physalian2

[physalian2]

One time I had a “friend” from Egypt, in college. Book smart, but an absolute dingus. She’s one of those “Trump sped along my citizenship I’ll kiss his ass for the rest of my life” people who think if they kowtow hard enough they’ll be the “special” minority safe from persecution.

I didn’t know how bad it was until after the following paraphrased conversation, while I was driving us, trapped in the car on the highway with her. For reference, I knew something was up, and I’m not really out in public, so she had no idea that I’m an aroace lesbian, and proud liberal.

Her: [out of nowhere] “I just think the gay people should be illegal.”

Me: [perfectly casual] “Oh? Why’s that?”

Her: “They’re pedophiles.”

Me: [still going 85 down the highway with this bitch] “Why do you think that?”

Her: “The men, they like young boys.”

Me: “Says who?”

Her: “They just do.”

I cannot remember the rest, may have blocked it out. But among her other brilliant statements was trying to assert that she understood American politics better than me, an American, and that I was just not paying attention during the election where she wasn’t even in this country yet.

People will take the path of least resistance to justify their hate, bigotry, and ignorance.

*addendum, she wasn't escaping anything bad in Egypt, she said she couldn't join the Egyptian military as a woman so came here to join ours.

[physalian2]

underrated character trope is the bully side character that somehow gets absorbed into the main characters friend group. especially if they still spend plenty of time mocking the main characters but nobody really gives a shit about it. like yeah thats gumbo he gives us wedgies on tuesdays and laughs at my every misfortune. of course we're inviting him over for dinner why wouldnt we.

[physalian2]

My cat's unfailing ability to make biscuits in the blanket I am using in such a way that his nails always scrape the side of my leg.

[physalian2]

Wait. Wait.

wft is this?

Are these people saying a transmasc character is actually still a woman because he does xyz? Or a cis male charcater they're forcefemming in some sort of weird sexist joke?

I'm too afraid to look it up.

“hes a woman to me” IS HE? or are you equating women with submissive character traits you've arbitrarily put on a random man

[physalian2]

I used BetterHelp one time for a thing, and they weren't my first rodeo. I got the impression immediately that a) my problem wasn't treatable by therapy (it is) b) that I was bothering my therapist by having routine scheduled appointments (which is how this works) and c) that fuck it, why am I paying for shit I can google?

I have since found a better therapist directly through my insurance website.

BetterHelp deosn't care about you, and they don't do nearly enough to vet their freelance therapists. I've had some not great ones, but I've had enough good ones to tell immediately that my BH one was grossly out of her depth, for an extremely common issue.

Original thread

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[physalian2]

i love hearing about the declining birth rate like yesss that is a major problem considering our dominant economic model. a problem i plan on contributing to 👍 joining the war on declining birth rates on the side of declining birth rates

[physalian2]

Couldn't fit my full name! This was fun tho getting creative with the choices available

first time starting a tag game teehee but found this picrew and just had to get the gang on it, so rb w urs!!

tags: @bunni-v1 @mini-ism @luminique @strawb3rry-saturnzbarz @pinksandss + anyone who wants to join ♡

[physalian2]

So here's what happened on Reddit:

A transmasc posted about how transmascs and trans men are often invisible, how our issues are dismissed, and how resources, especially medical ones, are almost always written with non transmascs in mind. They posted this both to r/Trans and r/lgbt.

A moderator of r/Trans responded by telling them to “stop bitching.” That’s the word they used. That’s the level of respect trans men get. Transandrophobic by the way, don't call trans men bitches.

The comment was deleted, quietly, after backlash. Then the entire post was removed. When asked why, a mod responded that the post was “playing oppression olympics,” and took the time to go through and dismiss each of the original poster’s points, including saying that trans men being sexually assaulted isn’t “unique to transmascs” and therefore not an issue, and claiming that access to testosterone isn’t any more restricted than access to estrogen, which is a straight-up lie, because T is a tightly controlled substance in most places and E is not.

The original poster was banned for three days.

Then a separate mod made a post saying, “nobody asked us our side of the story,” which is wild because people absolutely did, publicly and repeatedly. Users also started reporting that they’d had supportive comments removed or had been banned after disagreeing with the mods, some of those claims are still unconfirmed, but given the general behavior, it wouldn’t be surprising.

Then r/Trans locked down entirely. No new posts. The conversation was forcibly ended.

Some people posted about it on r/FTM, many of those posts were mass-reported, automatically removed by Reddit’s automod, or quietly buried. Meanwhile, r/lgbt also removed the original post, with no explanation.

One of the r/Trans mods eventually posted an “apology,” which was really just a soft-scrubbed PR post full of noncommittal language and distancing. They said they didn’t mean to call a trans man “a bitch,” they just used it synonymously with “complaining,” and they didn’t think about the implications until later even though the first post was about microaggressions just like the mod committed. They did not apologize for anything else, not for wrongfully banning people, not for accusing a transmasc venting like any other user of playing oppression olympics, nothing at all. They said they’re on break and can’t do anything about it. They said, and I quote, “please don’t be mad at the rest of the team.” even though the rest of the team are just as culpable for not stopping their behavior.

They also added that trans men are “a welcome part of the community” and tried to point at moderation history as proof. Because apparently we should be grateful that people occasionally get banned, every so often, for implying trans men aren't oppressed at all, wow, thanks, that is like below the bare minimum, cool.

The current state of things is: r/Trans has over 600,000 members, and trans men and transmascs were silenced, banned, and told to shut up for bringing up their own oppression. And the subreddit is locked down. There’s a mass exodus happening to the new sub, r/trans4every1, but let’s be real, the damage has already been done.

Now let’s talk about what this actually means.

This is not “just more Tumblr discourse.” This isn’t some random blog saying they don’t like transmascs. This isn’t a Twitter reply guy. This isn’t a niche zine or a spicy personal take. This is a massive trans-focused subreddit with over half a million users. It's easily one of the largest public facing trans community online, maybe even the largest, I've certainly never found a bigger one myself. And the moderation team made it crystal clear: they do not want transmascs to feel safe or welcome there.

This is what transandrophobia looks like on a slightly larger internet scale. When it’s in the hands of people who get to decide who gets heard and who gets deleted.

And for anyone who’s still stuck on “well they apologized” listen: trans men are told all the time that we’re being too loud, too angry, too entitled, too manly, too feminine, too confusing, too “binary,” too "Nonbinary", too much. We’re told that we’re “oppression olympics-ing” just for talking about our lives. And now we're getting banned and locked out of the spaces that claim to represent a huge portion of online trans people.

This isn't just online drama. This is a bellwether. And if it isn’t setting off alarms in your head, it should be.

The way transandrophobia manifests in online spaces absolutely bleeds into real life, into medical gatekeeping, into poor data collection, into the erasure of sexual violence against transmascs, into advocacy groups that write us out of the picture, into educational materials that treat us like footnotes, if they include us at all.

And if you’re sitting there thinking, “well it’s not that deep,” you’re part of the problem.

We need to start being more honest about this: Transandrophobia is real, it is widespread, and it is growing. We need to stop giving people the benefit of the doubt when they’ve shown us they don’t want us in the room.

And frankly?

We need to start making TRFs [Trans Radfems & transmasc-exclusionary feminists alike] deeply uncomfortable being open about their beliefs. We need to make them afraid to be TRFs, the way they’re trying to make us afraid to exist.

The same way we don’t coddle fascists. The same way we don’t tolerate TERFs. We need to stop tiptoeing around transandrophobia.

Because this growing wave of transandrophobia is going to kill people. Full stop.

Protect trans men. Protect transmascs. Protect your siblings; all of them!

[physalian2]

In the Netflix show "Blown Away," a glass-blowing competition, one of the contestants was mid-twenties, and already going blind made worse by the intense light of staring into the glory holes (the big kilns/ovens) of molten glass. Doing what she loved was making doing what she loved impossible, and her art is beautiful.

Anyway this disability pride month I would like to shoutout disabled folks whose creativity has suffered because of their condition. I’m talking people with hand tremors and pain that stop them from drawing, knitting, and playing instruments. People whose thinking has become so disorganized that nothing they write makes sense to other people. People with chronic pain who can no longer dance. People so over medicated in a fruitless attempt to maintain stability that the wells of their imagination have run dry.

I see you and I love you. You are more than your creative output. You are not a shell of what you used to be. You are a whole, complete person, regardless of what your creativity has been, is now, or will be in the future.

[physalian2]

I know it’s a small thing, and I know most restaurants can’t serve half portions of their regular meals because of profit margins

But being able to go to a breakfast place and not be stuck with the kids menu because I don’t want to waste food, and see many options listing “half portion” just makes me so happy. This is with American portions btw.

The guilt from wasting food and the pressure to clear a plate so you don’t look picky or like you’re wasting food in a restaurant *sucks* and I can’t always take food home if I’m not immediately going home after.

The money I am not spending on food that won’t get eaten will go to my server’s tip anyway.

[physalian2]

[physalian2]

The only struggle is class struggle.

[physalian2]

Hello, tumblr user. You have been confronted with a trans man. Your challenge is to interact respectfully without calling him a tboy, birthday boy, transandrodork, cuntboy or theyfab. The trap will go off in 5 minutes, good luck.

[physalian2]

Tangentially related, but the ease of access to driver’s licenses and not ever having to retake it until after you’ve caused damages and possibly killed somebody doesn’t lessen any of that anxiety. I don’t want to have to renew my driver’s certification, and the hassle and nickel-and-diming that would come from it would be a nightmare.

However.

Especially since Covid, I live on Interstate 4 that goes from Tampa to Daytona through Orlando (around Disney World). This road is infamous for its accidents and traffic, and a lot of that is from clueless tourists who absolutely need this exit as they’re passing it cutting across four lanes of traffic instead of going up and making a u-turn. It’s also the people who hate those tourists suffering perpetual road rage.

The amount of lazy and dangerous drivers around me, who have seemingly forgotten all they learned in driver’s ed, makes driving so much worse than it needs to be. No blinkers, no headlights at night beyond the automatic running ones if their car is young enough to have them.

The etiquette of a 4-way stop, the merge lane, tailgating, those people whose power fantasy it is to go slow in the fast lane so they can control the road, people who cut off semi-trucks because they’re deliberately leaving space between them and the next car because they’re heavy and need time to brake, that spot isn’t a red carpet for your little-dick pickup truck.

People who cannot drive in our rain who throw on their hazards as if that’s helpful and not disorienting and dangerous intermittent bright yellow lights in low visibility over your bright red consistent tail lights. People who don’t properly tie-down their loads. People on their phones, doing makeup, eating lunch, fussing with the big lcd screens antithetical to non-distracted driving without being able to map your touch patterns.

Driving is stressful. All these people make it way more stressful than it needs to be.

learning how to drive in america is like a fucking saw trap.

[physalian2]

Ironically, hard light is bad for recording sexy time.

It will highlight every pore, every vein, every wrinkle on your nutsack.

One day I will end this ring light fad. It is my ultimate side quest.

[physalian2]

Reblog if your art project has not, does not, and never will make use of generative ai at any point in your creative process.

[physalian2]

need rick to write more about the duos that are not couples. give me more piper and leo. give me more hazel and jason. give me more thalia and percy. give me more annabeth and piper. give me more frank and leo. give me more thalia and jason. give me more reyna and nico.