#discourse //

[neet-princessthing]

In light of the Steam and also now the Itch situation, the specific way some people have been responding quite bothers me

[prokopetz]

That the discourse is rigorous doesn't mean it's not also dumb as hell.

[xenineshroom]

Sometimes I remember that a lot of gender essentialists so unironically use the term, "TMRA" and I stare listlessly into space thinking it through, because of how poorly it really comes off.

I'm not the first to say that it implies that trans men's rights aren't an issue, furthermore posing a care about trans men's rights as something shameful and othering. The formation of the word itself gives away the game: to maintain the erasure of trans men's rights as a legitimate and relevant issue. To erase trans men's rights as being part of the pursuit of trans rights at large.

In the effort to call upon the "MRA," the term instead more closely mirrors the bigoted usage of, "TRA" especially in the actual goals of its usage. The overlap between "TRA" and "TMRA" being that they both target marginalized people as "not really oppressed" or worse, as any fight for their rights being misogynistic and coopting "real struggles." Even in the best faith usage, it would still be an example of using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house.

I need these folks to be more critical of their own language, and examining what lines they are willing to cross in their quest to shut down conversations about trans men's rights.

[conarcoin]

"gooner" is straight up just a weird conservative dogwhistle at this point

[griffonatrix]

"you don't have to transition to be trans": overdone, dull, runs cover for taking away medical care from those who need it

"you don't have to be trans to transition": exciting, poignant, radical perspective on the right to bodily autonomy

[myfandomrealitea]

I am actually begging some people to just let some spaces exist untouched by real-world issues and horrors.

Like I've lost count of the amount of times peaceful game or fandom servers have been ruined by people stampeding in with political rants, bitching about world issues, demanding internal activism, demanding vent channels so they can whine about their shitty parents, ect.

Like. Respectfully. Not every single space has to be inclusive of and welcoming of outside topics. The real world sucks. We don't needed to be reminded of that absolutely everywhere.

[otakuvampyre]

This is actually a very good point.

If these people would condemn the reaction to 9/11, and I don't mean the military reaction, but the reaction of Citizens in America, which was literally what they are doing now but towards Muslims, they shouldn't be alright with doing that shit to Jews.

They don't even have the (unjustified) excuse of "I was personally affected by an event that claimed the lives of my family, friends, and/or neighbors and am taking my anger out on people who share a religion/ethnicity with the people who caused said event." They're literally doing it because a group on a separate continent is, in their eyes at least, being targeted by people who share a religion/ethnicity with the people they're targeting. They are wholly and completely unaffected by this conflict. It's just a convenient excuse to them, not something that happened/is happening to them.

I did not become scared or distrustful of Muslims after 9/11, despite the fact my country, my state, was directly attacked. I felt no urge to join those who attacked Muslims, Muslim restaurants, and firebombed mosques here in America. Seeing Muslims in America wearing their traditional clothing like hijab or symbols of their homelands or items of worship does not make me upset or uncomfortable. I did not ask every Muslim I met if they condemn Al Qaeda or ISIS.

If you feel distrustful of Jews, that’s antisemitism. If you think it helps Palestinians to attack Jews, their restaurants, or synagogues here in America, you are antisemitic. If seeing a Jew wearing traditional clothing or items of worship such as the Star of David or a kippah or tallit makes you uncomfortable, you are antisemitic. If you feel like you need to ask every Jew if they condemn the actions of the Israeli government to make sure they’re a “good Jew”, you are antisemitic.

[kuchipatch1]

yall have got to be more normal about Southern people and I'm not kidding. enough of the Sweet Home Alabama incest jokes, enough of the idea that all Southerners are bigots and rednecks, and enough of the idea that the South has bad food. shut up about "trailer trash" and our accents and our hobbies!

do yall know how fucking nauseating it is to hear people only bring up my state to make jokes about people in poverty and incestuous relationships? how much shame I feel that I wasn't born up north like the Good Queers and Good Leftists with all the Civilised Folk with actual houses instead of small cramped trailers that have paper thin walls that I know won't protect me in a bad enough storm?

do yall know how frustrating it is to be trans in a place that wants to kill you and whenever you bring it up to people they say "well just move out" instead of sympathizing with you or offering help?

do yall understand how alienating it is to see huge masterposts of queer and mental health resources but none of them are in your state because theyre all up north? and nobody seems to want to fix this glaring issue because "they're all hicks anyways"

Southern people deserve better. we deserve to be taken seriously and given a voice in the queer community and the mental health space and leftist talks in general.

[o-craven-canto]

"Oh yeah? If X is not true, then how come someone has written a story in which it is?" -- a distressingly large number of people

[veal-exe]

EDIT

This has gotten a lot of traction so I’m gonna be rude and say that if anyone here has the means, that my spouse and I need help to not be homeless and hungry.

my paypal is Lahoreling@Gmail.com

END EDIT

———

I was discussing the incident mentioned later in this piece with my wife yesterday and I saw another post by someone earlier doing something mentioned in here and I'm finally going to say something about it.

There is a serious problem in leftist spaces, especially online, especially on Tumblr, when it comes to language.

The way people are expected to speak just to even enter these spaces is incredibly complex, to the point of being outright hostile to those who haven’t already spent time in them. And it’s not just newcomers; people who have important things to say, people speaking from lived experiences, people who don’t have English as a first language but still deserve to be heard, are constantly talked down to or even pushed out entirely for not using the "right" words.

This gets even worse when you factor in how often new terms are coined in English, and then people are shamed for not immediately knowing or using them.

I saw someone reblog their own post saying something like, "I know for a fact more than half of y’all didn’t understand a fucking word I said here."

And honestly? That stuck with me, because yeah, I’ve felt that before. Not because I don’t value critical thinking! because I absolutely do! I just made a post on that too! but because so many of these posts are written in a way that makes them Functionally Inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t already have the right background knowledge. And at a certain point, if you actually want your words to have an impact, if you actually want to create meaningful change, then you’re going to have to accept some things:

People will not always use perfect language.

2. People will not always know the exact terminology you personally prefer they use when engaging in discourse.

3. Dismissing or attacking people for how they say something, instead of engaging with what they’re saying, is actively harmful.

And more than that, if you genuinely want people to understand and engage with the things you’re talking about, especially people who don’t speak English as a first language, especially people without access to higher education, especially people who don’t even know where to begin when it comes to self-education (because yes, that is a skill that has to be taught) then you are going to have to be the one to adjust sometimes. You are going to have to let people say things imperfectly. You are going to have to take a step back and engage with the message rather than just the words being used to express it.

One of the experiences that made me realize that I, as a non-native English speaker, was not welcome in Tumblr leftist spaces was when I spoke about real-life oppression I had experienced. I left one word out of my post, a word which honestly, was not even important when talking about an incident that had Happened To Me, not theory, not hypotheticals or any what-ifs of oppression, a story, a story about something that happened to me.

And because of that, people sat in a Discord server, picking apart my words, accusing me of awful things, and then came into my askbox throwing jargon and buzzwords I’d never even heard before, then got mad at me for being frustrated that this was happening.

Think about that. People who are directly impacted by oppression are being pushed out of spaces meant to discuss it because the way they speak doesn’t conform to certain expectations. That is not justice. That is not solidarity. That is not progress.

There is a fundamental disconnect here between theory and praxis. Ironically so many of you do not know what praxis is, because most of you engage with a lot of theory, and not a lot of praxis, you use the word praxis a lot, but, ironically, you have no idea what it means.

{to put my money where my mouth is, it means Doing Something, in the simplest possible terms}

In theory, leftist spaces should be accessible. They should be places where people can speak openly about their experiences, learn from each other, and work toward meaningful change. But in practice? There’s a gatekeeping of language so intense that many people, particularly those who are marginalized in ways beyond just their political beliefs, are outright excluded.

And this is something I need people to sit with: The assumption that the "right" language is easy to learn, or that anyone who doesn’t use it is being willfully ignorant, is an inherently privileged stance. Knowing where to find information, how to process it, and how to integrate new terminology into your vocabulary is a skill that is largely tied to education. Having the time to engage with leftist literature and theory, to stay up-to-date on every new term that gets introduced, is also a privilege. And the fact that so many people refuse to acknowledge this, that they expect perfect articulation from everyone, regardless of background, and punish those who don’t measure up, is a huge problem.

Worse still, the same people who act as gatekeepers of this language often fail to communicate their ideas in a way that is accessible at all.

This doesn’t mean that complex ideas should never be discussed. It doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t strive for accuracy in their language. But it does mean that if your goal is to educate, if your goal is to spread awareness, if your goal is to help people understand and join the movement, if your goal is to engage with fellow oppressed people, then you have a responsibility to meet people where they are. You have a responsibility to make your language understandable.

Because if people can’t even process what you’re saying, then what’s the fucking point?

And before anyone says, "Well, people should put in the effort to learn!" Let me make something very clear: They do.

People who are new to leftist spaces, or who are coming in from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, are often trying their best to engage. They are listening, they are learning, they are processing. But if the response to every mistake, every slightly off phrasing, every unfamiliarity with a new term, is immediate hostility,

or even if it's just 'hey I see you're sharing a personal moment, but can you change your language to make me, personally, more comfortable with you discussing your oppression?' then you’re not teaching.

You’re just making sure only the people who already think and speak exactly like you get to stay in the room.

Your language, your terminology, your theory? none of it means anything if you can’t make it accessible to the people who actually need it. And it means nothing if you use it to Exclude rather than Include.

[undertalepilled]

I wish people treated queerness as breaking the rules of the dominant cis-hetero patriarchy so you can authentically be yourself. Instead of adhering to a new slightly less restrictive set of rules which you will deride other people for not following (basically whatever label discourse is now flaring up)

[apollos-boyfriend]

“it’s a good thing that the minecraft movie isn’t about the intense loneliness of minecraft’s world and finding growth and hope in a post-apocalyptic society because it’s for children” Have You Ever Spoken To A Child

[velvetvexations]

get his ass Lil Tay

[cdigoddess]

disenfranchisement

[clover-wasnt-here]

“Autism doesn’t cause low empathy! In fact we’re all just hyperempathetic we’re not bad peo-“

SHUT UP. SHUT UP. SHUT UP.

There’s a few things going on with this statement.

1. Assuming that low empathy makes someone a bad person. It does not. Actions are what matter, not empathy levels.

2. Demonizing autistic people whose low/no empathy they attribute to their autism. Autism fundamentally impacts the way you interact with the world, others, and yourself. That includes empathy.

Anyway I love you people with low/no empathy this is a safe space for you <3

Signed,

A very pissed off autistic person with fluctuating empathy levels