#I hate talking about when i was into exclusionism.

[jaymesdoodles]

I feel like people don't understand how easy it is to fall into exclusionist thinking. Like I was a super accepting kid when I first realized I was queer. Once I realized I was trans, the story really shifted. And I fell into that thinking that their needed to be a certain way of being queer and trans. I needed to fit into a mold. So much of that came out of the fear of homophobia and transphobia. Especially as someone who got harassed and mistreated to the point of detransitioning.

When you're scared of being queer, you'll so desperately attach to anything that help you seem as the "good gay" the "good trans" but something I had to learn about the hard way, was it didn't matter how much I tired to be queer to their liking. They were never going to like it. I could fight and bully my fellow trans and queer people for eternity, but I was never going to fit into whatever mold they wanted.

It's so easy to fall into that thinking. It was especially easy to see so much hate online or other queer people telling you "no its actually not right to be this type of queer or this type of trans. It's problematic." There was so much hate surrounding me in both public and online.

But the thing was? one of the biggest things was being around other queer people. Especially queer elders. This isn't always an easy request, like I know the circumstances can be challenging to for people (I mean I'm an adult disabled queer person living at home, in the same area, with my family and there is absolutely no public transport 😭😭 I know for sure about that)

But hopefully, you'll be able to connect to other queer people eventually. Until then? just step outside of the online bubble. Learn about queer history (omg I'm BEGGING!) Take time to evaluate your beliefs. I just think it's so important.

I know that exclusionist can't be excused. The harm that they've done to the community has been detrimental. But I hope that this shines some light that people can change. That even when people fall down, that rabbit hole. There is a way to climb out. Trust me. It takes work. But I have hope that with these more open conversations about exclusionism and support of "problematic" identities. We can help find their way out. Even if it's just a few. I think that it's important we try? yknow?

[skrunksthatwunk]

you go to a lesbian blog and find it says women only!! no men allowed!!! and go oh! excuse me, um, what about other lesbians? plenty of lesbians are genderqueer... and they go well, okay, go fuck yourself tim chop off your sweaty dick and stop calling yourself a lesbian. you do not have a dick, actually. you think about that fact often, even though it does you no good. you do not tell this person that.

you go to another lesbian blog and it says women only and you try again, and this time they change it to wlw + nblw only (non-men who love non-men :D). and you'll say hey i appreciate that but gender's not really that cut and dry for a lot of people. someone could be both a man and nonbinary, for instance. i just worry that you're looking at nonbinary as a generic third gender, or an extension of womanhood. i mean yeah you include nblw in your tags but all your posts are about pussy-havers exclusively. what's with that? and they say go fuck yourself you pervy man pretending to be a lesbian. you tried to sneak in but i won't let you.

so you go to a lesbian blog with a dozen or so posts about queer people needing to be more weird about it and you sigh in relief. but you still see the men dni. that's odd. hoping for the best, you say hey! i know you mean well but please maybe don't put men dni at the end of the lovely posts on your lesbian blog bc some lesbians are men. and they'll be like ok!! well you're allowed ;) and you say no that's not. no. some men are lesbians not just me. you think about your own dicklessness and wonder if that's why you were given entry. and you add that even if male lesbians are allowed, there's no indication of that. how would anyone know without asking? and they're like ohh gotcha gotcha well men dni + this is for sapphics only!! and you'll be like ok well that treats the concepts of men and sapphics as mutually exclusive identities and i just told you that's not true and you agreed with me so.. i don't think that solves our problem. and they're like. ok. fine. men dni but genderfluid and multigender people are allowed! and you're like no see that's. that's still the same thing.. you're saying the same thing just with different words. if you don't want men to interact but you're fine with multigender/genderfluid/etc ppl interacting then you either don't see them as Real Men (because they don't reach a standard of Full Manhood) or Complete Men (because they're only Part-Time Men), both of which suggest that they are, in some way, not men or less-than men, which is invalidating and defeats the point of the exception in the first place (accommodation) OR that you don't really mean the dni which is confusing and inconsistent and makes guydykes feel weird and uncomfortable and excluded from the lesbian space you're trying to cultivate. and they're like um. ok. so. cishet men dni? and you're like well i think that makes more sense, but what if someone identifies as both a cishet man and a sapphic? again, if we're trying to accommodate the genderfucky populace then that has to be a possibility that is considered. and they say god you people are never happy. what do you want me to do? what am i supposed to say to keep the right men out? and you pause. you empathize with the need for a space free from dudes trying to fuck you straight and feminine. dudes who watch lesbian porn and joke about what they'd do if they were allowed into girls locker rooms. who look at you like a piece of meat, and like someone who looks at women like pieces of meat in the same way he does. you get it. you know. you want a space where you can be sapphic, too. that's why you came to these blogs in the first place. you brace yourself and you say well i don't know that there are "right men" to keep out. i don't know that there's any single label that would accomplish whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. you could go for "sapphics only" or "queers only" and i think that might be the closest thing to what you want, but it's never going to be perfect. creating any exclusive space is going to shut out people you didn't account for, and the broader the label, the more people will be shut out that you didn't want to shut out. and what about people who don't know if they're allowed? what of questioning transbians, where are they supposed to go? and, frankly, i think i might rather my dykey posts get read and appreciated by a gay guy who sees me as a man than a woman who only sees me as a sacred womb, pure from male perversions or violence or whatever. i think community might just be more complex than a dni can handle. and they look at you and say i don't want to not have a dni. i think you're too permissive. you can't just "what about" or microlabel your way into everything. go fuck yourself, i bet you're not even a lesbian anyway. go find a real problem to get mad about.

you go to a lesbian blog. you ignore the men dni because you know you probably don't even count to them. or maybe you do count and, out of respect for your manhood, they'd shun you accordingly. you try to feel okay about that. you scroll past dozens of posts about mediocre men and gagging at straight friends' boyfriends and how gross and undeserving men are of the beautiful women they couple up with and how all women should be gay so they can get treated right and and and and and. you finally find a post about curling into someone you love and feeling at peace and try to lose yourself in it. you know that feeling is what unites you, what makes you belong. you try to focus on it. you think about carding your hands through a butch's hair or lacing fingers with a femme and feeling warm and loved and more yourself than you ever have before. like this is who you're meant to be. you read about lesboys and butch boytoys and genderfucky dykes and big hairy deep-voiced wonderful women (like you want to be someday, like you wish you could make yourself) and you try to ignore the men dni underneath each and every post. and you daydream about meeting someone kind and earnest at a lesbian bar even though you don't think any such bars exist within three states of you and you can't drink and don't want to drink because you need to be in control of yourself at all times so you don't fuck up like you're always about to and here in the nonexistent lesbian bar you feel wanted and safe and in good company. you picture your ideal, happiest self. it is a mistake. ideal-you has a goatee. not the mascara one you smear on and call drag even though you know it's not drag, not really, the beard you call drag because you think everyone would look at you sadly if you told them it was just to pretend you had something out of your reach. a beard that's soft and that you grew and that cannot be smudged away if you get too comfortable with it. the dream shatters. your people pull away from you, their scoffs mixing with the mind-numbing gay girl bedroom pop you learned to settle for just to have something that almost resembled you, they all pull away and turn their backs and do not look at you. you're too close to being a man now, even though you're the same amount of man as before. and they know you're not supposed to interact with men, not as you would with dykes, at least. and it sours. it's all your imagination, all in your head, but it sours.

you sigh. you think about how small you are. how short, how narrow, how feeble. how your voice pitches up when you talk to strangers because it's easier to speak quietly when it carries more, and because you're nervous. because it's a chore to talk, like everything is. you think about testosterone. you think about how your family would look at you, the questions they would ask, your answers they would only pretend to accept. the uncomfortable glances and whispered questions they'd try to hide from you. you think about how small you are, and how small you will always be. how you don't know of a way to fix it, but even if there was one, no one would want you anymore. you'd be the only one thinking it made you a cooler dyke. you think about how you don't even want a T-voice all the time, how you'll never be able to switch it at will, because you don't know how and can't bring yourself to figure it out. you think about how your throat closes around every hint of your own attraction. how wanting is perverse, how wanting is invasive, how wanting is embarrassing and too vulnerable so it must stay anonymous, as an online witness, and how you can barely manage to form or maintain friendships because your brain makes you pull away, always spinning out and struggling to recover from the simplest of interactions. how they'll all leave you and you won't chase after them at all and how that will hurt them. how stuck you get. how it looks like nothing's holding you back, how that frustrates everyone who thought you were going to be more than you were. the people you love who understand except when it comes to being ghosted, being shut out. how you don't want to hurt them. how you can't tell them that because you're stuck. how you turn to stone when touched, how you never reach out, how you lose your speech and can't look at people, how your autism is fun and sexy until it becomes real and you never see them anymore, how much you longed for someone who knew everything without you having to explain, and who loved you anyway. how unreasonable you know that is to expect of anyone. you think about that not-even-real lesbian bar. you think about how you still can't drive. how you can't leave your home on your own, without dragging somebody into helping you. how you can't leave your body. how you can't leave your manhood behind.

you think about finding another lesbian blog and ignoring everything. about skimming it for the parts you can juice some meaning from. the parts men ignore and don't understand, and how typical of you it is to do so. or the parts where you're not welcome and you should accept that, because it's for lesbians only. how you are a lesbian anyway. how you're meant to choose lesbian or man, how each is a betrayal of some kind to yourself or your people, your family, your lovely strangers, your rare friendly acquaintances. about the parts that tell you you're not wanted, that you're ugly and lazy and gross and insert yourself everywhere without even asking. about the parts that tell you you are hated, and how lesbians are above it all by rejecting men. how lesbians are each blessed miracles. about the parts that say you should be ashamed of being whatever twisted confused freak you are, of everything, of looking and wanting or not looking or not wanting, of picking and choosing instead of taking it all in with a smile. after all, shouldn't you take it? or is your ego too fragile, as men's so often are? aren't you tired? good. we're not here for your consumption. and we sure as hell don't want your company or "community" or whatever. didn't you read the sign? no boys allowed. and if you want to come in you have to make up your mind. as if you haven't told them the only answer you have. you're both. you're both.

you know you broke the rule by interacting.

but it gets lonely sometimes. you wonder if they know.

[songship]

where do you find people to talk to online who don't suck, asking for a friend

[spark1edog]

another day another “DNI ANY AND ALL EXCLUSIONISTs!!! and also dni endogenic systems/supporters, mspec monos/supporters, use the original pan flag, enjoy your eggs poached, think gay is an umbrella term, use/support emoji pronouns, own more than two pets but less than 5, perform aromanticism/asexuality in a way i don’t like, chihuahua enjoyers, and basic criteria uwu!”

[euniexenoblade]

tl;dr version: a very frequent and more recent flavor of trans exclusionism, transmisogyny, and transphobia at large has started to bubble up as an overpowering, overwhelming (and fake) acceptance of gnc cis people.

The actual long version:

Trans people, especially trans women, when they want to come out or explore their gender are often met with loved ones, family, or friends telling them "you can just be gnc, you don't know you're actually trans, men can be feminine, you should try that before scary life changes" we often talk about how this is a move by abusive, transmisogynistic people in our lives, who pretend to to care about gnc people, but in reality it's just transphobia manifesting as a false support. They often manipulate trans people into not pursuing transition and then lay on all the manipulation to convince us we were so silly to think we're trans afterwards.

Though there's a lot of people who still see it as honest support for the gnc, most of us are pretty clear that it's transphobic. But, another way this takes form is from other trans people, there are a lot of trans people with internalized transphobia who only view the existence negatively and when you talk about people potentially being trans, you activate their rapid internalized self hate: how can you say that? You can't know someone else's gender! You're forcing them to be trans! Men can be gnc! You're actually the transphobic one!

You also see it take form as things like "egg prime directive." "You can't tell the egg they might be trans!!!" Yes, you can. And you probably should. Trans people are not some mythical once in a blue moon thing. We are everywhere. There's lots of us. Being trans is not a bad thing, it's simply just a thing. Acting like you can't tell people they're trans is treating trans people like we're dirty secrets, a thing to be ashamed of, you're treating it like an insult. The truth of the matter is, telling someone they're exhibiting things associated with trans people can help speed up the process, less dysphoria to agonize over, less confusion as to what's going on, you can help kickstart a path to happiness.

But these people don't. Cuz they don't *want* people to be trans, and very specifically don't want people to be transfem. I don't need to get into the polls that showed most transmascs think telling a friend they might be a trans woman is morally wrong, you've seen it already. I don't need to tell you about how a transfem mentioned a specific person in the media seemed transfem, just for people to harass them (idk pronouns) off the site, just for people to confirm that yes - the individual in the news was likely transfem. And with that realization didn't come an apology, didnt come a new understanding, the trans and "pro trans" harassers stuck to their guns "recognizing transhood in others the way you see it in yourself is the same as transvestigation, the right wing transphobic conspiracy theory!"

This topic has been talked about a lot this past year, with the egg joke discourse, people getting harassed and ran off the site for correctly mentioning someone seems transfem, the constant harassment and blog deletion of trans women, the onslaught of harassment from the transandrodorks and terfs, etc etc. but I feel like it never gets correctly classified as a form of exclusionism. We easily recognize truscum exclusionism as what it is: "youre nb? You don't try to pass? You don't shave? Lol fake trans" it's the blue hair with pronouns schtick. It's gatekeeping the community. But, in the same respect, the "you can't just say people are trans" "it's ok to be gnc!" anti egg joke types of people are just as exclusionary. One end it's "you aren't a true transexual" and the other is "be gnc instead, being trans is a bad thing."

It's the projection of internalized transphobia into a policy. You can't tell anyone they're trans because you don't see trans people as anyone, you see them as weird monsters. That's a really depressing form of exclusion, but exclusion all the same.

[leidensygdom]

The ways in which being asexual feels isolating

I've been pondering whether to post this or not, but I figured out I wanted to explain a bit of this experience.

So, I could go on a very long tangent on how being asexual is usually a lonely experience, and how much I've been otherized here and there- Specially in real life. How the same people that claimed to be queer (or allies) had been much weirder about my asexuality than they were about me being bi/pan or whatever.

But I think I wanna talk about how something like that bleeds in every aspect of socializing, even down to something like fandom. I stay away from fandom usually- I like to look at cool fanart and that's about it. I hate discourse, I hate drama, I hate reading people getting worked up because they're treating fanon as canon. But there's one thing I've noticed, over and over, that just sends me off my rails.

And it's how fandom tends to treat asexuality (or aromanticism). So, you get a character in some piece of media that explicitly, unequivocally, states they're either ace, aro, or both. "I do not have interest in a partner", "I don't desire to have sex nor do I enjoy the topic", whatever. And as an ace person, I do appreciate being able to see myself in media- There isn't many chases where something is established that bluntly.

Now, you decide you want to check some fanart for that. Fandoms have this tendency to make absolutely everything about shipping, even when the media they're basing it in does not revolve about that (and it's annoying, because a lot of times people aren't interested in the actual themes- It's all reduced to shipping). Suddenly, you notice people treating the aforementioned character as anything but aro or ace. It's all about shipping. "This person interacted with this other person in a way two friends would, but we gotta make this their entire personality now". Some people may instead go for "well, maybe the character is not having sex, but they're probably an absolute freak about it, studies it extensively, has encyclopedic knowledge about it-"

Now, there's of course sex-favourable aces, and that's completely valid, but it's already straying from what, canonically, the character had mentioned. Asexual or aromantic characters aren't really allowed to exist as themselves. People often see them as a blank slate to fill, to change, to fix. I could talk forever about how people react to real life aces like that. I've had people asking me incredibly invasive questions because they saw my lack of sexual attraction as something broken, something they could fix.

And I hate that! I think I'm allowed to say that I hate that! It's hard and unusual for media to cement an aro/ace character, because they're defined by the lack of interest for something, which is often hard to show. But when it does- No one seems to care. It's all shipping, it's all "well, he's gay in denial", "well, she's probably super repressed". If you took a canonically gay character and made them straight on a fanfic, you'd get angry people. Which is bound to happen when you erase representation that people identify with. But aro/ace characters are NOT even seen as queer, they're not even seen as "representation" by most people. You can erase that bit of it, put some god awful shipping on top, and people will applaud you. And it sucks!

I wish people would see being aro or ace as an identity worth respecting, not an identity that needs overwriting. It feels a bit too close to how people often treat aro/aces irl, and it sucks. It reeks of this sort of exclusionism, where "aro/aces are technically queer but it's queer lite at best, it's less interesting than being gay, and we kinda don't want them near us anyhow". Again, I've had far worse experiences about being ace than I have about not being straight.

Sorry if the post got long, but I hope this experience may at least resonate with other people who have been struggling with this, too. It has always felt just kind of lonely to be ace, and see how little people do even consider it an identity, even when it comes down to something like fandom.

[sophieinwonderland]

Found a Hate Blog in The #Plural Tag. 😮‍💨

As I covered recently, "Plural" is an inclusive word with origins in endogenic and non-disordered systems.

If any anti-endo posts in the "#plural" tag or other inclusive tags, don't expect your DNIs to be respected.

They also are doing this knowingly. People have already tried to contact them about using the inclusive plural tag and the hate blog has stubbornly refused.

So if they're going to post in inclusive tags, I figured I might as well respond to some of their vent posts in anti-endo tags. As always, if anti-endos have a problem with this or feel boundaries are being unfairly crossed, please take it up with the hate blog I'm responding to that's invading our spaces.

Also, really weird how they just jump straight into saying "pro-endos" aren't systems either. Hate to break it to you, but there are a lot of traumagenic DID systems whose disorders and trauma are just valid as yours. And they manage to not be bigots too!

Wait... are they claiming that ALL dissociation can only be caused by trauma?

Although previous research has implicated a history of childhood trauma in the development of dissociative tendencies, insufficient cognizance (in this context) has been taken of the distinction between pathological and nonpathological dissociation. In this study, the relationship between childhood trauma and both pathological and nonpathological dissociation was investigated in a sample of 100 Australian adults. Pathological dissociation was positively predicted by dimensions of childhood trauma, but no such relationship was found for nonpathological dissociation (psychological absorption). The data are consistent with the traumagenic model of the dissociative disorders, but factors other than childhood trauma may also be pertinent.

Amazing how they compare us with anti-vaxxers while trying to claim all dissociation is traumagenic. This wasn't even hard to find. 🙄

"I don't care about any morals"

Well, at least you're up front about it.

Also, I tend to check the DID tags every now and then and you know what I don't see there? Endogenic systems!

"#Endo Safe" tags are more often than not used by pro-endo traumagenic systems.

Guess what! If you have DID, you get to post in the DID tags. Being a hateful bigot isn't a requirement! Anyone with DID has the right to post in the DID tags, and can tag their post as endo safe too!

Maybe you wouldn't get as many anons from endogenic systems if you stop posting in inclusive tags. Just a thought!

How are they harmful to the community again?

Weren't you just saying earlier that pro-endos were stealing resources? Now you're acknowledging that they're making resources for the community, but this is also bad?

LOL!

Genic labels literally only exist because of the pro-endo community. And the anti-endo community notoriously hates xeno-origins like NPD-genic. Yes, people will assume you're endo-safe when you use xeno-origins because these terms, like most resources in the plural community, were made by pro-endos.

Keep it up guys! It's working! We're spreading!

Sorry, I don't feel like rebutting anything here. I just appreciate seeing that our efforts are paying off!

The Future is Plural! 😁

Stop!

This talking point has been completely debunked.

System hopping was used by pro-endos 15 years before the earliest association with RAMCOA. The idea that it was a RAMCOA term is a total lie invented by anti-endos!

OSDD-1A and OSDD-1B are not actually official disorders. There is an OSDD. The first example, called OSDD-1 sometimes, gives two possible presentations. One with less distinct alters and amnesia, and another with no amnesia. But these aren't called OSDD-1a or OSDD-1b.

If your goal is education, this nuance is important.

Could it be because ASPEC people have dealt with a ton of exclusionism from some queer communities, and are more accepting of other people as a result? And perhaps they also recognize similarities between system exclusionists and queer exclusionists?

You're coming and posting in our tags!

That's why people keep interacting with you! "Plural" is a term coined by non-disordered systems, you've been told this, and you insist on posting in inclusive tags anyway!

You don't get to bust in someone's door, complain about them in their home, and then tell them not to interact with you! It doesn't work like that!

Funny how these are the only sources they can provide. And they exclusively deal with DID without even touching on other forms of plurality.

Anyway...

The ICD-11 says you can experience "multiple distinct personality states" without a dissociative disorder.

The creators of the theory of structural dissociation have said hypnosis and mediumship may involve self-conscious dissociative parts of the personality.

And Transgender Mental Health, written by Eric Yarbrough and published by the American Psychiatric Association (who publishes the DSM) says you can be plural without trauma or a disorder.

Sources repeatedly affirm that it's possible to be plural without trauma!

Anyone who claims it's impossible to be plural without trauma is either ignorant or lying.

And if you're going to keep spreading hate and misinformation, at least keep it out of inclusive tags!

[orange-orchard-system]

Continuing this little vent-fest of mine, I really hate how people will just... absorb whatever misinformation they hear about DID. Like, sure, I get it, you want to believe the person who has the stigmatized disorder when they talk about it. But sometimes people with the disorder are just fucking wrong, too. Sometimes we also need to unlearn our biases, incorrect assumptions, and ideas that sound right but actually aren't. We're not a perfectly unbiased group. We're not granted omnipresence about every presentation and facet of our disorder.

And it frustrates me so much because it's always framed as though the people correcting the misinformation are evil, ableist bigots. As if we're the problem and not trying to handle a situation before it gets out of hand and people get hurt. They'll always absorb the misinformation because the person spreading it has DID but anyone fucking correcting it is "clocked" as a faker lying for unspecified malicious reasons. Omfg. Grow the fuck up and admit that you just uncritically absorbed the first thing you heard about whatever aspect of the disorder we're talking about this time. Grow the fuck up and accept that DID is complex and involves a lot of phenomena that might sound far-fetched at first. Especially when it comes to the complex ways we might be traumatized and show the effects of our trauma, are you kidding me. You are not immune to misinformation. You are not immune to exclusionism. You are not immune to hurting people in the name of protecting them.

I did eventually end up reaching out to the person who reblogged that post calling a specific subset of systems, as well as a specific form of abuse, a conspiracy theory. No word back as of yet. But I'm going to try to let it go and focus on my own projects for right now, because that is a ball of yarn I am not going to untangle overnight, but I can at least start sharpening the scissors for someone else to cut through it one day. Confrontation is not my strong suit, and I'm tired of being treated like shit for trying to correct misinformation about the disorder I work to destigmatize. Best to focus my efforts elsewhere.

If you've dealt with this kind of thing, seen this kind of post where people will spread the most obviously incorrect shit because they don't want to accept all the complexities and unusualities of DID, my heart goes out to you. It sucks. But I refuse to believe that it's going to be this way forever. No matter how fruitless it may seem, we are making headway in awareness, understanding, and acceptance. Some asshats who want to stick their head in the sand and only accept the most simplified, sanitized version of this messy and varied disorder are not going to stop us from making a place in the world for ourselves.

Keep your head high and your mind open. We're gonna make it through this shit.

[velvetvexations]

These days people get so weird when you point out that TERFs do more than target trans women and it's as exhausting as it is confusing.

I've had people tell me it's wrong for me to bring up the fact that TERFs and radical feminists target bi women because it's wrong for me to not center trans women in literally *every single discussion* of TERFism despite the fact that it is well known by anyone paying attention that TERFs gleefully target other queer people too. TERFs openly admit that they use ace/aro exclusionism and transmedicalism as recruitment tactics because once you get a queer person to turn against one identity it's easier to get them to turn against another. And the first big wave of TERF ideology and radical feminism went so hard on getting bi women out of lesbian spaces that now people legit think butch/feme are lesbian exclusive terms when they never were. They intentionally destroyed all connection bisexuals had to their shared history and culture until basically everyone is parroting their words without realizing, and are still responsible for some of the most vile biphobia circulating today. Like hate to break it to the "bi women shouldn't bring their cishet bf to pride" types but idc how much you say you love trans people you are still walking and talking like a TERF and deserve to be called on it.

And ofc they absolutely target trans people of all genders, acknowledging they ways they harm trans men doesn't mean you think they don't target trans women.

This is legit why I'm always one of the first people to point out what TERFs and radfems actually believe and how their ideology works and what dogwhistles you need to look out for, because imo the current idea that trans women are legit the only queer people meaningfully harmed by TERFism is happening specifically because no one bothered to learn what a TERF actually is beyond "transphobe", which is also how we get entire movements of queer people parroting TERF, SWERF, and radfem talking points word for word and not seeing a problem because they aren't transphobic(or thinking all they need to do to fight TERFs is put a DNI banner up on their blog and talk about punching transphobes).

If people refuse to actually learn what TERFs are and why they believe what they do we will never be able to defeat them. They will always sneak in, every bar will turn into the proverbial nazi bar, you have to fully recognize them to weed them out before it's too late, and so many people are completely uninterested in doing that.

Love this ask anon. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 I didn't know that at all about butch/femme having been used by bi women as well, thank you for telling me about it.

[crippled-peeper]

“I’m not ableist I just hate when disabled people who are more disadvantaged and more marginalized than me talk or speak or are given a platform or are taken seriously. it’s so unfair to me personally that you are talking about your marginalization and not mine!!!! every time you talk about something that affects you and not me it’s EXCLUSIONISM!!!!”

[aroanthy]

being gay and aromantic is wild because people will accuse you of hating gay people because you (checks notes) wish people would be a little more critical of romance as a patriarchal structure. the thing is that rgu literally does this, it examines and interrogates how romance is a patriarchal structure. every time i talk about aromanticism in rgu people get very upset about that, as though aromanticism impedes queerness— i did not realise we were still doing exclusionism so bare faced. every time i talk about aromanticism, people get upset. im not even talking about it in relation to the show, instead making a general throwaway post about the weight that people afford anything that deals in Romance, and i get told that rgu is a romance and i should cry about it. like. what? rgu made me realise i was aromantic. i was already gay and that gave me the final piece of the puzzle.

to be gay and aromantic does not mean you Just Have Friends (? what does this even mean, let’s unpack this statement at a later date): to be gay and aromantic means myriad things for myriad people. it means queer sex, it means queer connections that aren’t defined as ‘romantic’, it means queer attraction, it means queer understanding. nothing about this devalues romantic queerness, though i must say that every time i post about aromanticism someone has to qualify my words with a statement about how romance is cool too. and sure, it is, but you can maybe understand how that’s exhausting when you actually want a meaningful conversation about your identity. anyway aromantic people i love you aromantic people and gay people i love you gay people (i am both. godbless goodnight)

[olderthannetfic]

I feel like I found something called a lesbian ship paradox in certain part of a fandom. Calling a WLW ship WLW couples instead of Lesbian couple is homophonic, but lesbians can't be into men, so bi women are not lesbian, BUT if a character who canonically was into men enter a relationship with a woman, she is now a lesbian and therefore can't be into men and not bi. Which is just a weird way of bi-errasure and exclusionism. And when you talk about the blatant bi-errasure, suddenly, we need to talk about "comphet" and how "liking men was just a phase for lesbian". (So what is bi women again??)

I really hate the internet and the fact that people really think like this.

--

I partly blame the hot mess most of these canons make of the topic, but yes, a lot of fans are terrible about this.

[antiterf]

I've seen the highly mysogistic answers on your post about interacting with women as a man and I wonder if you condone that thinking? Do you really think women are the ones to blame for chosing not to hang out with men? As much as I feel sad about your situation and I myself try to be a little bit more open to talking with men and not just ignore them, it feels really simplistic to just simplify our reactions to "ugh mysandry!!". I get we're all tired about terfy male-exclusionism ideas but this is not the same at all.

No, I don't, and I started writing a reply to one of them before realizing that there were other things I needed my energy for.

I know I'm treated that way because women have to be cautious around men in general. I know that a guy acting too friendly can be a warning sign. If my neurodivergence cuts into it, that's an intersection of gender and disability and can be looked at a lot more accurately through acknowledging the complexity of the situation and not "yeah, women suck" (which no one said outright but it comes off as being angry at women and not at the societal situation).

That's what it is, a societal situation. Women act that way because that's how they stay safe. I know that I'm not a threat but they don't. By adulthood, many of them have learned that they need to do this from experience, whether personal or from someone close to them.

I especially hate it that it was compared to trans women being catcalled. It's nowhere near the same thing. My situation makes things a little more lonely at most, it mainly bothers me because I don't like it when I make people uneasy, while catcalling is straight up sexual harassment.

I talked about it because this is my blog and I wanted to speak about my experience. The issue is relatively small when you compare it to why it exists (dangerous psychological/physical experiences from men). I didn't see this as proof of institutional misandry or unreasonable man hating, I see it as the result of patriarchy.

[spinchs-field]

sorry i think about the “you can’t even accept furries” phrase a lot when talking about exclusionism in queer spaces. you can’t even accept furries. there are people who literally lose their shit over someone dressing up in an animal costume for fun. i genuinely believe that hating furries— whole heartedly HATING them— is a one-way ticket to hating so many people with harmless identities and lifestyles. while i won’t make the blanket statement of “all furries are queer”, So Many Furries are queer. and a lot of those queer furries are queer in Weird ways. and a lot of furries are neurodivergent. or disabled. if you cannot open your mind and accept people who dress up as animals For Fun, you cannot open your mind and accept people with weird genders and sexualities, or autistic people, or systems, or people with “scary” disorders, or otherkin, or therians, or disabled people. if you genuinely think it’s okay to mock and berate and spew hate at people just having fun i genuinely cannot trust you as someone to be honest with about anything personal. please broaden your horizons. please be kind. we need kindness more than anything in this world.

[caffeineandsociety]

Person on the ass end of whatever flavor exclusionism is taking today: Hey here's an experience I had with someone trying to hatecrime me

Exclusionist: UGH, discrimination is SYSTEMIC, that's INDIVIDUAL, do you really think all this stuff begins and ends at people being MEAN to you?

Person on the ass end: If you were actually paying attention, that's why I also told this other story, as an addition to a whole study, just last month about how we've been excluded from things from medical care to financial aid resources to just existing in public--

Exclusionist: Oh boo hoo you get INCONVENIENCED sometimes it's not like anyone actually HATES you enough to get violent though!

Person on the ass end: Um...that's literally what happened that you said doesn't count though?

Exclusionist: YEAH, because it's not SYSTEMIC, call me when someone ~bullying you~ gets you turned away from a doctor's office and then we'll talk! HEY WHERE ARE YOU GOING COME BACK HERE!! HOW DARE YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME STILL THINKING YOU'RE OPPRESSED YOU BIGOT!!

[butchbarbieagainstterfs]

Hey! Do you know if it's okay for a person with PCOS to identify as intersex? I've seen some intersex people say yes, and I know you've reblogged a post before agreeing with that. Is that a common view in the intersex community? I was recently diagnosed with PCOS but have experienced the symptoms for at least a decade when I started to notice the symptoms as a teenager. I was worried about "stealing" the intersex identity, even though I know that's not necessarily possible to do. I don't have some of the very commonly talked about experiences of intersex people, namely the forced gender-conforming surgeries at birth, so I worried if I was allowed to call myself intersex. I would like to be part of the intersex community, and my OCD tells me that me wanting to be part of the community means I'm trying to force myself into a community I don't belong (which my OCD told me about my trans identity too, and I've realized over the past two years that I have a lot of trans experiences). I just really don't want to "fake" being intersex or offend intersex people. I hear so much exclusionism and gatekeeping and treatment of oppression like an honorable title that only the few are allowed (I haven't heard this from intersex people, just people in general), and I guess I've internalized that stuff despite hating exclusionism. Thank you for answering this ask if you choose to!

Hi! Thanks for the question!

Yes, PCOS is deffo widely considered a form of being intersex, particularly by the intersex community ourselves! It usually causes a higher level of T in afab people, which fits the definition of intersex.

Sadly dyadics like to police us and many of them think being intersex means you have to have both a vulva and a penis, which isn’t true and is a far rarer occurrence.

In my view, and most intersex people’s views in my experience, you’re welcome in the intersex community if you want to be 🥰