athenathewillow

[athenathewillow]

So tired of having to deal with the "regret transition" convo conservatives and reactionaries want to push. I'm a couple months from being 11 years on hrt and the only regret I have is letting the world convince me I was better off as a crossdresser/feminine man 15ish years ago.

[athenathewillow]

its maddening to me when people discusss school issues and you can tell they dont give a single thought to disabled kids, institutionalised kids, untold scores of dead kids whose graves are etched with fantasies written by their parents. it's always appeal to some median presentable child stripped of interiority, inherently oppositional against learning for no motive, transformed into property which must be totally controlled for their own good. i don't care about your imagined construct of the median child. the system should be built for the most vulnerable children who are stripped of their voices and erased from reality. i think we should sacrifice bureaucratic efficiency if it means less kids get killed and institutionalised. i think standardised testing should be stripped bare (less frequent, results completely anonymised to parents and schools so they have no individual incentives for results). i think homework should be minimised even if it meant worse learning outcomes (which it doesnt in the majority of cases) so that less kids get killed and institutionalised. these are sacrifices which should be uncontroversial to anyone who isn't a eugenicist, and who recognises that the current education system is a disability filter

[athenathewillow]

seriously, it boggles me how stupid people are--"unlearn patriarchal programming, and take power as a woman, fully realizing your own identity while decentering the systems of power that push us all down! unless, of course, you do it in a way the patriarchy says is bad, because that makes us all look like abhorrent deviant pieces of shit."

like, transfeminine people are more feminist than the vast majority of cis white feminists as a whole, solely because our existence is living proof of feminism in practice-- by virtue of our femininity, we reclaim it against the system instead of abiding by it as it was assigned to us.

if you don't understand how fighting patriarchy by rejecting your role in it is functionally identical whether it's through lesbianism, transfemininity, transmasculinity, or decentering of capitalism and patriarchy, you straight up just don't get what feminism is and what we fight for. cisgender feminists don't have to reckon with it like transgender feminists do, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't. it's a fundamental part of the movement and ignoring it upholds your place in patriarchy.

Transphobia is so antithetical to genuine feminism it blows my mind there's such a wide overlap like you either believe in autonomy and self determination or you don't

[athenathewillow]

happy world goth day!!!

[athenathewillow]

bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements

[athenathewillow]

makeup for a show last night :)

[athenathewillow]

liberals when fighting for change means actually changing instead of posting two (2) total instagram stories, if that

i think a big part of the current wave of antifeminist rhetoric among women is that people just cannot accept the idea that liberating yourself is uncomfortable. like of course it feels Wrong to see something you've internalised as normal/necessary (like wearing makeup 24/7) be challenged, that's because you've internalised it. and it will feel ostracising to go against the status quo once you question the things you've internalised. but the discomfort is part of it. you have to move past the fear response and look at the bigger picture.

[athenathewillow]

shout out to Facebook for showing me the best post I've ever seen. really thought I'd have found this on tumblr

[athenathewillow]

I am a grown ass adult and I still get nausea when I feel like I'm in trouble. They're gonna send me to the principals office and take away my toys for a week. Can you just fucking kill me instead of making me stew in my fucking anxiety

[athenathewillow]

It's annoying when people will call a character goth when there only "goth" trait is being rude. Daria Morgendorffer, Gaz Membrane and Mandy from Billy and Mandy aren't goth just because they're mean. Hot take but sometimes goth people are nice actually.

[athenathewillow]

Hey, Tumblr. Guess what. Relationships are defined by the people involved in them, and that's that. If people say they're friends, then they're friends. If people say they're dating, then they're dating. If they say it's a secret third thing, then that's what it is. Someone else's relationship isn't for you to decide.

[athenathewillow]

So the "don't call trans women dude" discourse is back on my dash, and I just read something that might explain why it's such a frustrating argument for everyone involved.

TLDR: There's gender-cultural differences that explain why people are arguing about this- and a reason it hurts trans women more than you might think if you were raised on the other side of the cultural divide.

I'll admit, I used to be very much on team "I won't call you 'dude' if it feels like misgendering, but also I don't really grok why it feels like I'm misgendering you, especially if I'm not addressing you directly." But then I read an academic paper that really unpicked how people used the word 'dude' (it's Kiesling (2004) if you're curious) and I realized that the way I was taught to use the word was different from the way most trans women were taught.

... So the thing about the word 'dude' that's really interesting is that it's used differently a) by people of different genders and b) across gender lines. This study is, obviously, 20 years old, but a lot of the conclusions hold up. The gist is, there's ~5 different ways that people use the word "dude":

marking discourse structure- AKA separating thoughts. You can use the word 'dude' to signal that you're changing the subject or going on a different train of thought.

exclamation. You can use the word "dude" the way you'd use another interjection like "oh my god" or "god damn".

confrontational stance mitigation. When you're getting in an argument with someone, you can address them as 'dude' to de-escalate. If you're both the same gender, it's homosocial bonding. If you're different genders, it's an attempt to weaken the gender-related power dynamic.

marking affiliation and connection. Kiesling calls this 'cool solidarity'- the idea is, "I'm a dude, you're a dude. We're just guys being dudes." This is often a greeting or a form of address (aka directly calling someone dude).

signaling agreement. "Dude, you are soooo right", kind of deal.

Now, here's the important part.

When [cis] men use the word 'dude', they are overwhelmingly using it as a form of address to mark affiliation and connection- "hey, we're all bros here, dude"- to mitigate a confrontational stance, or to signal agreement.

When [cis] women use the word 'dude', they're often commiserating about something bad (and marking affiliation/connection), mitigating a confrontational stance, or giving someone a direct order. (Anecdotally, I'd guess cis women also use it as an exclamation - this is how I most often use it.)

Cis men use the word 'dude' to say 'we're all guys here'. It is a direct form of male bonding. If a cis man uses the word 'dude' in your presence, he is generally calling you one of the guys.

Cis women use the word 'dude' to say 'we're on the same level as you; we're peers'- especially to de-escalate an argument with a cis man. Between women, it's an expression of ~cool solidarity~; when a woman's addressing a man, it's a way to say 'I'm as good as you, knock it off'.

So you've got this cultural difference, depending on how you were raised and where you spent time in your formative years. If you were assigned female at birth, you're probably used to thinking of the word 'dude' as something that isn't a direct form of address- and, if you're addressing it to someone you see as a girl, you're probably thinking of it as 'cool solidarity'! You're not trying to tell the person you're talking to that they're a man- you're trying to convey that they're a cool person that you relate to as a peer.

Meanwhile, if you were assigned male at birth and spent your teens surrounded by cis guys, you're used to thinking of 'dude' as an expression of "we're all guys here", and specifically as homosocial male bonding. Someone using the word 'dude' extensively in your presence, even if they're not calling you 'dude' directly, feels like they're trying to put you in the Man Box, regardless of how they mean it.*

So what you get is this horrible, neverending argument, where everyone's lightly triggered and no one's happy.

The takeaway here: Obviously, don't call people things they don't want to be called, regardless of gender! But no one in this argument is coming to it in bad faith.

If you were raised as a cis woman and you're using the word the way a cis woman is, it is a gender-neutral term for you (with some subconscious gendered connotations you might not have realized). But if you were raised as a cis man and you're using the word the way a cis man uses it, the word dude is inherently gendered.

Don't pick this fight; it's as pointless as a French person and an American person arguing whether cheek kisses are an acceptable greeting. To one person, they might be. To another person, they aren't. Accept that your worldview is different, move on, and again, don't call people things they don't want to be called.

*(There is, of course, also the secret third thing, where someone who is trying to misgender a trans woman uses the word 'dude' to a trans woman the way they'd use it to a man. This absolutely happens. But I think the other dynamic is the reason we keep having this argument.)

[athenathewillow]

if you want to refer to me without gender use it. even if you're cis. they/themming me is an insult.

Everyone is so confused by they/them until you do not use they/them, then suddenly it's the only pronouns they understand

[athenathewillow]

Ooookay, let's break this down you rancid chicken nugget. You are spewing pure tankie nonsense right now. In my family alone there are several VERY progressive blackwater mercenaries, and furthermore

[athenathewillow]

[athenathewillow]

one thing about tumblr at least here they’re just called “posts”. Saying “I saw this tweet/reel/tiktok/short” makes me feel like I’m ordering at a restaurant where they make you say Texas Tom’s Nut-Slappin Griddle-Chizzle instead of grilled cheese

[athenathewillow]

the train is the spoiled sibling. why must we neglect buses as a society? they're more fun, and i think we should acknowledge that more

Waiting for the bus simulator

bus due in 5 mins

bus due in 4 mins

bus due in 3 mins

bus due in 2 mins

bus due in 1 mins

bus due in 0 mins

Whoops we forgot to send the bus again

bus due in 30 mins