#topic: terf ideology

[velvetvexations]

Hey, legit question from someone trying to approach transandrophobia discourse in good faith. It seems to me that a lot of the disagreements on this topic are centred on the idea of whether or not trans men and transmascs have male privilege. I get where the pushback on this comes from, as many transmascs have lived a good percentage of their lives in the closet, where society treated them like cis women.

However, if we say that they don't have male privilege because they were raised to be women, aren't we implying that trans women do have male privilege because they were raised to be men? Cos that's terf ideology 101.

Acknowledging that gay men have privilege over gay women isn't saying that gay men have it easy, or that they aren't oppressed for being gay (I assume you don't disagree with this?) So why is saying the same thing about trans men different?

Trans women don't have male privilege on account of them being trans women, They grasp for what trans men are tainted with from birth. It's super not that complicated but people keep not getting it because they see someone say "I like pancakes" and read "I hate waffles."

Misogyny affects women and people perceived to be women. I can't vibe with this bizarre alternate universe other people live in where someone just has to say "I'm a man" to get others to stop treating them misogynistically! People will really come out here and say that transitioning towards manhood is looked upon with reverence, as though men oppress women until one decides they'd like to be on top themselves at which point they roll out the red carpet and pop bottles congratulating them on choosing to be the superior gender.

[euniexenoblade]

Anyways, baeddel is a slur against trans women.

Yes, there once was a weird group of girls who ressurected this long dead word for representing an ideology (I'm not getting into it but it did suck, just not cuz they "hated" men). This group self destructed before ever getting that many people. It was small. A tiny group. Their ideology wasn't popular either.

But, truscum, anti-sjws (conservatives by another name) and hate sites like kf would start to use the term to refer to any trans woman that they decided wasn't "trans enough" or "woman enough" or more importantly, was "too political" (ie talks about transmisogyny, talks about feminism, talks about leftism, etc.). Baeddel became a stand in for "tranny" "faggot," it's the trans woman stand in for the "nasty man hating dyke" sentiment.

Now, a small niche group of trans mascs on Tumblr dot com have created this concept that the baeddels didn't self destruct, apparently they actually are this insanely popular group whose ideology has spread into modern LGBT politics and has "poisoned" everything. This is just a lie. The baeddels group never had enough members to spread that much, the group didn't last long enough, and it was almost entirely located on Tumblr. The people with "baeddel" in their url or bio or whatever these days have no connection to the political group of old, it's a reclaiming of a word used against them, as explained in the third paragraph.

If someone is calling trans women "baeddels" or talking about baeddels in their posts or whatever, they're just calling trans women faggots. It's "gay agenda," but for the transmisogynists. This is a small bit of why I can't take the "transandrophobia is real" crowd seriously. I knew actual baeddels, the ideological ones, they are not the women they're referring to. They are using a slur to refer to trans women they don't like and are trying to hide it behind some dead ideology that most of them don't even know.

Baeddel is meant to be a scary word, it's meant to silence women. Just like, 5 or 6 years ago, claiming a trans woman was a baeddel was enough to effectively get her "canceled," no matter what she said. But, that doesn't work as easily now. And now these trans masc people are getting information from terfs and lesbophobes and violent transmisogynists about how violent trans women are, about how privileged trans women are, about how transmisogyny is actually fake ("we all experience transmisogyny!") and they did this by lacing it with actual trans masc issues. They present an issue trans mascs do actually face, that could use discussion, and then in the very next post talk about the scary baeddels, the mean baeddels, trans women are so terrible. And these people assume this person can't have an ulterior motive, reblog it, file it away in their brain, so when trans women come in and are like "hey no that's bigotry" these trans mascs froth at the mouth to eviscerate her. It's the dreaded baeddel. Here to oppress me.

I'm going off topic but I digress, if you're calling trans women "baeddel," stop it. You don't know what that word means.

[hersoftembrace]

Hello. I have never really used tumblr before. I apologize if I have misused tags, or am doing something I shouldn't be, but I need help. I am reaching out to radical feminists / terfs because I need a different opinion for once in my life. I have always avoided these topics or opinions because I grew up with the side of the internet that say radfem ideology is harmful and bigoted, and I carelessly took those opinions. I am only now realizing I should be getting my own opinions, which should've been obvious, but it is difficult for me.

I am AFAB, diagnosed with autism and gender dysphoria, and have ID'ed as a trans man throughout most of my teen years, but now as an adult, I am questioning my transgender identity. I am terrified to admit this to my trans friends, who would likely despise me for even considering asking the opinion of radfems. I have no one to discuss this with in a healthy manner. I am worried my gender identity stems from wanting to escape womanhood, just wanting to start a new life, or to get rid of self-hatred. I notice I often 'wish' I could be a cis lesbian, as if I couldn't, because of the way I chose to identify. I am worried and I am scared I am making wrong decisions. I am worried I am not listening to enough different opinions and making my own. Is there anyone I could maybe talk to? Am I welcome here? I am very sorry.

[superdillin]

Gender! At the Strip Club

How Sex Work Transed my Gender

(but also it's far more complicated than that I just love a punchy headline)

It’s tricky to have a conversation about the realities of sex work in a world that sees things too profoundly in a binary. Admonishing certain realities of it may be misinterpreted as siding with TERF ideology but romanticizing it ignores the complicated intersection of labor exploitation and bodily autonomy inherent to the industry. Because I want to talk about an ultimately positive experience I took away from my time within the industry, I feel that it’s important to start by saying that when people say sex work is work, we mean that it is labor, and needs the support that all laborers need. The workers need organizing power, ownership of the fruits of their labor, and protection from their clients and employers.  

Recognizing the impacts of sex work on my life has been a delayed reaction because ultimately, it was a traumatic time of survival. I spent nearly a decade in Fight or Flight, with no time to analyze what I was experiencing while it was happening. I’m not even blaming the industry for that, because as problematic as it can be, poverty was the true villain, as insecure living situations, unstable work, and working multiple full-time jobs will keep your nervous system in overdrive 24/7. 

So years later, every so often, I find myself with a new lightbulb appearing cartoonishly over my head, drawing another connection from who I am and how I interact with the world today, and how said behavior ultimately originated in a place called Nite Moves, of all things. Some of those behaviors have resolved with time. How I interacted with all cis-men during those years and for a time afterward was undeniably disordered. I inherently distrusted every single one, yet felt like I needed them around at all times for a feeling of safety and security. I kept dangerous men in my life for no good reason. But that went away with time and therapy. Now I distrust cis-men an appropriate amount. (ba dum-tss)

Other things did not resolve with time. My ire for how club owners (often in tandem with security staff) exploit workers and prioritize clients and profits over the safety of dancers? That ire was justified, and all that’s changed now is that I know more about labor organizing, leftist politics and have more context in my belief system to explain why the system is wrong. The other thing that did not resolve is how it made me view myself on the gender spectrum. 

All sex work involves a bit of gender performance, but stripping as a whole is the most hard-line, binary-adjacent area of the industry I’ve dabbled in. Because everyone in the strip club is performing. The dancers are obvious, but if all a client wanted a hot woman to ogle, pornography is cheaper and easier to access. Cam girls can offer you a completely tailored and personalized experience. And no one is more discrete than a full-service worker. Part of why men go to strip clubs is to be perceived in a strip club by other men. It’s a whole gender ritual, even. Half of the men who get taken to these clubs on their birthday or bachelor party have told me in the privacy behind the curtain that they wished they had gone to play pool, camping, or whatever their friend group’s shared interest is. But outside the champagne room, they’re pinching asses,ordering bottle service and getting high-fives for how good they can play this role. 

So, on the converse side of this gender performance, strip clubs tend to encourage the most rigid portrayal of a culturally-accepted femininity, often to the point of a very bad homogenization. On that topic, the lack of racial and body diversity in strip clubs is something people with a better perspective have talked about before, including the Portland Strippers who recently unionized, and the Black Feminisms blog, check those out for more on that perspective. 

So getting ready to work at the average club is not a matter of dressing down and dolling up. You’re trying to fit a very rigid expression of femininity that, if I were a gambling man, would likely not line up with most of the dancers own personal definition of femininity. And the more “high-end” the club, the stricter and more rigid those rules. I’ve seen clubs have restrictions to what the owner thought were the “most feminine” nail polish colors. Hair length mandates. One manager inspected my midsection to make sure it “passed”; if it hadn’t I would be restricted to wearing corset-tops on the floor. 

But for me, it unlocked something personal that I did not expect. I’ve never felt particularly attached to femininity, even when I identified as a woman. Then, I began to appreciate the ritual of putting femininity on as a costume. Once I did, I instantly had an easier time enjoying it. In my subconscious it was clear that this was not me. It was a role, a gimmick I was playing at, and thereby I felt so comfortable indulging in it. The best part, though, was the other ritual at the end of each shift. Taking off the costume, and tucking it away. The blissful comfort I would feel in my own body for the several hours after a shift - no matter what happened that night, no matter how dreadful or dry - I would be reenergized. I literally got to put femininity on like a costume and then take it off again. 

I also found that it shed a light on something interesting about my relationship to girlhood, not just femininity. There are things about girlhood that have always resonated with me in a homey way, sleepover delirium and bar bathroom camaraderie, but those resonances don’t make me feel like any more of a woman. In the strip club, girlhood feels like having an army of girls meet you in the dressing room without you having to ask because they saw how ‘that guy’ was acting, throwing a separate funeral for your friend because none of you would be allowed in at the real one, boycotting a patron who hurt one of you because security refuses to boot him.

I am not a woman. I am trauma-bonded to girlhood from my time spent in the trenches with it. 

I am not a woman. I am whatever is left is left when society’s vision of femininity is shed and packed away.

I am not a woman. But I play a pretty good one when I need to.

[eve-made-the-right-choice]

You know, I get blocked a lot by genderists, and every time they block me, they always send me a me a message specifically asking why I, a “terf,” am following them (in addition to “telling me off”). But I can’t answer, because they blocked me. So I’m gonna answer here:

It’s because you made a good post. Because you said something that spoke to me, or you have lots of good opinions on many different topics, and I want to hear what you have to say. Or because I like your art. And it’s quite likely that I didn’t know you were “queer,” because I don’t obsessively vet blogs before I follow them. And if I DID know that you were “queer,” I was okay with that. Because I believe that it’s healthy and good to expose myself to the opinions of people I disagree with, so I don’t get trapped in an echo chamber. It’s quite likely that I agreed with a lot of the things you had to say.

And I’m gonna be honest, I really don’t understand why you’re messaging me when you’re blocking me. When I block people, it’s because I want to become invisible to them. Say (for example) I blocked a user because I discovered they were a neo-nazi. I know that nazis are dangerous. If I go to their messages and tell them that I’m blocking them, I’ve accomplished three things:

1: I’ve informed them of our conflict, which they may or may not have known about;

2: I’ve made it personal, therefore motivating them to obsess over it, and

3: I’ve drawn attention to my username and helpfully saved it in their messages for them, thereby making it easier for them to stalk me and/or harass me through other accounts, or even even dox me to their nazi friends.

Whereas if I simply block them without messaging them, they may not notice that I’m not showing up in their feed anymore and gradually forget about me. Which is ideal, because dangerous people hold grudges and act on them.

So if you’re messaging “terfs” before blocking them, you’re either:

A) naive about internet safety because you’ve never experienced harassment from dangerous people either personally or through a friend, or

B) simply don’t believe that “terfs” are dangerous.

And let me tell you, as a long-time radical feminist who HAS had friends who were harassed and stalked by dangerous individuals, giving them your attention is a sure-fire way to fuel their hate. Arguing with them makes their hatred worse, and you will never get the last word in because stalkers are fueled by anger. It energizes them, and they like it.

Now don’t worry, this is not a threat. If you’ve sent me a message before blocking me, I’ve already forgotten about you. I don’t have the energy to hold grudges, and I never hated you to begin with. I genuinely believe that most people I disagree with are just average people who are trying to get through their day, and arguing is usually not worth anyone’s time. I’m telling you all of this because, even though I disagree with gender ideology, I don’t want you to endanger yourself by getting the attention of a dangerous individual.

However, if you have been messaging “terfs” before you block them for years and never once experienced retaliation or been afraid of them retaliating, you should take a few minutes to really, I mean really think about why that is.

Best of luck, even though you would never wish me the same.

[nothorses]

I'm curious, what do TERFs think of TIRFs, do we know? Especially TIRFs who are themselves trans?

I actually asked this same question of an ex-radfem in this post!

What they said is (paraphrasing heavily) essentially that the topic is contentious in TERF spaces; most view them as a detriment to TERF ideology and efforts, and/or just hate them because they tend to be trans women. Some view TIRF ideology as a step along the TERF recruitment rabbit hole.

The person I spoke to for that post also said they personally think that regardless of how TERFs themselves feel, they've seen the way that TIRF ideology spreads a lot of TERF posts within the queer community, and how gleeful TERFs are when that happens. Regardless of how TERFs themselves feel about TIRFs, it seems like TIRFs are helping them anyways.

That said, I recommend reading the full post! It was a super interesting interview, and I learned a lot from it.

[euniexenoblade]

Transandrophobia has a major terf problem and frankly that shows that at its core, transandrophobia isn't about "trans men's problems." If it were, it wouldn't have so many terfs at the ready to defend transandrophobia and talks about transandrophobia would not be so heavily dominated by topics about trans women. I'm really imploring transmascs to get out of that community. It is not that your problems do not matter, it's that you're being lied to by grifters. They are feigning interest in your issues to sell you a terf-lite ideology.

[thecolorblockcurator]

I want to talk a little more on this topic of TERFs in art history.

Back a couple of years ago when I came out as trans on here I was surprised at all the hate messages I received. From terfs calling me the usual gender traitor, a confused woman- too old to be trans lol & a lot of other worse things. & a bunch just flooded my inbox announcing how they were disappointed in me & were unfollowing. 🙄

And I was confused why there were so many following me in the first place - after all I was queer- I loved & supported trans folks like how could they have found a home here?

But I unknowingly had been entrenched in terf & radfem ideology in art history I couldn’t see through it. I realized very quickly that Art History is home to a ton of TERFS.

My beloved professors (a few but not all) told us without a doubt that women artists were abused, they were denied, they were ignored, because they were women. They women artists were innately better artists, they had more complex things to say in their art and were more talented at saying them. They were pure, perfect, their stories mattered more than male artists. And history forgot about them so it was our duty to learn and share their work.

These professors would also say that male artists were innately violent, and their art could only ever objectify women. That you could tell an artists gender from heavy aggressive brushstrokes (if they were cis male) or if they were reclaiming their feminine voice with powerful strong brushstrokes (if they were a cis woman) - despite looking like the same exact brushstrokes

How women in art had an almost mystical like understanding of color and form in ways that her male colleagues couldn’t understand

One of my professors who was the loudest radfem taught feminist art history, art in the mid-century, and a couple other classes I forgot. (It’s been like 10 years now) She gave lecture after lecture that the art world was a boys only club. And therefore innately bad and malicious towards women artists. She worked for Helen Frankentaller!! Of course I was going to believe her!! I was paying to learn things from someone who should have been a trusted source why would I have to question them

It wasn’t until I critically listened to what I was repeating that I understood how wrong her views were. How deeply seeded terf ideology was in the art history world.

So those of you persuing art history- think critically & know that the field has unfortunately been a magnet for terfs for a while.

[radfemnotfemme]

been learning about radical feminism in the past year and i have completely reevaluated my beliefs about gender ideology. now im just so stuck on the idea of, how can identifying as another gender not be fundamentally regressive, sexist, and upholding gender norms? how can men just identify out of oppression? but now idk what to do holding these beliefs because truly all my friends would have serious issues with me if i were ever to voice this. in fact, i have close friends who are trans, and there are many trans people in my wider social circle (one of whom specifically made me so uncomfortable in a "female" space that it contributed to me unlearning my previous beliefs abt gender ideology). i attend a super liberal university where in a recent english class my professor even made a comment about jk rowling being an evil terf now.

i feel like i'm walking around with a dirty secret. i feel like i can't discuss these ideas with anyone irl, not even my girlfriend. it would fundamentally change her view of me as she as an incredibly vocal trans ally. i could see her breaking up with me for these beliefs; i could see many friends distancing themselves from me. i'm just wondering how you navigate a social world like this with radfem beliefs ahhhh

i feel you on the “dirty secret” aspect! i can try to give some advice since i’m in a very similar situation (minus the fact i live in a conservative area.)

due to my appearance (i’m visibly gay) i usually only attract TRA & ‘queer’ types to me. my friends are all TRA or some variant of “genderqueer.” i only have one friend ive been able to confide my beliefs to, and she’s more a closet conservative type so we really only agree on trans issues. I will say, if you can find even one person that you can speak freely with it’ll be a huge weight off your chest. Whenever I see this one friend we both just ramble because we can finally talk about shit that we can’t comfortably talk about with anyone else.

the way i’ve gone about managing my friendships with TRAs is to simply never bring up trans (or controversial radfem) topics. i avoid it like the plague, will change topic, and if directly questioned on something i will play the dumb and innocent role, aka just pretending to not understand but intend as coming from a good place. you should evaluate which of your friendships putting up this facade will be worth it, because it gets exhausting fast. i have some trans friends, but they’re all the “genderfluid/nonbinary AFAB who goes by any pronouns” type who present extremely feminine at all times, never even push the boundaries of gender expression honestly which is funny. (literally theyfabs lol) They dont care that i always use she/her and they honestly never bring up gender stuff with me. these type of girls aren’t too bad to be around as i feel they’re not as far gone as some TIPs are who actually take the steps to transition, etc. Being around a hardcore TIF or TIM might be a more difficult friendship to maintain.

Regarding your significant other, you should consider if this is a breaking point in your relationship. For me it’s not since my gf was generally uninformed about trans issues like the dangers of males in womens prisons, unfairness in sports, why oppressed is sex based and not gender based, etc. We’ve had discussions about this, where i explained my reasoning for being against these issues & she actually ended up agreeing after I showed her the facts. She’s still ‘pro-trans’ but is much more reasonable about it & thinks majority trans people just wanna live their life (which who can argue with that!) If this type of open conversation isn’t something you think could be achievable with your gf, you guys might just not be compatible.

It sounds like you live in a very liberal area & so my advice to you would be to see if there’s any radical feminist organizations near you. I think finding other people who think the same as you will help you feel less guilty. It’ll probably be hard since most radfems are secretive about their beliefs (for obvious reasons lol) but i’m sure you’ll find someone eventually.

[pokegyns]

Reclaiming “TIRF”

now i won’t say i personally call myself a tirf, and i absolutely respect the choice of any radfems who refuse to call themselves tirfs because that sounds like radfeminism centers trans people, i believe transmascs deserve to feel safe & respected within feminist spaces, as radfeminism (despite being heavily misrepresented) does have a tendency to mistreat transmascs & dismiss their struggles, as well as pretend dysphoria isn’t real/cannot ever be neurological. gender critical transmascs & their allies should have the right to reclaim the term tirf, similarly to how radfems who aren’t actual transphobes but have been called terfs have the right to reclaim the term terf. true nuancefems, who can be critical of gender whilst still not being discriminatory to trans people.

i understand that a lot of radfems who aren’t close-minded on trans topics call themselves terfs in an ironic way, to mock tras when they start with the harassment. but we also have to keep in mind that there has been a slow, but rising trend of conservative women co-opting our terms. they are downright right-wing & bigoted. they often tend to also target intersex women, detrans women, black & brown women– and generally everyone who they can call a “dirty male invading (white) women’s spaces”. their ideology is built on vulgar materialism, eurocentrism & white supremacy. they support transvestigating, and they want to achieve their goals of “total female protection” through invasive measures such as inspection of genitals. we shouldn’t jump to say “this never happens”– it does. mainstream tras often protect horrible people within their community, fearing that even simple criticism of “their own” will destroy their reputation, when it would actually improve it. they refuse to outcast those people, while outcasting others who merely disagree with them on an ideological level. this proves their corrupt immaturity & inability to conversate with understanding & nuance. we shouldn’t be like them. we need to outcast the genuinely hateful people, and show that they have no place in our community. they aren’t our allies. while i don’t believe that women can systemically harm trans women (i do, however, believe they can systemically harm trans men, though in a very very limited way, but the focus should be directed at cis men & not at them when talking about antitransmasculinity), women can definitely be hateful & still perpetuate & uphold bigotry & discrimination. these people also often use ableist slurs & call disabled people sensitive when they call them out, as well as using fetishistic slurs against trans people, especially against transfems. they often use conservative talking points & portray trans people in a weird & derogatory manner, mocking surgeries & bodies.

on the other hand, there are a lot of women who aren’t intersexist, racist, or otherwise bigoted– but they still tend to be close-minded on trans issues. they are often 100% anti-transition under every circumstance. i don’t believe ostracizing & outcasting them would be productive, as they often are detrans women who empathize with dysphoric people, but because the affirming-model harmed them, they harbor a lot of pent-up anger & express it in an extremist way. we should be conversating with them & exchanging opinions, but we still should be very careful not to harm the trans people in our own community & we shouldn’t force one-on-one conversation if the trans people in our community feel uncomfortable with that. i myself used to call myself a terf, but i feel quite uncomfortable with that, being trans myself– although i’ve been called one on multiple occasions. nowadays, simple things such as acknowledging biology & sexuality are considered terfy, it’s laughable.

i felt aversion to the term “tirf” for a little while, as there has been a recent boom of liberal feminists realizing that militant feminists are starting to mock them, so they started co-opting feminist branches. some of them call themselves intersectional feminists, although intersectional feminism is not its’ own school of theory. others call themselves marxist feminists without reading any theory, as they believe it’s simply the trans-inclusive alternative to radfeminism. some of them are starting to call themselves radfems, but they are always extra careful to preface that they are trans-inclusive. of course, libfems don’t give a damn about dysphoric people– they just weaponize our pain & scream “choice!” at everything they encounter. they are simply afraid of being mocked by feminists. there is, however, a portion of tirfs who are generally just afraid of being judged by tras. i do not think they can be considered real radfems (even if they express otherwise radfem views; anti-porn, anti-sw, anti-beauty industry, etc.), as radfeminism is inherently gender abolitionist, but we need to be welcoming to them, as they are usually nicefems whose fears should be understood. a lot of us were once in their position. being mean to them is counterproductive, we should let them go through their own journey of peaking.

i still personally feel levels of aversion to the term tirf, but if more actual nuanced radfems start using the term, maybe it will boom into some unexpected rising branch of nuanced radfeminism. radfems who, despite not actually being transphobic, can feel free to call themselves “terfs” in a mocking sense, as i believe it’s harmless. we shouldn’t mimic mainstream tra behavior & lock ourselves up in another echo-chamber, except this time instead of it being a tra echo-chamber it would be a magical tirf echo-chamber or whatever. shouting “op is a terf!” would just bring about unnecessary alienation. it would just remind me once again of the times i felt pressured to repress my beliefs & add a “terfs dni!” disclaimer every time before making a slightly-more-than-mainstream feminist point. but we should still be careful of making the trans people within our own community feel safe, and not letting actual genuine transphobes (so, not gender criticals & gender abolitionists & homosexuals, geez, i mean the actual hateful transphobes) in our spaces. i feel the term “terf” is not a good enough descriptor anyway, since the people who co-opt our terms to make bad faith (often conservative) points are not only discriminatory against trans people, but also people of color, intersex people, disabled people, detrans people & often also gay people. we can call out hate & bad faith points without alienating ourselves from our community, and we can outcast horrible people within our community without using meaningless terms to throw at them, the very same terms that are used against us 24/7 anyway as well.

– mod zoroark

[olderthannetfic]

I think part of why these really bizarre ideas of what "crypto terf" rhetoric spread is because people treat dogwhistles like they're some kind of magic spell that requires secret lingo, and so they assume everyone crying "crypto terf!!!" in a way that doesn't make sense to them MUST be seeing something they don't see. But really, it's not that hard to guess at how a particular hate group would attempt to turn normies on to supporting their hate group. If you know what their standard rhetoric is, and you know how ideological recruitment generally works, it's not hard to imagine how they mutate that rhetoric to make it more palatable to someone on the fence. After all, it's really not that different from how people do this with anything, in far more benign circumstances; if you have a strong opinion on a controversial topic, you're probably going to talk about it differently with someone you know is already on your side vs. someone whose opinion you're unsure of, right? I've read stuff by people like Ky Schevers who WERE "terf recruiters" who have since renounced the movement, who know what "crypto" rhetoric looks like from the inside, and none of it was actually particularly surprising to me as someone who knows what regular TERFs believe. I think one of the issues though is that people are confusing "crypto terf rhetoric" with "the conditions that put people in a position that cause them to be seen as targets by TERFs." Like, a lot of people on here seem to have this idea that any time women are venting about how much men suck, or talking about particular kinds of men who creep them out, that's "radfem/terf rhetoric." Which - first of all, I think if you spend amount of time in groups of women where they're talking about men (real ones, not fictional characters), you have to know that that kind of venting about men is not a thing that's going to stop happening anytime soon. Women are going to feel that way and express it as long as we live in a sexist society, and all you're doing by treating it as though they're already on the road to a hate group is making it so they don't do it around you - which ironically, makes them riper prey to extremists, if they're the only ones letting them vent. Like especially in the wake of a US election where a majority of Gen Z men voted for a rapist whose brain is rotting and who wants to take away women's bodily autonomy over a highly qualified woman, you can't be surprised that a lot of women their same age are throwing up their hands and wondering if it's even worth it trying to find the good ones anymore, if they exist in enough numbers to make the frustrations of dating worth it. What's "crypto TERF" is not being frustrated with men (which again, is not something you're going to social-norms away anyway), but it's channeling that frustration toward the kind of essentialism that leads them to eventually see all AMAB people as the problem. Or broadening this beyond terfs specifially to other radfems: taking where most women are now of "I know some good guys exist, but there are so many bad ones and so many wolves-in-sheep's-clothing and I'm kind of exhausted with the search" and turning that into "there ARE no good ones, ALL of them are hiding at least some sexist beliefs and behavior and you CANNOT trust them." But just like plenty of white people who have economic anxiety don't get convinced that immigrants are the problem, and plenty of people in vulnerable situations like recently having moved or a bad break-up or death don't get recruited into cults, most women who are frustrated with shitty men don't become radfems. There's a difference between recognizing certain conditions as more likely to make someone recruitable, and treating them as already a lost cause.

--

[baphometsss]

will the haters' patronisation of solas enjoyers ever end

for some reason people feel like hating a character who starts off with a shitty outlook and then has it challenged and unravelled in the story makes them morally superior. it's purity culture at its finest. we're literally at the point of these people accusing solas enjoyers of being racist/xenophobic/manipulative/abusive/insert whatever hatemongering buzzword they can think of as if it somehow bolsters their argument, when it actually just makes them look childish and willing to reduce very real and painful struggles to a metric in point scoring for petty online squabbles

i have actually seen people accuse critics of the veilguard as a game to nazis. i wish i was joking. like this is the point that we're at and it's so unbelievably dumb it's kind of funny

one of the reasons arguments based on this logic don't really achieve anything is because they frame every single thing around victimhood and a false dichotomy of victim/perpetrator. like t/erfs for example. they're a fringe movement within feminism for a number of reasons but one of the fundamental reasons is that they heavily focus on reinforcing victimhood rather than empowerment. they seek out and prey on traumatised women, take their trauma and twist it into hate by validating victimhood repeatedly until there's nothing else left but piss and vinegar for other people who aren't exactly like them. in fact, this formula is straight out of the radicalisation playbook used by neo-nazis, terrorists, and similar pieces of shit

instead of reinforcing self-actualisation, self-belief, hope, communion with other people, and understanding of the vulnerability inherent to all human beings (the things trauma survivors actually need), they focus on biological essentialism and other claptrap to explain why more segregation and hate is necessary. it makes this messy, complicated world more digestible for people with cognitive distortions that are so extreme. all under the guise of 'women's safety/rights'. it's unsustainable, because at some point we become perpetrators too and this ideology doesn't make room for that. hence why there's truth to phrases like 'scratch a terf, find a racist'. they flatly refuse to acknowledge intersectionality, because that requires accountability for oneself and by the time they're radicalised they can't view themselves as anything other than victim. and once you're radicalised, you can't connect with people who haven't also been radicalised, so it becomes a vicious cycle.

it's something that's so insidious but it's made its way into every part of our lives. you're not perfect. no one is perfect. everyone is a clusterfuck of bullshit mixed with beauty and love and the potential for pretty much unlimited evolution. that's why i love solas. he's an absolute fuck up in so many ways, but he's also a victim of eras-long emotional abuse, he's suicidally depressed, he's a monumental failure, he's a sad wet cat in elven form and he's one of the most interesting characters i've ever seen. i would take that over some morally 'pure' but flat, one-dimensional and boring companions who talk in therapy speak all day long.

but while we're on the topic of 'fixing him'... what exactly is that even supposed to mean? people can't be 'fixed'. all you can do is heal. and love is nourishment in its purest form. lavellan doesn't 'fix him', nor do they try. they try to help him because they love him, but they're not trying to 'fix' him. the use of this phrase only reinforces my belief that people are falling for the radicalisation in online spaces even more, because it screams cognitive distortion. if you play a high approval inky, they're trying to help him grow and learn and understand. it's sad that so much of social justice has become divorced from love when love is the most important aspect of any kind of justice. people hand-wave and piss on love as if its a bad thing. it's not. and it's certainly not a bad thing to love a character who's fucked up, because they're the hardest ones to love, and therefore the ones who need it most.

[controversial--polls]

What is your reasoning for tagging polls on trans topics with TERF-related tags, including ones predominantly used by TERFs themselves such as 'radblr'? I understand tagging a poll that mentions TERFs or TERF ideology directly with those tags, but why on a poll that has nothing to do with feminism in any capacity? This isn't meant to sound accusatory, I am genuinely curious to hear your reasoning on this

I tag posts with relevant tags that will give polls the greatest reach to a diverse selection of people with different opinions. In this case, that means tags that are used by both radical feminists and trans people.

If a poll asks whether children should medically transition, what would be the point of only asking people who I already know will overwhelmingly say yes?

[gayleviticus]

I didn't really notice this before but it's interesting how in the dispute over whether Jesus is casting out demons because he himself is on the devils payroll in Matthew 12 - there's the famous bit about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which lots of people get hung up on (and understandably so, esp if you struggle w scrupulousity and OCD - very inflammatory thing to put in the Bible @ God).

but Jesus then goes on to talk about good and bad fruits, and this line struck me: "Either make the tree out to be good and its fruit good, or make the tree out to be rotten and its fruit rotten; for the tree is known by its fruit."

you can kinda sense his frustration here. "make up your minds! either I'm doing something wrong or I'm not; can we not try to claim that I have some evil hidden ulterior motive that makes all the good things I'm doing secretly bad."

now sure, there are circumstances where people can do or support good things for bad reasons (nazis using anti Zionist sentiment as a dogwhistle; terfs making a song and dance about feminism - altho id argue neither of these groups are particularly 'doing' good things just hijacking them, but there are also just homophobic conservative churches that do run soup kitchens and food banks and yet that doesn't counterbalance the bad they do) or do bad things for what they perceive to be good reasons. but seems like what Jesus is talking about is again his old maxim of judge trees by their fruit; don't decide a priori that since X person is wrong therefore everything they do is tainted with wickedness.

blasphemy of the Holy Spirit happens when people see God at work doing good things and decide, in order to preserve their preconceived ideas about the way things are and what's good and bad, to call good evil.

and I think the reason that's an 'unforgivable' sin isn't necessarily because it's a particularly heinous one, but because it fundamentally warps your ability to interpret the actions of God. If you see God's goodness and mercy and grace at work in the world and decide well actually that's the Devil - how are you supposed to ever break out of that and truly recognise God? it's like when someone is hyped up on flat earth, creationism, anti vaxxer, protocols of the elders of Zion conspiracy theories; they've kinda destroyed their ability to even consider any alternative simply by loudly insisting any counterpoint is propaganda, any evidence to the contrary is fabricated, science itself is a hoax. blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the same; people have destroyed any external benchmark (such as the harm and suffering being created) for judging their interpretations of scripture and faith.

and I can't help but think a bit on queer christians (as usual; I need to start finding other topics to get on my soapbox about), bc when we offer the fact that gay relationships or gender transition cultivate love and joy and peace and kindness and goodness, we get very much the same answer as Jesus' critics gave. "Pff. It's the work of the Devil." People a priori reject the good and life giving things we find in queerness because they don't want to deal with the implications of that. and so we get people insisting that bad trees can bear good fruit.

now in fairness they often do try for consistency and insist that actually this good fruit is a hollow lie and truly LGBTQ people are suffering underneath from living against God's will. but I think this view is losing its power bit by bit bc people understand it's asserting ideology over reality. it's a hard sell and not an intellectually serious position. either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad

[pigeonflavouredcake]

My Grimoire Research Library

this is a list of my major resource I've referenced/am currently referencing in my big grimoire project. For books I'll be linking the Goodreads page, for pdfs, websites and videos i'll link them directly.

There are plenty of generalised practitioner resources that can work for everyone but as I have Irish ancestry and worship Hellenic deities quite a few of my resources are centred around Celtic Ireland, ancient Greece and the Olympic mythos. If you follow other sects of paganism you are more than welcome to reblog with your own list of resources.

Parts of my grimoire discuss topics of new age spiritualism, dangerous conspiracy theories, and bigotry in witchcraft so some resources in this list focus on that.

Books

Apollodorus - The Library of Greek Mythology

Astrea Taylor - Intuitive Witchcraft

Dee Dee Chainey & Willow Winsham - Treasury of Folklore: Woodlands and Forests

John Ferguson - Among The Gods: An Archaeological Exploration of Ancient Greek Religion

Katharine Briggs - The Fairies in Tradition and Literature

Kevin Danaher - The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs

Laura O'Brien - Fairy Faith in Ireland

Lindsey C. Watson - Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome

Nicholas Culpeper - Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Plutarch - The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives

R.B. Parkinson - A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Around the World

Rachel Patterson - Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness

Raleigh Briggs - Make Your Place: Affordable & Sustainable Nesting Skills

Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass

Ronald Hutton - The Witch: A History of Fear in Ancient Times

Rosemary Ellen Guiley - The Encyclopaedia of Witches and Witchcraft

Thomas N. Mitchell - Athens: A History of the World's First Democracy

Walter Stephens - Demon Lovers: Witchcraft S3x and the Crisis of Belief

Yvonne P. Chireau - Black Magic: Religion and The African American Conjuring Tradition

PDFs

Anti Defamation League - Hate on Display: Hate Symbols Database

Brandy Williams - White Light, Black Magic: Racism in Esoteric Thought

Cambridge SU Women’s Campaign - How to Spot TERF Ideology 2.0.

Blogs and Websites

Anti Defamation League

B. Ricardo Brown - Until Darwin: Science and the Origins of Race

Dr. S. Deacon Ritterbush - Dr Beachcomb

Folklore Thursday

Freedom of Mind Resource Centre - Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control

Institute for Strategic Dialogue

Royal Horticultural Society

The Duchas Project -National Folklore Collection

Vivienne Mackie - Vivscelticconnections

YouTube Videos

ContraPoints - Gender Critical

Emma Thorne Videos - Christian Fundie Says Halloween is SATANIC!

Owen Morgan (Telltale) - The Source Of All Conspiracies: A 1902 Document Called "The Protocols"

The Belief it or Not Podcast - Ep. 40 Satanic Panic, Ep 92. Wicca

Wendigoon - The Conspiracy Theory Iceberg

Other videos I haven't referenced but you may still want to check out

Atun-Shei Films - Ancient Aryans: The History of Crackpot N@zi Archaeology

Belief It Or Not - Ep. 90 - Logical Fallacies

Dragon Talisman - Tarot Documentary (A re-upload of the 1997 documentary Strictly Supernatural: Tarot and Astrology)

Lindsay Ellis - Tracing the Roots of Pop Culture Transphobia

Overly Sarcastic Productions - Miscellaneous Myths Playlist

Owen Morgan (Telltale) - SATANIC PANIC! 90s Video Slanders Satanists | Pagan Invasion Saga | Part 1

ReignBot - How Ouija Boards Became "Evil" | Obscura Archive Ep. 2

Ryan Beard - Demi Lovato Promoted a R4cist Lizard Cult

Super Eyepatch Wolf - The Bizarre World of Fake Psychics, Faith Healers and Mediums

Weird Reads with Emily Louise -The Infamous Hoaxes Iceberg Playlist

Wendigoon - The True Stories of the Warren Hauntings: The Conjuring, Annabelle, Amityville, and Other Encounters

[euniexenoblade]

hey someone i follow has been posting stuff about transadrophobia/transmisandry and i get that the concept itself is wrong due to the nature of intersecting opression but there were some valid points made. for example how trans men are treated as neither men nor women depending on the context, such as in the case of male on male violence where they are seen as valid targets but then denied due to percived femininity. (there was some other stuff but i cant recall it right now)

do you have any advice (other than just to block them). im bad at nuanced analysis and could use some help. i want to be able to understand if what was being described was regular transphobia or an actual unique form of opression

-a transfem confused about the current situation

(p.s. sorry if this is impossible to read im quite stressed as this person is one of my favourite users and i want to have a nuanced perspective of the topic)

"how trans men are treated as neither men or women" is literally ripped right out of literature about transmisogyny. Trans women are seen as a lesser other that is neither men or women. Like, if they want to talk about that point fine but it's literally a concept that's existed and talked about for trans women for over a decade. So that would at least be "transphobia" and not "transandrophobia," because it's not remotely specific to their experience.

I'm not getting into a point by point with this, cuz I don't want to be involved in this stuff. But transandrophobia was coined by a dude who literally talked about getting off to lesbians being correctively raped and consistently was very lesbophobic. Nothorses cites literal terfs in his renditions of how "baeddels ruined the LGBT" (baeddels never had a strong following a died out years ago, the idea baeddels still exist is bullshit perpetuated by transphobes/transmisogynists/kiwifarms esque types, it's the mean bad tranny Boogeyman ("what do you mean Boogeyman is misgendering??? It's gender neutral!")).

At the end of the day, transandrophobia shit is terf propaganda with a few instances of real actual transphobia transmascs experience sprinkled in. I don't care about these dudes talking about their experiences, I honestly kinda don't care even if they have a specific term for it, but "transmisandry" was primarily used by racist mras and "transandrophobia" is a terf ideology.

These people are just talking about transphobia. They want some special term because they think "transmisogyny" is some special cool thing trans women get to have, they don't actually see it as an intersection of two oppressive axes. They're usually not well read about transmisogyny and don't actually know anything about it.

As for talking to this person. Idk. Could just approach it that the word transphobia already exists and that the first point I mentioned is literally a thing transfems go through. Tbh w you I wouldn't know what to do if my friends start posting that bigoted garbage.