#when i read the op i thought they were talking about making a trans womans egg crack

[somethingmissingthiswaycomes]

I just read a post I would have liked to reblog for some points, but not for others — so I think I'll just muse about it in my own post.

The post was about the dichotomy of TME and TMA — terms I at first accepted without thought and then began to criticize and eventually grew annoyed with, then saw them as a straight up red flag because of how big the center circle of the Venn diagram seems to be between people who use those terms regularly online and people who use them to disparage trans people who were assigned female at birth. The crossover with people who use insults like "theyfab" seemed to be pretty big too. And it's inaccurate of course; you can't say anyone is transmisogyny exempt based on an innate aspect of their identity. And people who use TME as an insult (seemingly anyone who used it at all) seem to all be hateful about transmascs having terms like transandrophobia to describe their experiences.

But the post that made me muse right now started out saying that yes, it's not precise, it's not fully accurate, but there's something experienced in perpetuity by transfemmes, assigned male at birth, that isn't experienced by anyone who can convincingly assert that they're not trans women — and TMA is trying to reach for that, and transmisogynists wouldn't grant us any language to describe our experiences.

I've been wrong a lot about fundamental things, and realizing where I've been wrong tends to start with a feeling that there's something I'm trying to reject, because it's uncomfortable to me or violates my previous worldview. Learning I was trans, learning about plurality, the process of noticing transandrophobia within the trans community... and long before that, when I lost the faith I'd been raised in and came to recognize it as highly damaging. It's deeply unpleasant for these shifts to happen.

I've been getting a feeling like that lately, but I wasn't sure where it was placed exactly. Each time I notice a problem with my worldview, I get more cautious about what possible new problems could crop up. It makes things, well, more uncomfortable.

Anyway, this one post I'm mulling over phrased things in a way that made me start looking more closely at what it is I've been avoiding. Because my mistrust of people who talk about TMAs and TMEs came alongside a rising pride and solidarity in transmasculinity, and a frustration with people who deny the trans community language by calling us "transandrophobia truthers" and other closed-minded, bigoted nonsense. (It's so fucking frustrating.) So... I haven't been looking for discussions about the terms TMA/TME outside of the hateful context it was showing up for me in.

And this post I'm mulling over mentioned requiring language to talk about experiences, and that clicked. It clicked with me that, while there are a whole lot of people playing boys v girls 2.0 in all this, there's an underlying need to be able to discuss the unique experiences that come with every aspect of who and what we are — and we're trying to categorize, categorize, categorize.

Part of what made me decide not to engage with the post that made me start talking about this is that the OP brought up the idea of transfeminine people who were assigned female at birth... and how that's, to them, a ridiculous idea. The thing is, it's not, and accepting that is part of not overcategorizing. It's an unusual thing, but it's real, and it can mean different things. You can't restrict the type of people who can exist.

But it's true that there are experiences specific to one's assigned gender (like AMAB) and to one's physiological reality associated with it that, in an intersection with a specific or adjacent actual gender (like trans woman, transfeminine, or transneutral with perceived femininity), are important to recognize as, for the most part, unique.

My ability to be specific here breaks down, though, because I know from reading the words of certain intersex people that a lot of the intersection of transfeminine and perisex AMAB isn't actually unique unless you ignore intersex people. I don't think I can say more than that. I don't think I can get nuanced enough.

But I can use an "opposite" example to try to draw a parallel. Because there is an AFAB trans experience that isn't shared by perisex trans people who were assigned male at birth: the risk of pregnancy, and specifically restrictions on bodies with uteruses. That's a difference that TERFs like to prey on to drive a wedge in the trans community. They like to convince us that they're the only ones who care about that part of our lived experiences. That is wrong. And we shouldn't let that difference divide us.

In the same vein, we shouldn't let that difference being something that could divide us turn the topic into one that trans people who have uteruses need to sacrifice in order to stand together with trans people who don't. I think that's contributed to transmasculine erasure. The assertion that it must be so would fall under the umbrella of transandrophobia, a much needed term for the sake of discussing that.

Now back to transmisogyny affected/exempt. An argument I've often shared and agreed with and been fervent about is that it's just recreating the AFAB/AMAB binary. And I have seen people argue that no it's not, it's different, but in recognizing how often it's used that way by bad actors, I decided to ignore that argument. I'd say it doesn't matter; it may as well be that.

I think I've been wrong. And I've known I was wrong, in the back of my mind, for a while. My initial acceptance of the TMA/TME dichotomy had me making that same argument, so it felt like something I had moved beyond. Now I'm letting myself look at it more closely, I'm coming to a less accepting-it-on-faith understanding of the argument.

I'm also forming a new way of explaining my own experiences as a genderfluid person. Hopefully doing so will help to articulate what I'm thinking;

I am, currently, TME. Not in the literal sense that I don't experience transmisogyny at all, but in the sense of, "I have a body that allows me to avoid and avert transmisogyny directed explicitly at my person." I'm affected by transmisogyny in a lot of ways I've been working through for some time now, and it's for that reason that I still await better terms for this concept—but using these terms as I believe good faith actors do, while I'm not exempt from transmisogyny in general, I am TME.

But I won't always be.

I am a genderfluid person who was assigned female at birth. I started testosterone a few years back, and then I stopped because I wasn't sure how far I wanted to take it. I've been coming to terms with the fact that I need to go further and I may have to be on HRT indefinably to be able to be my full, real self... but I'm still also a woman. And it will cause me dysphoria if I can't present as a woman at times when my body has been fully affected by testosterone.

I don't know if I'll be able to be stealth in any direction. I will be affected by transmisogyny in a way I'm not right now. The difference between how I'm affected by transmisogyny now and how I will be then can, at the moment, be communicated with "I'm TME now, but I'll be TMA when I transition."

And that terrifies me, honestly. I had recognized that terror as being me internalizing transmisogyny, but not as me being afraid of it. I know I'll be more comfortable with myself, but...

The forms of transmisogyny experienced specifically by people who are perpetually perceived as male (or "supposed to be male") while presenting as female are more scary than what I experience now.

And that is worth being able to talk about.

And that is worth having a term for.

And I suppose "TME" and "TMA" are the terms people are using right now, at least online. Imprecise language is something we have to work around sometimes.

I do hope that the discussion can evolve language that doesn't so easily allow bad actors to use otherwise potentially useful terms as a weapon of lateral bigotry.

And, in general, I hope the discussion can move in a direction that discourages that more by rejecting separation of trans people into boxes based on AGAB without erasing experiences that come with AGAB. Categories are good and useful to a point — but not as boxes so much as colors we're painted with. You can't split people into groups based on any one category they're colored with without forcing some people within those groups to de-prioritize something else they are.

...

This feels like it could be a draft for a real good blog post, but I know I won't post it if I wait and try to rewrite things later, so it'll have to be the finished thing.

It's been a while since I tried to add to the conversation like this. Gonna turn my anons off in case of problems. I am OUT of spoons and won't be able to respond to any opinion about this, but feel free to say things anyway if you're nice.

[lilyspond64]

BREAKING: male turned transgender female absolutely destroys stereotypes by being worst player on women's football team

Lily, a young transgender woman, was ranked as the number one worst player on the team, despite their clear biological advantage. One of their team members was asked what her thoughts on this situation are.

"She is so f---ing bad," said the team's captain, Sophia Kerr. "Like, so, so bad. She fell asleep. On the field."

While we do not condone Sophia's language, including the use of the wrong pronouns for the trans-identified "woman," we do understand her frustration with the fact that a player clearly meant to have an advantage is so bad.

We reached out to Lily, and they had this to say: "Hi chat, my bad for that game. I didn't sleep the previous night cause I was reading yuri. Oh wanna hear a fun fact? The word yuri in Japanese means lily, like the flower, like what I'm named after. Ok so anyway, soccer or football or whatever right. Yeah I dunno how to play but they let me on the team anyway. I f----ing hate this game anyway."

Lily's statement made some facts clear. They were never interested in the game itself, and they were not prepared for it, not getting enough sleep the previous night.

So, what does this mean for trans women in sports?

Clearly, Lily's failure was caused by a biological advantage. A real woman would have died had she played as bad as Lily did, so Lily clearly benefits from actually being a man.

We reached out to Lily for what her real name is, but she declined to comment, instead saying "what the f--- kinda question is that?"

The aggressive tone and defensive demeanor are clear signs of male-coded brain activity, said expert May Dissup. "Women in sports are presented with a real challenge when accomodating for a male pattern brain," said May. "The male brain makes them really annoying and impossible to talk to, so the actual females can't communicate with them properly. This causes a disconnect on the team."

We at the New Jersey Times strive for an unbiased approach to journalism. As a result, we also asked the cisgender female team captain, who would have a female-coded brain, the same question we asked Lily. Her response: "What the h--- kinda question is that?" Note her use of a weaker expletive to show that she is less aggressive and therefore not male-coded.

The question of if transgender identifying male womxn should be allowed in sports has always been a difficult one - there are many things to think about, such as how men and women have different types of cooties and can't be together ever or they explode and how women are worse at everything they do ever. Clearly, Lily should never have been allowed on the team, as these issues and more severely impacted the quality of play from the team.

Our journalism team hopes that in the future better decisions will be made before we let men join women's sports teams.

- Op Ed piece written by Chet T. Pisuchit, member of the New Jersey Times board of journalism

[dreadark]

disorganized rant zz

why does it feel like the entire internet has decided misogyny doesn’t exist 

this is just me complaining about random shit I’ve seen I don’t know about trends or anything just. also i don’t go outside

idk I saw a post recently saying something like, since white women can’t pretend to be oppressed anymore now they’re— okay hang on. what? im not even going to read the rest of that because.. what? what do you mean pretend… what do you mean anymore… what world do you live in…

do you actually think being white cancels out misogyny or something. like I don’t even know where to begin with this… I really feel like somehow people have taken to adding “white” before they make a blatantly misogynistic statement so they can avoid criticism lmao. ah damn we can’t object now or we’ll be racist !

obviously some of them are fucking awful and being a woman doesn’t excuse that and white women have certain privilege others don’t etc etc. no shit dude. but this is…so beyond objecting to just that... also people really love shitting on white women in particular even more than white people in general which really I Wonder Why

i remember when roe was overturned and there were a bunch of people being like wait this is bad. because it can even affect trans men, and also certain minorities will be worse off

those are relevant points yeah but… can you not just care about… women in general..??? sorry now I sound like a fucking all lives matter guy but how else can I say this, sure some rich (usually white) women might be able to get around it but it doesn’t change how this is primarily an issue of women’s bodily autonomy. also I don’t even think the ability to sidestep it means they’re not affected, that they still have to do something extra is.. bad..?

I don’t think it’s wrong to point out those caveats or anything, it’s just a weird feeling I get that a lot of people won’t care if you just mention it’s bad for women. because they don’t think misogyny is a real issue anymore

also in more minor things, being gacha-diseased as I am (sorry) watching ppl act like media is unfairly biased against male characters is… a take… (it’s not even remotely true in gacha !! what !!! Every time I remember that one stat about how ppl perceive women as talking the majority of the time when they talk more than 33% or smth *don’t remember the exact number sorry. told you this is just some rant)

yknow what it’s not just gacha, either it’s bad for female characters to exist because it’s political (lol) or it’s bad because it’s waifubait for straight men. well most people will see the first one for bullshit but the second… is something why I am so glad you’re unable to see female characters as anything other than sex objects! (you don’t need to be attracted to women to do that btw)

it’s really depressing to see this even from people who seem like they should have better views on this stuf (how do I phrase this...)

ah right recently i saw a quote from someone involved with tlou2 circulating around tumblr about how all games except tlou2 were bad or something

Obviously it was a fake quote. i mean...tlou2... i’ve never played it but we’ve all heard the complaints about it for the crime of having a muscular woman or something. and also just being bad in general because it has to be a triple A gameTM idk I didn’t look too into this honestly im not into these things

and yknow what im sure it’s not a very good game, you’re allowed to dislike things, etc. but because of the type of backlash, maybe you should have a thought that when someone posts something outlandishly bad related to it, mmmmaybe they have some kind of agenda. just a thought

(yeah if you looked in that post’s comments the op was going on to defend gamergate. and i suppose a lot of people now don’t even know what that is...)

so it’s like, why does this matter--you can see it with that post itself, you just gave that guy a platform to tell a bunch of previously unaware people about why diversity in video games is bad and women are ruining everything actually. but hey that’s fine because we fixed misogyny already don’t worry about it

....i really think a lot of this is coming from people who don’t realize, and that might be the worst part of it...

[grave-things]

op, thank you for this - this pretty much sums up my thoughts on this whole situation as well. perhaps the first thing in the original doc by Ven that clued me in to the fact that this may be nothing more than slander is when Ven admitted to having fears of being seen as only a sexual object to Alex - and then agreeing to go from being in a relationship, to being friends with benefits. why would they agree to that, if their fears were so big? i have seen one of the "victims" try to claim that they couldn't be transphobic, because they were trans - ignoring that they are calling a trans woman (or, at the very least, someone questioning their gender) a pedophile for being a "man in a dress" near kids. it is LAUGHABLE. some other honorable mentions for supposed "victims": 1: someone who admits they never had any sexual contact with Alex. saying that they felt obligated to compliment Alex in a groupchat for discussing gender, where the person says they were all posting selfies and complimenting each other freely, despite Alex apparently being their friend? and then seemingly blaming Alex for them beginning to self-harm after reading the original doc. 2: someone who had been flirting with Alex and was planning an irl meet up. Alex told this person, well before they met up, that it would probably be best to wait until they met up before getting into a relationship. something about wanting to see if they were compatible irl iirc? they met up, and were friendly, but afterwards Alex told the person that they didn't want to pursue the relationship. apparently it was now Alex's fault for giving this person 'self-worth issues' and making them feel 'ugly'. 3: someone who was flirting with Alex. that was it. they said they felt 'pressured' into doing it, despite their own screenshots showing them reciprocating, eagerly. the kicker? Alex asked for the person's age before continuing to flirt. this person was 22.

sorry for the ramble. i just wanted to point out how absolutely ridiculous some of these 'callouts' are. a creator simply talking to their fans, making friends with them, is not a creator with a 'parasocial fetish', whatever that even means. it is not someone who is 'abusing power imbalances'. Alex only wanted friends. and they were villainized for it.

As much as Alex’s response was gracious and well written, I really do believe anyone who bothered to read through the original “callout” document could have come to most of these conclusions themselves. It’s a ridiculous laundry list of personal relationship grievances, outing a trans woman while claiming her identity is a lie and her presentation inherently fetishistic, and attempting to vilify and humiliate her by publicly exposing details of her sex life. With the exception of heavily venting to a 16 year old fan, which I do see as irresponsible and which Alex acknowledges and apologizes for in her response, there’s basically nothing in the document that merits outrage to begin with. It appears that Ven is at least 22 years old. That’s my age, and it makes this whole thing feel almost comical. 22 is old enough to be able to handle expressing your boundaries—yes, even in conversation with a person who has almost a million subscribers on youtube for their spooky horror videos, wow, what social power—especially when that person is clearly receptive and immediately pumps the brakes when you do bring those boundaries up.

I’ve been following the discussion surrounding this pretty closely for the last week or so, and am happy to see that plenty of other people have noted the rampant transmisogyny and general abuse of buzzwords to rile up the impressionable and bloodthirsty internet into trying to validate the Victim’s hurt feelings over their ex. It’s despicable. I wish the very best for Alex moving forward. Please at LEAST read the call out posts you are spreading with a critical eye, especially when those posts (as they often do!!) attempt to equate transfeminine identity with “perversion.” That should be an instant red flag.

[talisidekick]

It shouldn't be this hard.

Warning: long post, surgery reference, talks about cock.

I've been struggling about my decision to get GCS/SRS and there's more than one complex reason why:

The first is that starting out on my journey [when I admitted I hated myself and my body so much in the past that I now felt numb, and the only real feeling I had was a want (not a need) to be a girl] I went to a transgender focused clinic in my area in the attempt to get on hormones. It was informed consent and one of the forms they gave me to choose to sign was admission to part of an optional study on transgender people and I can't go into much further detail. All my experiences have been documented thus far. And I said I was interested in getting SRS because at the start I thought I wanted everything, and there's nothing more I would love than to contribute to a study on trans healthcare in a positive way. In this world today, a study like this is paramount to countering transphobe conjecture, rhetoric, and ridicule, and especially important if it's used by local governments in the future to justify expanding trans heathcare services. And as I've continued my hormone regimen I learned my wants were needs. I needed to transition because it made me go from a numb sense of nothingness to having hopes, and wants, and desires, and feeling love, and joy, and even negative emotions like anger and envy. I'm ... alive again after so long. I feel again. So I come back to my initial statement of wanting SRS and do I actually want this? I'm part of a study, am I wanting SRS out of obligation? Or do I want SRS?

The second is ... a lack of dysphoria. I've always been ambivalent about everything. Numb. Being a girl was a want that only became a need because I realized I'd shut down all negative feeling to cope. I can now emotionally feel bad, but I still remain neutral on my own dick when it comes to my feelings. Am I just repressing again? I've never had to shower with the lights off, never felt disgusted looking down, never felt unnerved or hated masturbating, but is that because I've shut that off? Like growing boobs is probably the happiest thing in my life right now. Watching my hips fill out over this last year has been awesome. All things I wanted but never knew I needed. Is my dislike of the bulge in jeans because of societal pressure? Or do I dislike how that looks on a personal level? Am I fine with it, in reality? I've read peoples intimate recounts of sex from both non-op and post-op trans women and ... both are ... euphoric in that I could have that one day, maybe. But is that euphoria from being liked and treated as a woman in an intimate setting, or euphoria from being a non-op or post-op trans woman? Am I just looking to be accepted intimately? Loved for who I am now, or do I feel an intrinsic need to look a certain way for myself or is societal pressure, this obsession with what's in a trans womans pants making me want to change so I can have confidence in knowing bad actors could never tell if push came to sexual assault? Am I wanting SRS because the cock feels wrong on me, or because I'm looking at this hellscape before me and trying to find safety?

The third is ... well ... transitioning is expensive. Hair removal on my legs, ass, back, hands, and stomach (I got lumberjack genes apparently) costs a sizeable amount (face and chest were covered by local gov't), and so does face feminization surgery (ffs) if after a few years and the facial hair being removed I decide I need it to realize being me, and even just clothes which I don't have the money for right now. And it may come down to me needing to market myself in the porn industry to get what I need to feel normal. Just a reality of capitalism. Being a girl with a cock is a niche market and a potential source of income. So do I want to keep it because ... it'll potentially give me access to the means I need to change the things I do know I dislike about myself? Because it could improve my current quality of life? I mean ... I know my gov't pays for it but not travel expenses up front, so I don't even have the money to really even get to the clinic if I'm approved.

Fouth and lastly ... I've always loved the idea of being that girl that stands up and defends. Not to be a hero, just to know I'm justified in telling others to fuck off and help someone struggling out of the muck so they can shine. I don't ever want to really be famous or a celebrity, just someones personal inspiration that makes them a hero for others to look up to. I mean, it's in the name of the blog: sidekick. That's my goal. Someone else can be the hero. And keeping the dick and still proving to the world I am a woman regardless by just living every day in it ... that can really help others feel normal. Okay in expressing anyway they feel, shine as individuals because if I can do it so can they.

And so ... I'm stuck. SRS ... yes or no? Do I want it for my own personal reasons, out of obligation to science and peers, or safety in conforming? Do I want to keep it because I'm fine with it, because I'm trying to be an inspiration to those with greater potential than myself, or because it can help me get more of what I need if I keep it? The greater question I keep landing on, but I'm unable to answer is: if society didn't care, if there was no obligation for science or money, if I was just accepted as me and loved either way, what would I do? Only ... I can't compartmentalize. These are huge factors for who I am, who I want to be, and the impact I could be making.

It shouldn't be this hard, and it is, and before anyone jumps in saying I need to talk to a therapist or a psychologist ... there's no time. I'm sitting on the forms now. They need to go off and I have to make the choice ...

And yet ... I fear that choice is being made for me as well because even if I do ... I can't afford to go. Not just the flight ... it's 6 months recovery time and even if I qualified for disability payments during that period, it's only 60% of what I currently make ... which at my wage I already live paycheck to paycheck ... so am I fine not being able to get this proceedure? And I don't know.

This is why I haven't made a stream or video in over a month. It shouldn't be this hard. I'm struggling.

[loracarol]

White Trans Woman: People keep stealing packages off of my porch so I made a zine as a package trap asking why the thief keeps stealing and including an email where the thief can email me anonymously if they want to open a dialogue. Then after I posted it on twitter, people asked if they could buy a copy so I put it up for sale.

People on Twitter being Totally Normal: This has big "can I speak to your manager" energy, actually it's about ethics in zine making, you need to think about how race/class lines tend to fall w stealing, just talk to your neighbors, the fact that you won't talk to your neighbors means that you're probably gentrifying, OP should have included their cashapp in the zine and/or just put money in the package

tag yourself, I'm the person claiming to be anti-racist while simultaneously assuming that the package thief is a POC...

More rambling + image descriptions under the cut.

Image descriptions:

all images are of twitter conversations, and all have had the names blocked out

Image One:

Purple: idk this rubs me the wrong way ! like why do you think people are taking packages in the midst of mass death, unemployment, evictions... im sry your packages were stolen but this has big can i speak to your manager energy and now they are selling this zine ! ugh feels gross to be clear, i am not saying that people cannot be upset about getting packages stolen. also i'm not sure why my tweets are being read as personal attack on the OP? just naming my discomfort + how we should all strive to think about race+class and how our indiv actions fit in

Image two:

this is what happens when you lose sight of zine ethics and the radical socialist traditions from which zines emerge

Image Three:

Blue: i feel like that would depend on where you live and what you're ordering through the mail. I took this as an attempt to start a dialogue with someone who might be taking things this person really needs.

Purple (again): i guess that my first thought was that usually stealing packages is not personal + thinking about who might feel the need to steal, how race/class lines tend to fall w stealing. staring dialogue makes sense but to me this reads as scornful + insensitive, esp bc she's selling the zine

Image four:

Teal: peak passive aggressiveness lol, this seems like way more effort that just talking to your neighbor but idk reminds me of this roommate i had in college that printed off notes and taped them to my door instead of just talking to me lmfao

Lilac: yeah but you roommate actually knew you lmao it wasn't a stranger you can't even contact, projecting much?

Teal: huh?

Purple (different): Your room mate knew who you were. Eve doesn't know who the thief is, which is why contact them by leaving a note where they're likely to find it. Can't you read?

Teal: i'm unsure why she can't just talk to her neighbor, i guess, if someone in my building was stealing my packages, i'd just ask someone about it?

Image five:

it's almost as if the only people who think this is a good idea are w h i t e When white trans women think that they're above critique for being racist and will get their followers to harass POC and call them transmisogynist... You already told on yourself bc you won't just talk to your fucking neighbors in a city that you're probably gentrifying but okay.

Image six:

Pink: I am not assuming the race of the thief, I'm acknowledging that the OP went about packing stealing in a way that my comrades and I do not agree with. Their approach is lacking intention and does not consider mass death/disabling and scarcity. Zine as a gotcha? Give them money???

Purple (different): If the person wants money then they can contact the email op put in the zine. It's a harmless little project, It's not malicious, its ASKING for an anonymous conversation with the thief. Putting money directly in the box would further incentivize them to continue to steal from the op

Pink: She could've made a zine about resources, put her cashapp and asked that person to request $$ if they need some, not encourage more white people (esp. in cities) to engage in things that don't change material conditions of their marginalized neighbors.

Purple: IDK we just don't know enough about the situation to assume the thief is even impoverished or something. There's no use in making a fuss over it.

Rambling

In all seriousness, going through the retweets on the original thread, I found it fascinating how so many people concocted this story in their heads about how the package thief is definitely impoverished/probably POC and thus the OP has privilege over the package thief they created in their heads.

On top of that there was the way that the OP shouldn't be worried about getting their packages stolen (in a way that kind of came off as victim blamey ngl) + this idea of Schrodinger's package; the package is simultaneously something someone needs to steal while being something that the OP can afford to have stolen. (As someone who has my meds delivered to me, I had a raised eyebrow at this.)

Lastly, and IDK if I can phrase this correctly, there was this weird idea I saw floating around that the OP's whiteness canceled out the fact that she is a trans woman. Like, okay, I'm not trying to argue that being white doesn't give you privilege because it does, and being LGBTQA+ doesn't cancel that out, but there was this weird vibe to a lot of the comments that the fact that she was white meant that she didn't have to worry about transphobia. For example, the number of people saying that she should just go talk to her neighbors. I want to call it transphobia, but a lot of it was coming from people who ID'd as trans themselves (them used bc multiple people not meant to degender people). IDK, it was just weird. Like, the flip side of "white trans people still have white privilege" isn't "being white means you never face transphobia" but so many people were treating it like a "get out of transphobia free" card

(Also I'm personally not comfortable with the idea that if someone steals from me it's because (1) they need it more so (2) per socialist (??? if that's what it was supposed to be???) praxis I need to just suck it up, do nothing and give them more money. I mean, the OP made a zine and included her email so that the package thief could contact her if the thief wanted. She didn't put up cameras and then put the pics of the thief all over the internet, she didn't call the cops, she didn't booby-trap the package, she just made a zine with the option for the thief to open a dialogue, and somehow that was still not good enough.)

(And no, the people aren't trolls; I tracked down a couple before posting and they're all either really good at playing the long game at trolling or they're all very sincere.)

[pyaasa]

lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers is racist; she thinks she understands racism better than poc, stands by racists, and attacks poc for trying to speak to her about racism

Tw: racism, rape mention, incest mention. also possible transphobia 

For the full story, you first need a bit of background: if you’ve been following me for a while then you will be aware I have called out @ayeforscotland’s racism several times. I would recommend reading this post for a full explanation.

In addition to the incidences mentioned in the post I have just linked, ayeforscotland has also had interactions with neo @androidgynes who is Romani and another person who is black (but didn’t want to be named) and they’ve both also called him out for his racism.

Anyway so. @androidgynes​ saw that lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers was reblogging from ayeforscotland, and that the op of the post was @/getpoliticaluk (who defends incest). Androidgynes messaged lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers (who I will from now refer to as lagstm) and informed her that ayeforscotland is racist and getpoliticaluk defends incest - the conversation that followed went like this. (the below screenshots are posted with permission from @androidgynes​)

The post that neo (@androidgynes) linked of mine was this. And I mean... clearly that particular post by ayeforscotland was very racist, he literally just sat there laughing about anti-black racism as if it was a joke. When @mangopickled​ tried to speak to him about how offensive this post was, he removed her comments from the notes of the post (like. to be clear: ayeforscotland, a WHITE MAN, made a post about racism, and then removed a WOMAN OF COLOUR’S commentary from that post when she told him that his comments were inappropriate). When I saw that, I called that out, and he blocked me. There’s many levels to his racism here that I don’t have the energy to explain, and if you don’t understand why it’s so problematic then you should probably stop reading here cos you clearly know nothing and probably care even less about anti-racism.

So on that particular post that neo linked to lagstm, there is ayeforscotland being racist, and 2 woc calling out his racism. And yet on having this post shown to her, this is how she chose to respond

lagstm literally says that she thinks my views on racism lack nuance. I am a woman of colour, I am visibly muslim, and I’ve experienced racism pretty much all my life. And here is a white woman saying that she thinks my views on racism “lack nuance”. I,, I genuinely don’t have words to convey how angry this makes me. Literally who does she even think she is. Not even is it racist to dismiss my literal LIVED experience of being a woman of colour in this country, but she is literally saying “look at these stupid brown folk, they don’t know what they’re talking about cos they’re so stupid :)”

neo points out firstly that as a white person lagstm doesn’t have the right to make that call, and also that there is ofc another woc on that post saying that exact same thing, and androidgynes themselves are roma. lagstm is not just dismissing me as a stupid savage who is too stupid to form complex thoughts, but she is also indirectly saying the same thing about 2 other poc, and saying that her judgement, as a white person, is more sound than all of ours.

It’s also worth mentioning that neo, who is Romani, was polite to lagstm during this exchange, and lagstm was rude and dismissive. I find this deeply hypocritical. Lagstm has been talking a lot about the policing bill and how it will affect GRT communities, but when she’s talking to someone who is actually *from* the Roma community, she is dismissive and condescending. All this shows is that she’s fake AF. She pretends to care about the Roma community on her blog and then speaks down to them in private.

And again this is worth repeating: AYEFORSCOTLAND WAS BEING RACIST ON THAT POST. IT WAS RACIST. WHAT HE SAID WAS RACIST. So lagstm isn’t just ignoring 3 poc, she is also ignoring,,,, you know,,, the actual racism,,,

And she also says ayeforscotland is borderline racist? Like she acknowledges ayeforscotland is borderline racist but she’s still happy to follow him? Like that alone would be enough for me actually

neo then blocked lagstm and messaged me and told me what happened, and showed me the above screenshots - btw prior to this neo and I had never interacted. Anyway I was obviously a bit disgusted but instead of going straight to blocking lagstm or making a callout post straight away, I messaged her to explain herself and take back what she said. That is now two poc who tried to resolve the matter privately - clearly a lot more than lagstm ever deserved. Androidgynes messaged me last Friday, and I messaged lagstm the next day on Saturday

My convo with lagstm went as follows:

So you can see that initially she was apologetic and said she “didn’t mean to imply that that my judgement on racism was flawed” (even tho that’s literally what she said) and defended herself by saying “I react poorly in interactions like this” - genuinely not a defence but whatever. She then proceeded to say that what she doesn’t trust my opinion on is Scotland and Ireland - which completely irrelevant. Firstly I am ambivalent to Scottish nationalism and have always said I don’t know much about it, and I support the reunification of Ireland. And secondly, my issue with aye has got literally nothing to do with Scotland or Scottish nationalism; he is racist all on his own. And the post neo linked was barely even about scottish nationalism, it was just him being anti-black. So lagstm saying “I don’t trust your judgement on Scotland and Ireland” is ridiculous considering that Scottish/Irish nationalism have nothing to do with this.

Like akjfbkjdfbs this is actually so ridiculous. It doens’t make any sense. Lagstm clearly says “I don’t trust pakisstani’s judgement on THIS issue [the issue being racism] and her views on THIS issue [the issue being racism] lack nuance” but now turns around and says “I wasn’t talking about racism, I was talking about Scotland/Ireland” like she must really think I’m dumb

And you can see Lagstm bringing up unrelated hypothetical scenarios, and saying “in this situation, you can’t tell me to defer to poc” which i found ??? Like why are you bringing up scenarios in which you think you are allowed to educate us poor and stupid black and brown folk?? I then told her she was straw-manning and that her points about Ireland/Scotland were ridiculous, but then she claimed it was me that was engaging her in bad faith. Like SHE, the white woman who practically said that I am too stupid to understand racism, and when confronted on it started straw-manning and bringing up unrelated scenarios, said I am not engaging her in good faith. AFTER both neo and I tried to speak to her privately about this. Like I tried to speak to her privately AFTER I FOUND OUT SHE HAD SAID RACIST THINGS ABOUT ME. BUT I’M NOT ENGAGING HER IN GOOD FAITH? LMAOOO

And then the accusation about rape threats which is actually the most disgusting part of this entire thing. I shouldn’t have to explain that accusing 2 poc of conspiring to send her rape threats (without any evidence whatsoever. Frankly I think she’s lying about the rape threats 🤷🏽‍♀️ it’s quite a transparent attempt to distract from her own nasty behaviour and deflect onto us) is actually extremely racist. She is invoking her white fragility and painting me and androidgynes as aggressors who are threatening her safety and inflicting/threatening to inflict sexual violence on her. It is beyond disgusting 🤮

What’s more, neo is trans, so when lagstm is baselessly accusing them of issues related to rape, she is also playing up to transphobic tropes.

One more thing worth mentioning is that there are several lies peppered throughout lagstm’s comments. Firstly when she claimed to have briefly unfollowed me - she didn’t actually. I was checking regularly, and she never unfollowed me. This was a small lie that I picked up on striaght away but because it wasn’t relevant I didn’t say anything about it. But I just think it’s interesting that she would lie for no reason. And another lie - feigning ignorance about ayeforscotland’s racism, and actually even asking for receipts is incredibly disingenuous when on this particular post, if you scroll through the notes, you can see she has literally liked it. Like she had already seen the posts where me and mangopickled called out his racism and literally LIKED it, and when neo says to lagstm that aye is racist, lagstm says “receipts please :)” YOU’VE ALREADY SEEN THEM! AND LIKED THEM! screenshot in case she unlikes it (sorry for including dumb comments by dumb scots but i need to prove it’s the same post so):

LASTLY. Last point I swear. When lagstm said “it was also coloured by the statements they’d made about another tumblr user, which didn’t relate to racism, which I didn’t address with them because I didn’t want to upset them” <- she must mean getpoliticaluk defending incest? So like what is lagstm saying here, she didn’t want to bring up that she also herself defends incest?? Like is she tryna say she’s a pro-shipping freak?????????????????????? What other way is there to read that statment

Okay that’s everything.

I’m not interested in discourse on this post - if you are white and think lagstm isn’t racist or you’re inclined to defend her then save your breath, I don’t need white people telling me what is or isn’t racist. I gave her the chance to defend herself, which is way more than she deserves, and this is how she responds. Her actions and indefensible and she can choke ☺️❤️  I will be unfollowing/blocking anyone I see reblogging from her because I deserve better than to follow people who are ok with racists ❤️ 

[cardentist]

I want to link my other thread on this post where I dig into my feelings in more depth. I go into some things that I'm going to get into here, as well as things I might not touch on in this response: [Link]

nobody Has to read it, but if you want to argue with this response then I'm considering it required reading. people are free to think I'm wrong, but I want them to know what my perspective is before telling me so.

I also want to say that while this Is a response to what you've said, this is largely just. me expressing something. it's a response to you but it's also a verbalization of my feelings on a lot of things from a lot of people.

I'm going to try to be as fair as possible, we're both speaking about something that's clearly very important to us on an emotional level and I can understand Why you'd respond this way. but this Is hurtful to me. that said, my frustration here isn't with you specifically (not really), it's with a pattern of interactions I've had up until this point.

that Said

my original post is tagged:

"this is more of a vent post than anything but it's a thought on my mind. I'm tagging this transandrophobia (and called out the existence of trans men and mascs in particular) because I am those things, and that's the tag that I use to talk about those issues that affect these things. but this is really about all marginalized men" [End Transcription]

this was a vent post I made because the Core Idea of the post in the screenshot is something that I agree with and have for years (that women and girls are unrepresented in media and fandom), but the post itself had a visceral effect on me while reading.

I reflected on those feelings and attempted to get them out into words. that it upset me, why it upset me, and a wish that people would word this sentiment in a way that wasn't potentially hurtful to people they did not mean to hurt.

as I have repeated Multiple Times throughout this post, I do not and have never blamed the op for this. I don't Think that they intended to imply anything about anybody, I think they did the exact same thing that I did. wrote a post about something that they feel very strongly about from their perspective.

which is why I chose to create my own post with their name redacted, and why I chose to reiterate multiple times that the op of the post didn't do anything Wrong. I did not want to speak over the original post, as it Was making a valid point. I just Also wanted to speak about my frustration with the ways that people Word conversations like this. not because they Intend to be harmful, but because they never considered that what they're saying Could hurt somebody in the first place.

and it's strange to me that in doing all of this I have now had Multiple People walk up to me to tell me to my face that I'm wrong for speaking, that I am Somehow talking over women while deliberately going out of my way to Not step on the toes of the original point.

just by acknowledging that my feelings were hurt and that I wish people would have more consideration for my perspective I'm being spoken to as if I'm in Competition with women.

you brought up trans women to Assert that trans men are always talking over trans women. While Specifically coming onto my post to talk over me about my feelings.

why is it necessary to Insist that what I'm talking about Doesn't Matter because I'm a trans man, to insist that what I'm talking about isn't a "societal issue" to de-emphasize and delegitimize my feelings to my face?

this is my issue, Consistently people see trans men speak on their feelings and their first response is to belittle them. to minimize them and insist that they don't matter. when that simply Is Not Necessary or justified. it isn't About trans men being more or less oppressed than women, cis women trans women or any sort of woman, it's about trans men being People who deserve dignity. who deserve to be thought of.

"this is not a societal issue" and lets say it isn't, why is it a Bad Thing to ask to have my feelings considered? why does it Need to be a societal issue to justify considering the feelings of people with a different perspective? why can it not just matter because I'm a person.

That's the issue I was speaking about with that second response. I got that reply (and that person showing up in my dms) when this post had Two Notes, one of which was Me. I've come to learn that this person deliberately goes through tags relevant to trans men to talk down to the people posting.

and that's something I've experienced Quite A Bit. with nearly every post I've made about my experiences as a trans man, actually.

people see trans men Existing and Speaking About Themselves as inherently transgressive, and react as if they need to be put back into their place. and I don't understand it.

again, I want to take you in good faith, but I can't understand Why you'd see a post like this, check the notes to see if you find tags relating to trans men in it, and then come to the conclusion that this post needs to be put down for being transgressive to trans women somehow.

I imagine this response won't get much traction because I front loaded so much of it with my ~Feelings~ but it was necessary, considering my feelings were the core of the post in the first place.

that said ! there are some discussion points that I'd like to touch on.

firstly ! the first paragraph is. well, the point ! I expanded on that exactly (within the context of this post anyhow) in the thread I linked at the start of this reply.

you're right, there Are marginalized people in every group. which is Exactly The Point. there is no Type Of Person that's free game to make fun of and put down with no nuance that Won't affect marginalized people.

my point is that we Shouldn't try to designate a group of people that we're allowed to hurt. this isn't just about the issue we're speaking about at all, but the overall shape that fandom and discourse and the internet as a whole has taken.

people Like to try to find groups of people that "deserve" to be hurt and then Use the fact that they "deserve" it to justify whatever it is they do. it happens with petty fandom bullying and it happens with exclusion in queer spaces.

with the exception of the people who voluntarily group themselves together based on their harmful beliefs, there Is No Group Of People who are Inherently justified to hurt. there are people who are more or less likely to have specific experiences (a white person isn't likely to have experienced racism), but there is no class of people that you can deliberately refuse to show compassion because you don't think they Deserve it.

which circles back to what I was saying earlier. All People should inherently be deserving of compassion. and that means listening to and considering their perspective and feelings. you don't have to think that everyone is Right, there are people who just have fundamental beliefs that don't align with yours, but there should be no group of people that you refuse to listen to or take seriously Because of the kind of person that they are.

next, I want to address the second paragraph.

for this one, I'd actually like to link another post of mine that expands on a point that I'm going to make here [Link]

again, nobody Has to read it, but it might help explain my perspective.

what I'm taking from what you've written, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that You're frustrated because you feel that trans men are centered in trans discussions online. so it's frustrating, in turn, to see a trans man insist that his voice hasn't been adequately considered.

and here's the thing.

I believe you. there Are trans men who speak over trans women, there Are trans men who belittle trans women and treat them as if they're lesser, as if they're bigots, as if they're oppressors.

but I am Also correct. there are trans women who speak over trans men, there are trans women who belittle trans men and treat them as if they're lesser, as if they're bigots, as if they're oppressors.

you're Right that your experience has happened, It Has. you're Wrong in thinking that your experience is the universal one.

in fact, this isn't an issue of trans men vs trans women At All. the person I've screenshot in my followup Is A Trans Man. the Majority Of People who have spoken down to me and belittled me for talking about my experiences as a trans man Haven't Been trans women (they've been other trans men and cis people, for the most part).

the disconnect here is that Every Single Kind Of Trans Person has been belittled within the queer community. from other trans people, from cis people who think they're speaking for other trans people, from bigots who don't realize they're transphobic, from bigots who Revel in it.

there is no group of trans people who Aren't being talked down to, who Aren't being belittled, who Aren't being openly attacked. and the same is true for Any marginalized group within the queer community, any marginalized group At All.

it's ridiculous from My perspective to have had, Universally, every single post I've ever made talking about my experiences as a trans person for the last Ten Years belittled and talked down to (and sometimes actively harassed over) Because Of The Kind Of Trans Person That I Am. and then be told that I'm Privileged within this group that I've experienced near relentless negativity within.

people treat trans women and trans men like they're opposites on a scale, and if one thing is true for trans men then it Can't be true for trans women and vice versa. but that just Isn't True.

trans women are harassed within queer and trans specific spaces Because they are trans women, trans men are harassed within queer and trans specific spaces Because they are trans men, nonbinary people are harassed within queer and trans specific spaces Because they are nonbinary.

all of these experiences are true at the same time, none of them detract from the other. and All individuals within these groups deserve the space to talk about those experiences without being held in Comparison To other groups as a whole.

trans men are not the opposite of trans women, trans men speaking about their experiences implies Nothing about the experiences of trans women as long as nothing is Stated about said experiences.

and Generally Speaking I find that assumptions about other groups of trans people not sharing an experience with you is just wrong. which is Exactly why individuals talking about their experiences, even if those experiences are Statistical Outliers are important!

why go out of your way to deny solidarity to people who share experiences with you in favor of isolating them. it makes no sense to me. it's not a Bad thing to share with people who otherwise have experiences that you don't. (note, this point is more general, rather than necessarily being about you specifically. I don't know you and I don't want to make assumptions about you, but it's related to the subject matter I'm speaking about).

also, if I'm being honest. I find the point that trans men are oppressed elsewhere but Aren't oppressed in trans spaces as like, a point Against the idea that I as a trans man feel unseen to be very very silly.

I live my life in the real world. I had somebody walk up to me today and ask me if there was something wrong with me because I'm a visibly feminine person who is bald. my grandpa asked me if I was girl again because my hair was past my ears a few weeks ago. transphobia is Real in my day to day life in the real world.

moreover, random people on the internet aren't always guaranteed to be trans or trans inclusive in the first place. even disregarding everything about trans experiences within the queer community, how is it appropriate to tell a trans person that they're Wrong for wanting more people to consider the perspective of trans people. Because Other Trans People Already Consider That Perspective.

again, there's this feeling of Competitiveness that doesn't make any sense once you examine it. like an individual needs to be The Most Oppressed before they're allowed to speak on something. which isn't healthy in the first place, but also doesn't work when we're talking on an Individual Level.

I don't want to throw around "oppression points" because that's just not fair, but there's like. this Assumption that everyone within specific groups can be categorized in tiers of oppression, as if labels can dictate experiences. when that's just not how real people Work.

I find it really difficult to be consistently cut out of conversations about misogyny, to be propped up as benefiting from Male Privilege, when my life was ruined from sexual abuse before I knew what a Gender Identity was.

I don't want to get into it but like. odds are I'm never going to hold down a normal job, I do my best to contribute to the house hold that I'm in but I'm completely dependent on other people. and part of that is due to other factors (disability, neurodivergency, etc) but a big part of it For Me is undeniably the trauma that changed the way my brain functioned forever.

I'm Not transitioned, and it's very unlikely that I will be for many Many years to come. and even then, I'm very much so not gender conforming (whether I'm a gnc trans man or an aligned nonbinary person or genderqueer or bigender changes on which way the wind is blowing).

but even if I Did. even if I transitioned to the point of passing and chose to present as gender conforming and magically got on my feet and moved somewhere where nobody knew I was trans, I would still carry the violence that someone committed because I was a little girl once. my life Before all of that would still be with me, it would still weigh on me and Affect me.

and I'm Not saying this to present this experience as a Comparison. I'm not saying this to say that other people Haven't experienced something like this (they have, an unfortunate amount of people have), and I'm not saying this to say that You haven't (I don't know that, I couldn't know that).

but I Am saying this because it's Frustrating. it's Frustrating to be told over and over and over again that I don't have a perspective that's worth talking about. that I don't have Experiences that are worth talking about. that I am Privileged. that I couldn't Understand what it's like to experience misogyny. that people like me Don't experience violence. that people like me are identical to cis men once we Look a specific way (and it's assumed, of course, that we will eventually).

I have never seen an experience like mine in mainstream media, but it's taken for granted that I'm over represented and Boring. because being a man seems to cancel out everything else for some people. because "man" is presented without nuance as this homogeneous black and white Idea rather than a collection of People.

I think if I were ever allowed to transition, which I can't see happening within this decade just like it didn't within the last, I might consider myself some form of transfem. I like the idea of being seen as masculine And feminine. of the deep voice and facial hair, the square jaw, paired with breasts and pretty lips and pretty hair and pretty clothes.

but people look at me like that now, in those clothes, in hair longer than my ears, and they see a cis woman. they see something I'm not. so I shave my head and I admire the pretty things about myself behind closed doors.

I consider this a male experience, whatever I may be in a theoretical future I am also a trans man. and I have never seen this in media in my life. I've never Seen Myself.

and so it hurts to see it insisted that I'm the default. that it's not Worth considering that my experience may be one that Should be told. because people don't Think about people like me.

and most of the time they don't Mean anything by it. but it doesn't matter what they Mean if I'm not allowed to speak out about it myself. if my feelings, my experiences, my identity and life is assumed to not be worth speaking about.

what does it mean to be privileged among the marginalized? to be told that you don't Need to speak, that you Shouldn't Speak, that your speaking is harmful somehow because you don't have it Bad Enough to deserve it.

I made this post because I'm frustrated, and that's still true. I don't blame you and I don't blame the person who made the original post, and I really don't blame individuals in the first place. because it's not individual people, individuals are all just like me. people desperately reaching out for understanding and acceptance and support.

but for the atmosphere as a Whole to change we need to be willing to let people speak because they are people. because they have value by being people.

I'm not blaming the op of the original post, or trying to imply anything about them as a person. and I don't want to single out this post in particular, because the issue is an broadly reaching trend rather than any one individual happening to write a post in five minutes one time.

but I really Really wish we'd stop and think if it's a good idea to say "girls turning into boys makes them inherently less interesting" on the transgender website

picking a privileged group to be the butt of a joke because it's lighthearted when nobody's actually getting hurt by doing so Only Works when everyone within that group is actually privileged. making jokes about how men are lesser than doesn't Actually affect the people who are actually within power, but Does chip away at the confidence and comfort of marginalized men who are In these communities to be exposed to it.

and the issue isn't about any one joke or poorly worded discussion in particular, but it's difficult to articulate why it can feel so alienating and unsafe to have things like this be so common within my communities without sounding ridiculous or risk being made fun of for not being able to take a joke. because the framing of implied privilege makes it easy to twist those feelings alienation into the entitlement that's assumed with men taking issue with being the butt Of a joke.

I simply think "this type of person is inherently lesser than" should be reexamined and thrown out as a talking point, even in a lighthearted context. because there will always be vulnerable people within those groups who already Hear that they are lesser than for existing

[vampish-glamour]

I was tagged in this by @ugh-fml but was recently blocked by OP for, unbeknownst to me, being a terf. Their reasoning for my supposed terfy ways; believing enbies can’t be lesbians. Which is the opposite of what terfs believe, but I guess that doesn’t matter because as we all know, “terf” means “person (lesbian) I don’t agree with and who makes me feel invalid”.

I’d still like to respond, because I have Thoughts.

Okay, let’s break this down.

For the whole “validity” aspect, I’ll link this post. I was actually going to include it here… but decided it should be it’s own post. So that post will cover anything here that makes an argument based on “validity”.

Now let’s look at the whole “it’s their business if they want to call themselves something that doesn’t describe them, people who that word does describe can’t complain” thing.

I’m not transgender. I don’t experience gender dysphoria, I have no desire to transition. I am comfortable with my birth sex, my birth pronouns, my birth name, everything.

But you know what…”transgender” just has such a nice ring to it. And the flag is really pretty, pink blue and white are just such a nice colour combination. I think I’m going to call myself transgender.

No, I’m not planning on transitioning from one gender/sex to the other. No, I don’t have any discomfort with my birth sex. No, the word “transgender” literally does not describe me. But it just feels right. So transgender people have no right to come and tell me that I’m not valid, because I get to pick my own identity and it’s my own business and I’m valid!! I am a female to female (FtF) transgender!!! If trans people don’t accept me as one of them, they’re FtFphobic. And to those of you who say I don’t fit the definition of transgender; I changed the definition to fit me. It doesn’t fit transgender people anymore, but that’s okay because I feel good.

I would really hope that this sounds ridiculous to you. I would hope that anyone who reads that, especially transgender people, would be rolling their eyes and ready to tell me off if I were being serious.

It doesn’t matter if I think a word (in this case, transgender) feels good, or if I think it’s my new identity. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell you I’m valid. The word does not describe me, and I therefore should not and can not use it. And if I insisted on using it despite it not describing me, trans people absolutely have the right to make it their business, because I’d be hijacking a word they use to describe themselves and using it in a way it’s not intended to be used (and in a way that it doesn’t make sense to use).

Apply this to combining nonbinary and lesbian.

Lesbian is understood to be a descriptive word of women’s homosexuality. Nonbinary is understood to be a descriptive word for those whose gender falls outside of the binary.

The two do not mix. If you say “I am a lesbian”, you are saying that you are a homosexual woman. If you say that you are nonbinary, you are saying that you are not a woman and not a man.

So to say “I am a nonbinary lesbian”, you are literally saying “I am not a woman or a man and I am a homosexual woman”.

It makes no sense.

Now regarding my above statement on how I could claim to be transgender despite not being transgender… the ridiculousness of that statement is what many people, especially homosexual women, see when we see people claiming to be a “nonbinary lesbian”. We see somebody who quite literally does not fit the definition of lesbian, calling themselves a lesbian for no good reason. We see somebody changing the definition of a term we use to describe our sexuality (note: sexuality, not identity).

On the part about “journey to discovery of self”….

What are you even talking about? What journey? What discovery? This seriously just sounds like some words strung together to sound profound and meaningful when they just… aren’t.

Yes, figuring out sexuality and gender can be a journey for some people. Redefining words and calling yourself something that doesn’t describe you doesn’t necessarily need to be part of that journey. Seriously, “lesbian = woman” is not a hard concept to grasp. If your little self discovery journey leads you to discovering you’re not a woman, congratulations, you’ve automatically discovered that you’re not a lesbian.

“Nonbinary lesbians have told me they’re lesbians, and that’s good enough for me”.

How dense. Just because somebody tells you something, doesn’t mean it’s true. I just told you earlier in this post that I’m transgender despite not being transgender in the most basic sense of the word. If I were to say what I said with complete seriousness, would that be good enough for you?? Would me, a cis girl, simply telling you that I’m FtF transgender, be good enough for you to believe that I really am transgender?? What if I started spreading my idea for FtF and got a bunch of other people on board? What if you had a bunch of FtF people telling you we’re transgender, because we saw a bunch of Tumblr posts about it and believe we’re valid trans people? Would that be good enough for you to support the idea of FtF transgender??

I certainly hope not. Because there’s no such thing as being both cisgender and transgender at the same time. Just like there’s no such thing as being not a woman, and a woman exclusively attract to women, at the same time.

And I’d like to ask, why do they think they can call themselves lesbians? Why do they want to call themselves lesbians? Why is it that people who claim to not be a binary gender, want to use a term that is binary in nature? Why do they feel the need to use a term that does not describe them?

And using the definition of lesbian that says “lesbian means woman exclusively attracted to women”, because that’s what it meant before a bunch of enbies changed it to suit their wants… what about “woman exclusively attracted to women” describes a nonbinary person in the way it describes a homosexual woman?

“You know what it’s like to be told what you should or should not be”

Yeah, I do. I see people telling homosexuals all the time that homosexuality is a sin, that it’s a temptation, that it’s unnatural, that we should get therapy to “fix” our sexuality, that our natural sexuality should be criminalized, that we should be killed for being homosexual… I could go on.

This is nowhere close to being the same as enbies being told that they cannot claim to be both genderless and a homosexual woman.

To even imply that homosexuals being told all of those things, and enbies being told to not be contradictory, are the same thing… is tone deaf and incredibly fucking insensitive.

Being told that your sexuality is unnatural and that you should change, is not the same as being told that the labels you’ve picked out for your “identity” are contradictory.

So I’m not even going to take that argument seriously, because what homosexuals are told about being homosexual, and what “nonbinary lesbians” are told about being “nonbinary lesbians”, ARE NOT THE SAME OR EVEN COMPARABLE.

At the end of all this… there is still no concrete reasoning for why somebody should be able to use a label that doesn’t describe them. Why somebody should be able to redefine that label to fit them, why they even need it to fit them in the first place.

“They’re valid” is not an argument.

“They told me so” is not an argument.

“It’s their identity” is not an argument.

What I am saying, which is;

“you cannot be both genderless and a homosexual woman. That is contradictory. You cannot use a label that doesn’t describe you, and you cannot redefine it to describe you if you cannot give a solid reason why it should describe you in the first place”,

that is an argument.

[hadtochangemyurlquick]

i saw in your bio your pronouns are “she/her probs” if you wouldn’t mind could you elaborate on that? you 100% don’t have to bc at the end of the day it’s none of my business but i’ve been thinking a lot about my own gender identity recently and your pronouns caught my eye

okay so basically, when i was born the doctor wasn’t there, he was helping out the teenage girl next door, and my mom had done it a bunch of times already so it was kinda no big deal? so there was no one there to be like “it’s a girl!” and i’ve been chasing that high ever since.

i was the youngest of too many, growing up on street with only little boys and my parents were never home so we’d basically be out and about until like 11pm trying to decide which god from the greek mythos was our secret parent and never once was i a girl with them we just didn’t have gender it didn’t exist

my two older sisters were extremely close whereas my two older brothers were hated each other and I was close with both of them individually so i never interacted with my sisters bc they were always hanging out together

when i started being a woman in middle school (my mom said I had to :/ ) i didn’t do it right and the first question i got asked was “are you a boy or are you a lesbian?”

i was so obsessed with looking like my older brother i kept my hair super super long and to this day he hasn’t cut it he keeps it in a man bun but i cut mine short directly after high school so i could go to an hwc like the fucking lesbian i am

the first girl i dated had four fingers in total on both her hands, not counting thumbs, and we fell in love play wrestling and like, physically rough housing, like i had with the little boys on my street growing up. she plays the viola to this day i think

when i first saw my now ex-boyfriend my first thought was, he’s either a lesbian or he’s trans, and to this day he’s identified as every label on the lgbtqa spectrum which is funny to me

i like the way i look in a binder but maybe that’s just cause i hate my body and want to punish it?

growing up i played a bunch of sports bc the commutes were the only guaranteed time alone i had with my dad and it was on a softball field in sixth grade that i realized i was a lesbian while looking at the short stop. her sister was a lesbian but the girl i liked was very straight :/

every dress i buy makes me look like an ethereal woodland goddess except for the one i bought that makes me look like a witch, and i look objectively gorgeous in them all except i dont wanna be pretty i want girls to jump out of their boots when they see me so i can catch them in my big strong arms and carry them home

once this kid i had a crush on and i watched the carmilla movie together. they were dating someone and i was pretty sure i was in love with them and when the sex scene came on i did not kiss them which i am both proud of and deeply regret

we also watched the miseducation of cameron post together with similar results

my grandfather carried around a pocket knife around with him everywhere bc he wanted to be useful, i carry around a backpack with a playing deck, a phone charger, a portable charger, a charger for my portable charger, a bar, bandaids, hand sanitizer, pen, pencil, notepad, pencil sharpener, a candle, a flashlight, a compass, matches, a book, lip stuff, pads, tampons, advil, neosporin, and a knife.

my dad has a big leather jacket i steal from him constantly and it’s big and brown and i keep an acorn in the pocket of it like i’m a stardew valley character who might need a nature snack. it’s very good for hiding in and definitely conceals my body

whenever i go shopping with my sisters they always try and dress me up as femininely as possible, despite neither of them being feminine in the slightest. whenever i go shopping with my brother i always empty my wallet. so i dont go shopping.

once i explained this problem to a close friend and he dropped off four shirts and those are pretty much the only thing i wear now. i found one pair of jeans that fit and i just wash those when they get dirty and hope low rise comes back into fashion eventually cause high rise hurts my belly

over time my friend group and family (extended family) has become increasingly trans allowing me to explore my gender for what it is, i don’t feel as though i always need to present anything bc often they’re too tired or in chronic pain to present anything either. in truth, my name is not gus, but it’s one i’m considering going by offline and that a few friends call me. i have warned my fam that i might change my name and pronouns and they were all like :/// okay sweetie, but not they/them okay? the grammar would be a nightmare which like. i’ll take it. they accepted me being a theater kid when i thought i was a theater kid, i’ll give ‘em a break on this one

this snl sketch is a very good thing that was made, my sister is one of those women at the beginning, she’s extremely fashion minded and so smart and aesthetic. the line ‘as a child you were humiliated in a kohls fitting room where your mother said something so harmful it seared off the top layer of your brain”

it was actually my mother’s room where i had been called fat one too many times by my brother and went to her and asked if i was. she said i could stand to lose a few.

my mother really struggled to lose her own baby weight as she had me late in life and with so many kids financial woes didn’t really ease out until i was maybe 7? 8? i didn’t realize at the time but she was looking at her reflection in one of the big mirrors she had in her room and even if she was talking to me she wasn’t talking to me, you know?

my mom did eventually lose the weight and got really in shape, like insanely in shape, she can now outrun god and dead lift satan on the days where her knee isn’t bothering her.

what else what else.

this poem:

“the tomboy grew up and she never went tame and she never found boys or makeup or nothing – nothing wrong with the girls who did but also it’s not inevitable, this progression womanhood rejected you, because where are the grownup tomboys? there’s no room for the rough-and-tumble girls to become rough-and-tumble foulmouthed broad-shouldered women. it’s alright to play at, daughter, they told you, but you have to grow up, and you were confused because you were playing at nothing the tomboy grew up, nonetheless. and instead of wrestling with friends she wrestled with herself for a while. but despite what they said, here she is, still rough, still wild. don’t believe the lies, daughter. grow as you need to. allow yourself to be pruned only to become stronger. grow bold and proud, daughter, like the trees that give you shelter, tomboy, wild girl. love the girls you dream of being strong for and the friends who bear you up when the storms shake your roots. there is value in the crabapple trees, wild daughter, even if the orchard-keeper turns up his nose. know this always, daughter: i love you exactly as you are, and however you need to be” by @sailorshadow

for julia in nebraska by addrienne rich

my friend got me that shirt during quarantine and i got the haircut a few weeks later

on the subject of rita mae brown who wrote ruby fruit jungle, i read the book while overseas in two days, didn’t look up the entire time, and was one of the first gay books i read. one of the things i loved about it was how the speaker was so unapologetically herself. how it ends on a note of bitter strength and triumphant defeat. i reread it while in georgia last year and found i had outgrown it. you might find some comfort in it, idk, just watch out bc there is some terf stuff in it? it aint perfect so just keep an eye out for that, it doesn’t ruin the book i don’t think, there’s other good stuff in it.

here’s some pictures of men:

growing up i was also surrounded by picture books, my grandmother was a children’s book librarian, and here are a couple of important figures:

then how to catch an elephant by amy schwartz but in particular this page:

and i’m sure i’m forgetting things but here’s my gender euphoria playlist:

i’m sure there’s stuff i’m not thinking of but i think that’s the gist of it? if you have any questions feel free to ask

ope! i almost forgot a couple of other important things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq27hcPTzDo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENxbcvUXfnM

hope this helps you on your journey!!!!!!

[voxofthevoid]

Taking It Up The Ass Isn’t Character Growth - A Rant

So, in response to an ask a while back, I said I had a rant brewing on fandom and sex positions, and well, a lot of you wanted to see it, so here you go. You literally asked for it.

Disclaimer: This is going to talk a lot about top/bottom roles in slash fic and fandom attitude towards them and is heavily filtered through the lens of my own tastes and experiences with fandom. I’d also like to be upfront that I am 100% in favor of people writing whatever fictional content they want, and it’s not what fandom does with characters that bothers me but rather how that translates into attitudes towards real, live people. Also, this is the essay version of a slow burn AU because I regurgitate my entire fandom history before getting to the point. Beware.

I discovered fan-fiction around a decade ago, had no clue what the hell it was, got hooked and dived deeper. I started participating in fandom circa 2013, and I was fairly young and also completely inexperienced both sexually and romantically. The fandom in question was Hannibal and my ship of choice was Hannibal/Will. It was/is a very chill fandom in general, but we had our drama. And chief among the contentious topics was—you guessed it—the top/bottom debate. I can’t actually remember any other topic that was discussed and argued for so ardently in that fandom, at least in those days. Even after I drifted away, I came across a few posts on the matter.

Generally, you had two camps—people who supported strict roles and those who were in favor of switching*. And because we’re a society plagued by illogical assumptions, the strict role camp mostly had people who thought Mr. Big Bad Cannibal in the Fancy Suits wouldn’t take it up the ass because he’s older, more experienced, more mentally stable, and of course, more ‘dominant’ in personality. Yes, that sentence is chock full of problematic shit. I am aware. Lots of people were aware and argued strongly against attributing top/bottom roles to personality. I don’t remember anyone arguing as enthusiastically for Top Will, but those voices were also there. But the general idea was that assigning strict top/bottom roles to a male/male couple was casting them in a heterosexual mold and thus, the progressive option was to make them switch. Strict roles also garnered comparisons to “yaoi” and uke/seme stereotypes, which was of course bad and fetishizing and we, the Western media fans, of course had to do better. Stealth racism is fun to untangle.

Anyway, I lapped up the woke juice. Partly because I was a baby queer from Buttfuck Nowhere, Asia, who had zero exposure to LGBT+ communities and what queer folks did with each other. Partly because it was the stance taken by most of my favorite writers so it seemed like a good position to emulate.

Emulate it I did. Most discussions I had about this happened in private with the handful of close friends I had in fandom. Where it really showed was in my writing. I made sure to write switching—maybe not in every fic, but then I alternated between fics. Thing is though, I did have a preference. I liked Top Will. I created and consumed a ton of Top Hannibal, and sometimes it was okay, sometimes it was not, but I couldn’t pinpoint why it made me uncomfortable. Back then, I thought I was a cis questioning/bi girl and once again, the impression I got was that not being MLM, having a preference was automatic fetishization. So I tried my best to justify my preferences, to my friends at least. I think what I said was that fandom was skewed towards Top Hannibal, and I liked the opposite because I’m a contrary fuck. Which I am, to be fair, but this was just me desperately trying to figure shit out without being offensive.

That’s the line I touted all the way until 2018, which was when I fucked off to grad school in A City, finally freed of Buttfuck Nowhere and able to actually date. At this point, I was settled in my sexuality (girls only) and questioning my gender (non-binary or trans guy). I had also tentatively figured out during undergrad that I’m an exclusive top and a Dom. Actual attempts at dating cemented that, yes, those are my preferences, about as flexible as a steel rod. Cue motherfucking epiphany over my fanfic tastes.

And see, over these years, I was engaging intermittently with fandom. I dutifully wrote switch couples. I also continued to have rigid tastes and continued to explain it away as being a contrary fuck—to be fair, until Steve/Bucky, my preference did seem to be the opposite of the larger fandom preference. But correlation, as we know, isn’t causation. Until Steve/Bucky, I continued to write versatile couples because I honestly didn’t have the guts to just say I liked it just one way. I do now but even then, I feel compelled to add that it’s because I want to see my own taste reflected in fic, so I write/read the character I relate to as a top, it's not that deep etc. Would I be as forthright if I didn’t have that reason? Would I have such strict preferences in fic if I didn’t have strict preferences IRL? The latter’s a mystery, but the former isn’t—I wouldn’t be because fandom is still entrenched in the same ideas that got me to this point to begin with.

In every fandom I’ve been in, I’ve seen some version of this debate go around. Sometimes, it’s one party saying “why would you write Character X as a bottom, he’s so Reason A” and a reblog chain that insults the OP and/or extols the virtues of switching. Sometimes, it’s a general-ish message that says they don’t understand why people have strict preferences when we all know real gay couples switch. Sometimes, it’s blanket statements that accuse anyone with preferences of fetishizing. Sometimes, it’s the same reasoning that gets you “Character Y is a top because of Reason B” transposed on versatile couples except this takes the form of “they switch because they’re equals.”

Ya’ll, I’m fucking tired.

I have long since lost count of the number of stories I’ve seen where an exclusive top learning bottom and liking it is character growth. Where a character who prefers to bottom taking a turn on top is empowering.

Isolated, these are fine. But I’ve seen enough of such stories that it’s distinctly discomfiting and a major squick. Sometimes a trigger, if I'm too immersed in the story. I’m not going to try and burn an author at the stake because they pissed me off. I am just going to close that window and quietly handle my shit. People can write whatever they want. But this one theme hits too close to home, as you can see from this 1.6k rant.

My friend (also my ex-girlfriend) and I had an all-out bitching session about this the other day. Both of us are kinky fuckers who have rigid, complementary roles we prefer and we have both had our grueling days of struggling to reconcile our sexual tastes with our ideologies precisely because of how these things are frowned upon in conservative and progressive circles. Seeing that in fandom, of all places, is both insulting and exhausting. Topping and bottoming aren’t personality traits. Neither is D/s. It’s sexual preference and power play. It really does not have to be that deep. I am not exorcising childhood trauma using the bodies of women. My partners, former and current, have not been brainwashed by the patriarchy. We will not become better, more complete individuals once I magically stop being a stone top and my partners embrace the joys of a strap-on.

I have, with my own two eyes, seen someone say that in a really committed relationship, of course the couple will switch.

Bullshit.

It’s transparent bullshit. This does not get attributed to cisgender M/F couples. Even when the automatic assumptions of woman = bottom and man = top get addressed, switching isn't presented as the default. No one’s saying “oh, if you really love your husband, you’ll peg him”. I do know butch/femme sapphic couples get their own share of shit. Because it’s all heteronormativity, right? Can’t have any other reason for top/bottom roles.

You have two extremes with “so who’s the woman” on one end and “it’s woke only if they switch” on the other, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re equally damaging. There shouldn’t be a pressure, however subtle, to conform your taste in fiction to some arbitrary idea of progressiveness. People are going to like whatever they want anyway; all this does is create an atmosphere where those likes can’t always be freely expressed without a lot of mental gymnastics. We’re seeing so many versions of this in the pushback against so-called problematic content, but smaller, subtler versions exist too.

Fictional characters aren’t real. They can be whatever you want them to be. And yes, other people will often want them to be the exact opposite of your ideas, but that’s just how things work. Meanwhile, the people behind these usernames? They’re real. No one should be throwing real people under the bus to ‘protect’ characters that don’t exist. Hannibal Lecter doesn’t care whether he gets fucked or dismembered in Author B’s fanfiction, but the discourse that surrounds the dick up his ass? That does affect flesh and blood people.

I am not claiming that this is the only attitude in fandom. Middlegrounds do exist. Plenty of people abide by fic and let fic and there are folks who pipe up to say not every RL queer couple switches. But it’s often the extremes that reach most people. That was certainly my experience, and I’m not the only one.

I don’t really know how to end this post. It is 100% a rant and one that’s been building up for a while. Bottom line is that people’s sexual behavior varies wildly and whenever you attack sexual tastes in fanfic by saying it’s unrealistic - or worse because let’s be real, that’s a very tame word choice - please remember that there’s likely someone out there who practices it.

* I’m using switch and versatile synonymously in this post. It’s mostly concerned with top/bottom debates. A lot of what I’m saying is also echoed in portrayals of and discussions surrounding D/s dynamics, but I’m not addressing that as much for now.  

[la5t-res0rt]

this was written several weeks ago in response to asks i was receiving i am posting it now it is very long the longest i have ever made and it is not very well edited but here it is in this final essay i talk about how shitty rae is about black people in her writing as well as just me talking about how her writing sucks in general lets begin

hello everyone 

as you may know i have received a lot of anons in the last week or so about issues of racism in the beetlejuice community both just generally speaking and also within specific spaces 

i was very frustrated to not be getting the answers i wanted because i typically do not talk about what i do not see but in an effort to be better about discourse i went looking through discourse from before my time in the fandom and i also received some receipts and information from my followers and from some friends

keep in mind that the voices and thoughts of bipoc are not only incredibly important at all times but in this circumstance it is important that if a bipoc has something to add you listen and learn and be better

i admit that when this happened i wasnt aware of the extent of what occurred and im angry at myself for not doing more at that time and i want to work harder to make sure something like this doesnt go unnoticed again

im a hesitant to talk about months old discourse because i have been criticized for bringing up quote old new unquote but this is very important and i am willing to face whatever comes from to me

lets talk about this

content from our local racist idiot that may be months old but its important

putting my thoughts under a cut to spare the dash but before i begin obviously this is awful

lets fucking unpack this folks

right out the gate op states that she supports artistic freedom but then within a couple words she goes against that statement

being entirely canon compliant isnt artistic freedom and even so if this person has so much respect for canon they wouldnt be out here erasing lydias obvious disgust for beetlejuice in the movie or ignoring lydias age for the sake of shipping that shit isnt canon either 

also we love the quick jab at the musical there hilarious we love it dont we because god forbid a licensed and successful branch on a media have any standing in this conversation but whatever

now lets scroll down and talk about the term racebending

the term racebending was coined around 2009 in response to the avatar the last airbender movie a film in which the east asian races of the characters were erased by casting white actors in the three leading roles of aang sokka and katara 

whenever the term racebending is used in a negative light it is almost always a case of whitewashing like casting scarlett johansen in ghost in the shell or the casting of white actors of the prince of persia sands of time instead of iranian ones

this kind of racebending erases minorities from beeing seen in media and is wrong

all that being said however racebending has also been noted to have very positive after effects like the 1997 adaptation of cinderella or casting samuel jackson as nick fury in the marvel movies nick fury was originally a white guy can you even imagine

i read this piece from an academic that said quote writers can change the race and cultural specificity of central characters or pull a secondary character of color from the margins transforming them into the central protagonist unquote

racebending like the kind that rae is so heated about is the kind of creative freedom that leads to more representation of bipoc in media which will never be a bad thing ever no matter how pissy you get about it

designing a version of a character as a poc isnt serving to make them necessarily better it serves to give new perspective and perhaps the opportunity to connect even more deeply with a character it doesnt marginalize or erase white people it can uplift poc and if you think uplifting poc is wrong because it tears down white people or whatever youre a fucking moron and you need to get out of your podunk white folk town and see the real world

the numbers of times a bipoc particularly a bipoc that is also lgbt+ has been represented in media are dwarfed by what i as a white dude have seen myself represented in media is and that isnt okay that isnt equality and its something that should change not only in mainstream media but in fandom spaces as well

lets move down a bit further to the part about bullying straight people which is hilarious and lets also talk about the term fetishistic as well lets start with that

this person literally writes explicit pornography of a minor and an adult are we really going to let someone like that dictate what is and what isnt fetishistic

similarly to doing a positive racebend situation people may project lgbt+ headcanons on a character because its part of who they are and it helps them feel closer to the character and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that

depicting lgbt+ subject matter on existing characters isnt an inherently fetishistic action generally things only really become fetishistic when the media is being crafted and hyped by people who are outside of lgbt+ community for example how young teens used to flip a tit about yaoi or how chasers fetishize trans people

but drawing a character with top surgery scars or headcanoning them as trans is harmless and its just another way to interpret a character literally anone could be trans unless if their character bio says theyre cis and most of them dont go that deep so it really is open to interpretation and on the whole most creators encourage this sort of exploration because it is a good thing to get healthy representation out in the world

as for it being used to bully straights thats just funny i dont have anything else on that like if youre straight and you feel threatened and bullied because of someone headcanoning someone as anything that isnt cishet youre a fucking idiot and a weak baby idiot at that like the real world must fucking suck for you because lgbt+ people are everywhere and statistically a big chunk of your favorite characters arent cishet sorry be mad about it

lets roll down a bit further about the big meat of the issue which was when several artists were drawing interpretations of lydia as a black girl which i loved but clearly this person didnt love it because they have a very narrow and very racist and problematic view of what it means to be a black person

and before i move forward i must reiderate that i am a white person and you should listen to the thoughts of poc people like @fright-of-their-lives​ or @gender-chaotic it is not my place to explain what the black experience is like and it certainly isnt this persons either

implying that the story of a black person isnt worth telling unless if the character faces struggles like racism and prejudice is downright moronic 

why use the word kissable to describe a black persons lips now thats what i call fetishistic and its to another extreme if youre talking about a black version of lydia on top of that

the author of this post says herself that shes white so clearly shes the person whos an authority on the black experience and what it means to be a black person right am i reading that right or am i having a fucking conniption

how about allowing black characters to exist without having to struggle why cant a black version of lydia just be a goth teenager with a ghost problem who likes photography and is also black like she doesnt have to move to a hick town and get abused by racist folks she doesnt have to go through any more shit than she already goes through and if you honestly think thats the only way to tell a black persons story you need to get your brain cleaned

you know nothing about the complexities about being a black person and i dont either but you know wh odo black people who are doing black versions of canon characters they fucking know 

lets squiggle down just a bit further 

so the writer has issues with giving characters traits like a broad nose or larger lips if theyre a woman but if theyre a man suddenly its totally okay to go all ryan murphy ahs coven papa legba appropriation when approaching character design like are you fucking stupid do you hear yourself is that really how you see black men like what the fuck is wrong with you

none of the shit youre spewing takes bravery it takes ignorance and supreme levels of stupidity

do you really think you with your fic where a black lgbt+ woman is tortured and abused where you use the n word with a hard r to refer to her like that shits not okay its fucking depraved and yeah we know you love being shitty but like christ on a bike thats so much 

can we also talk about this

what the fuck is this fetishistic bull roar garbage calling this black character beyonce dressing her up in quote fuck me heels unquote are you are you seriously gonna write this and say its a shining example of how to write a black character youre basically saying ope here she is shes a sex icon haha im so progressive and i clealry understand the black experience hahahaha fuck you oh my god

on top of that theres a point where this character is only referred to as curly hair or the fact that the n word is used in the fic with the hard r like thats hands down not okay for you to use especially not in a manner like this jesus christ

oop heres a little more a sampling for you of the hell i am enduring in reading this drivel

oh boy lets put a leash on the angry black woman character lets put her in a leash and have the man imply hes a master like are you kidding me are you for real and what the fuck is with calling her shit like j lo and beyonce do you actually think thats clever at all are you just thinking of any poc that comes into your head for this 

also lydia fucking tells this girl that she shouldnt have lost her temper like she got fucking leashed im so tired why is this writing so problematic and also so bad

hold up before i lose my head lets look at some of her own comments on the matter of this character and what happens to her

hi hello youre just casually tossing the word lynch out there in the wide open world as if thats not a problem that is still real like are you fucking unhinged there have been multiple cases of this exact thing happening in our firepit of a country in the last five months alone like how can you still have shit like this up for people to read how can you be proud of work like this in this climate

and also what the fuck is that last bit 

what the actual fuck

i dont speak for black people as a white person but you do!? im sorry i had to get my punctuation out for that because wow thats fucking asinine just because one black person read your fic and didnt find the torture and abuse of your one black character abhorrant doesnt mean that the vast majority of people not only in the fandom but in the human population with decency are going to think its okay because its not 

i started this post hoping to be level headed and professional but jesus fucking christ this woman is something else white nationalism is alive and well folks and its name is rae

if you defend this woman you defend some truly abhorrant raecism

editors notes 

in order to get some perspective on these issues more fully some of the writing by the author was examined and on the whole it was pretty unreadable but i want to just call back to the very beginning of this essay where the person in question talked about holding canon in high regard but then in their writing they just go around giving people magic and shit and ignoring the end of the movie entirely like are you canon compliant or nah 

the writing doesnt even read like beetlejuice fanfic it reads as self indulgent fiction you could easily change the names and its just a bad fanfic from 2007

also can we talk about writing the lesbian character as an angry man hater like its 2020 dude and als olets touch on that girl on girl pandering while beetlejuice is just there like here we go fetishizing again wee

i cant find a way to work this into this already massive post but

im going to throw up

okay so thats a lot we have covered a lot today and im sure my ask box will regret it but this definitely should have been more picked apart when it happened

please feel free to add more to this i would love more perspectives than just my own.

[werevulvi]

I kinda just wanted to make a rant, to lay out why I feel so iffy about trans women and hopefully get a better understanding of my own feelings and what the fuck is brewing under that surface. There has to be a reason. This post is analytical drivel, not a debate, but by all means, feel free to respond or otherwise talk to me about this. Let's take it from the beginning and then go from there.

Part 1 Detransition:

So, I began detransitioning roughly 2 years ago. That's where my feelings about the trans community as a whole began to shift, and with that my feelings about trans women. At that time, I was still active in a truscum group and came out as detrans there, after having been known and looked up to as a trans man there for over a year. At first I was accepted, but when I started having doubts about wanting to get rid of my beard, and felt like I wanted to embrace my body hair and deep voice... people there started acting like shit towards me. They told me that my biological sex still being female did not matter, that I was essentially a man and had to detrans medically to be considered a woman again. That hurt badly.

Shortly after that, I was also told that because I was medically transitioned, trans women were "more female" than me. That was like the last drop that made the goblet pour over. Fuming, I started saying that I'm more of a woman than trans women can ever be, even if I keep a full beard, because they'll never be truly biologically female, no matter how much surgery they got. I was hurting by their cruel words, so I stuck it where it would hurt them the same. (I’ve always an “eye for an eye” sorta person.) That's when people started telling me that I hate trans women, but I felt like that was a misunderstanding. That I was just acting out, out of sadness, grief, anger, panic, and having my gender denied for the sake of validating trans women's genders.

But were they right?

Part 2 Gender critical thought:

Over time, I got exceedingly gender critical and fell into radblr. I also read/watched content that "exposed" transgenderism as a scam, most of which was articles and youtube videos from conservative right wing people, and Christians. I had joined an fb group for detransitioners, and the creator, a "born again" Christian detrans man, happily shared all the many sources he had on how transgender was all a scam from the start of its movement. I felt somewhat sick consuming those links, but probably equally intrigued. But at the same time, I kept a foot in the trans community, starving for attention, even though I was never good enough for them anymore, unless I lied and said I'm not a woman. What a sick twist of fate, I felt.

Part 3a Sexuality, from a lesbian view:

Sometime around that, I struggled with my sexuality and after a lot on inner search, I came to the conclusion I was a lesbian. I felt as though I was only attracted to the same sex as myself, including trans men, but felt nothing worth praising towards males, including trans women. That led to yet another rabbit hole that I tumbled down into. I became convinced that majority of trans women were lesbophobic predators, and I had some shit luck on dating apps. Most people who approached me there were gnc males; transvestites and trans women. I almost went on a date with a good-looking trans woman whom I had mistaken for female, because I felt guilty for having lost attraction to her the moment she told me she's trans and post-op. Luckily she canceled our date for unrelated reasons. I felt like because she was attractive to me before I knew she's trans, but felt completely uninterested in her after the fact, I couldn't possibly be attracted to trans women.

Part 3b Sexuality, from a bisexual view:

That, of course, is not necessarily a bad thing. But I kept asking myself why. Especially since I realised my error in my sexuality calculations, and upon correction discovered I'm actually bisexual after all. I still find women and transitioned females attractive, and in addition to that also men in general, and some vaguely transitioned males. Except from trans women. That odd little inconvenience stood out as a sore thumb which I couldn't stop scratching. Why? I kept asking myself. Why not trans women?

My question dug deeper than just to attraction. I don't think I feel iffy about trans women because I'm not attracted to them. I think it's the other way around.

I never had to convince myself to be attracted to trans men. I discovered early on in my own transition that some other trans men were really hot. That was it. I later on dated a trans man whom I was head over heals in love with. That confirmed it. I've been questioning my attraction to standard men and women far more than I ever questioned my attraction to trans men. It was that obvious, that clear. However, when it comes to trans women I was always the complete opposite. That no matter how I twisted and turned it, I only ever felt revulsion at the thought of being sexual or romantic with a trans woman. No matter how well or badly they passed, no matter how aesthetically pleasing or how charming their personalities.

I wanna clarify that I'm not at all forcing myself to be into trans women. I'm just trying to understand why, so that I'll no longer feel bad about my lack of attraction to them. Because I cannot accept things which I do not understand.

Part 3c Sexuality, digging for answers:

At first I thought, maybe I'm just not all that attracted to femininity. It's not like I typically get super into hyper-feminine natal women either, and fake tits and faces with a ton of plastic surgery has always made me queezy. No, I seem to have a strong preference for masculinity in partners, regardless if they're butches, other masc bi women, trans men or kinda standard masc natal men. So then it just kinda makes sense that trans women, whom are often hyper-feminine, just don't fit that image. Except... that one trans woman I almost went on a date with... she looked like a butch. I mistook her for a natal woman partly because she had short hair, no makeup and wore what looked like men's clothing, but I could see she had hips and tits, and her face looked naturally female. But I still wasn't into her, because she's trans.

Then I thought... okay, that one checks out, but maybe I'm just creeped out neo-vaginas? Yeah, that must be it! I'm almost equally creeped out by neo-penises too, but most trans men don't get bottom surgery anyway, so it hasn't been much on my mind. But then I thought: okay, but what about trans women who choose to not get bottom surgery then? I am attracted to dick. Nope, still uneasy at that thought. I started comparing men who are just very feminine, to trans women, and noticed yeah I don't actually feel half as iffy about men who are just feminine. A man in a dress and makeup can actually be very hot, to me. And I've always preferred long hair on men. But I prefer them still looking clearly male underneath that, although I don't mind a few androgynous features here and there. But I’m only into it if they don’t act like their affinity for femininity makes them women or non-binary, or if they’re feminine in a way that mocks or sexualises womanhood. So I’m not into tacky transvestites in over-sexualised lingerie. At least try to be tactful and elegant, please. So, it’s not male femininity per se that puts me off. If there’s any femininity I’m actually into, it’s male femininity. Because gender non-conformity is attractive to me. And I love the idea of being a strong female protector and girlboss of a gentle, delicate, feminine man. At least I like fantasising about that. (But enough about my daydreams.)

Part 4a Womanhood, biology and identity:

Somewhere after having gotten that far in my digging, I started getting close to finding my sore spot: trans women's view on womanhood.

As for myself, my own view of womanhood is completely detached from femininity. I'm just like... I can even have a full beard and bass voice, a flat and hairy chest, and still be a woman. Because I'm simply bio female. Trans women tend to very often think that they need to "pass" and with that comes a certain look: high voice, no facial hair, no body hair, big breasts, curvy hips, etc. All of which are features that I'm dysphoric about having on my own body, but admire in other natal women. But on trans women, it's like I feel uncomfortable about those kinda features on them. Like to me being a woman is just dealing with having developed that way, or not dealing with having developed that way. Where as for them it seems to be actually striving for developing that way, and I guess that causes my brain to short circuit. Cannot comprehend.

Part 4b Womanhood, fragility and validation:

My womanhood is kinda fragile. I admit that. I'm quite insecure as a woman, because of my transition and masculinity. I feel like most of my womanhood has been lost, which although I'm fine with, I still grieve. I grieve it because I was a bit of an idiot when I first transitioned and had not yet processed my trauma - not because I regret looking like a man. It's complicated, but basically... I feel as though my womanhood is hanging by a thread, which is my genitals, reproductive system and chromosomes; all of which are either mostly hidden or always invisible.

I'm often met with disbelief and disagreement. People either saying "You're not a woman because you can't possibly be female. You look too male." or "You're not a woman because you medically transitioned. You having a uterus is not enough to make you a woman." and it gets to me. And then there are trans women... some of whom do not even need to put on a wig to be instantly validated as women by just identifying as such. Others thinking that because I look like a man, they refuse to think of me as a woman. And that... pisses me off.

There have been a few trans women who in some utterly failed attempt at being supportive of me have said I'm like a nonbinary person who is half male and half female. That's not a lot better, but thanks for trying... I guess.

Part 4c Womanhood, dysphoria and misogyny:

I think that might be what gets to me about trans women. All of it. This entire list of things. That some of them are lesbophobic predators and have absurd claims of what being female is, that others mock womanhood, and yet others view themselves as somehow more female than I am. The genital factor and the slight creepiness of plastic surgery. Their view of womanhood as an identity and my view of it as a biological sex. I keep ending up in fights with trans women about these sorta things. I can't keep a lid on my frustrations no matter how hard I try to just see them as people with dysphoria and opinions that are different from mine. I cannot find any fucking solidarity between myself, as a dysphoric natal woman, and trans women. I feel like they're making mockery of my sex, my dysphoria and my struggles with misogyny, as well as making me feel like shit about something that I love about my body: my transition. I have no common grounds with them, and whenever they try to find solidarity in stuff like misogyny, I feel like they don't even know what the fuck they're talking about. I have a huge bone to pick with them, on multiple levels, and I don't even know where to start or where it ends.

Part 4d Womanhood, jealousy:

But a lot of it comes from jealousy. And I think it's mutual. I'm jealous of their ability to access female only spaces despite being male, which I cannot access despite being female. I'm jealous of their ability to be accepted as women. And on the other side, I think they're jealous of my reproductive ability, and my female socialisation, which I'm not like super hyped about myself, although I do love my pussy (she gives me great orgasms.) I'm jealous of their ability to claim womanhood without even trying to pass as female, because people are quicker to accept the woman-gender-identity than the woman-bio-sex. But likewise, ironically, I sense that they're jealous of that I can claim the "woman lane" despite looking convincingly male, because I'll always be biologically female, no matter how insible my sex is.

They cannot see me as a woman, because of my transition, without looking at themselves as men, no matter how far they transition. And I cannot see them as women, no matter how far they transition, without labeling myself as a man, because of my own transition. I think that about nails it.

Part 5 Conclusions:

I don't think it's true hatred, but rather insecurities both from myself and from them. Because we cannot both exist as women under the same ideology. One of us has to be considered a man, and neither of us is willing to fold on that. Ultimately... I am a threat to their womanhood, as much as they are a threat to my womanhood. And that tension is so thick... not even a knife could cut it. I guess the sad thing is though, that I think that tension is unnecessary. I am so unlike trans women that we could potentially bond based on how different we are. Because there is a lot of similarity in those differences, if you really think about it.

But no, I do not wish them harm in any way. Despite the vast array of insults I sometimes hurl their way. That is really just in response to them insulting me. I do not think they're doing anything wrong by transitioning, or even necessarily by identifying as women. I think, if they had just been more like "I can see you as a woman despite having transitioned, because deep down you like being female and having a pussy... kinda like I'm a woman because I wanna have a pussy, despite having been born male" I would have been much quicker to embrace them. Because that, I could get behind; but they can't.

So, there is no solidarity. It remains an endless fight. But I feel like it's not just on my part. I have tried. I do try. But they're not willing to meet me halfway, and that makes me go to attack in self-defense, which makes then go to attack in self-defense.

[whenwegounnoticed]

My Turn To Talk About VioletVineyard, MVCreates, and the Glaring Problems of Power Imbalances.

Introduction

I have been on the fence about talking about my experiences, on one hand, because one of her mods and I are or maybe were (?) friends, and I valued their friendship but in recent light, I don’t know and because I want my main to be a safe place for other writeblrs and because I am afraid.

I was in VioletVineyard at the beginning of it -- and being in it did not feel good for reasons I could never put my finger on.

Let's talk about me and who I am first without giving myself away:

I have a disorder that makes expressing myself difficult, this is due to childhood trauma and a form of self preservation. My wording will be clunky because only recently, with the help of amazing friends, I'm learning the right verbage.

Now. Some of you will know who I am. Hello. Please keep me anonymous. Some of you might have a guess. Hello. Surprised? Maybe you're wrong. I don't know, I'm not in your head just as you're not in mine.

I have screenshots for some stuff and none for others. These are all personal experiences.

I will not be sharing the screenshots of those who were victims to respect their privacy.

Please bear with me. I know this will be long and rambly, but it’s how I make sense of my thoughts and brain.

VioletVineyard: Questionable Reality

I joined VV at the start of it, although it was already pretty big. I was excited! I admired many writeblrs who were in there and wanted to be friends with many of them. They were all so welcoming. And I felt, for a hot minute, like I belonged.

It was sprint of my freshman semester as a journalism major, and Mina reached out to me in the general chat, saying that if I needed help or wanted an In at some journalism company, to let her know because she knows people.

Great! Cool. A little odd but that was nice of her -- and.

That's how it starts.

A side: my friend has a theory that if people only present how perfect and amazingly nice they are, they likely are rotting on the inside. Nobody is ever perfect and always super nice, do not trust them. I do not subscribe to this but it is a thought in my mind now.

It took a week of me being there for the not right feeling set in.

First:

There was drama.

She would start it. She'd vague in the vent about someone and then outright state who she was talking about. And it would be about someone whose opinions she disagreed with. People would go and send anons or they'd bitch about whoever was the victim in the vent channel.

I don't remember if I participated but if I did, I am truly and genuinely sorry.

I think I got stressed two weeks in. I was already ill from invisible physical problems. The server felt horribly unmoderated.

I remember saying something because Mina was doing it again and being told,

"Then support in here."

Mostly innocent right? You support your friends, right?

It wouldn't have been a problem if:

The victim did something wrong.

Mina and this person weren't in their goddamn 30s or near that. They have a child, by the way.

The person was at least under 20.

From my scattered memory, the issue was OP either slightly vagued abt Mina or she just disgreed with OP.

Lots of red flags, right?

"But OP why did you stay?"

Emotional masochism? Fear? Because she, either knowingly or unknowingly cultivated this sort of atmosphere? I cannot speak for anyone else, but that's the reasoning for me.

There was, also, in the beginning, a hope that maybe things would change. Varying personalities, you know? And a desperate need for validation.

So, so wrong.

MVCreates & OP

So, get to the point OP. What happened to you?

A vague threat.

Mina....had Opinions. And opinions are just that, opinions but for her, they were fact. After all, she has her own reality and own story that helped form hers but some of hers were odd. Maybe not to most people who aren’t paying attention or didn’t notice the red flags ( “through rose colored glasses, all red flags just look like flags”) but they were definitely something.

She, for awhile, talked an awful lot about writeblr positivity. I could never really make sense of it -- she either supported it or was against it, from what I remember. (keep in mind, this was a little over a year ago and visually, I can see the gaudy green - red - yellow colors for pronoun preferences).

And I made a vague post about it and her. A few times. I was in the wrong for vaguing about her instead of just saying something up front.

Her response was, and I will paraphrase,

“Do you ever screenshot people vaguing about you just in case they enter a political career?”

I wish I had taken a screenshot. I’m sorry now that I did not. Maybe someone saw that, maybe they brushed it off. I don’t know.

From then on, I kept quiet about my thoughts and opinions because I did have plans to go into a political career -- but jokes on her, I plan on being a human rights officer for the United Nations lmao

Another incident (we’re almost done, I promise):

I was -- venting about gender dysphoria. I was Peak Suicidal at this point in time, just knowing what I was born with brought me to tears frequently. Mina had jumped into in the conversation and started talking about something vaguely related. She started talking about trans BIPOC experiences, which is great! Their experiences are things that need to be talked about because they are often thrown to the side for trans white people’s experiences and that is not okay.

I forget the middle part, it’s been over a year. It went from BIPOC experiences to something else, a conversation about gender? I don’t know. Maybe there’s someone out there who remembers. I doubt it though.

I remember saying, “I wish I would have been born with testicles and everything else because [I’m in hell?]” and she answered with,

“That would [mean / cause / ???? ] privilege.”

This person who has claimed she is non binary, claimed to be a trans ally and part of the trans community, said that to someone in the height of dysphoria and was suicidal.

You do not say that to someone who is experiencing gender dysphoria. To say that is transphobia. And yes, trans & non binary people can be transphobic. You are not exempt.

Violet Vineyard & Reprehensible Behaviors

Before I start this section, and I promise this is almost done, I just want to thank:

@radley-writes​, @gingerly-writing​, @lilquill​, @sapiencenotes​  @rrrawrf-writes​ & many more who have come forward about their experiences, whether publicly and in private. It’s admirable and brave of you to do something I could not. @nuwuhorizons​ & @time-to-write-and-suffer​ have amazing documentation as well.

There isn’t much to say that hasn’t already been said and documented, but I can corroborate the bullying Mina and the mods engaged in -- the stuff Radley spoke about I did not know about -- and that makes me ill. I’m glad they owned up to what they did, and for that, thank you Radley. It shows you are a much bigger and better person.

I will not lie, however -- I was hurt and felt a bit ill when you talked about what the mods did. And it made me question and second guess a friendship I have (had?) with another mod. But I think that helped put some pieces of the puzzle together.

 An incident that stands out to me (and honestly bothers me, so a few people have heard about this often and I’m sorry), very clearly and I have screenshots for but will not share to protect their privacy, was when they dogpiled someone who had been asking about writing a Jewish character. While they were falling into somewhat harmful stereotypes, VV was handling it.

Not well.

The person was a minor, for one -- teenagers make mistakes, they make them more if they’re not exposed to varying cultures and beliefs. And the person who was on the receiving end of this dogpile looked to be coming more and more unstable and all I could do is just. Grab screenshots of what I could.

And if you’re reading this, you know who you are, I am so sorry I didn’t say anything. That wasn’t right, the entire situation wasn’t okay. You shouldn’t have gone through that. I hope you find healing and peace.

A quick disclaimer: Violet Vineyard, as far as I know, didn’t have a lot of Jewish members. I know a mod was converting (but hadn’t yet) and I think I saw one or two people with the Star of David in their name or icon. That said, my paternal grandmother was Jewish and had been one of the few survivors of her family from the Holocaust. I cannot speak for the entire Jewish population, and I do not consider myself Jewish in religion but trust me when I say this:

YHWH would be disappointed in their (VV’s) behavior -- and if the moderator who is working on converting is genuine about converting, then I need them to think long and hard  about what is happening. This isn’t what Judaism teaches. And if you’re reading this, ask yourself, would G-d condone the actions of your fellow ex mods?

Final Words

Oof, this was long, wasn’t it? Must have been hard to sit through because I ramble! So. What’s left for me to say?

Not a whole lot but still, a lot but the stuff I want to say are not my lived experiences. It is not my place to speak on behalf of anyone else involved in all of this. And that is okay.

But to the people who were involved with the recent drama and dogpiled a trans teenager and to those who helped bully many people in this community on behalf of the oh so great Mina,

my question is  why?

What was a thirty year old woman, WHO HAS A CHILD, bullying a nineteen year old? Why was an almost thirty year old person with a toddler and one on the way involved in this as well?

Most or a decent handful of you were adults, some with children, some expecting. 

And Mina,

You used your age and position to manipulate people and for that, I find you the most reprehensible. Castor did not deserve what happened, neither did the victim mentioned above. Nobody did. 

I hope, in the end, you finally find happiness without having to lie about your talent and without having to manipulate people.

Thank you for listening and sticking around if you made it this far and didn’t bounce in the beginning.

I’ve said my part. If anyone wants to engage in constructive discussion or share their experiences, feel free to do so.

[rpbetter]

Hi Vespertine. Sorry to add to the pile, I promise I will send in some writing related things to compensate later. I also misgendered that user in a comment by accident with she/her. I blocked them, but they still looked at my blog, and they made a post that said by using the wrong pronouns, which they thought was intentional and meant to hurt them, I purposefully called them a hysterical woman stereotype. Obviously that wasn't true. I was just going off a comment someone else made on my blog where they used she/her, and I thought I had to correct myself. It was a case where good intentions, even if I was not happy with the user's behavior or expected to talk to them again, I was still going to use the right pronouns, but my intentions were warped by someone with an agenda. I'm sorry to hear you're getting the same heat. I didn't use my rp blog to interact with the user or talk about them because I was sure something like this would happen, either by them or other people like that callout blog, and I think other people had the same idea. I dodged a bullet there, but I'm still paranoid. I'm paranoid I'll hear a notif and see my rp blog in a callout for this, because someone hunted it down, or a callout for trying to talk to the person who started all the drama. Nobody should be scared to talk about someone on their own blog. Nobody should be scared to talk openly, in general. Nobody should be called out for trying to talk with someone either. This culture of fear is so disturbing to me.

Hey there, Anon!

Oh, I would love that, but you totally don't have to, of course. Don't feel bad for adding on, I'm here for anything at all, and honestly, with the job I'm doing IRL right now, it's really hard for me to concentrate well enough on finishing any of the advice posts (at least, to be the quality y'all deserve). It's a hot topic, it's included so, so, terribly many people in the RPC. It's also one that's generating some great, needed conversations. So, it isn't like you're adding to anything bad, annoying or distracting me, or contributing to the inflammatory side of this.

Hell, it's got to be really nice for some of the people in messages I've received to see proof that they weren't alone in this experience. I can keep publishing the hate anons for exactly that reason, and I can promise people they aren't the only ones (in this or in any such horrible behavior), but it's different to see it coming from a third party! So, thank you for that.

Though, I am deeply sorry that you were treated to more than a ringside seat in this debacle.

It's not very encouraging to be thoughtful and respectful of other people when literally nothing you can say or do will result in anything other than more twisting of your words, and that's a big problem I have with this shit. Things like actual transphobia, intentional misgendering, actual infantalization and shit treatment of ND people, actual harassment, etc. etc. etc. matter. It's just more trivializing of real problems for the sake of blowing nonexistent bullshit up, and that is immensely disgusting to me. The fact that you damn well know someone out there has had the reaction to this behavior of, well, fuck you then, fuck trans people is really upsetting.

Like, yeah, let's be real, if you require social rewards to do the right thing, you have some problems lol but at the same time, you know who does require social rewards to develop themselves? Young people. And the RPC is largely comprised of people in their early twenties who, for a variety of possible reasons, are still at that point

Furthermore, no, it's not anyone's job to be good representation at all times, especially when that performance comes at a cost to themselves, but maybe don't go out of your way to be the person that is the necessary push in the wrong direction of someone's formative experience with people of your community. If it's costing you nothing to not clown on serious issues, but is costing the entire world another bigot for you to clown on serious issues, the choice should be a bit obvious here. Whenever you're in a safe place - physically, emotionally - and capable of that kind of logic, exercise it, damn.

It's definitely a better course of action than playing out skewed activism by vilifying innocent people, more worthy of one's effort than losing their collective shit over a very easy mistake. One that I'd say was even less avoidable in your case. AGAIN, how, exactly is anyone supposed to know this shit when they're blocked? When they aren't subverting the blocks they, themselves, put in place? I know for a fact none of them are looking at the information of the people they choose to try to drive out of the RPC, but everyone else is supposed to make zero reasonable assumptions, check and recheck blogs they have made an effort not to visit for good reason. Sounds absolutely reasonable and sane!

So, you know what? I'm going to be even more offensive here and talk for a moment about why these mistakes are reasonable.

When we see a post and reblog it, it's not unreasonable to assume that the OP had knowledge we didn't. Since we blocked the offending party, but they're discussing them. OP uses the incorrect pronouns, we end using the incorrect pronouns as well. This is not malicious intent. It isn't intentional at all, it's just having a discussion. A discussion that wouldn't have even transpired if they hadn't taken it upon themselves to (what a coincidence) take personal issue with a RPer they repeatedly took out of context and decided to shame for it, before proceeding to get an even bigger stick and pot.

When we decide to block a blog, it's our responsibility to stay off of it. Not go looking at it for any reason. That is now off-limits. When someone blocks us, it's also our responsibility to respect that decision, no matter how outrageous it was, no matter what we might need to verify. That's the issue with blocking when we don't exploit how easy it is to get around blocking on tumblr; we've cut ourselves off from any further meaningful communication, including passive communication like rules and posts. Kind of like how you cannot expect an apology to mean a damn thing when you've blocked everyone you harassed, then made that apology in a post on your blocked blog. Don't put up walls you expect people to see through, then get upset when they can't see through them.

As a community, the RPC is primarily afab. That's never a problem to bring up when someone wants to be angry about their female muse not getting equal attention and so on, but it's a problem to discuss any other time, about any other problem. Dealing with the things that we're socially raised to ascribe to as afab people is that problem. It's reflected in our behaviors, interests, and speech. We may not want to live in a gendered world, we may eschew that, but we were raised in a gendered world and it shows. One which has a lot of complications for being that, like almost everyone feeling safer around afab people by default of the All Men Are Bad, All Women Are Harmless bullshit.

We not only know that the RPC is primarily afab, we tend to assume comfort, especially in hostile situations, by assuming those pronouns in others.

And it so does not matter how much any of us like it, some people have more masculine or feminine tones. Even in text. That means neither that someone's gender identity should be disregarded nor that this text-based presentation is correct, but like every other unfair thing that exists, it's a thing. Like you, Anon, you genuinely come across in tone as primarily neutral, slight lean toward masculine. Even if I wasn't inclined to do so, not knowing you and all, I'd use they/them for you instinctively because that's what your speech is giving me. That isn't any more unreasonable than ascribing another set of pronouns based on the same information.

Oh yeah, I know, lurkers, the difference is that they/them is the appropriate choice when one does not know. I know that logically, but people aren't always operating like robots, weirdly enough. We default to a lot of instinctive behaviors, and we aren't always operating at the top rung of cognition either. Being human works like that, it's really that simple and not malicious if you're not reading that into it.

As we're all aware, it is being read into, and your experience is exactly why; you now feel worried every time you get a notif, you've been outed as a supposed transphobe, and while it is incredibly fortunate you stopped this from transpiring on your RP blog, it still transpired somewhere and has had a negative effect. If they find they correct thing or set of things, they can get so many more people to dogpile you over it. Get enough people to do that, make someone miserable enough, especially people who are already going through a hard enough time already, they'll leave.

It is a terroristic act, and it has the effect of all terroristic acts; people are afraid to exist outside of shifting bounds (that shifting is a part of the terrorism). They can't have an opinion, write any muse/topic they wish, be honest on their own blogs, support the "wrong" topics, muns, or blogs. Attacking people for a mistake, not allowing them to address it either, just furthers all of that. It's showing the community what happens when you aren't on the "right" side, even if that isn't even the case. They certainly turn on their own quickly enough.

So, of course, it's a culture of fear and it is disturbing as hell. No one has any right to make someone feel unsafe over fiction or a hobby or a difference of opinion. Everyone has the right to say whatever they want on their own blogs, to talk openly, and yes, to try to talk to others without feeling at risk.

Even if what someone says is genuinely unpleasant. This isn't the way one handles it. By all means, have a problem with something, have a problem with someone, but grow up and talk to them openly, without bringing everyone you can dredge up to join in. I have no issue with people arguing, I have an issue with bullying. If it's your whole goal to harass people without consequences to the end result of deactivation and lockstep behavior from everyone else, that's what you're doing, folks. Bullying.

If you can't win an argument, especially one your own ass began, in any other way than this, you're not engaging in an argument.

[vvampirebat]

hello! feel free to ignore this message if you don't feel like educating someone lmao but i genuinely dont understand how that post is a terf dogwhistle....facing misogyny and sexualisation as a child was quite damaging to me at least and i think many girls went through some sort of a "not like the other girls" phase bc femininity is forced down girls' throats all the time

oh wow oops, this from a while ago but i’m gonna answer it cause i’ve thought about that post since then & i think generally a lot of people aren’t necessarily aware of how terf rhetoric operates and how to identify it

the post that i reblogged calling that post a terf dogwhistle described the op as specifically a crypto-terf which is really important in this context, because the way that crypto-terfs work is through posting and spreading terf-adjacent/compatible posts while maintaining the guise of plausible deniability

for the most part, they’re not going to post/spread anything explicitly transmisogynistic, instead making sweeping statements about “men” or “males”, which to people in the know, includes OR even refers specifically to trans women, which is why often these posts spill out of terf circles

terfs know that lgb (& honestly sometimes trans masc) folks are often not going to be immediately receptive to blatant transmisogyny, but by maintaining an internet presence which slowly filters in terf-sympathetic talking points, they can slowly plant the seeds that can eventually lead towards terf radicalization if you’ve aready fallen into terf-adjacent circles

the original post was about the trauma of approaching puberty as a [cis] woman, and moving from a relatively genderless existence as a child towards increasing sexualization & objectification

and like, obviously this experience is traumatic! i experienced it as a transmasculine person who presented very feminine for most of my teenage years, and had a very complicated relationship to sex and my sexuality from a young age, in no small part because of my perception of myself as a “woman”

these kinds of posts would not circulate if they didn’t resonate with people, and a sympathetic reading of the situation would be that a cis woman made a personal post about her own experience of girlhood/womanhood which got circulated too widely and taken out of context/was never meant to encompass every experience of womanhood (ex. trans womanhood, women of color who never got to experience an ungendered/desxualized childhood, etc etc). obviously no post could ever apply to every woman in the world

i think what made many people suspicious of the post was that it began with “being a girl and hitting puberty is so traumatic”, which like yeah, okay. true in a lot of ways, but a pretty sweeping blanket statement about girlhood. but okay, maybe she did just make a post for her personal blog where she didn’t think too hard about wording and meant to be reflecting on her own experience which plenty of other cis women resonate with. i’m honestly not even arguing that that post is inaccurate, or that she’s responsible for considering every fact of every woman’s experiences in one post

MY skepticism about that post comes from

a) the knowledge of how crypto-terfs utilize plausible deniability

b) the fact that the first time i saw that posts was on a self-identified terf’s blog when i was checking to see if a different post was posted by a terf (it was), and so i knew it was circulating in terf circles and related directly to ideas they have about womanhood

c) the op of the post screenshotting the tags of a bunch of transmasc people relating their own similar experiences from a trans perspective, which she captioned with something along the lines of “go to therapy”

that was mostly what rang alarms bells for me, since terf’s position on trans men tends to be that they’re women wrestling with internalized misogyny

yeah, there were people also making inappropriate assumptions that the op was a closeted trans man because of her discomfort of being objectified & sexualized as a woman, which like. is definitely not what that post was about and a form of projection and ignores the fact that being a woman in this world genuinely does suck in a lot of ways, BUT a lot of the tags she screenshotted were straight up just trans men/transmascs relaying their own experiences of dysphoria once reaching puberty which is like. when many trans people’s dysphoria intensifies or begins

so like yeah, cis women do have complicated relationships to gender, do have the right to talk about their experience and trauma as women, and on its surface that post isn’t a 100% indicator that the op is a terf, but there’s a broader context and i think it’s important to familiarize yourself with how terfs operate and recruit because otherwise you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to absorbing their ideas