continuing. The beginning of this article on transmasculine erasure is a paragraph-long disclaimer about transfeminine people. Posts on tumblr about transandrophobia and transmasculine experiences constantly include these disclaimers.

So who is privileged over whom, who holds power over whom, who has reason to be afraid to speak, who is not allowed to speak on their experiences, when TMA people are the ones that need the disclaimers to ward off some of the inevitable abuse, but TME trans people don’t?

That’s an excellent question. When TMA and TME trans people both need disclaimers to even attempt to prevent abuse and harassment, who is privileged over whom? Is it possible that we all have reason to be afraid to speak? That we’re all denied the authority to speak on our own experiences?

(Disclaimer: TMA people do not have privilege over TME trans people.)

(Disclaimer: Trans women do not have privilege over other trans people.)

[andiv3r]

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[iatrophilosophos]

The other thing I'm thinking about this morning is the limitation of any one analytical lens and poor application of gender theory to interpersonal relationships.

Gonna frontload this post with the caveats that 1) this is about cafab relationships to transmisogyny, which i welcome discussion from anybody on but also recognize some ppl are just not invested in or interested in hearing, and thats fine 2) i am speaking from a place of good faith (classical def.) and assuming that we can take what people say about their intentions at face value and these topics are occurring within relationships with grace and legitimate desire to do right by eachother, even though this approach does not always work and is not an exhaustive or universal lens.

My friend said sumn last year that was really foundational for me--"there's always another explanation [for interpersonal instances of transmisogyny]". Meaning, transmisogyny is the sum of small and big events across a person's life, and for TMA people it doesn't really matter if a partner has hateful or "transmisogynistic" intentions behind an action that contributes to the structure. There's always a self-centered reason that has nothing to do with The Structure. My other friend has a line that I think also fits here, which is the idea that most people most of the time don't really have "rational" or cognizant motivations prior to action, just post hoc narrativization of why they did what they did. I don't know how much I agree, but I think it's an interesting lens to use to think about our past actions that can get useful results--how much of the story that I'm telling about this event got written after it, and how does that affect everything moving forward?

This stage setting brings us to a specific cohort that I've definitely been a part of and am working on distancing from: strong willed/bullheaded cafabs with significant personal needs and abrasive interpersonal tendencies. Being someone that only very aquiescing, self-sacrificing people can stand to be around means you're gonna benefit a lot interpersonally from transmisogyny, because trans women and especially young, vulnerable, and/or early transition women are gonna be a large % of the people you attract.

People in this cohort usually know it on some level IME and feel a lot of shame and anxiety around it. Transfem friends and partners will bring it up. We get one of the good ones type behaviors, compensatory hating and policing of other people, and white knighting; and we get various manifestations of definitional games that all fit into the "ontologically incapable of violence" header. Your classic uwuification of cafabs, but also misguidedly trying to find common ground and misconflating relationships to womanhood (talking abt how ppl treated you ten years ago doesn't paper over the thing You are doing Now), and getting into some really bizarre IME feminist ally dudebro shit that seems copypasted from 2012 cishet feminist ally lines (these are also??? Bad????)

All of this shit behavior can((see above caveat #2)) stem from being too lost in the sauce of structural analysis. I think the line that there's always another explanation has a corrolary: you can basically always, to varying levels of accuracy and usefulness, paint an interpersonal problem in the context of structural analysis. And this can be very useful, and it is mainly useful to people who are subject to that structural oppression to understand what is happening and why it feels bad. I see for my friends theory around transmisogyny often (but obviously not exclusively) function as a frame of understanding that says "it isn't your fault. No amount of personality modification will keep this from happening again. Time to take a different tract." This is very useful and good.*

However: this specific understanding of the function of transfeminist theory does not play the same for this cohort of cafab people, because behavioral modification IS the way to get better about shit and stop it from happening. In a lot of these circumstances WE have to understand explanations of transmisogyny as an explanation for why behaviors, attitudes and modes of interaction feel bad to our friends. Yet a third dear friend has a line in a piece of writing that I don't remember if is published or not that says, paraphrasing: "transmisogyny is not 'real', it is a concept we use to understand patterns and attitudes". The essence of a transmisogynist action or behavior or pattern that we exert towards our loved ones is only that it triggers a pattern and understanding of the world; not that it has a big red "GENDER CRIME" stamp on it somewhere.

If we want to throw off the benefits and privileges of being TME in the interpersonal sphere, we have to get fucking nicer to people. We have to yell less and listen more. We have to interrogate the ghosts of our loved ones that set up shop in our heads and challenge how they diverge from the evidence of the real people in front of us. We have to employ whatever dumbass therapyspeak tools let us be more thoughtful and intentional with how we treat eachother. We have to confront the anxiety that we are Problematic and not imbue metaphysical significance to the fact that we Hurt Someone, because that opens the door to us trying to fix it with yet more metaphysical action and not just going "oh, I need to work on the way I percieve your words because the way you express dissent doesn't immediately register to me and I've been steamrolling you for weeks. Shit, I'm sorry, can I ask some questions that will help me notice next time this comes up and react better?"

Finally I'm gonna end with this: transmisogyny as an understanding of lifetime patterns of experience is not One Thing that applies evenly to every TMA person. One of the biggest pieces of me landing on all this above is being frustrated about how everyone I know has a slightly different bar and I couldn't just "stop being transmisogynist", cuz different shit hurts different people. This is kinda my connecting thread to my earlier post about offensive jokes: once we hit the sphere of microaggressions and non-overt patterns and loved ones that want us to actually work on shit instead of divesting, there just isn't actually a prescriptive answer and we have to be familiar with the theory shorthands ppl around us are using, AND aware of how our personal tendencies and patterns of behavior fit into that theory, AND exercising curiosity and care to figure out what the tangible steps for people we love are.

*note that with all theory I do think that even this framing can get stretched to a point it is no longer accurate or useful to goals I think r worthwhile, but that's not my lane to talk about exhaustively.

[sanguinaryfreaks]

WELCOME !¡

[pt: welcome. end pt]

I interact from here for @sangylittlespace, @sanguinarywriter and @sanguinaryclaws

Hi! We are Sanguinary Freaks Massacre you can call us Gore or Visceral, we use any pronouns (and neos) but prefer shi/hir. Our collective gender is transmascfem and sexuality is omnigay, quoiromantic and ambi, the body is latino and intersex. We are 21 years old and are a C-DID system of a lot.

System terms: System, collective, pwDID, multiple, alters, headmates, littles.

sideblogs and others (link) - pronouns.cc (link) - plain text (link) - icon and banner id (wip)

DO NOT INTERACT

[pt: do not interact. end pt]

Basic DNI criteria (homophobic, transphobic, racist, etc)

Transmeds, radqueers, etc, etc

SH, ED or gore blogs

Pro endos, tulpas, endos or any kind of non traumagenic system and their supporters

Pro/comshippers and shipcourse in general

Sexualize age or pet regression

Anti-xenogenders, anti-neopronouns, anti-therian, anti-otherkin

Anti-recovery IRLs or DAs, we won't feed into your delusions (sincerely a delusional system)

TransID, or supports TransID, TransRAMCOA, etc.

Syscourse blogs

Belive in cluster b abuse or any disordered abuse

Pro-contact / anti-recovery paraphilias

Believe in "doubles" (as in you're too annoying with the "doubles dni" and get mad at doubles for existing)

Anti good faith identities / "contradictory" labels, including mspec lesbians / gays (neutrals are on thin ice)

Believe that transfem alters can't be in an AFAB body or transmascs can't in an AMAB body. Or that AFAB people can't be transfem, etc. (You're intersexist btw ✌🏻)

Empty accounts, accounts without a pinned post or reblog accounts (you're probably safe if you introduce yourself in asks and tell me why you followed me)

Zionist, pro-Israel, or "neutral" in the Palestinian genocide

Use "TME" or "TMA"

BEFORE YOU FOLLOW

[pt: before you follow. end pt]

We don't mind minors following us and interacting with us outside of dms

Depending on the alter and the day we might accept endo neutrals to follow and interact but don't bring endos/pro endos to our account please

Know that if we follow you is because we want to be friends so feel free to DM us (we are too scared to dm first dnjakckwkd) !!!

We have alters from problematic sources, if you don't like this go away

We like problematic media but we don't support their creators or the media itself (like buying the games or watching the show on the legal sites). If you're gonna be morality police and tell us that we are still supporting them by just liking the media (we cant control a hyperfixation), feel free to block us, we don't care

We won't post anything nsfw, we will probably post this type of jokes but trigger warn them

Don't try to force us to change our name or source separate, we aren't doing it for a reason. We also use names respectfully and would never disrespect the culture

Sometimes we reblog stuff about the yandere stereotypy, we have bpd and we use the term for ourselves

We call ourselves freaks (because we can and we want), if you don't like this fuck off, we don't care

Interests and more

[pt: interests and more. end pt]

Special interests: Psychology, system terms, xenogenders, Simply Plural, art in general, horror in general, etc.

Collective interests: Heaven Official's Blessing, Silent Hill, Stardew Valley, Honkai Star Rail, Wuthering Waves, Death Mark, Danganronpa, CoTL, My Little Pony, Fear and Hunger, Stardew Valley.

Tagging system

[pt: tagging system. end pt]

#❛𔓕��� alter name ꒱ˎˊ˗ ❜ — how we will tag who's fronting

#❛ 𔓕— sanguinary vent ꒱ˎˊ˗ ❜ — us hating our life /hj

#❛ 𔓕— unsobriety ꒱ˎˊ˗ ❜ — alcohol or any substance mention

#❛ 𔓕— spirit my beloved ꒱ˎˊ˗ ❜ — posts about @lesbian-aurora

#❛ 𔓕— minors don't look ꒱ˎˊ˗ ❜ — nsfw posts or mentions of such stuff

Extra:

[pt: extra. end pt]

Credits:

DNI banner: @/seraphim-coinz

[kiefbowl]

https://www.tumblr.com/familyabolisher/729804795639152640/do-you-not-believe-in-gendered-socialization-not?source=share

what do you think of this post?

Insane how this person writes. Boggles the mind.

"in discourse terms, it gets pulled out to denote an ineluctable state of "womanhood"-subjectivity in those coercively assigned femaleness and ineluctable "manhood"-subjectivity to those coercively assigned maleness; in other words, it gets used as a cudgel for gender essentialism coming from "progressive" types by which the claim that trans women/otherwise TMA people have "male privilege" ("male socialisation") can be smuggled into the discourse; the experiences of cis women and trans men/otherwise transmasc people are privileged as a standardised form of 'female socialisation' that pits them not as agentive within social forms of gender (and as beneficiaries of transmisogyny) but as unilaterally 'oppressed' to the unilaterally 'oppressive' male-socialised."

That's one sentence. Good lord.

You only write like this if you want to obscure your own bullshit, hoping it'll be too exhausting for someone to pick apart and thereby goes unattested. Because...what other explanation could there be.

But by god, this is so fascinating so I will try, for you anon.

>no. "gendered socialisation" is about a stone's throw away from "sex-based oppression" if we're being real about it.

So the assumption here for the author is that oooobviously the idea of "sex-based oppression" is ludicrous. This does not bode well for those of us who understand that "sex-based oppression" is not secret code language but is exactly what is described by the words being used. But let's discover what this person thinks.

>in discourse terms, it gets pulled out to denote an ineluctable [ie: can't be avoided] state of "womanhood"-subjectivity in those [people] coercively assigned femaleness and ineluctable "manhood"-subjectivity to those [people] coercively assigned maleness;

I added some editor's notes to make it more readable, hopefully. Essentially, op is positing that people only use the phrase "gendered socialization" to suggest there is an unavoidable (and, I assume, innate) womanhood and manhood based on sex. This is not true, socialization is a topic of great interest to many disciplines, and although it's never referring solely to sex/gender socialization, gender socialization is not just made up tumblr language. It's academic. If op believes that gender is a social construct, then I don't see how they can't believe in gender socialization. But op is clearly someone who believes that observing sex is coercive assignment.

>in other words, it gets used as a cudgel for gender essentialism coming from "progressive" types by which the claim that trans women/otherwise TMA people have "male privilege" ("male socialisation") can be smuggled into the discourse;

Observing gender socialization is neither progressive or conservative, depends on the context. The feminist context is progressive. The view from a feminist is that gender is entirely socialized, and is not innate to the sex, which is the opposite of "essentialism". To understand this you have to actually understand what socialization is, and I have a feeling that op does not. More on that in a second.

Obviously op isn't interested in discussing whether male privilege exists, they've already decided there is no sex hierarchy, that sex is not an axis of oppression, as they disregarded that idea in the first sentence. If I was to bet, it's because they already decided or believe that this idea belongs to "bad people" thatare in opposition to them, so they can't try to understand it.

>the experiences of cis women and trans men/otherwise transmasc people are privileged [???] as a standardised form of 'female socialisation' that pits them not as agentive [ie. taking an active role] within social forms of gender (and as beneficiaries of transmisogyny) but as unilaterally 'oppressed' to the unilaterally 'oppressive' male-socialised.

Op is just reiterating again they don't subscribe to the idea that sex-based oppression exists. Sex-oppression doesn't exist, therefore female people can't be unilaterally oppressed by men, etc. This person also posits that "cis women and trans men" are the beneficiaries of transmisogyny...unclear if cis men are the beneficiaries as well?? Firefox doesn't recognize transmisogyny as a word btw lol.

By the way, in case this isn't clear, op has used essentially 4 sentences just to say over and over again "I don't believe in sex-base oppression" and has not furthered a point beyond that. So....so so so boring.

>there is no one coherent form of "gendered socialisation";

This isn't seriously argued in feminist theory or scholarly. I'm not talking about random women on tumblr. When someone alludes to gender or sex socialization, they aren't saying that all women or all men are equally socialized the same and all women are the same and all men are the same. They are saying women are socialized as women and men are socialized as men. This is more clear when we actually understand socialization.

Okay, so what is socialization? Socialization is a complex topic, but divorce it from scholarly mumbo-jumbo what we're ultimately talking about is how the human brain absorbs information. How does the human brain absorb information? Socializing. Yeah, like the thing you do at parties. Yeah, like when you call you friend up. Yep, like when you chat up the cashier at the gas station. You know that meme, we live in a society? Okay that but for real. You live in a society, you can't say society doesn't affect you.

So what do we mean by "society"? Well, that's a prety complex topic, but! if you want to divorce it from scholarly mumbo-jumbo we're ultimately talking about how humans live with humans. Oh, you live alone? Yeah sure, but who designed your bed? Who manufactured your door? Who wrote your tv shows? Who decided that green means go, red means stop? Who made my bagel sandwhich $7? Wait wait wait, why does "manufacturer your door" matter? Well imagine if we lived in a world where "normal" doors were assumed to be ten feet tall and 8 feet wide, that would change a lot of things, right? Okay, expand that thought into the infinitesimal: think about how every dimension of every single manufactured physical thing you interact with had to be decided by at least one other human, if not thousands of humans.

You literally cannot avoid socialization. You are socialized by walking outside your house. You are socialized by never leaving your house. If you don't want to be socialized you have to be abandoned in the woods as an infant. People who survive that don't turn out so good. They weren't ever socialized into even understanding what a "door" is. Yep, the fact that I can type d-o-o-r and you know what I'm talking about is proof that you are socialized. Doors don't have to exist. We made those up.

So, when we talk about "female socialization" we aren't arguing there is a finite and concrete list of traits all women have, we're talking about how society has ideas, roles, myths, images, stories, explanations, expectations, etc. about and for women, and you just can't avoid them and they will affect you. That PLUS even if you buck every trend imaginable, people around you will still act according to those ideas they've been socialized into. If you're a woman who gets interrupted a lot at work, that doesn't go away just because you shave your head.

>how gender is coercively socially imposed varies along countless axes that cannot be accounted for under one sole framework.

much like doors

>if you want to say that experiences and subjectivities are shaped by misogyny or patriarchy then simply name misogyny and patriarchy as deciding factors.

annoying false equivalency. people can use as much clarifying language as they need to make their point. This is a person who believes in hidden evil secret subtext in words women use.

>it suffers from the same fundamental issue as many contemporary feminisms ie. that even in its most charitable form, it attempts to present a complete account of "womanhood" and account for transfemininity only after the fact via hamfisted exceptionalism, rather than beginning with transmisogyny as the lynchpin of gendering and developing itself from there.

wrong

>+ in general i try not to overrely on the language of "socialisation" and "conditioning" to describe behaviours and relationships

can't imagine what blowhard reason that would be because frankly I don't think this person really understands socialization

>unlike "coercion," which i think identifies the discourses of power + antagonism present in these modes of subject-creation, the language of socialisation and conditioning conjures up this idea of a non-agentive, immutable relationship to gender

Why? They don't explain why socialization (and conditioning?) is "non-agentive"...and then they don't explain why that matters. I mean, I agree, you don't have a lot of agency in socialization, but you also get to decide how you live your life. Plus why does gender have to be agentive? We're entering into ideas of transness that the audience is assumed to know and agree with that I would be called a feminazi for asking for clarity on so w/e

>(one in which gender is not something we do but something that is done to us) which stands fundamentally at odds with what transness should articulate. i guess another way of putting it is that i don't really believe in appeals to what people do or do not "experience" [x does or does not "experience" misogyny etc] as a cogent way of developing an actual theory of oppression + liberation.

idk what they're saying here sorry

[violetcookie2007]

Interesting me!! 😊

Name: You can call me Vi, Violet, or I guess Cookie.

Pronouns: He/She/They

Fandoms: TMNT, Fable, Bound, Cantripped, TMA, D20, Starkid (I might edit that later)

Some things about me: I am AroAce. I like the color green and anything and everything to do with sea animals and mythology. I am also legally a minor so please don't be creepy.

I try to keep this blog lighthearted and silly but I will also reblog or post somethings that are important and need to be seen.

This is a system, trans, therian, furry, gay and general safe place as long as you are a good person. I like to go by the rule that it does not matter what your sexuality, gender, political view, skin color, or religion is, as long as you are not a dick.

DNI if you are racist, homophobic, transphobic, age regression not friendly, system fake-clam, faking mental health issues of any sort, T-cest, do not support Palestine or any other thing along those lines.

If there is anything not spelled right on this blog at any time I apologize, for I can't spell or are very bad at it.

[textk4kira]

About me!

Welcome to my sideblog!

My name is Jay, I'm 23, and I use she/they pronouns. I am a biracial trans poc.

I am aroace and toric (nblm. I am a bigender person (demifem transmasc).

I also identify as aegosexual and apothisexual.

My interests include fandom, aesthetic content, and LGBTQ+ content. If that's your thing, then I hope you have a good stay! 💗

I mainly reblog posts related to Death Note as my handle implies, and posts regarding asexual, aromantic and trans people.

I also engage in lgbtq+ community related discourse.

DNI:

Radfems, TERFs, Gender Critical feminists, Febfems

TEHMs (Trans-exclusionary homosexual males) aka Anti-transmasc cis gays

TME/TMA users

Transmedicalists or Truscum

Radqueer, Transx or Transid

Xenosatanists

People who stigmatize mental health issues

Intersexists

Exorsexists (Enbyphobic)

Ableists

Exclusionists

People who dismiss anti-transmasculinity, transandrophobia, or transmisogyny

Zionists

Antisemites, Islamophobes, Racists, Xenophobes, and all other forms of bigotry

[offbrandhand]

I need someone to brain rot with. My two (2) friends include my fiancée and my best friend who lives on the literal other side of the country will not finish TMA and I am LOOSING IT. Fiancée stopped at season 3 and I can’t talk about anything after that point with her and my bitch ass bff is taking her sweet time to start it >:(. I NEED to hyper fixate with someone I’m going nuts. I have a whole OC that I need to flesh out a backstory for and if I do it by myself it simply just won’t be as good!! Taking friend applications here! Or in my asks maybe? Idk how this shit works there’s a reason I only have 2 friends

Provide 2 other interests of yours (outside of TMA), your favorite hobbies, and idk a fun fact or something, oh and pronouns bc thats important

Here’s mine: fairy tail and Baldur’s gate free have taken permanent residence in my brain matter, I draw (I’m a tattoo artist!) and sometimes write, and a couple of fun facts about me are I worked in animal welfare for years before doing tattoos, I’m ✨hella gay✨, and if you couldn’t tell I’ve got the tism. Any pronouns are fine I like people headcannoning my gender I think it’s fun.

[liefdesleven]

reading gods worst article on tma (Narrating the (Queer) Gothic in the Podcast The Magnus Archives, Maria Juko) and its so bad that its funny. btw this got published in a book (Rethinking Gothic Transgressions of Gender and Sexuality, edited by sarah faber and kerstin-anja münderlein, 2024) and I can only assume the editors didn't listen to tma themselves because good lord what are these takes. come with me as I read this mess

strong start when it claims the entities seek to torture and destroy humanity. patently untrue. we know they have some sentience, but the focus on humanity does a disservice to gerry explicitly saying "you think people are so special its only our fear that counts?". also "destroy". how are you going to get fear if the entirety of humanity is destroyed. we know what the entities wanted (or at least what the web wanted) it is explicitly stated in mag 200. it says so right there so explicitly that I find it impressive if Juko missed it.

calls the beholding the antagonist? if you want to call Any fear the antagonist id go for the web, but even then, antagonist is not the role id ascribe to a lovecraftian entity

"with the podcast’s final season set in a world dominated by the Eye that Jon et al. ultimately overcome to save the world" / "The world comes to depend on [jonmartins] relationship, with the two of them becoming queer heroes." save the world??? heroes?

4. stupidly funny implications. interesting citation for georgie but that's not important right now. the point is the fight against evil and the reading alleging tma says being queer will get you Heroic Powers. Juko's forgetting about the queer characters that get Evil Powers (all of them. all of the powers are evil. that's the point.) did the archivist utilize ace and bi power when he became the lynchpin of the apocalypse and tortured strangers

5. "As a case in point, inclusivity starts at the level of casting: female police officer Basira Hussain is voiced by Frank Voss, who uses they/them pronouns." very true but idk. frank voss and jonny sims are just pals, ill allow Some implications from this but the author is using it to imply more intentional focus on inclusivity then I think jonny was doing

6. "First, the podcast’s main character, the asexual biromantic Jon, is bestowed with supernatural powers, challenging not just heterosexual but all sexual norms of society." BESTOWED? stop using the word bestowed here oh my God. he is not a superhero!! did Juko listen to the entirety of tma without any moral grayness happening here??? also ?? jons bestowed supernatural powers are in no way related to his asexuality & biromanticism??

7. christ. this isnt a bad tma take but it is reminding me why I wanted to quit my literature analysis bachelor

8. did jon utilize ace and bi power when he betrayed martin. did martin utilize gay power when he stabbed jon. jesus christ what do you mean humanity's salvation. the apocalypse isnt fixed at the end by the power of love.

9. i guess? if you felt like it? tma really isn't a queer narrative in my option but I guess?? you could read it like that. if you wanted to. I'm unsure if you should though because these people are deeply unwell

10. "And particularly in the first seasons, Jon and his colleagues often fail to control the evil entities, losing for example colleague Tim at the end of the second season, which leads to a rift between some of the Institute’s members" yeah because truly they were thriving before that. they were the bestest of friends before tim died. they all held hands and danced in circles

11. unsure how much longer i can take this. this isn't the X-Men

12. "[Jon] could be defined as an asexual biromantic who uses his love for Martin as a form of power to save the world." no he couldn't. next

13. "With this in mind, Jon’s exploration of the Archives becomes a metaphor for accepting his (a)sexuality." HUH. NO IT ISNT? jons asexuality isn't relevant narratively At All. go home.

14. for the love of god can anyone hear me. its so dark in here. were the beholding and jonah magnus asexuality allies when they helped jon become an avatar. the sentence after this calls jon the hero of the narrative again btw. patently untrue

15. "Only by accepting his power can Jon save the world." jon didn't save the world.

Juko discusses melanie & georgie but her takes on them are pretty normal and decent in my opinion. if anyone wants a pdf of this horror let me know & ill send it. I'm so annoyed I'm considering writing an email about this. btw it called jonmartin "enemies to lovers" trope and also said their relationship "starts heteronormative and changes to a more equal footing, whilst retaining heteronormative elements". about the gay couple.

to conclude: I don't know which podcast juko listened to about a heroic narrative about queer love that saves the world, but its not the magnus archives. did you know that the eye is an asexuality ally?

[lo-fi-charming]

Jondaisy Fic Req List

So today for @jondaisy-week, I wanted to finally sit down and make a proper recommendations list of some of my favorite jondaisy fics!

This list will include fics that fall under a wide variety of ratings; I'm leaving it up to you guys to take note of warnings and tags if something here catches your interest, since all necessary info will be on the fics on ao3. If you see anything you like, please consider commenting if you give it a read! A lot of these don't have nearly as many comments as they deserve <3

Swans Down by KingOuija

Daisy feeds Jon an entire cake. This one feels special, in how it is a moment both mundane and odd, quiet yet charged; intimate not only due to the physicality of the actions, their bodies, but also the trauma these two now share. I feel like it's impossible to pitch without underselling this one!

Tell Me To Tell You by BeneathSilverStars

Jon and Daisy explore being able to say 'no/stop' and have someone listen to them. I love this one for how it explores boundaries and trust, both with and without the aid of kink... There's just something so distinctly jondaisy about it, considering their history.

Going Soft by Prim_the_Amazing

An A/O/B setup herein Daisy's traumatic experience in the Buried causes her to shift from an alpha to an omega. This one is REALLY soft and sweet and features one of my favorite scenes from any tma fic!!

live wire by bluejayblueskies

Jon is a researcher who stumbles upon the temple of an old hunting god. Really love how Daisy is portrayed here, it's a very fun take on a jondaisy chase with interesting consequences~

Stay here under my tail by RavenXavier

Worried that Basira might be interested in more drastic measures to prevent Jon from taking live statements, Daisy offers an alternative. I love this one because I think it offers a slightly darker (yet somehow, sweet?) trajectory for Jon and Daisy's post-coffin relationship. They're till trying to be good, but maybe not doing the best job. I especially love how, in most cases, Jon is portrayed as a major element in Daisy's ability to 'behave herself', while in this one Daisy takes it upon herself to be that role for Jon. Delicious...

Blood and Quiet by PitViperOfDoom

Another take on god-of-the-hunt Daisy, though this time we also get god-of-the-hunted Jon. This one's got a bit more plot involved; it's a fun setting and explores Jon and Daisy's dynamic really nicely! And I'm a sucker for anything that's got a bit of Watership Down in its DNA.

if you're lonely- by blackwood (transjon)

A 'high school' AU where Jon and Daisy meet as kids and become friends. A big theme in this one is how both of them dealing with Gender Feelings, which holds huge appeal for me~

Heartbeating by chshrkitten

This one is short but it captures the sort of intimacy I really love with these two, something quiet and secret that happens in the dark... I love anything exploring the tightrope walk of Daisy trying to be normal about being close to Jon and wanting him in ways that might not be very appropriate, but she's trying to be better...

THERE ARE PLENTY MORE, but I need to make myself keep this list a bit short or I'll be here all day. Maybe at some point, whenever I finally do a thorough re-read of all my bookmarks, I'll come back with more! Who knows, by then there might be brand new jaisy fic I'll be dying to share~

[asonofsoddensoil]

So uh if anyone in the brave little toaster fandom finds this, hello, hope you enjoy my ramblings. The themes of these two works are just so fascinating and parallel in ways I find very interesting. This movie was my first fond memento mori in fiction and gave me a safe place to explore existential and societal fears early on in life. It gave me a more conscious appreciation for the horror genre with how gently yet seriously it nudged me towards facing my fears.

Also I refer to Toaster in this post as a she because if Toaster were human I'd headcanon her as a trans woman and the first two movies taking place during her egg phase. I also headcanon Lampy and Radio as trans, Blanky as genderfluid, and Kirby as occasionally gnc if he feels more relaxed. All of them are gnc to me by virtue of how many people with a difficult or heavily tested relationship with gender love this movie. Gender norms are very arbitrary yet are used to define people by function. So, while it's not as directly applicable to the characters as appliances, the ideas sprung up about identity and purpose overall bring up interesting questions about gender.

🍞 All those nightmares robbed Toaster of restful sleep for years. Toaster tried desperately to protect everyone and keep them all together, so afraid of being the spark that ignites their doom that she kept her distance from them. But watching the gears of the crushing machine turn, its image inverted against her reflective chrome, she felt for a moment that she fully knew this was what fate had in mind for her all this time.

🥀 Blanky was blown up in the trees, shroud in darkness all through the storm and so far away from home, far away from the child it warded from the monsters under his bed. The wind threatened to blow it away at every moment, but it held on tight all through the night, clinging to the branches that tore and dirtied its fabric.

📻 Radio got so used to trouble in the cottage that he readily took on whatever role the situation called for when they left. Leading the charge or signing off for good, in crisis or stability, he always made sure to put on a good show to keep morale up. But who would put their life on the line to save the one who brought them to their own butcher, he wondered...

💡 Lampy surrendered to the storm in a rare moment of certainty, surviving though by all accounts being struck by lightning should have blown him and the battery to pieces. He learned that night to trust in himself and others, and was a worthwhile risk to take.

🧹 Kirby stood at the edge of a cliff, heart heavy with regret for being too weak to hold on tight enough to keep them from falling, for being so closed off, for the last things he said to them, for the last thing he said to him. He's so distant up here that his friends seem to disappear into the mist and the river below. Choking down his fear, he steadies himself and takes a leap of faith.

List of episodes I associate with the main 5 and other important characters just below the cut. Then there's a buffer space prevent spoiling those who haven't listened to the whole series.

Toaster: 8, 11, 26, 29, 37

Blanket: 9, 12, 15, 22, 32

Radio: 1, 7, 16, 29, 31

Lamp: 4, 12, 17, 23, 38

Vacuum cleaner: 2, 10, 13, 31, 33

Air Conditioner: 8, 13, 19, 26, 35

TV: 3, 5, 24

Rob: 5, 12, 24, 38

Kris: 1, 3, 25

Parts Shop appliances: 14, 18, 30, 34

Junkyard appliances: 5, 15, 30, 32

Tinselina: 21, 24, 28, 34

Ratso: 7, 26, 31, 32, 35

Wittgenstein: 8, 16, 23, 32, 35

Spoilers for episodes 80-200 below this point.

Anyway so now that only the ones knowledgeable of TMA are here, the Dread Powers seem to both kick their asses and love them. Which dread powers I think they'd be aligned with, you likely get a clue based on my descriptions and chosen episodes if you're down here. But I'll make it clear here because the implications are so much to me.

Toaster: Terminus, The Mother of Puppets, The Lightless Flame

Blanky: The Forever Blind, The Crawling Rot, The Future Without Us

Radio: I Do Not Know You, Viscera, Butchery

Lampy: It Is Not What It Is, Beholding, The Falling Titan

Kirby: , Too Close I Cannot Breathe, Everchase, The One Alone

The scene where they all sink is like watching the swamp of sadness in The Neverending Story, it's so sad to watch everyone's last instinct be to save their own lives, if it ever comes to their minds. I've thought way too much about this subject in particular because this scene reveals their impulses under crisis very handily, and that is so like the Buried. That it's a scene that handles Kirby's greatest vulnerability after we see him overcome his greatest fear is heartbreaking in itself on top of everything it reveals about everyone else.

Radio then saves their lives by not shutting up, as usual, but the helper they receive puts them directly in danger. 😭

[spacexfucker]

Remembering that there was a movement on tiktok to call out people for "centering men" in their friendships with women. Which sounds reasonable on paper. Except they claimed that talking about your male partner at all was centering men. And would complain about people who "centered all their time around their male partner".

Which is ridiculous to me. And alienating? If you had a male partner, you would get derisive comments about talking about them? God forbid you have kids and spend time with your partner.

I think it's important to remember that sometimes radical doesn't mean good. And that putting strange and strict rules on how others should interact does a lot to isolate you and others. It's not good, actually, if people feel they can't talk about their partner for any reason. It's not good to dismiss how some spend their time and who they chose to spend it with. Its so strange to see that argument when it's like a fill in the blank of the whole "I don't care that you're gay, just don't talk about it" thing. And it doesn't really solve anything.

A lot of early work into figuring out what feminism means is filled with stuff like this. Solving nothing with restrictive rules and moral positioning.

And I see that evolve all the time. Currently within pieces of the trans community and the tma/tme discourse and the hate I see Trans Men get.

Shutting men out doesn't do a feminism. Ending the patriarchy will involve working with men. No one is better than anyone else based on gender. And while anyone can be transphobic, trans men as a whole are not oppressing other trans people.

It makes it feel like people don't actually have a firm understanding on what "intersectional" means. It's not just something to tack on to "feminism" like a decoration to signal to others. Without a proper grasp on intersectionality, you get a lot of these beginner issues. You see a lot of finicky rules and new phrases/terms crop up that are polarizing and isolating because they're not based on actual average experiences of a group, they're repackaged assumptions of typically out and proud bigots.

A lot of the tma/tme stuff just sounds like terf rhetoric a little to the left. Unwilling to unpack nuance and unaware of how bigotry functions. The "dont talk about your male partner" and "don't center men" stuff, while an interesting critique on how people tend to focus on men when they're not the focus, devolved into the strange expectation of not talking about men at all and treating people who have male partners as borderline traitors.

The "trans men are oppressing trans women" stuff is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how oppression functions and the requirements involved for one group to be able to oppress another. Which is why it feeds into regurgitated terf rhetoric, just flipped with "trans men are women traitors" for flavor.

Most of these issues get a lot of traction and attention because most do feel a form of personal isolation or have had harm done to them one way or another. And that's hard. It's rough and hurts. And I understand that. But it's important to keep a critical mind about these sort of things to minimize the harm we then perpetuate as well as to be careful to not slide into actual terf/racist/misognistic/etc behavior. Having a strong opinion and conviction doesn't mean you're right. And if you can't engage in good faith to pushback on something that people tell you is harmful, you can't expect your circle to remain diverse. Which means purposefully putting yourself within an echo chamber.

It's not a pipeline as much as it is a series of descending hills. In which the further down you cycle with ease, the harder it is to turn around and pedal out.

It doesn't make you a bad person, either. They're most likely a victim of softballed exclusionist ideology that started as a comfort to pain and anger.

There's a reason behind people attempting to turn every interaction you have into a moral gauge. There's a reason why people would be interested in dividing the trans community or making people stop talking about their male partners. And none of them are good. They all involve isolation and pitting vulnerable people against barriers to community.