rabbitandmouse

[rabbitandmouse]

I don't take you as an asshat, nor anyone genuinely engaging. But this is social media, where the number one rule should be "You're here for entertainment." There's no guarantee that you have someone here who's gonna lean you into a good vein of thought rather than flatter themselves by posting whatever they post, nor are any recommends guaranteed to be right for a particular person.

So, it depends on what you're looking for.

If all you'd like is an overview of the anti-TERF/pro-trans side of things or just falsifying TERF logic, you're in luck, there's lots. This post seems like a good primer just because I've read a few on it (esp. SBB).

- https://www.tumblr.com/anonymousbutnott/718943328322863104

I'm also a Judith Butler fan, though I highly suggest reading an overview or two of their work first, and also consult their critics. Same with bell hooks.

If you want theory work which reifies TERF as a philosophy, just to see the arguments? I mean, I could suggest them, they're not exactly cognitohazards, but I find they keep repeating themselves. Most trend toward first- and second-wave feminists getting reinterpreted (or "correctly" interpreted) as exclusionary. Some hype up "feminine mysticism" loaded into, say, the spirituality/new-age/wicca/brujería movements between the 70s to today, many of which depend on essentialist foundations. Other takes are just monotheism repackaged. Some takes are whatever the hell Chimamanda Adichie and Germaine Greer keep side-stepping, or the two-note posts of folks like Julie Bindel or Heather Evans or Lisa Littman. Outside of that, I could point at Substack. Or random pages on tumblr.

But for an overview which is pro-trans, start at the bullet which reads "The Nature of Feminism" in Introduction: TERFs, Gender-Critical Movements, and Postfascist Feminisms ( https://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article/9/3/311/319375/IntroductionTERFs-Gender-Critical-Movements-and ).

Sophie Lewis also has a new book out which I went through called "Enemy Feminisms," which covers more than just TERF history. You might find it interesting if you already have some basics. Note that her position is utopian, but the history covered is not. I've debated posting a critique.

Better, non-IQ and non-Wojak version of the meme I just made

[rabbitandmouse]

Panasonic Toughbook CF-41 (1995)

[rabbitandmouse]

honestly i never thought the phrase “i want that twink obliterated” was like a sexual thing. like when i read the phrase i imagine “a meteor like the one that killed the dinosaurs is summoned from the heavens and hits the twink in question” type situation

[rabbitandmouse]

I agree with @cipheramnesia that TERFs aren't able to separate from the "radical feminist" portion because, well, that's what they are. It's not a DPRK tagline that masquerades itself, it's an embrace of the very acronym. And I gotta agree with the policing/birdcage-ing talked about with @catboybiologist .

But I don't agree with the pic's dip per se, the "TERFs hate men, including trans women, who they see as men." Nor @n0ech's follow-up, because:

Yea they fuckin' do. The essentialist qualifying (and vague stabs at qualia) of masculine as "male" and feminine as "female" is integral to the exclusionary project. A simple search in twitter, tumblr, reddit, mumsnet, Douban, the strange on-again-off-again threads on /lgbt/, the splinters in Kakao Talk, Discord, or, hey, is WOMAD still around? All had, have, and will continue to give us plenty of aggressive examples of hate. We wouldn't suffer hate of women - cis or otherwise - on men or masc boards, so why equivocate here? And related to 1...

2. It fails intersectionality. Hard. How do you explain the "white-cis-male-patriarchal-hegemony" (Dios mío, fetch me a shorter term for this already) in the non-Anglosphere context e.g. Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, China, Ethiopia, Egypt, India? And those are just the ones I have cursory reading on. You can cut the "white" part out, but that doesn't exactly clarify the intersect. Patriarchy can be just as brutal without the USAian light skin cliche and - if you want to follow this to the hilt - a big chunk of the "male" part.

A better question, not well-addressed yet on socials but already poked around the edges with the work of Krell, Rowland, and maybe back with hooks, that I want explained more is: "Why not both?" Why do folks counter-react so hard against the thought that TERFs can hate men-as-category (or, really, masculinity-as-category because queerfolk are never exempt except to foster a convenient alliance as But You're One Of The Good Ones™) while also amplifying the animosity of both self-hate and outward hate of women as genderized category? Or, really, why does the TERF fetishize the "womanness" of being as a reactionary counter to the "maleness" of being, defining its separation as inherent and essential, both a biological and historical inevitability? This feels like good 'ol Phantasms shit a la Judith Butler. It seems like a layup. Why not address it?

Unfortunately, I think the easy answer is: because we want to frame everything as misogyny, and don't want to leave any room for its sub-systemic counterpart. That would invite comparison and dilution, which can't be done. If it doesn't fit into misogyny, it is discarded. Why intersect the masc with the femme and complicate the picture when you've got it figured out as an extension of transition - "Everything is misogyny and just misogyny!" This is where you know we're gonna here a while, and it fucking sucks.

Better, non-IQ and non-Wojak version of the meme I just made

[rabbitandmouse]

Piggy Bank from ENA: Dream BBQ

[rabbitandmouse]

After years spent poring over mysterious and arcane plat sheets and deciphering long-forgotten building codes, city councilmember Mike LaMere unearthed the mysterious City Zoning Amulet Friday.

“Behold!” LaMere said, holding aloft the solid-gold amulet, which is emblazoned with the Ever-Evaluating Eye of Surr-Vey, Lord Of Demarcation, He Who Measures And Assesses. “With this sigil, the power of zoning comes. Through me, the power of zoning flows! All will behold my power, and I shall bow to no man when designating matter-of-right developments for major retail and office spaces to a maximum lot occupancy of 75 percent for residential use!”

Full Story

[rabbitandmouse]

Agreed, but is this a hot take? You could've even spiced it up by dropping your ID and hanging on until the first few comments started clapping back at white folks talking about the subaltern, then reverse Uno with your background.

A slightly hotter take is to drop saying the modifier "white" at all, condemning the reflex to use it, and front the argument as a j'accuse against a certain Leftism from not just the light-skinned but those melanated as well. Not just of Western, orientalist (Said-style) reply, but the Internet-brained incentive to constantly frame a "minority" as immune from complicity - and especially when said from those in the minority group itself.

i'm feeling controversial today so here's another hot take. and before you type away at your keyboards, know that this is all coming from a south asian.

white leftists have got to stop acting like christianity is the only religion that deserves to be criticized and you cannot touch any other religion because that'd be racist and bigoted. because as an indian who's watching my country progress towards hindu nationalism, this attitude doesn't help at all.

white people see hinduism as this exotic brown religion that's so much more progressive but don't know the violence of the caste system, how it others a large portion of the population on the basis of caste, literally branding them as "untouchables". they teach us in school that this problem is a thing of the past but the caste system is still alive and shows itself in violent ways. and that's not even covering how non hindus are treated in the country. muslims especially are being killed, have their houses bulldozed, businesses destroyed, and are being denied housing, our fucking prime minister called them infiltrators and there's this fear among hindu extremists that they'll outnumber the hindus in the country. portraying hinduism as this exotic religion does a disservice to all those oppressed by the hindutva ideology

similarly, white people see buddhism as this hippie religion that's all about peace but have no idea how extremist buddhists in myanmar have been persecuting the rohingya muslims for years and drive them out of the country.

if anything portraying these religions as exotic hippie brown religions is a type of orientalism itself.

and also y'all have got to realize that just because christianity has institutional power in america doesn't mean there aren't parts of the world where they are persecuted on the basis of religion. yes karen from florida who cries christophobia because she sees rainbow sprinkles on a cake is stupid but christian oppression DOES exist in non western countries where they're a minority. pakistani christians get lynched almost on a daily basis over blasphemy accusations. just look up the case of asia bibi, a pakistani christian woman who was sentenced to death on blasphemy charges because of something she said when she was being denied water because it was "forbidden" for a christian and a muslim to drink from the same utensil and she'd made it unclean just by touching it (which is ALSO rooted in casteism and part of pakistani christians' oppression also comes from the fact that a lot of them are dalit but that's a whole other discussion). and that's just one christian group, this isn't even going into what copts, assyrians, armenians etc have faced and continue to face. saying that christians everywhere are privileged because of american christianity actually harms christian minorites in non western countries.

and one last thing because this post is getting too long: someone being anti america doesn't automatically mean they're the good guys. too many times i've been seeing westerners on twitter dot com praise the fucking taliban just because they hate america. yes, the same taliban who banned education for women, thinks women should be imprisomed at home, and consistently oppresses religious and ethnic minorities in afghanistan. yes, america's war on afghanistan was bad and they SHOULD be called out for their war crimes there. no, the taliban are still not the good guys. BOTH of them are bad. you cannot pretend to care about muslims and brown people if you praise the taliban. because guess what? most of their victims are BROWN MUSLIM WOMEN. but of course white libs who praise them don't rub their two braincells together to make that conclusion.

this post has gotten too long and i've just been rambling so the point of this post is: white "leftists" whose politics are primarily america centric should stop acting like criticism of ideologies like hindutva, buddhist extremism, and islamic extremism BY people affected by these ideologies is the same as racism or religious intolerance because that helps literally no one except the extremist bigots. also america is not the centre of the world, just because something isn't happening in america doesn't mean it isn't happening elsewhere

[rabbitandmouse]

Mark Twain would fuck with "James" (easy mode take)

[rabbitandmouse]

Never leaving the hellsite.

I gotta say, I’m not super comfortable with ‘haha only serious’ attitudes of “it’s not happening but it would be good if it were happening” toward the one genocide that truly isn’t actually happening, the ‘white genocide in South Africa.’

[rabbitandmouse]

OP needs a training montage.

In what world would this be anything other than impressive

[rabbitandmouse]

Adventures in the Lorde-Wilhoit Theory #583,817,576.

As a trans woman, girls, sometimes y'all need to shut up and listen to trans men. They also face a lot of discrimination in various areas that we don't.

Likewise, trans men, sometimes y'all need to shut up and listen to trans women. We face a lot of discrimination that you don't.

Both need to 100% listen to non-binary and intersex people. The amount of hatred I've seen from trans men and trans women toward enbies and intersex people is staggering. I'm really starting to see what all the jokes about the average tumblr user's reading comprehension are about. Some of y'all cannot see past your own identity and the discrimination you face.

Little secret, cishets don't like *any* of us. All of us should be free to speak on our own experiences of discrimination *without* the other groups dismissing, belittling and patronising us. We are all degenerates in the eyes of society and the only way we survive is by listening to eachother and caring for eachother as a collective.

Nobody else in the trans or intersex community is your enemy. We all have bad apples, but broadly we are all in this together and I really don't see why trans women can't understand that trans men face discrimination and I really don't get why trans men can't do the same.

Why are you tearing into your closest allies like this? Why are you reducing the chances that any of us survive? Accept that sometimes, you aren't the affected party and own up when you make mistakes.

[rabbitandmouse]

Extending the fairness: this is any politic where everyone has the incentive to say "yea I've read theory let me tell you about the shit" without actually reading the shit. Tumblr eternally included.

why are there so many peole who seem to believe they are marxists who not only don't know what petite bourgeois means but think class is determined the amount of money you have and the less money you have the more proletariat and therefore the more Morally Good you are

[rabbitandmouse]

Alright since the notes are Doing The Thing™ again where "guy/gal sucks and is not aligned with my politics therefore everything is permitted and all context dead to me," I'll go ahead and cite the key point in that chapter with a copy of the book acquired by other means cough cough:

"Dr. Francis Omaswa, special adviser for human resources at the WHO, estimates that Gates’s spending “could be five times more beneficial” if he directed his philanthropy toward addressing poverty and supporting existing health systems. This is the most common critique among knowledgeable public health experts. According to Global Justice Now, the BMGF’s “heavy focus on developing new vaccines detracts from other, more vital health priorities such as building resilient health systems.” Unfortunately, the idea of building local institutions to support democracy and public interest is inconsistent with Gates’s technology-based approach to public health. [...] Gates seems impervious to the importance of cultivating local leadership, institutions, and talent. His giving patterns reinforce the colonial architecture that keeps the authority to “call the shots,” outside Africa.

Investigating the Gates Foundation’s global health spending in 2009, [...] Only thirty-seven grants went to NGOs based in low- or middle-income countries. Similarly, of the 231 grants BMGF awarded to universities, only twelve went to universities based in developing regions. [...] In his book The White Man’s Burden, economist William Easterly, who codirects the Development Research Institute at New York University, asks, “Who chose the human right of universal treatment of AIDS over other human rights?” The answer to that question, of course, is Bill Gates. Bill Gates’s continent-wide experiment on the African population is a long tragic joke. The Times reporters deliver its devastating punchline: 2006 data, the most recent available, show a paradoxical relationship between GAVI funding in Africa and child mortality. Overall, child mortality improved more often in nations that received smaller than average GAVI grants per capita. In seven nations that received greater-than-average funding, child mortality rates worsened.”

Framed another way: RFK criticized the Gates Foundation - specifically Bill Gates himself, later vectored to Dr. Fauci - for reifying the myth of "The White Man's Burden." The chapter before that, entitled "White Mischief," also tries to advance a theory that Dr. Fauci was financially incentivized to promote the anti-HIV drug Nevirapine in African countries receiving AIDS funds, presumably as both kickback and clout chase (note: he's citing Peter Duesberg constantly in this book with a CTRL+F which is uhhhhhhhhh...). Other portions in the chapter talk about their "colonization" of African healthcare programs and standing up a new Janissary corps, while also neglecting local healthcare needs with Western chauvinism.

So yeah, cursory look here and I'm seeing far greater sins for someone else to mine out, but RFK ain't promoting the burden. So if all passengers could look out the window you can see the bright nuclear wasteland that is "miasma theory,"

Wait wait wait.

The chapter is called what?

[rabbitandmouse]

Can confirm, me on the right

[rabbitandmouse]

But enough about my fetish...

There's something unbelievably infuriating about the fact that there are certain ideas you aren't allowed to have a nuanced discussion on because its main proponents are Ontological Bad People™, and therefore any attempt to assess or analyze it without kneejerk reactions makes you an Ontological Bad Person™ as well.

[rabbitandmouse]

[rabbitandmouse]

On April 8 we celebrate the death of Margaret Thatcher, and remember all the lives she destroyed.