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I noticed an unsettling pattern within a discourse around "human nature", climate consciousness, and otherwise activism. This particularly is something to think about given that I'm Udmurt and Komi, and some other more northern tribes.

That pattern is - Indigenous peoples are the only standing counterexample to the ideas of inherent human cruelty, ecofascism, and the idea that humanity and nature are inherently incompatible.

While browsing tags surrounding misanthropy and the doomerism, or in general archaeological or anthropological stories, I noticed this recurring pattern of comments:

"Humanity is a plague, who would want to be one?"

"But what about indigenous peoples, please decolonize your mind".

Ummm... no. Why are the Indigenous peoples the only demographics whose existence is used in this manner as a counterargument? It feels as if the entire argument is based on the premise that Western thought treats Indigenous cultures as something "separate from civilization", so they can be used to contrast modern society without actually challenging how modern society itself should change. At the end of the day - it is not an actual counterargument to "human cruelty", just finding a convenient other who isn't corrupted by the civilization's compounded failures. And oh do we have a name for that term that was invented by Jean-Jacques Rousseau...

Let's pretend for a moment that ethnically nature-conscious peoples like Udmurt, or peoples with a very old heritage like Nganasan, didn't exist. What would be your policy for nature support advocacy? Carbon tax on breathing? Complete ban on any interaction with nature? Would you just accept "humans are a plague" without questioning it?

And besides, I too have my own reservations about human anthropology, and have my own opinions on how it isn't all "femur equals kindness equals humans are good". But I can't even engage with those meaningfully because my peoples' existence is supposed to be a proof of human kindness for those who "decolonize their anthropology".

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Here's your (not so gentle) reminder that empathy does not make you a good person, your actions do. You having the right emotions during a situation does not make you a good person. Your actions do. Someone not having empathy or lack of emotion does not make them an abusive individual.

There are many, many people who I have met who claim to be "empaths" who were and are entirely more abusive than the people without empathy who I have met.

You can learn to work with having no empathy, you can learn to work with not having the "correct" emotions. The phrase "basic human empathy" is entirely ableist as fuck and empathy is not what makes someone human.

Let me restate that last sentence really fucking clearly:

Empathy is not what makes someone human.

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I was born to be a siren luring people into the crashing waves but instead I have a job. wtf?

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There's so much infighting in the queer and neurodivergent communities

The title, really.

I don't really feel like I will ever be supported by anyone in the LGBTQ community or neurodiversity community - and I have a ton of diagnoses.

Instead of uplifting each other, people are finding ways to put each other down and measure who is truly oppressed enough to access these precious services.

I think really it's beyond repair. I don't know how to use the correct language to describe these issues, and I know someone will come at me for using wrong terms or something, but if anything that's further the proof for me that the community is not cohesive and is not as able to fight for equality as I hoped it was.

I know this might sound like "I'm not like other girls, I hang out with boys because there's less drama" trope, but I noticed that cis (accepting!) people are actually more tolerant of me than fellow queer and neurodivergent people, because they're not as familiar with intricacies. Like someone cis who accepts being gifted and autistic would just see a smart although weird trans girl. However in the community there's just sooo much infighting and picking which oppression is more valid than which, who is "TME" or "TMA", who is actually physically or actually mentally abled, who is level 23895235890 or who gets to have which accommodation, why is this term problematic or exclusionary, etc, etc. Meanwhile accepting people will just listen.

(This being said, if this worldview is queerphobic and ableist in the same way "boys have less drama" is misogynist, i'd be happy to learn why).

Tags are only for outreach and do not necessarily represent my opinions

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"You're beautiful just the way you are"

look inside

Ableist degendering and desexualization of gifted, autistic, and women of other identities that have been historically portrayed as undesirable and sexless amd only worth for their "brains" and "personality", further compounded by ableist notions that neuro+disabled people can only be inspiration-porn beautiful rather than just beautiful

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REBLOG THIS POST IF YOU FEEL SAFER WHEN QUEER SPACES ARE OPENLY ACCEPTING OF AMAB NONBINARY PEOPLE

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Good point, I think I'll make a bit of correction to my post and some of my thoughts on what do people exactly mean in instance when they say "men".

If your space claims to be inclusive of trans women

But doesn't acknowledge that dominant system of transphobia views trans women as "men", and hence fearmongering about men affects trans women, particularly closeted trans women,

then your space isn't inclusive of trans women.

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I agree, save for two points:

"Anyway, people always try to make these heuristics for the treatment of transfems that center men"

"Stop taking transphobes at their word."

Well, transphobes themselves need to stop then using the said word. Sure trans women do not have male privilege, but intra-safe spaces we do get treated as men a lot - as in people who should be denied access to the safe space over their perceived privilege, which is associated with the birth sex they do not identify with.

Overall this was a post aimed at safe spaces that aim to include trans women, because unfortunately in my experience a lot of their rhetoric about "men" can be harmful to closeted trans women.

I've also seen another reply that sums up what I want to say more succinctly.

If your space claims to be inclusive of trans women

But doesn't acknowledge that dominant system of transphobia views trans women as "men", and hence fearmongering about men affects trans women, particularly closeted trans women,

then your space isn't inclusive of trans women.

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If your space claims to be inclusive of trans women

But doesn't acknowledge that dominant system of transphobia views trans women as "men", and hence fearmongering about men affects trans women, particularly closeted trans women,

then your space isn't inclusive of trans women.

---------------------- Edit: I saw a couple thoughtful replies, and I thought I'd make a bit of edit to explain what I mean when I say "views trans women as men".

Well for straters this is a post aimed at safe spaces, so it speaks of intra-community issues. Bear this in mind when interpreting the rest of this.

Someone said "dominant system of transphobia calls trans women 'men', but does not view us, or treat us, or systematize us as men."

To which I say, yes.

Now, since this is a post aimed at spaces that label themselves inclusive, I will explain that there is actually two meanings to the phrase "calling trans women men". First, there's the general cissexism, and there's the intracommunity exclusions like terfism.

So in terms of general cissexism, it is absolutely true that trans women are not viewed, treated, or systematized as men. However, the problems arise as an intra-community issue, where since evidently out of male privilege, men are not allowed into certain spaces. So being a man is a privilege, and because of this men are not welcome in certain spaces catering to marginalized people. Let's call this man (1) and man (2).

So the issue that might sound like "pandering to men" here is really that transfems are not seen as man (1), that is they don't have male privilege - but they are seen as man (2) by safe spaces that aren't affirming enough because they don't recognize that trans woman's womanhood.

In this regard of intracommunity issue, transfems are seen as the worst of man (1) and man (2) - they don't get the societal privilege of maleness, but when they try to seek help for their discrimination, they get accused of harboring privilege that they don't have.

This is what this post is aimed at.

The mainstream society doesn't systematize us as men, that is men (1), but not-affirming spaces absolutely do systematize us as men, that is men (2).

That's exactly the problem - if we want for the rhetoric aimed at protecting transfems to not pander to men, we have to make sure to protect transfems from being excluded on the basis of perceived male privilege.

Besides, I have a few more thoughts about this that I'll outline in another post (Specifically about issues closeted transfems may face).

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But if I see humans repeatedly propping up circuses and capture those said elephants and make them juggle against their elephant nature...

...that's something for me to consider.

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As an indigenous person myself it feels so morbidly weird but very accurate and point reading the phrase "indigenous people were a part of the ecosystem".

It's like... true it makes it sounds like native people are animals, but the whole division between humans and animals has been weaponized by the colonial powers to justify oppression and to say that native people are "inferior". It's yucky.

I hate you people who equate nature in places where indigenous people historically lived with 'no humans'

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i feel that online neurodivergent circles dont talk nearly enough about the experience of being people's charity project. i call it that for lack of a better term - it happens a lot including with other disabled people, and it's that thing where NT/able-bodied people around you hang out with you out of pity, or a sense of self-importance ("look how kind-hearted i am, hanging out with someone who has a disability/is seen as a weirdo by most people!")

as an autistic person who wasn't even *called* autistic for a good few years (my parents insisted on the term aspie and not autistic, and i had a bit of a late diagnosis), i had this happen to me all the time in middle school. and these pity-fueled relationships never lasted. they're not born from friendship, they're born from a need to be charitable. "that weird kid will be happy and i'll be looked favourably at for being so brave to hang out with them! win-win!"

since nothing ever lasted for me i started, naturally, to think i was the problem. i was 12, people told me i was weird and annoying before walking out on me, i thought i was fated to be alone. (for an example, once i missed a social cue pretty badly, and it weirded one of those charitable NT girls out so much she sent me a twitter message telling me to stop hanging out, apologised, and blocked me, planning to give me no closure before i went and asked what the hell happened)

it brought me a great deal of other problems but i'm already being too oversharey. the point is: because i was stuck in this cycle of NT kid pities me cuz i'm alone -> starts to hang out with me -> realises i'm a handful -> leaves, i was thinking woah. i kinda suck, right?

but of course i didn't suck! i found that out in high school - i found an actual friend group that took me in and invited me to parties. i remember once in 11th grade, at one of these parties, i asked the "leader" of that group, of sorts, why the hell i was still kept around. like, everyone had walked out on me before, what's the deal? haven't you gotten all your brownie points from hanging out with the autist? ain't you tired of how weird i am yet?

i got a simple answer.

"i keep you around because i like you, that's it."

that was a first for me!

looking back i realise i never was invited to any parties by the people who pitied me. i wasn't *that* kind of friend. maybe i wasn't even a friend. but these guys that took me in, they actually hung out with me! we went to parties, we bought trinkets at the mall, they sent me best wishes in my graduation, the mom of one of them gave me a recipe for her gingerbread cake because i'd loved it so much! i still talk to a good amount of them even though most of us are in college now, and the closest two attended my 20th birthday party :-)

i dunno what the bottom line is here, honestly, and this whole thing has been sitting in my drafts for a while. maybe i thought it was too personal. it is, but maybe i thought i'd give some insight to whatever NT people that access this blog (i do not expect there to be many, but hi) into what building a strong relationship with ND or otherwise disabled people entails. we don't want your pity. we've gotten enough of that for a lifetime, and it's dehumanising to a point we become little toys for people who know they can just stop hanging out if we're too off-putting.

when you treat someone like a person, they're happy... who knew?

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"They made a man to fight Nazis, but his backstory is like a Nazi wet dream!"

This is literally my relationship with toxic masculinity (not revealing details because I don't want them immortalized on the internet).

Whoever came up with the concept of the super soldier serum, I would like to punch you in the face. Did they not realize how pro-eugenics Captain America seems because of that!? They made a man to fight Nazis, but his backstory is like a Nazi wet dream! How you screw up that badly!?

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Transphobic piece of media: Hello, my name is Mr. Male "The Crossdresser" Autogynephile. I love dressing in women's clothes (as a cis man!) because it gets me hard. I'm also a villain and evil because of this. My creator(s) do not have charitable views on trans women.

TMEs: OMG!!!!!! he's suuuuuch a gnc boygirl... goals! i looooove campy gay men in media! i want to be a woman in the way he is! why don't trans women like talking to me? :(

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Were you fascinated with poisonous and dangerous substances in chemistry or are you cishet and neurotypical?

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⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ soft swan-kin moodboard ｡ ⋆

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OKAY HOW DOES THIS WEBSITE READ ME LIKE A BOOK

The ‘you’re mature for your age’ to sleeping with a bed full of plushies in your mid twenties pipeline is real