#I don’t believe terf is a real thing

[genderkoolaid]

hey i’m sorry to bother you but what are some warning signs that someone is a terf? i would very much like to be out as gender-fluid at my small town southern school (surprisingly supportive) but the school nurse had that “fallen sisters” book on her desk :( i don’t want to put myself in danger and i don’t know if she was reading it because she’s a terf or because she was curious about what was in it. thank you for your time!

Quick note: a lot of transphobes are not TERFs; they don't subscribe to the movement of radical feminism. But especially right now TERF ideas have become more widespread, since a lot of transphobic people turned to TERF speakers and authors for support. But that's also because a lot of TERF ideas meld very nicely with traditional patriarchal ideas (like the idea that the gender binary is required for safety of women). Things like "trans men are manipulated girls suffering from misogyny!" has gotten really popular recently, but in the past your average transphobe would probably be thinking more along the lines of "huh what a freaky dyke" than assuming it's the patriarchy's fault trans men exist.

Anyways! That's all to say that someone might use transphobic or radical feminist rhetoric without being a radical feminist themselves. Here are some things to watch out for:

Use of "female" and "male"; in medical contexts I tend to give people more grace, but if she's really insistent on sex language that's a red flag.

Highly concerned with pushing womanhood on students AFAB; if they're a TERF this is less likely to look like "pink and bows" and more likely focus on Female Power, uteri and menstruation, and identity with womanhood as a feminist act itself. Comments like "remember you can dress/act however you want and still be a woman!" can be well-meaning but they can also be a subtle way of trying to prevent GNC students from thinking about transitioning.

Fearmongering about the effects of HRT (especially T); educating about all possible effects is important, but if she focuses on negative effects, treats them as horrifying or more dangerous/common then they actually are, that's a red flag. Especially when it's tied to reproductive ability. Same when it comes to surgeries.

If she believes ROGD (rapid onset gender dysphoria) is a real thing, she's transphobic. If she doesn't use that term she might talk about transness/transmasculinity being a social contagion or trend, something young girls are pressured into (esp. by misogyny/lesbophobia), even if this is dressed up with "obviously SOME trans people are real but there's just too many now!!"

Of course, any kind of weirdness around trans people in locker rooms/bathrooms is a major red flag

If she does end up being transphobic, since you mentioned your school is supportive you might be able to tell the admins about that and have them back you up. If there are other trans people at your school, definitely ask them if they've noticed any transphobic behavior from her (you can ask cis folks too although they may be less aware of what subtler transphobia sounds like)

[nekropsii]

Hello, pardon and I don’t want to be a bother but I would like to ask for your take on something. And if you’re not down to answer this question, that’s completely fine, you seem to make large opinion posts on a noteworthy basis so I understand if you don’t have the energy or motivation to give an opinion right now.

But I wanted to ask for your take on the ethics of enjoying Homestuck in the modern day. Many people such as myself and seemingly you as well enjoy Homestuck but are painfully aware of all the gross stuff in it. And as I see the comic pop up in more and more dni lists, with people claiming that enjoyers of Homestuck are supporting these things inherently, no matter the fact that most of us stand against Hussie and attempt to reclaim Homestuck as something to express joy and our identities in, it makes me wonder more and more the ethics of enjoying Homestuck. Since you seem to have thoughts on the matter, I was wondering if you’d like to share your take.

I once again want to stress though, absolutely no pressure to answer. I am not entitled to your time or hearing your opinion. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. I was just asking in case you wanted to speak about it.

Hi, Anon! This is a very interesting question, and you were right to assume I have thoughts on it. They might not be as long and complicated as some of my other essays, but they still exist, and I would quite like to share them. Thank you for the opportunity.

My opinion on The Ethics of Enjoying Homestuck is that I believe it's perfectly fine to do so. I also think it's perfectly fine to dislike, or hate, or not want to associate with it or any fans of it. This is a personal boundary set by and for the individual, and it's not my business to question, nor my place to cross it. However, I don't really agree with the way some people go about communicating or enforcing this boundary. I've seen some people put Homestuck and Harry Potter on the same level before. I've seen some say that enjoyment of either piece of fiction is, at least in part, comparable. I heavily disagree with this- and the fact that this is a point that comes up shows to me that there's quite a few people who don't actually fully understand why so many people are saying to stop supporting Harry Potter.

The conflation of the two things reads to me as if some believe that Harry Potter has been "cancelled for having a problematic creator"- and that's not wholly true. Yes, J.K. Rowling is, by definition, problematic, and she is the creator of the Harry Potter franchise, but people have drawn such a hard line against supporting the series not just because J.K. Rowling is Transphobic, but because she has honest to god legislative power. She is, as it stands, currently the backbone of the TERF movement, and is spending a lot of time and money to ensure that Transphobes dominate the government. Monetary support of Harry Potter pools into her funds, which adds to her ability to further Trans Genocide. Communal/Fandom support of Harry Potter increases her visibility as a public figure, which adds to her ability to further Trans Genocide. J.K. Rowling has made very clear statements saying that she takes any support of the Harry Potter franchise- any at all, including Queer/LGBT+ Friendly fan content- as support of her beliefs. Support of Harry Potter is a method of legitimizing and validating Transphobia, and is being used as a way to further Trans Genocide.

If J.K. Rowling was just an average Transphobe, the outcry would not be nearly as severe, and the line wouldn't be nearly as clear cut. It would just be disappointing, bring to mind the phrase "same shit as always", and many would make the personal choice to distance themselves from it. But that's not the reality we live in. We live in the reality where J.K. Rowling has sway on the government, and is getting real people hurt and killed.

Andrew Hussie, creator of Homestuck, however, is just some random asshole with no political power outside of his own vote. Yes, Homestuck is filled with plenty of unsavory elements- random out-of-place interjections of Hussie's own past bigotry included- but at the end of the day, Homestuck has no influence over government action. Hussie has no tangible political influence, and does not want to have tangible political influence. We don't even have evidence that Hussie still holds the same beliefs as he did during and prior to the creation of Homestuck. This is just some random indie comic, made by some random guy in 2009. J.K. Rowling is dangerously close to billionaire status, and using that power for evil.

It's fine to like something that's not very morally clean- or something made by a not very morally clean artist, during a not very morally clean point in time in a not very morally clean place in this world. It's okay. The fixation some have on this is OCD-inducing. The best that can be asked is that one recognizes the bigotry, and doesn't perpetuate them. That's all. You can read, watch, play, and enjoy just about anything, as long as you don't make the more unsavory elements out to be a good thing. Don't start acting like Racism is awesome, or Antisemitism is cool, or Transphobia is based, et cetera, and you'll be totally fine.

The ability to find value in something impure or unsavory is a valuable one. Some may not want to associate with that, or find the particular flaw in the work in question to be too uncomfortable to stomach, and that's fine, too. Not everyone can just sit through Era-Appropriate Casual Homophobia or Racism and come out feeling fine enough to keep going. I'd argue- hope, even- that most feel at least a bit bothered by such things. It's all about personal tolerance levels. No one's committing a moral crime by either enjoying it or not wanting to even look at it.

[jackoshadows]

Stop buying her goddamn books! Stop engaging with Harry Potter material.

I was one of those people who believed in separating the art from the artist. No more and in this case definitely not. When she is openly flaunting and bragging about how her wealth allows her to attack trans folks, now is the time to fully boycott her.

The way she has allied with MRAs and misused real feminism into this hate against people who are already subjected to mainstream hate and abuse.

When she has recently helped heap abuse against a charity/helpline for trans children. When children are denied getting much needed help... at the end of the day Harry Potter or any piece of fiction is not that important in the grand scheme of things.  When you buy her works, you are enabling this sort of behavior.

If you believe that Trans people are people and deserve to live a dignified life like the rest of us and should not be subject to constant abuse, stop supporting this vile TERF in any way - she’s literally supporting people who want to genocide trans folks. Don’t support her in any way, don’t buy her books, watch film or TV shows based on her work. Boycott her in everything. She thinks money gives her the rights to be vile and abusive to a small, powerless minority and it’s disgusting to see.

[oneshortdamnfuse]

I hate that Barbie review post going around - not because there aren’t fair criticisms of the movie, but because any fair criticism in that post is diminished by a blatant aphobic viewpoint:

What is utopian about a world without sex?

Sex doesn’t have to exist in a fictional world, especially one that depends on the imagination of young children.

Without sex, what is the material difference between Barbie and Ken being boyfriend girlfriend of just being friends? What is the nature of the desires Ken has that Barbie can’t match?

Sex is not a requirement for a romantic relationship. You can also “just be friends” and have sex with someone. We assign meaning to our own relationships. That is beside the point that when young children are playing with dolls, they are developing their own idea of what the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” mean. That doesn’t often include sex.

Ken’s entire drive throughout the movie is based on the fact that the Ken doll is seen as an accessory to Barbie. He doesn’t have his own identity, and that becomes problematic as he bases his purpose around being with Barbie. He begins to believe that Barbie owes him for his dedication, which is something real men do all the time to real women. Instead of finding themselves on their own and unpacking why they measure themselves based on the attentions of women, they get mad at women for not reciprocating and they create a culture to punish women. Ken’s “desire” is Barbie’s attention, but Barbie has her own life and interests that do not include him. It’s not that she can’t “match” his desires. It’s that she doesn’t want to.

It does not have to be explicitly about sex, but even if it was about sex, again, it’s not about being unable to “match” that desire. It’s about not wanting to, and people who don’t want to have sex for whatever reason are punished for it by a society that tells us sex is necessary and owed in a meaningful relationship.

Why do the dolls have no genitalia in the real world, given that they are otherwise turned into flesh? Why did you make a point of specifying this?

You are obsessed with a doll’s genitals, which feels like a TERF dog whistle. They’re still dolls in the real world. Barbie chooses to become “human” in the end. That’s why there’s a joke at the end about her going to the gynecologist. Still, their lack of genitals is not only a joke but a reminder that Barbie and Ken are dolls who are enjoyed by children in a fantasy land that doesn’t revolve around sex.

This isn’t the only part of the post that grinds my gears, but the whole thing reads as specifically hostile to people with different lived experiences regarding sex and gender. I absolutely hate it.

[genericpuff]

Why is the art so unappealing in lore Olympus now Persephone looks like a highlighter and maybe it’s just me but the proportions like the fingers in arms are soul over the place I don’t think they used to be this bad. Am I just looking at it with nostalgia or am I crazy ?

Honestly, nostalgia does play a huge part in it, even to this day there are times I look back on old S1 panels and go-

Actually here's a great example that literally just happened yesterday in the ULO Discord that nearly had me on the floor LOL This is from Episode 70:

Like I didn't even believe that that was real until I was told what episode it was from and I was just. Astounded and flabbergasted. The over-shading of the blanket that just makes it look like a really bad edit. Insane.

And yeah, there are a lot of old panels that hit different now that the rose-colored glasses have been removed, crushed, and thrown into the trash compactor.

I think that's why it makes it all the more amusing when people come into my inbox and ask me "wait, why did you like LO to begin with?? It's always been ugly as shit, I think you're just romanticizing it" because like... there's something to be said about art and subjectivity, even if something is ugly to one person doesn't mean it isn't beautiful to someone else. It's why I try not to be too mean towards the fans of this comic for still enjoying it, because while I definitely have strong opinions about how "LO has gotten worse" and what kind of following Rachel has cultivated (cough cough), there are also just as equally valid arguments that LO has never begin good to begin with that I can't necessarily disagree with now that I'm looking back on it with a more critical eye.

That said, there's tons of media that I enjoy that is objectively awful. Like y'all, you don't need to take my opinions about a dumb pink x blue fantasy romance comic seriously, I like Starfox Adventures-

Like yeah it's a badly made rushed piece of shit that was developed right on the ass end of Rare's glory days and was really an original IP (Dinosaur Planet) that got Frankenstein'd into a Starfox game so it could "sell better" for Nintendo, but I don't give a fuck, I love Starfox Adventures and some day I wanna be in the top 10 speedrunner leaderboards for it, which I know doesn't mean much because no one is speedrunning Starfox, but I do and no one can take that away from me dammit-

Anyways. Lore Olympus has, in many regards, always had "bad art". But "bad art" can and should still be enjoyed by those who find joy in it.

And in LO's case, the world it existed in when it launched was a lot smaller than it is now - more specifically, the world of Webtoons. We can look back and see how 'bad' LO looks and reads now because there are genuinely way better comics surrounding it. It was unique and refreshing and experimental back then... now it's just "that stupid blue and pink comic for horny teenagers".

In most cases I would consider that "cringing in hindsight" feeling a good thing because normally it means something has grown and that it seeming "bad" in hindsight would mean that it's outgrown itself and moved onto bigger things. But LO has the more unique problem of "its current stuff is shit and it's making us want the old stuff more, even if the old stuff wasn't good either". In that regard, LO is closer to being like Harry Potter. Remember when The Cursed Child came out at the height of Rowling being exposed for being a TERF and even people who liked Harry Potter didn't like The Cursed Child because it was just objectively worse overall (with or without Rowling's bullshit attached)? It made a lot of people go back and re-read / rewatch Harry Potter with a more objective lens and go "wait a minute guys, I think we only adored these books so much because we were 12 when we read them". Often times it's the good memories we have surrounding certain things that make us have the opinion about them that we do.

Of course, LO is definitely not as politically weaponized as Harry Potter is, so that's where that comparison ends. But my point is that LO is definitely in a situation where it's been riding off the same privileges it had back in 2018 - having an 'experimental' art style while also utilizing tropes and characters that were VERY popular at the time (remember that 2017-18 was when Tumblr was at its height of H x P "Hades was a chill accountant guy who wore socks and sandals and didn't cheat on his wife like Zeus did" fantasizing) - and thinks that those same tricks and tropes will still work today.

Because of this, the art in LO really, really hasn't aged well, even the stuff that we look back on fondly. But I think it's the panels that we specifically think of when remembering "old LO" - the ones that stuck in our memories the most - that are the ones that make us miss or just not care about the panels that don't look good (the panels that make people question why we ever liked it to begin with).

We liked it because of how it made us feel to look at panels like these-

Those genuinely wonderful panels that we think back on the most don't exist separately from the bad panels, they exist in spite of them. Even if we can look back on panels like these and pick out problems in the lineart or the proportions or the color travelling outside of the lines, that can't and shouldn't change how those panels made us feel at some point or another. And that's why when people ask me "why were you even into LO in the first place" I don't have any one answer, because I can't fully explain how something made me feel to justify why it's good to someone who can see from the outside - without rose-colored glasses - that it evidently isn't. It's very much a "you had to be there" type of thing.

Unfortunately, nowadays even the 'best' LO panels in S3 still don't come close to what the S1 panels accomplished - because for many of us, the rose-colored glasses are gone, we can't appreciate the good among the bad because we know now how bad it truly is and so the good just feels like wasted attempts at trying to recreate something it can no longer be. It "came back wrong" so to speak.

LO came back just regular. But our journey to resurrecting it changed us to such a degree that even its closest intimacies are now foreign to us. Sorry dude.

This is still probably one of my favorite panels out of the entirety of S3 for being as close to "old LO" as I've seen since S2, and even it feels like a mistake, an accident, how could a panel like this exist in S3 when so much of it is a dumpster fire? It's like a flower growing in the ruins of an apocalyptic wasteland.

But wasn't that always the case? Isn't that 'always' what LO has been, since the very beginning? A poorly cobbled together mess of writing and panels that, every now and then, manages to leave an impression that makes you feel something? Did we ever truly know LO? Or have we just been relying entirely on an idea of it that we've built up in our heads that when it does do exactly what it's evidently always done (even if not made apparent until looking back on it in hindsight) we think it "came back wrong"?

[tenaciousgay]

“i don’t like sports does that mean i’m not a man” no gender critical person thinks that, in fact we believe the exact opposite.

the only thing that makes someone a man or a woman is their biological sex, regardless of how they dress, what their interests are, etc. femininity and masculinity are oppressive constructs, they don’t mean anything about us as people. gender is not real, but sex is.

so if you are an adult human male, you are a man regardless of whether you like sports or not.

Bioessentialist argument, therefore a terf.

[canichangemyblogname]

Look. Because some of you need this spelled out for you.

Men are not oppressed for being men. That includes trans men.

Imagine this scenario:

A young boy skins his knee. He begins crying. His father tells him to suck it up because “crying’s for girls; boys don’t cry.” Later, they’re playing t-ball. Same father tells his son that he throws “like a girl” and no son of his is going to be a “sissy.”

Is that boy being oppressed for being a boy?

Spoiler: no.

Has he just faced misogynistic oppression?

Spoiler: no.

Has he faced the negative consequence of a patriarchal ideology predicated upon the idea that women and men are fundamentally different with different “natural spheres” of behavior and norms? Yes. Has he faced the negative consequences of a patriarchal ideology that holds preconceived notions about women and believes them the “lesser sex” due to a myriad of factors like “being emotional” and “being weak?” Yes. Are his father’s words a reflection of his own misogynistic beliefs about women? Yes. He lives under a patriarchy, his entire worldview is constructed through misogyny. Is that boy being oppressed by an system that upholds male dominance and the domination of women? No. Is he facing misogynistic oppression? No.

Imagine a new scenario:

A TERF tells a trans man that he’s just a hysterical little girl who needs to be protected from predators trying to brainwash him into “trans ideology.” The TERF laments his “mutilation” of his “god-given” body and fertility, imploring him to become a mother and fulfill his “natural duty.”

Are the TERF’s words a reflection of her own reactive, reductive, and misogynistic ideas about women and girls? Yes. The TERF’s worldview under the patriarchy is also constructed through misogyny. Her ideas about everything— from race to queerness to women— is influenced by misogyny. Is the man being oppressed for being a woman? No. Is he being oppressed for being a man? Also no. He’s being oppressed for being trans. Has he faced a negative consequence resulting from a worldview that believes that men/males and women/females must be fundamentally separate and different and keep to their “natural” spheres? Yes. Is he being oppressed for being a woman? No. Is he being oppressed for being a man? Definitely not.

Do trans men face unique oppression because of the intersection of their queerness and their man-ness? Yes. Does that mean they’re oppressed for being men? Fucking no. Everyone has their own unique experience of privilege and oppression. Intersectionality is the study of how oppressions and privileges intersect at the socio-political level. It refers to the interconnectedness of social categories.

Trans men are not oppressed for being men; they simply face a transphobia different from that of trans women on account of how the privilege of being a man interacts with a trans man’s transness. They also aren’t oppressed for “being women.” When a trans man faces barriers to things like proper cervical care, it is for reasons different from why women face barriers in similar care. A practice or idea can be rooted in a misogynistic worldview under a fundamentally misogynistic system and society, but that doesn’t mean men face misogynistic oppression. It especially does not mean that men face oppression for being men under the patriarchy.

Transness and man-ness will also be affected by things like class, race, place of origin, immigration status, and even whether the man is gay (in the sense he likes men). Man-ness is complicated by various marginalizations. Man-ness (“being a real man”) under the patriarchy is defined very narrowly, designed in a way so that most people lose. Straightness is a feature of being a “real man” under the patriarchy, but we wouldn’t claim gay men are treated “like women” or being oppressed for “being men” when the definition of man-ness is weaponized against them.

This is not that hard to grasp.

Men are not oppressed for being men. That goes for ALL men. Misandry is not real. It has no political or societal consequences. The same goes for transmisandry.

[shakespeareofficialaccount]

!!TERF ALERT!!

@its-a-jinxed-world is a TERF and pro JKR, and should not be interacted with. I’ve noticed mentions of posting dms being a violation of tumblr TOS, and she does so regularly. Therefore, if this is indeed a violation, it is possible that she can be reported as such.

Please do not support her or her attempts to either 1) turn trans defences into jokes or 2) tries to use the old “trans women are not real women because genitalia and all that” argument. Those are pathetic and outdated, and some of her primary defences are screenshots (from twitter) and humor.

And, @its-a-jinxed-world, if you see this: As a cisgender female and hence the kind of person considered to be a ‘real’ female by people like you, I’m ashamed. If you truly wish to be inclusive and accepting, you wouldn’t spread your hate around, that too on a platform filled with queer people. I don’t care whether you think you have the moral high ground and are more of a woman than any of the people who identify as one. People deserve to be who they believe they are, not be restrained by people like you, who believe in sticking their nose into other people’s business and spreading hate. I may be cis, but I will stand up for trans rights - no, human rights as if they are my own. Trans women are fellow women, and I stand for all women. The same thing goes for transgender men: they can identify as and appear as whatever they wish, because it’s what’s right for them. I have friends on this site who are transgender, and I’m proud to say that they are wonderful human beings despite not being born as the gender they identify as; something you can never do. Disrespectfully: fuck you.

[Tagging @realsafari, @yes-im-youtube-kids and @gibbish-anon-from-gell for reach bc ik u all have a pretty big following and i want to get the point across. Sorry if this bothers you, I just know that you also stand for trans rights and could help me to get that disgusting terf off our website. Love ya, pooks :3 /p]

[gendiebrainrotreceipts]

Gender believers are so silly when they claim they can spot "TERFs."

Many of us are crypto. We don't conform to a single aesthetic. We can be any age, ethnicity, sexuality. We are the boogiewomen created by TRAs' intolerance towards ideological criticism.

We could be anyone. A stranger, a relative, your best friend. That fandom blogger you follow. Your own child could grow up to be gender critical. You could be talking to a TERF at any moment (does this rhetoric sound familiar, TRAs? Good.).

The TQ+ doesn't see us because we are better at coexisting. So the next time you genderist lurkers start crying "genocide," think about this.

Fr I’ve got a fandom side blog and so many of my followers have ‘fuck terfs’ etc in their bio…like if they only knew lmao. But the thing is, I don’t have an issue with them, I’ll reblog from and have friendly conversations with them, and they with me. Whereas they’d probably assume any cryptoterfs would send endless anonymous death threats and completely shun them…like no… most of us are just normal people who know that the worst will be assumed of us if we ever let anything slip. I do think there are countless numbers of us ‘in hiding’, in real life and online

[self-winding]

One of my Twitter moots from a previous fandom has gone full TERF.

For some reason they’re still following me even though I tweet about trans stuff, and I’m still following them because I’m morbidly fascinated by their unhinged takes and the takes of people in their orbit.

Like, there’s some tweet from a trans woman about how she carries tampons in her purse because some of her trans masc friends might need one and they don’t usually carry tampons, and the reaction from Terftown is “this is manipulative and predatory male behavior because men want to feel powerful by rescuing damsels in distress.”

Or like, there’s a news story about a masculine nonbinary (presumably afab) person who now gets mistaken for a man after a double mastectomy and has been confronted when they try to use the women’s toilet, and the reaction is “Clearly this person is actually a secret man.  They look male to me.  Men can get breast cancer too!  They say they found the lump when they were playing with their own breast?  No REAL WOMAN would do that!” (uh, what?) 

It’s a rabbit hole of paranoia and anger and seeing deception and predation everywhere.  But the thing is, a lot of it doesn’t sound that different from the unhinged takes I hear from trans-friendly “normal” feminists.  It’s just that "normal” feminists (the more extreme ones, anyway) direct this anger and paranoia exclusively toward cis men.  The disagreement between them and TERFs is merely who does or doesn’t count as a man.  The core attitude of “this group is out to get us and we must be constantly vigilant against them” is the same, and results in the same kind of moon-logic where every innocuous gesture or individual action from a bad actor becomes a sinister psyop of the collective.

If you believe that men as a class are constantly scheming ways to control and subjugate women and invade their spaces and make them doubt their own perceptions of reality, it makes total sense that some men would pretend to be women in order to do this.  In a way, TERFs are more consistent about this than other radfems.  But they’re consistently wrong because the premise is flawed to begin with.

And yeah, I’ve also seen plenty of this stuff directed toward women in the more toxic MRA and redpill circles.  I’m just more familiar with the feminist manifestations of this attitude.

Seeing an entire gender or entire sex as an oppressor/enemy class is the mindkiller.

[theverynothumankai]

NONHUMANS AND ALTERHUMANS AND ALTERBEINGS AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN !!! ASSEMBLE !!!

i have made a nonhuman discord server.

who it is for:

questioning alterhumans/nonhumans of any kind that still have zero clue what the hell is going on yet

physical nonhumans/alterhumans of any kind

transspecies creatures

holotheres

zoanthropes, lycanthropes, etc.

otherlinkers

otherfixers

otherkin

therians

otherhearted

fictionflickers/otherflickers/etc.

any creatures who fall under the nonhuman/alterhuman label

cladononhumans, sunnonhumans, cambinonhumans, etc.! all of ya!

systems who are mainly nonhumans/alterhumans, or just have any headmate/alter/etc. who falls under that umbrella and wishes to join!

spiritual nonhumans/alterhumans

non-spiritual nonhumans/alterhumans

neurodivergent nonhumans/alterhumans

those who don’t know or give a fuck what the origins of their nonhumanity/alterhumanity are

if that sounds cool as fuck, then PLEASE come check it out (READ WHO IS NOT ALLOWED FIRST PLEASE FULLY AND COMPLETELY OR YOU WILL BE BLOCKED AND THERE WILL BE DRAMA!!!)

who is NOT allowed:

those who are not nonhuman/alterhumans and are not questioning if they are under those umbrellas

OFFENDING zoophiles, maps, pedophiles, paraphiles, etc. (non-offending who are in recovery are alright)

anti-furries

obviously anti-ANY-nonhumans/alterhumans

those against endo/non-traumagenic systems/etc.

radqueers, radfems, etc.

transid (transspecies are most definitely allowed though!!)

queerphobes of any kind (transphobes, homophobes, arophobes, acephobes, xenophobes, etc.!)

those against neopronouns, xenopronouns, emojiself pronouns, nounself pronouns, etc.

sexualizes minors, age-regressors, and pet-regressors

ableists of any kind (this includes those who believe in “narc abuse”, those who demonize those with personality disorders, those who think autism or adhd [or neurodivergencies like those] are not disabilities, those who invalidate someone’s experiences because they haven’t experienced it before, those who do not recognize invisible disabilities as disabilities or say shit like “it’s not real/you’re faking/stop being dramatic/etc.” to those with invisible disabilities, etc.)

those who romanticize or demonize any disorder, mental illness, disability, or neurodivergency

racists

sexists

TERFs

SWERFs

those who are gonna hate on others religions or beliefs

those who support JK Rowling (no, not those who read HP and all, most of yall HATE her anyways and are queer yourselves, just anyone who personally supports HER and HER views and so on, yall can like her books)

proshippers

those who are pro-ED, pro-SH, pro-SI, etc. (those who struggle with those things are allowed and have a safe space here <3 but those who encourage those things are NOT allowed here whatsoever and never will be)

anti-reality shifters (and within that umbrella, that also means those who are anti-permashifters, anti-respawners, and are anti-those who shift to realities where they’re different races)

those against self-diagnosis with research

those against Palestine/those who are pro-genocide/pro-war/etc.

those who can’t respect someone’s boundaries

those against “contradictory” labels, like turigirls, lesboys, mspec monos, gaybians, etc.

literally anyone who starts drama on purpose and shit like that, or can’t have a decent, mature argument/conversation with someone

anyone else i deem problematic

okay, that’s all!!! here is the link to the server (lasts for 7 days)!! look forward to seeing yall <333

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for implying my sister’s a transphobe?

For context: i’m a nonbinary girl and at the time had recently broken up with my trans girlfriend of a year. I also have very different political stances than my sister, which historically makes me very frustrated (she’s a liberal so very into making sure people have rights but never acknowledging the structural problems that cause minority hatred/prejudice).

So my sister and i were playing a videogame together and having a great and fun time. We were switching the game and there was an add for Hogwarts Legacy on her home screen, which we both saw. I genuinely don’t remember who commented on it first. Either i said something like “ugh, please don’t get that godawful game” or she said something like “oh i wanna get/play this game”. Knowing me it was probably the former. A throwaway comment for sure. Either way, that started a little argument between us.

More context: my sister and i both grew up as avid potterheads. I was even more obsessed with it than her, as a lonely middle schooler with no friends, harry potter was my favorite avenue of escapism and basically my main coping method. Which is why i was so devastated when, in 2020, i found out about all the terf shit jkr had been posting and supporting. It felt like losing a close friend, and so it’s a subject around which i have a lot of pain thinking/talking about. But my sister (cishet) usually thinks I’m overreacting. She doesn’t support jkr’s rhetoric but doesn’t think that supporting her or her work monetarily is a bad thing whatsoever. Mainly she believes it simply won’t make a difference to her bottom line.

Anywho, we were arguing about Hogwarts Legacy and how i think that she shouldn’t give jkr any money regardless of how closely she was involved with the production, since she’s getting profit from it regardless. Sister brings up that she’s seen trans people who want to buy and play the game, and that i’m not the authority on the issue. I tell her that the people saying that are not the majority of the community, and that maybe she should listen to the person who’s actually trans and sitting right next to her. She disagrees, and i say “then just don’t call yourself an ally”. I don’t quite remember what she said, but the argument didn’t last long after that.

We continued playing whatever videogame, and then i excused myself to have dinner. When i came back k stopped by her room to share a fun fact, and she confronted me about how much it hurt her that i said she wasn’t an ally. She told me that she had put in real work by taking an intersectionality class in college, and by attending trans rights protests — all of which i’ve never done (mostly because of mental health issues i won’t get into). She was crying and upset, and i told her i was sorry for having that conversation at a bad time, and for how i phrased my thoughts, but that i didn’t take back what i said about her not being an ally and to say i was would be lying. I didn’t say much more because i saw how upset she was and didn’t think that was a good time to argue about my opinions - so we decided to talk about it later when she was calmer.

I still haven’t started that conversation because i haven’t decided if what i said was unnecessary and made me an asshole, or if what i said was justified and she needed to hear it. It’s been a few months now and we’re both back in college and living hours away from each other in different countries.

So, tumblr, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[vaspider]

Intro Post, updated March 1, 2023

I post all asks under the name they were submitted under, and I post them when I feel like answering them. I will never honor a request to answer an ask privately or anonymously. Anon is never turned on. These are hard self-care boundaries. Please block the tag "harassment tag" if you don't want to be subjected to some of the horrible shit I get sent sometimes.

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If asking me to boost a post for you, ask at most once per week, and please don't make that the only way you interact with me, or follow me just to send an ask that I boost your posts. I notice, and I'll end up just blocking you if you make me feel "used." It's gross, y'all. I'm glad to help, but don't use me. It's getting to a point where I'm starting to feel pretty gross about it, and I'm one of the more relaxed ppl about boosting posts, so please don't put me in a position where I feel like I have to stop doing it.

I will not debate my identity or its history with anyone. I am a transmasculine non-binary butch lesbian, a cripple, a dyke, and lots of other things, too. You don't get a vote in that, and if any of those words are words you can't stand to have someone use around you in reference to himself, go ahead and block me. I won't censor my identity for your comfort; I took a long time becoming proud of who I am.

No, I am not an anti or an anti-anti. Literally no one cares about these distinctions outside of Tumblr. Please leave me alone. I am not going to have that conversation. No is a complete sentence.

I’m not interested in interacting with TWERFs, SWERFs, or any sort of exclusionary LGBTQ/queer people. Y'all are exhausting.

Do the work to root out TERF/2nd-wave "man bad woman good" philosophies from your head. Do the work to root out the gendered behavior you were taught. I am not here to raise other people's children.

I am not here to raise other people's children. My daughter is an adult and I am done being responsible for the experiences of a minor. If you read or interact with me, you acknowledge that you chose to do that and I can't control what happens to what I post once I post it on my Tumblr. People will reblog it and I can't control where it ends up. I can only control what I say in my space, which I do.

Curate your own online experiences. If you don't like seeing what I write, then add 'vaspider' to your "filtered content" list and don't bother me about it. Tumblr is a 17+ environment and I am not responsible for you seeing things you don't like. Adults having adult conversations do not need to be filtered for children. This is your notification.

I’ve been Out for over 30 years. I don't tolerate lectures from strangers, especially people half my age, about history I lived through.

I'm transmasc and if you believe transmisandry/transandrophobia aren't "real things," or that transmascs aren't "really oppressed," please just leave me alone. Oppression Olympics are bad, actually.

My immediate family consists of my partners, my adult daughter, and our dogs.

No one in my immediate family is cis or het. I have been called Spider for 20+ years, & now a lot of people call me Mama Spider. Mom is a role, it need not be gendered.

This is a lot shorter than it used to be. I don't really feel like posting paragraphs explaining stuff anymore.

My icon has lore, apparently.

I post all asks and anon is never turned on.

[orion4ever]

hey dude, i know you mean well for the ol community, and i think you're really cool and have been following you for a while, but i really don't think all this shitting on rose is justified. spreading callout posts by taking shitty things people have said out of context, especially queer poc, is a real tactic used by terfs to spread discourse and isolate queer people from communities, and it's worked so well that queer people have started doing the same to their own with really good intentions, but the overall effect is nonsense discourse and the spread of hatred. kab herself has publicly said that she and rose have a good relationship and that she thinks most of rose's impact on the games and community has been really helpful for checking her own biases. the screenshots and shitty things you've read about her are not the full story, and yes, i do agree that rose handled certain things really really shittily and i am not excusing that at all, but rose isn't a bad person at all, what the callouts show is out of context and does not show rose accurately as a person, and the degree of hatred for a group of people honestly trying to create a safe space for queer people is wildly disproportional. i really hope this doesn't come off as any way accusatory, because it really isn't, and i really look up to you as a creator. i just want you to be aware that this is something that has been settled by the people involved, and continuing discourse and wanting rose fired goes directly against kab's own wishes and is based on misinformation. thanks for reading this far. please have a wonderful day

I respect you and I appreciate that you reached out respectfully with this.

I do not repost these call out post to be malicious or start a hate campaign like some people have been accusing others of.

I do not encourage witch-hunting or harassment of Rose or Kab ; As they are people and make mistakes , even if the mistakes are extremely shitty and I understand that those screenshots were a private conversation but frankly , I think some of the stuff Rose said was extremely odd and vulgar , context or without.

I am not in the official OL server so maybe your right about them not being as bad but even if that was the case they should still be let go of the role as sensitivity reader because they’re views aren’t open minded and its ironic that they are supposed to help prevent bias and keep the game inclusive when they’ve shown a weird rhetoric and the paper bag comment actually made my jaw drop.

OL has been one of the most comforting things to me , I was in a really dark place when I started a new save file and fell in love with all the characters and the game so believe me when I tell you I would never want to attack the very person who created and brought me that comfort. It physically exhausted me and upset me yesterday when it all came to light , considering it has been a huge hyperfixation and boosted my self esteem.

I don’t care if GB is okay with their friends talking an insane amount of crap behind their backs. It's not my business, I just think that they need better friends.

Even with this in mind, I can’t continue my support for Kab if they decide to keep Rose on the development team, not purely just because of what they said in private but how they treated my friend. The both of them are insinuating that they’re a “liar” or that they “overreacted” when they just wanted to express a grievance. And a surprisingly large number of people are harassing them and accusing them of starting a “racist campaign” towards Rose when they are a trans minority as well. If the fandom is so quick to villainize my friend for simply speaking out then frankly I don’t want to be a part of this fandom.

I hope you also have a good day.

[trans-androgyne]

Hi, I've been seeing a lot of "TRMA" or like tmra? Acronyms going around. Do you know what they mean? I'm assuming it's like, afab or smthn? Ik it has lowkey terf-y connotations but which is gross but.

TMRA stands for “Trans Men’s Rights Activist” which is true in a literal sense for many trans men and mascs right now—we are in fact advocating for the rights of trans men and mascs. But people say that to associate us with “MRAs,” “Men’s Rights Activists,” who are an anti-feminist group of almost exclusively cis men that believe women are privileged above men. They want to paint advocating for ourselves as inherently anti-feminist because they don’t believe we could possibly experience sexism. They also like to claim that we believe trans women and fems oppress us a ton which contributes, even though the only people I’ve seen say that are maybe 4 cis TERFs and 2 trans man/masc TIRFs relative to the hundreds of trans men and mascs I’ve seen talking about this and interacted with. The reason I associate it with TERFs is because “TRAs are MRAs” is a common thing they say, so I feel saying “trans men and mascs advocating for themselves is MRA behavior” to be comparable. Because I don’t think either group actually believes that since they can all see that MRAs hate trans people and don’t align with our beliefs at all, but it portrays us as anti-feminist which is the real idea.

[nightcolorz]

it's so crazy that people are out here making literal terf arguments over a fictional gay couple

also it was taking me out how that reply was literally citing examples of Louis' textual racial oppression as evidence of him being a subtextual woman like is that really what we're doing now?? Lestat owns the Azalea on paper because Louis can't own it as a black man during Jim Crow not because Lestat is equally invested in running the business as The Man like it's 1000% Louis' thing, and ignoring the strategic ways he operates his business black man just bc you're uncomfortable with the moral nature of that business is so blatantly insulting to Louis character and agency it's ridiculous. Like if Louis is a woman the majority of these people are being unironically sexist towards her because they like the boring self-insert wattpad version of her they created in their heads rather than the actual character.

sorry for the rant you can feel free to ignore it but that was driving me crazy

don’t apologize for the rant I’m so happy u sent me the rant bcus now I feel like I’m not crazy 😭😭. I didn’t actually read that one reply bcus the weird font changes gave me a migraine, but I skimmed enough to know what their thesis was 💀.

the terf shit is genuinely insane. I think a lot of this interpretation comes down to cis women with internalized sexism and transphobia (and racism cough cough) choosing to interpret Louis and lestats relationship in a way that aligns with their heteronormative narrow minded view of relationships (especially abusive ones) bcus they r unable to interpret a story about a gay black man being domestically abused by a flamboyant white man in a way that doesn’t revolve around the oppression of cis women bcus they believe that cis women are the central and only victims of oppression and domestic violence.

even tho it is explicitly shown to us that Lestat is able to abuse louis bcus louis is socially oppressed as a black man and lestat has societal power over him, ppl feel the need to put this “he’s also a metaphor for women” angle on it bcus they don’t want to confront the reality that men, especially men who are oppressed bcus of race or queerness or disability or any number of things, can be abused by their partners, and often are. I’ve noticed a lot of cis women have a problem with acknowledging that men can and do experience oppression that is “for women”. Domestic violence is often leveraged against women, but men are also victimized by it too, and stories about men who r abused deserve to be told without being “secretly about women”. This is especially weird since Louis is a black man, and I think a lot of this interpretation is happening bcus a lot of ppl subconsciously believe that black men can’t be victims of abuse or violence without being somehow women. Which is fucked up, obviously. It also undermines the actual story being told about a black man trying to navigate abuse and power structures by suggesting it’s actually about misogyny, bcus the implication is that misogyny is more important or legitimate then a black man’s experience and therefore he is just a mouth piece for a “real issue”

this is also why I think ppl argue lestat can’t be feminine bcus he abused Louis. They think that a feminine person can’t be an abuser, so they think that when I say lestat is feminine, im actually invaliding that he’s an abuser and suggesting he’s actually not abusive (bcus he’s fem). Believe it or not, u can be feminine and flamboyant or be a woman and at the same time be domestically violent against ur partner. Lestat’s feminine self expression and behavior is completely irrelevant to him being abusive, and he can be abusive and leverage his privilege over Louis while still being a feminine person. I think cis women have a problem with this bcus they are frightened to admit that they are capable of being instigators of violence despite being women/feminine . So friendly reminder, femininity is not the same as being morally good or pure, and femininity and victimhood are not the same. Trying to paint lestat as this embodiment of masculine and patriarchal ideals when he is very much a feminine queer man just bcus u insist that abuse has to fit into ur narrow minded view of what an abuser and a victim looks like is well, ignorant.

so Ppl who r socially oppressed are often victimized, and women are often victimized bcus they are socially oppressed, but Louis is socially oppressed and and that does not make him a women. Got it? 💀

It’s also important to acknowledge that Louis is a pimp who uses the victimization of women to gain social status and money for himself. Equating his suffering with the suffering of women is just not accurate when the show explicitly demonstrates to us that Louis is able to use the victimization of women to his advantage. Louis still operates within the patriarchy as a man, and him being abused by another man doesn’t make him less of a man, doesn’t make him akin to a woman thematically, and doesn’t mean he experiences misogyny the way women do in the narrative

(also, just a disclaimer, I’m not talking about ppl who headcanon Louis as trans or gnc or feminine, that is all awesome and a great way to express urself and how u relate to him. What I’m talking about is ppl who say that iwtv is thematically about domestic abuse against women bcus Louis is presented as the woman in the relationship since he’s abused by lestat )