#rape mention

[luckyladylily]

So a few months ago there was the discourse about would you rather meet a man or a bear in the woods. I didn't want to touch it while the discourse was hot and everyone dug in hard because those are not good conditions for nuance, but I waited until today, June 1st, for a specific reason.

I'm not going to take a position in the bear vs man debate because I don't think it matters. What is really being asked here is how afraid are you of men? Specifically, unexpected men who are, perhaps, strange.

People have a lot of very real fear of men that comes from a lot of very real places. Back when I was first transitioning in 2015 and 2016, I decided to start presenting as a woman in public even though I did not pass in the slightest.

I live in a red state. I knew other trans women who had been attacked by men, raped by men. I knew I was taking a risk by putting myself out there. I was the only visibly trans person in the area of campus I frequented, and people made sure I never forgot that. Most were harmless enough and the worst I got from them was curious stares. Others were more aggressive, even the occasional threat. I had to avoid public bathrooms, of course, and always be aware of my surroundings.

I know how frightening it is to be alone at night while a pair of men are following behind you and not knowing if they are just going in the same direction or if they want to start something - made all the worse for the constant low level threat I had been living under for over a year by just being visibly trans in a place where many are openly hostile to queer people. You have to remember, this was at the height of the first wave of bathroom law discussions, a lot of people were very angry about trans women in particular. My daily life was terrifying at times. I was never the subject of direct violence, but I knew trans women who had been.

I want you to keep all that in mind.

So man or bear is really the question "how afraid of men are you?", and the question that logically follows is "What if there was a strange man at night in a deserted parking lot?" or "What if you were alone in an elevator with a man?" or "What if you met a strange man in the woman's bathroom?"

My state recently passed an anti trans bathroom bill. The rhetoric they used was about protecting women and children from "strange men", aka trans women.

Conservatives hijack fear for their bigoted agenda.

When I first started presenting as a woman the campus apartment complex was designed for young families. The buildings were in a large square with playgrounds in the center, and there were often children playing. I quickly noticed that when I took my daughter out to play, often several children would immediately stop what they were doing and run back inside. It didn't take me long to confirm that the parents were so afraid of "the strange man who wears skirts" that their children were under strict instructions to literally run away as soon as they saw me.

"How afraid are you of a strange man being near your children?"

I mentioned above that I had to avoid public bathrooms. This was not because of men. It was because of women who were so afraid of random men that they might get violent or call someone like the police to be violent for them if I ever accidentally presented myself in a way that could be interpreted as threatening, when my mere presence could be seen as a threat. If I was in the library studying and I realized that it was just me and one other woman I would get up and leave because she might decide that stranger danger was happening.

Your fear is real. Your fear might even come from lived experiences. None of that prevents the fact that your fear can be violent. Women's fear of men is one of the driving forces of transmisogyny because it is so easy to hijack. And it isn't just trans women. Other trans people experience this, and other queer people too. Racial minorities, homeless people, neurodivergent people, disabled people.

When you uncritically engage with questions like man or bear, when you uncritically validate a culture of reactive fear, you are paving the way for conservatives and bigots to push their agenda. And that is why I waited until pride month. You cannot engage and contribute to the culture of reactive fear without contributing to queerphobia of all varieties. The sensationalist culture of reactive fear is a serious queer issue, and everyone just forgot that for a week as they argued over man or bear. I'm not saying that "man" is the right answer. I am saying that uncritically engaging with such obvious click bait trading on reactive fear is a problem. Everyone fucked up.

It is not a moral failing to experience fear, but it is a moral responsibility to keep a handle on that fear and know how it might harm others.

[headspace-hotel]

i haven't posted in a long time about Palestine but I just don't know what to say anymore.

Human Rights Watch reported recently on the Israeli military torturing health care workers. I won't describe it. It's the worst and most detestable level of human capability for cruelty. They were trying to force the doctors to confess to being part of Hamas and in some cases threatened to do horrible things to the doctors' families.

I don't understand the reaction of people that still support Israel. They think the attack by Hamas was terrible and unjustifiable—Yes, I understand that part

But we have reliable reports from numerous news and human rights organizations that the Israeli military is doing all of the same stuff and worse.

People say "I think what Hamas did is unacceptable", but supporting the actions of the Israeli military means they think those things are acceptable. If killing massive numbers of innocent civilians and torturing and raping prisoners for being "maybe" associated with the enemy is okay, why the hell would Hamas make you upset.

Are crimes against humanity "okay if you feel like it's a good idea" or are they bad. MAKE UP YOUR GODDAMN MIND

[dungeonmastersconsortium]

things are getting WILD on far-right twitter

[awakefor48hours]

Please stop telling people, for any reason, to kill themself. Stop advocating for suicide in any form or capacity.

[manstrans]

honestly the reason I'm so confident in myself when I talk about transandrophobia being real is because I remember what it was like to be ace in 2016

any random blog could come out against aspecs at any time. didn't matter what their content or gimmick was. and if they did come out supporting us, they'd be harassed and sent death threats. it even happened to thomas fucking sanders, who was generally seen as beloved before that (at least from what I saw)

the last major aspec discourse I remember seeing in that era was when someone said "it's bad to rape asexuals". that was all they were saying. and so many people arrived from nowhere to say "actually, aces are the ones withholding sex in the first place, which is abuse, so it's fine"

and when people replied to this saying "you're condoning rape. this is rape apologia," these people doubled down, trying to find reasons why it was okay

so now when I hear "transandrophobia isn't real you don't need a word for that" I remember "aphobia isn't real you don't need a word for that" and how the latter spiraled into justifying corrective rape so easily

[fairuzfan]

Here's a summary of what's been happening in Sudan the past couple of days. It's gotten to the point where women are asking for contraceptives for fear of getting raped by RSF forces.

[cutecipher]

Why is the idea that transmisogyny is "just" an online problem so pervasive? Trans women face issues from rape to starvation to imprisonment for being trans women to name a few, these are extremely "irl" issues that are pretty common from my experience.

[reachartwork]

can you guys be normal for like five seconds please

[cardentist]

I have a full post about this here [Link]

but I genuinely need people to start making the connection between terfs and radfems being Weirdly Invested in silencing trans men when they open up about being raped, calling them MRA's and misogynists and trying to get people to Stop Listening To Them or taking them seriously

and the fact that you can find terfs and radfems openly fantasizing about corrective raping trans men on this very site.

people who silence victims do it for a reason, and I think we should All acknowledge that terfs seem to Love doing it

[aropride]

exclusionists saying they dont want ace discourse to come back bc it's "annoying" and "childish" or whatever is so... like, okay man. personally i don't want it to come back bc the amount of death and rape threats i've gotten for being aspec has significantly decreased since it stopped being trendy to openly mock us. and i'd like being aspec online to be a little bit safer for as long as possible. but sorry aspecs rightfully existing in queer spaces and asking not to be harassed is annoying to you, i guess. that sounds really hard to deal with.

[headspace-hotel]

Radfems commonly ask "What did J.K. Rowling do wrong besides say that 'woman' is a real biological category?" as a 'gotcha' and, well...

(referencing Matt Walsh's documentary, 'What is a Woman')

this is matt walsh (skip to 1:30)

If you don't want to click the link, this is where he says that girls are "most fertile" at 17 and that getting pregnant at 16 was the norm throughout history and that "teen pregnancy" isn't a real problem, only unwed pregnancy.

This is Matt Walsh's blog post explaining exactly what he thinks of feminism.

This is another post explaining what Matt Walsh thinks of feminism.

This is what Matt Walsh's twitter says

(Yes, he self-identified as a fascist on Twitter back when the interaction with JKR took place.)

If J.K. Rowling agrees with Matt Walsh on 'what a woman is,' she is anti-feminist, misogynistic scum.

[incognitopolls]

The Scottsboro Boys were a group of nine Black teenagers who were accused of raping two white women in Tennessee in 1931. They were given multiple unfair trials in Alabama and are a major example of legal injustice in the US. One of the alleged victims later admitted that the accusation was false. You can read the details on Wikipedia.

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[xclowniex]

I hope everyone who has been saying "you do not choose how we/they ressist" knows that they contributed to the rape of that 12 year old Jewish French girl.

Rape never has been resistance, it's always been punishment. It was punishment when I was raped for being jewish a few years ago, it was punishment when it happened on Oct 7th, it's punishment when that 12 year old child was raped, and it will be punishment when any other jews get raped for being jewish.

Framing rape as resistance tells people that its okay to rape people if you believe them to be in the wrong, and for so many antisemites, simply being jewish is being in the wrong.

[blackpearlblast]

"i hope you get into a clown car accident involving hammers" <- worse than death and rapes threats according to staff.

because it's directed at them and not marginalized people on their website :)

[vamprisms]

like is that actually a karen or is it just a woman who disagrees with you

[bogleech]

In the 90s every internet chatroom I ever went on had that furry couple who would greet each other in front of everyone there with some variation on *rapes u >:3c* These weren't furry chatrooms nor horny chatrooms, just whatever kind of chatrooms. Tropical fish chatrooms, star wars chatrooms, it didn't matter, I swear there was still always a different *rapes u >:3c* furry couple every single time. I don't have any strong feelings on this I mean it's been 25 years but that was a bit odd