mesh-3arfa-thoughts - Tumblr blog

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

Am I “peaking”

I have created this blog for no other purpose than to figure out what is happening to me.

I am a 29 year old lesbian and I have been a feminist as well as a vocal supporter of trans rights since I first learned of trans people. I have always believed gender dysphoria is real, that trans people simply wish to have rights and to exist peacefully, that they pose no threat to women, that they are the most vulnerable group within the LGBT community, and that they deserve access to HRT as well as any medical procedure that might be considered as life-saving at whatever age their gender therapist deems appropriate.

However, over the past two years I have become increasingly wary of my own beliefs. It began with being told that I, as a lesbian, need to deconstruct my lack of attraction to penises, and that I should be open to sexually engaging with them as long as they are attached to women. My knee-jerk reaction was to be appalled. I grew up in a society that not only expects, but demands that I engage with penises in a sexual manner, and I had already deconstructed my lack of attraction and concluded that I am a lesbian. My lack of attraction to men and penises feels innate and unavoidable, and coming to terms with this fact was one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do. Nonetheless, I accepted this as something I needed to reevaluate and so I did, and came to the same conclusion I had the first time around: I am a lesbian. I am repulsed by penises - regardless of who they are attached to. Despite once again accepting this result, I hid this from my friend group. Most of my friends are either non-binary, trans, or extremely passionate about trans rights (as was I), and I didn’t want to hurt them, or to have my allyship questioned. I figured this is my private business and that I should keep it just that - private.

Then came the JK Rowling saga. I first heard of it through my friends and immediately sided with them. But then… I read her letter. Despite understanding she was parroting what I knew then to be “terf talking points”, I didn’t think her views warranted the amount of backlash she was receiving. Then, she tweeted something that rang especially true to me: “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction.” This tweet hit me like a ton of bricks. I had been attempting to delude myself into believing that sex is a social construct, that it isn’t a binary because “most things aren’t”, all in service of continuing to be the dedicated ally I have always prided myself on being. While this was going on, I kept reading tweets that said when we accept sex and sex characteristics as social constructs, both homosexuality and heterosexuality will ultimately become null. That the only “true” sexuality is pansexuality, that lesbians are inherently transphobic, that if lesbians are not open to dating non-binary AMAB people who have only transitioned socially then we are transphobic, that pronouns have nothing to do with either sex or gender, that the word lesbian now means “non-men attracted to non-men”, that if someone chooses to identify as a lesbian regardless of who they are attracted to then they are a lesbian, that gender dysphoria is no longer necessary for one to be trans, that monosexuals are oppressive and antiquated and are stuck on outdated models of attraction and that when we accept that genitals have nothing to do with sexual attraction, that sex characteristics have nothing to do with sexual attraction, that presentation has nothing to do with sexual attraction - then we will realize everyone is pansexual because sex is only a construct and there are infinite genders that can present in any given way and fluctuate according to mood.

Something within me snapped.

I began searching for answers. Maybe these particular people were insane, but surely there are saner people who still believe in gender dysphoria, and that sex is real, and that homosexuality is real, and maybe I can find these people and reconnect with my original beliefs. But the deeper I looked the more contradictions I found. If pronouns aren’t related to sex or gender, then what does it mean to misgender someone? If gender dysphoria isn’t needed to be trans, if all you need is a connection to the opposite gender, then gender must be something you can define. How, without resorting to stereotypes, can I define a woman? Or a man? I don’t feel a gender, I know I am woman because I look down and see one. If you can’t define a gender, what does it mean to be non-binary? If gender is the connection you feel/don’t feel to a sex, then sex must be real. If sex is real, then why am I wrong for not being attracted to penises? If sex is a construct, and gender doesn’t mean a connection/disconnection to your sex, but a connection to the concepts of womanhood and manhood, then does my dislike for dresses or my like for sports mean that I am not a woman?

I don’t know how to make sense of any of this.

I still believe that gender dysphoria is a medical condition, but I am now confused on where it stems from. I find it difficult to believe so many people would go through such invasive medical procedures in order to alleviate a dysphoria that isn’t real. However… I am starting to question if dysphoria doesn’t stem from someone’s perception of womanhood/manhood and, if that’s the case, wouldn’t it make more sense to simply deconstruct your preconceived notions of what being a woman or a man must entail in terms of gender roles, or even presentation? I am inclined to believe sex dysphoria is real, and that someone’s brain could develop believing the rest of the body would be female or male. But I don’t have the science to back this up, and can’t find anything credible other than perhaps a theory that hormonal exposure in the womb might have something to do with it.

I am quite frankly scared that I may be wrongfully questioning all of this. That I ought to accept this is a phenomenon that exists, even if I don’t understand it. After all, there’s no scientific studies that are able to confidently assert why homosexuality exists, even though I know for a fact that it does because I am a homosexual.

I’m here anonymously because I am scared of losing my group of friends, I am terrified of losing my job, and most of all I would never forgive myself for turning my back on a vulnerable group of people simply because I am incapable of wrapping my brain around something that may not be for me to understand.

But… I do want to understand. I need to understand.

I’ve learned of the term “peaking” from browsing radfem blogs amidst this crisis and I’m afraid that this might be what’s happening to me.

I have spent over a decade hearing from one side of this, so I am now interested in hearing from the other. If anyone has anything, any information, any advice, anything that might help me, please feel free to share.

Thank you.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

One thing I don’t get in queer circles is how people talk about gender. So cis people “never really think about their gender” similar to heterosexual people who never really question their sexuality they just know they’re hetero. But when you see how cis people talk about gender its clear the majority are frustrated by the idea of even thinking about it in an abstract way but it can be brushed off as “ha the cis just don’t get it”.

But in the same breath “not relating to a gender” makes you agender or nonbinary which is in all honesty the answer you usually will get from people when you tell them to think about their gender identity critically. I personally don’t have an “internal feeling that I’m a woman” I’m a woman because, as unprogressive as this may seem, I’m a female. I never really did relate to girls and women outside of “we have periods lets bond over our pain” or weirdly bonding over feminism and women’s right but other then that, the fear of walking alone at night. Even then there are some things I don’t really relate to that fall under those categories.

“What is gender if not a bunch of stereotypes and expectations i don’t really relate to any of it?” Congrats you’re now…not cis?

“I don’t relate to the expectations of masculinity”

So yeah no wonder there are a lot of people in lefty circles saying they’re she/they or him/they.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

Something I noticed among people in my university is how they try so hard to seem progressive because it also means they’re modern, so much so that they never really stop to think about what they’re saying outside a passive aggressive “LET PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY WANT” mentality.

I feel like this could also extend past university and just any educated person on social media from Egypt, it’s so weird actually, they recycle arguments from America without ever trying to reach past their bubble to explain why x y z should be normalised. The result is turning people away from their cause since it’s seen as A Western Thought. It’s very annoying because it ranges from feminism to LGBTQ+ rights to racism. They also adopt the same insufferable attitudes present on the anglo-sphere online and mix it in with the “3o2det el 5awaga” mentality , thinking themselves as being morally superior and more connected with the West better than the lower class who are just a bunch of phobic people.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

I’m fully aware that Dr Z PHD is addressing trans people here but I resonated with what they’re saying.

This video made me cry because for the longest time I never felt any sort of connection with the LGBT+ community, whether its the international (mostly American) online groups or the Egyptian ones, this has led me to stay in the closet even more and I would rather they just view me as straight in an affront to get rid of any extra attention.

Too religious, too liberal, wrong thoughts, right thoughts it’s exhausting. Picking up stereotypes and inauthentic ways of living yet pushing it as “myself”

This is all very bizarre tot all about in the first place since my country isn’t…accepting of LGBT+ people in the first place, gays and lesbians can oftentimes find themselves in prison and they’ll be forced to live in exile.

In university I met a few people who were Out and Proud in a way or allies who would pick fights on facebook with homophobic people (usually other uni students) and I could never put it into words but I kind of resented seeing it all but I struggled to verbalize it. Why would I hate seeing someone fight for my rights and for me to just exist as I am? I could write about it later since I now have a better understanding of why I felt that way.

I went to events held by a LGBT+ groups once and it was simultaneously painful and reliving. Painful because I was alone, no friends, while I made the mistake of thinking I would find friends. Reliving because some of the events were about celebrating who we were. What I would do to turn back time and return to this moment.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

I remember a while ago I was on a a website asking for academic that explain being non-binary because I had a hard time wrapping my head around it. Maybe I was being mean but I was getting frustrated with not understanding something yet accepting it. Someone suggested that instead I should look at how nonbinary described their experiences instead of peer reviewed papers and books. Unfortunately when I started doing that I just noticed people struggling to adhere to their gendered society and expectations, which sometimes I feel is imagined but it mostly comes from me going “that’s not bad, at least people aren’t talking to you about marriage every time they can get”. I kept reading more and more, joined more communities and it always just boils down to not being able to adhere to stereotypes and expectations again and again as if its unique and special.

I can understand why someone might want to change their gender (especially if they have gender dysphoria) but changing it without dysphoria seems weird. Changing it to nonbinary without any kind of gender dysphoria seems even weirder.

I tried keeping an open mind but the way people talked about the binary and gender seemed so artificial and alien to me. Are people in the West really that affected by old ideas of what a “woman” or what a “man” is? What are they even distressing over?

Long story short ever since I started looking at nonbinary people talking about how they experience gender I just started getting more and more critical, I was just so dumbfounded by the insane amount of stereotyping going on. “I changed my gender so I can feel at ease not shaving my legs” “I’m nonbinary because inside of me I get uncomfortable when people talk about men committing sexual harassment because I don’t do that!”

It all sounds very artificial and fake.

I guess I’d like to thank my friend for coming out as nonbinary, without them I never would have started questioning and getting curious. They gave me nothing but stereotypes and I was appalled but hey I started paying attention now I guess, which I never did that.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

I still want to blame tumblr because I think it amplified buzzfeed’s business model. A lot of what the article talks about used to be considered “tumblr speak” until it spread to other spaces online. The way we talk about mental health online is largely influenced from tumblr which isn’t exactly a safe haven for capitalism and capitalist ideas.

Jonah Peretti, one of the original founders of BuzzFeed, wrote a paper that foretold the site’s entire business model, and the business model of much of the internet. In 1996, as an undergrad at UC Santa Cruz, Peretti submitted a journal article titled Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Contemporary Visual Culture and The Acceleration of Identity Formation and Dissolution.

In the paper, Peretti wrote that capitalism would need to create an ever-growing number of micro-identities for people to fit themselves into, so that those identities could be commodified and marketed to.

wow

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

One thing I find very interesting is how people from non-western countries use the western lens to interpret their own culture and how it relates to the gender identity online discourse TM.

I’ve been looking at a few Indian TERF and LGBTQ+ spaces (especially those fond of many gender identities) and one thing that sticks out to me is how insanely prevalent westernisation and globalisation is in the discussion. For example when talking about Hijras Indian LGBTQ+ people they’ll praise their own culture for being so inclusive centuries before The Evil White West and embellish themselves for coming from such a Woke Culture while on the other hand Indian TERFs will try to contextualise the topic of discussion by pointing out the strict gender roles in their own cultures that resulted in the concept of hijras even arising all while maintaining that trans people and hijras aren’t the same while using western rhetoric and words to frame the topic.

This is obviously a very confusing conundrum if you’re not Indian. If you’re trying to learn more about hijras because you heard that it validates nonbinary identities and it’s a “third gender” you’ll be hard pressed to argue against someone from India , even thought they do not represent the majority in their own country and there’s a very high possibility that they’re very very westernised, at the end of the day you don’t want to speak over someone’s culture because that’s racist and quite awkward. The same thing applies when you encounter a Indian TERF. But what you’re ignoring is the insane degree of westernisation taking place in this discussion. WHY is being hijra presented as the equivalent of being a transwoman or an enby?

I think this is why a lot of misinformation spread when it comes to the elusive “third genders” found in other cultures. It got picked up by westerners who reframed so it can look progressive while putting down their own Western culture (hence the whole “the gender binary is a western colonial lie”) but it also got picked up by young Indians who started praising their “original untouched Indian culture” as free of any kind of oppressive systems before the Evil White Man appeared.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

https://alyesque.medium.com/how-contrapoints-misunderstands-gender-bd833cc6d8c8

Not sure where to place this article but I skimmed through it, despite it going through a academic tangent of what Marists thing towards the end (something I find very dehumanising and detached from reality) I still think this is a very nice article.

For the longest time I avoided criticisms towards contrapoints out of fear that I’ll adopt hateful ideas and I’m trying to constantly reconcile my views and contradictions with that of the current LGBT+ movement, maybe it’s a failed endeavour but I just can’t accept living in a uncritical way anymore.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

I guess this sort of relates to what I was rambling about yesterday

The more I look things up the more I feel betrayed by the current LGBT+ community. As shallow and pathetic as this sounds but I hate questioning my world views it makes me feel anxious and I usually feel isolated, which is why I made a separate account so I can blog about this as anonymously as possible.

I found my Joker origin story

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

I’m definitely going to start reading a bit more I’m so tired of seeing contradictions all the time.

I KNOW I shouldn’t be learning things from social media in general but surely if people figured stuff out from social media then I can do the same

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

One thing I find very interesting is how people from non-western countries use the western lens to interpret their own culture and how it relates to the gender identity online discourse TM.

I’ve been looking at a few Indian TERF and LGBTQ+ spaces (especially those fond of many gender identities) and one thing that sticks out to me is how insanely prevalent westernisation and globalisation is in the discussion. For example when talking about Hijras Indian LGBTQ+ people they’ll praise their own culture for being so inclusive centuries before The Evil White West and embellish themselves for coming from such a Woke Culture while on the other hand Indian TERFs will try to contextualise the topic of discussion by pointing out the strict gender roles in their own cultures that resulted in the concept of hijras even arising all while maintaining that trans people and hijras aren’t the same while using western rhetoric and words to frame the topic.

This is obviously a very confusing conundrum if you’re not Indian. If you’re trying to learn more about hijras because you heard that it validates nonbinary identities and it’s a “third gender” you’ll be hard pressed to argue against someone from India , even thought they do not represent the majority in their own country and there’s a very high possibility that they’re very very westernised, at the end of the day you don’t want to speak over someone’s culture because that’s racist and quite awkward. The same thing applies when you encounter a Indian TERF. But what you’re ignoring is the insane degree of westernisation taking place in this discussion. WHY is being hijra presented as the equivalent of being a transwoman or an enby?

I think this is why a lot of misinformation spread when it comes to the elusive “third genders” found in other cultures. It got picked up by westerners who reframed so it can look progressive while putting down their own Western culture (hence the whole “the gender binary is a western colonial lie”) but it also got picked up by young Indians who started praising their “original untouched Indian culture” as free of any kind of oppressive systems before the Evil White Man appeared.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

@championistic.co

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

Sex and gender aren’t the same but at the same time the way people talk about gender makes it quite obvious there’s a level of disconnect. It’s obvious that people don’t like the term “gender expression” because it’s treated as a diluted thing, it’s less real and intense compared to “gender identity” which is somehow louder and demands to be taken seriously.

It’s very apparent that people mean “gender expression” but don’t want to use that term.

I may end up revisiting a lot of my undergraduate readings but in all honesty the way they referred to gender (identity and expression) and sex is just way more nuanced and different than how people online refer to it, no surprise obviously.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

Why is it so hard to maintain my inner voice and thoughts online. Why do I always fall victim to the mob? Am I so weak minded that I must conform my opinions to the masses?

On the other hand why do I think of myself as higher than the rest? When is the demarcation appropriate? There's a difference between learning and refining my world view based on new information I come across yet I'm always critical of being mindless uncritical person.

I always stumble on this point I wish to avoid falling into the same trap as in flatearthers" and anti-vaxters yet I'm too scared to question the rhetoric and dogma dominating many spaces nowadays.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

My opinions tend to swing widely because I think I’m very easy to influence.

I’m not sure why but at some point I become too afraid to access information from “the other side” lest I end up realizing my side is wrong. This is wrong you shouldn’t stop yourself from reading “the other side” you can learn a thing or two. But in my current dilemma I feel an immense amount of guilt about my currently beliefs. I made this side account for the sole purpose of being able to express and understand my thoughts all while seeing more and more of the “other” opinions that I so diligently blocked out from my life.

I pray that my opinion changes so it can align with the prevailing mainstream thought. I hate going against the mainstream, I hate thinking that I could harm someone. I can only pray that happens, I never wanted to desperately be wrong about my thoughts regarding gender (specifically non-binary). I want to look back and cringe at this moment, just like I cringe at my own homophobia. This all assume I’m still alive

This seems bizarre but when it seems like I’m actively going against the current prevailing orthodoxy it brings me great anxiety. I remember praying to God begging that I die because I was so scared, specifically scared of harming anyone. I remember genuinely considering taking my own life because I hated the idea of it all. I don’t want to be cruel to those around me, or those that cross paths with me online.

I’m still praying to God that one day things will make sense to me, just like it made sense to so many other people. I don’t think I’m better than everyone else but surely if an idea is popular there HAS to be a reason for it right?

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

Over the past few years I always felt like a contrarian and i’m not sure what to do about it. Worst of all is if an opinion I have or something I like becomes more popular I start being critical or wanting to distance myself from it. It’s downright exhausting as it leads to me over analysing and overthinking.

I don’t think i’m smart or anything of that sort, I just feel exhausted and I wish my brain would stop doing that.

[mesh-3arfa-thoughts]

I still have to get over the ridiculous shame I feel at expressing myself. I’ll probably cringe tomorrow or a week from now at this blog

I feel like “such a try hard” but i’d like to think that writing my thoughts here would be better then constantly venturing into toxic and misinformed communities. I can’t stop but tumblr is better then them and i’ll try to contain myself on tumblr. 

Ideally i’d prefer to just not be online but quarantine, pandemic, unemployment, overthinking