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Bugs me so much how in the US you can't drink and smoke until 21 but can enlist in the military at 18 (actually as a minor if a parent signs) and you can also enter whatever legal contracts at 18 or take on tens of thousands in debt you can't pay back but you can't rent a car if you need one until you're 21 and you can get a job and have to pay taxes as a minor but you're not allowed to vote on how your taxes are being used until you're 18 but also if you get pregnant at 12 you'll be expected to go through with carrying the fetus and giving birth and might even go to jail for terminating but most drs won't let you make the decision to sterilize yourself until you're at least 30 and/or already have children despite there technically being no regulation preventing you from doing this at 18 and even if you do convince them to let you do it you'll be on a hold for 30-120 days just to make extra sure you're not a dum dum who's going to change their mind and at this point I don't know how we're supposed to define "adult" in this country when we can't seem to come to a single fucking consensus on what that means (read: at what point a person should be granted autonomy over their own body and life decisions).

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we need playing pretend now more than ever

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Cats are aliens

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And if you listen to people who use these terms and take their opinions on queer theory seriously or believe they aren't just obvious transphobic trolls, you should rethink that.

“Transandrocunt” is on par with zipper tits and cunt boy. If you can’t meaningfully talk with your community without making transphobic, misogynistic references to what YOU believe their genitals are then maybe you don’t actually love your fellow trans people at all.

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This is your periodic reminder that it's possible for multiple people to be right at the same time. It's possible for multiple people to be wrong at the same time.

It's possible for people to be right about some things and wrong about others. It's possible for people to be kind in some situations and cruel in others.

It's possible to be oppressed and an oppressor. It's possible to be abused and an abuser.

It's possible for people to have equally valid needs that fundamentally conflict. It's possible for people to have worldviews that cannot be reconciled.

It's possible to have good intentions and do harm. It's possible to have bad intentions and do good.

People are complicated, the world is complicated, and simplifying everything down to a black and white worldview where some people are Bad (and therefore incapable of being right or kind or good) and some people are Good (and therefore incapable of being wrong or cruel or bad) is only going to cause harm.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled Tumblr.

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transmasculine erasure is a part of trans genocide. its not passive or ignorable, but fundamental to transphobic violence.

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Y’all are using transmasc and transfem wrong.

No, “afab nonbinary” is NOT equivalent to transmasc.

No, “ amab nonbinary” is NOT equivalent to transfem.

How many times do nonbinary people have to beg and plead for the rest of the trans community to stop forcing us back into the same shitty gender binary we’re trying to escape? Just because some nonbinary people identify as transmasc or transfem does not mean we all do.

Transneutral people are being erased. People with xenogenders are being erased. People with unique cultural gender identities are being erased. A lot of intersex nonbinary people are being erased.

Nonbinary isn’t a third gender, or a modifier for other genders. It is an umbrella term for anyone who identifies beyond the traditional definition of the gender binary. This does include nonbinary people who are transfeminine, or transmasculine, or both, but please stop defining the entire community by the parts most familiar to you.

This erasure feels like the product of laziness and ignorance. Often I see it happening because someone wants a quick shorthand they can use in their discourse posts. And sometimes it happens because someone is claiming half the nonbinary population as transfem or transmasc for the sake of their argument.

For the record, the word for discrimination against nonbinary people is EXORSEXISM, though some may prefer enbyphobia, or just transphobia as a blanket term. Terms like transmisogyny and transandrophobia/anti-transmasculinity CAN be applied to some nonbinary people, with their consent.

But you’ve lost the plot the moment you start trying to sleuth out a nonbinary person’s AGAB to determine which type of oppression they face. If you treat a nonbinary person differently based on what junk you think they have, you are a transphobe and a sexist. And know that any system based off of AGAB is going to be extremely intersexist as well, because sex isn’t a clear-cut binary, either!

There will never be a way to neatly sum up the experiences of the nonbinary community, because it is so vast and covers such a wide range of people. But at the very least, please stop misgendering the rest of us by equating our AGAB to a binary identity.

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Teeny tiny babies

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the thing is, it IS going to be worse. but WE are better. 2024 me could eat 2016 me for lunch

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I think there's a couple things about this to highlight. There's a couple of popular social justice phrases that people seem to misinterpret that feed into what OP is talking about.

First, is that everyone is an expert on their own experiences. Yes, people can lie, but overall you have to assume they know what they themselves have been through better than you do. A trans perspective on the treatment of trans people is typically more valuable than a cis perspective on the treatment of trans people because trans people actually live as trans people and get treated like trans people. Even a very educated cis person is only ever going to have a secondhand understanding of the matter. Even a very uneducated trans person is going to know how people react to them as a trans person. So while someone might not know the ins and outs of oppression on an academic level, they are going to know about what happens to them personally. That doesn't make their experiences less valid or important to consider, but just being a marginalized identity doesn't indicate they are experts on the full scope of oppression against their community.

Second, the idea of "listen to [x] people" is often misinterpreted as, "I'm [x] identity so you have to listen to me because I'm right!" But that is not exactly what that advice is proposing. It means that if you are going to try to engage with the subject of oppression and bigotry you have to actually listen to the people who it affects. You shouldn't read secondhand or thirdhand accounts exclusively to get an idea of what marginalized people go through. You need to listen to people from that group. You need to listen to *a lot* of different people from that group. You need to hear firsthand accounts of what a group goes through to even begin to understand the issues they face. If the only stuff you know about a marginalized group is stuff that other people who don't belong to it told you, you probably aren't going to really Get It or See The Patterns of Oppression until you actually hear multiple firsthand accounts of what it's like. If the only firsthand perspective you have on an issue comes from one source, your understanding will have a limited scope because they cannot represent every person in their community alone. And that all ties in to....

Third, the idea that [x] identity is not a monolith. Idk that it gets misinterpreted so much as people forget to apply the concept when it's inconvenient. But the general idea of this one is that no one group of marginalized people should be generalized based on their identity. There is no One True Opinion. No one holds meetings to vote on the One Correct Way to present our experiences. Black folks don't all agree with each other or have the same opinions. Trans folks don't all have cookie cutter experiences with their gender or transitions. So on and so forth... This is why you get reminders like, "I can't speak for all of [x] identity; I'm only one person." There are as many opinions and unique perspectives as there are people in the community. So just because your [x] identity friend has a particular opinion on an issue about their community doesn't mean every other [x] identified person shares that opinion. They are not a monolith.

I bring up these three points because they are all deeply interconnected if you're trying to actually learn about a marginalized group. You have to believe that people know about how their own identity interacts with their life and what they have experienced as people from that community -- that when they speak of their own experiences, they are speaking from a personal truth. Then, you have to realize that you can't just take their singular word for it. Their personal truth may not be a universal truth. You need to compare it against other firsthand accounts. You need to spend time seeking out a variety of opinions from a variety of people. You don't have to *agree* with everyone you listen to, but you at least need to spend some time considering their perspective. This will give you a much stronger idea of what the common lived experiences of any given group is AND after you've listened to a lot of different people, you start to pick up on common patterns and experiences that demonstrate the oppression that group typically faces. Finally, you have to understand that no one can fully represent everyone in the community they belong to. There is a point in your social justice education where you will have to think critically and make your own decisions about what you believe based on what you know. You can't just look at Any Marginalized Person to give you an opinion and uncritically adopt it into your worldview. When you listen to A Lot of Different Perspectives from people in the same marginalized group, you will learn that many of them cannot agree on the best course of action. You will learn that there is no Singular Truth that's going to unite us and end oppression. You will have to decide which of the people in this group you agree with and align with just like you would with any other issue. You will have to decide for yourself which issues you want to focus on and advocate for. You can't pass the responsibility of applying the things you've learned onto someone else. I know people want easy, uncomplicated truths and are afraid of looking like bigots. But it is honestly worse if you think the opinions of everyone from a marginalized group are interchangeable. You make them into a mouthpiece and deny them the fullness of imperfect personhood.

And if a person from [x] identity is trying to pass their word off as Objective Truth for All and tries to deflect any criticism of their opinion because "I AM [x] identity!" they are probably just shitheads. Please be aware when someone is trying to use your fear of looking bigoted to manipulate you into adopting their worldview without question. Never adopt ANY worldview without question. That's just Critical Thinking 101. And I'm not saying you should argue with people who do that. If you're worried about how you're going to come off, you always have the option to keep your opinions to yourself until you have a better understanding of the issue from a broader perspective. It is harder for people with a limited perspective to bully you into going along with them when you have the knowledge that comes with taking the time to listen to other people and to research the facts.

So, yeah. I hope I've explained my points well enough that y'all can see the danger in blindly accepting the opinions of a single individual just because they belong to [x] identity. I also hope you all walk away with a better understanding of how these three concepts interact with each other. More than anything, I hope y'all learn to think for yourselves and use your big beautiful brains in these troubling times.

“i’m literally [x identity]” ok and? is what you have to say factually true? do other people of the same marginalized group feel similarly? or are you just proclaiming your identity because you think it’s a better way to say “shut up you have to listen to me”

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As a person who has not fully mastered this myself, I will say that one way to help with this is to cook more than you need and freeze what you don't eat. Then you don't have to eat it all at once, AND you'll have a frozen prepared meal for days with bad executive functioning. If you have herbs and veggies that are going to rot soon you can make a veggie stock with them and use it for soup later. Or freeze them and make a stock later when you have more time.

It doesn't always work out because the executives are not always functioning for me, but! Learning to cut and freeze my veggies to make into a stock has saved me a lot. Freezing extra portions when I cook too much for just myself has helped me a lot when I remember to do it. Highly recommend it if you can find it in yourself to do it.

using fresh ingredients when you’re cooking for one is a curse

like oh, you bought half an ounce of fresh dill? hope you like dill because everything you’re eating for the next month is gonna have dill on it or else you’re being wasteful!

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@important-cat-pics

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Some people say the rudest shit directly to your face and if you react in a way that is even slightly impolite they act like you killed their puppy in front of them. Some people are always going to have a problem with how you act and how you live your life. A lot of the people who complain about trans people being angry or annoying or cringe or perverts honestly just want to see us stop existing altogether. There is no amount of respectability we can put forth that will convince them we are just regular people. When your existence is treated as an annoyance, you sorta stop caring about whether you're bothering the people who only have mean things to say about you.

"trans women are always angry" "transmascs are sooo annoying" WE'VE SPENT OUR WHOLE LIVES GETTING SHIT ON JUST FOR BEING AROUND!!! MAYBE SHE'S GONNA BE ANGRY. MAYBE I GET TO BE ANNOYING. DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK OF US OR NOT!!!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!!!

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Carlos for scale

I reference this meme so often and nobody ever gets the reference. It's so distressing

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"Why does Group A deserve human rights if Group B doesn't have them?"

Both groups deserve human rights. That's how human rights work.

Anyone who convinces you to barter one group's rights against another is not interested in giving them to either group.

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In my defense, y'all send me long asks about complex subjects that are important to me and a lot of you make good points that I want to acknowledge and build on. Y'all have to know that I take my time processing these asks and rotating the answers in my brain.

Like, I'd get back to you quicker if you asked me easy things, but y'all are looking for enlightened conversation. Don't get me wrong -- I love it. It just takes more time to Bring the Nuance to sensitive topics than it does to rank fictional mystery detectives (for example).

I need folks to know that I've been sitting on a couple anons for a little while! No one upset me or anything, I'm just really slow to answer. So if you sent something in and never heard back, it's because online communication is Hugely Impacted by my executive dysfunction and I just haven't gotten around to responding yet. I do plan on getting to all of them soon!

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I need folks to know that I've been sitting on a couple anons for a little while! No one upset me or anything, I'm just really slow to answer. So if you sent something in and never heard back, it's because online communication is Hugely Impacted by my executive dysfunction and I just haven't gotten around to responding yet. I do plan on getting to all of them soon!