#Substack Failure

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

How Ted’s Return to 9-to-5 Made Him Happier After an Online Writing Business Failure

Discover why going back to corporate life made this person happier and wiser and the key lessons aspiring content entrepreneurs should know before attempting such business. Summary of a Case Study As a content strategist and ethnographic researcher, I conducted extensive case studies on book authors, online writers, freelancers, ghostwriters, and affiliate marketers, providing valuable insights��

[mistninja]

Feeling very "fitz-core" right now (spiraling)

[evangelinesucre]

[mariacallous]

I keep seeing these kind of tags on that post and like I get it but I also wish people would really read it because neither Snyder nor the substack author are saying things are fine or done or solved!

Some key excerpts to keep in mind:

Something is shifting. They are still breaking things and stealing things. And they will keep trying to break and to steal. But the propaganda magic around the oligarchical coup is fading. Nervous Musk, Trump, Vance have all been outclassed in public arguments these last few days. Government failure, stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances are not popular. People are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for personal wealth and power.

and

None of this means that the country is out of the woods yet. As Professor Snyder wrote, Trump and his billionaires are going to try and try again, which means that it is going to take constant resistance from the American people to defeat them.

Things will get much easier for pro-democracy Americans if Democrats win control of the House in special elections this year or next year's midterm election.

Until then, it will be a grassroots battle.

I just really don't like this kneejerk reaction especially because it feels like it's ignoring the point of what both Snyder and the author are saying, which is that the more we fight and speak up and push back, the more likely that they falter and back off and we get some breathing and maneuvering space.

[anettrolikova]

Failure should punctuate a strong track record A rich person says, “I struggled a lot. Now, I’m here doing this cool thing.”

A broke person says, “I struggled a lot. Actually I’m still struggling.”

One makes you think, “What a rags to riches story. I’m so inspired.” The other makes you feel sad. You don’t want to be vulnerable at the expense of your ultimate goal, which at work, is generally about inspiring confidence in your abilities—so your startup gets funded, so you get hired, so your manager trusts you more.

Let’s say you’re a candidate interviewing for roles. Over-emphasizing failure makes you seem like a risky hire. The hiring manager thinks, Wow, I appreciate that they shared this, but it was kind of a poor judgment call, they missed obvious signs, and the expensive mistake probably could have been avoided altogether. Maybe we should pick another candidate who has better judgment. Failure can be perceived as a pattern match or a pattern break. Startups have to tow the line between simultaneously playing up aspects that make them the underdog (because they’re clearly not Google and can’t hide this) AND playing up that they are proven, trusted, the go-to, reliable, stable, etc (elements of the favorite) so customers are willing to take a chance. If you’re the challenger, not the default, you’re already deemed risky. When in doubt, show why you're the winning team to counterbalance.

People want to read about your failures if they deem you a success. If you’re talking about failure, remember to share a few points of credibility, so you give folks a reason to want to learn from you. If you're going to share widely-make sure you're sharing from your scars, not your open wounds. Love Warrior is intensely personal, but it's not a diary.

I started turning it into a memoir two years after it all happened, and I had enough distance to look at all of it somewhat objectively. 

If you’re still in the midst of struggle, talking about your failure can look like a cry for help. And most companies don’t want to hire a content marketer or product manager who seems like they’re in the middle of crisis.

[ghelgheli]

i would actually like to hear more of your thoughts on whipping girl, whenever you feel ready enough to talk about it. i've only ever heard positive recommendations for it. i was thinking of reading it. i've read one or two introductory 101 texts on transmisogyny as well as some medium/substack posts, and always looking to read more as a tme person. ty!

thanks for asking! I'm gonna try to be concise because I'm stuck on my phone for the month, but here are my thoughts on whipping girl:

serano is at her strongest in the book in three areas: manifestations of transmisogyny in media (e.g. how trans caricatures pervade movies), the history of medical institutions developing a pathology of transsexuality (like the diagnostics of blanchard et al. or how trans people seeking healthcare were and continue to be forced into acting out prescribed expressions and manufacturing memories), and the construction of her own transition narrative (telling the reader what it was like for her to grow up desiring femininity in a way that confused her, the experience of crossdressing, the effects of hrt for her)

whenever she's just sticking to this, I think she effectively communicates a lot that the unaware reader could benefit from—even many trans women/transfems/tma people who are otherwise in tune with the history of medicalized transsexualism and our popular depictions could probably benefit from her own personal narrative, by nature of how variegated our experiences can be.

unfortunately I think the book fails at its primary—stated—goal, which is to theorize about transmisogyny. in the big picture this is a bifurcated failure:

on one branch of her argument, she remains committed to there being something biologically essential/innate about gender. this manifests thru multiple claims: that we have "innate inclinations" toward masculinity/femininity and "subconscious sex" rather than what I believe, which is that the latter are constructed categories imposed on different matrices of behaviour/expression/desire in different cultural contexts; that there is "definitely a biological component to gender" (close paraphrase) after a discussion of how she believes E and T tend to affect people (thus equivocating gender with dominant hormones!); that we have such a thing as "physical sex" which is the composition of our culturally decided "sex characteristics" (don't ask me how the dividing line is drawn) even as she says we should stop using "biological sex" as a term; that there is "no harm" in agreeing that "sex" is largely bimodal with some exceptions; that social constructionism is necessarily erasure of transsexual experiences in early childhood... altogether she is unwilling to relinquish arguments about the partial "innateness" of femininity/masculinity and gender. this is at tension with her admission on several occasions that these are neither culturally/geographically nor temporally stable concepts! but that doesn't seem to be a line she can follow thru on.

on another, intertwining branch, she engages in what I think is a deep and widespread mistake in the theorizing of transmisogyny: reducing it (mechanistically) to what she calls effemimania* or essentially anti-femininity. it is her stated thesis at the start that masculinity is universally preferred to femininity. she doesn't offer a definition of either term until one of the final chapters, where she defines them as the behaviours and expressions associated with a particular gender. but I think this reduction just misunderstands transmisogyny. it is even in tension with an observation she makes early on, that trans women are often punished for their perceived masculinity! but again, this is a thought she seems unable or unwilling to follow thru with.

my problem with the thesis is that masculinity and femininity do not float free of gender—it is not possible to speak of their valuation in the abstract. anyone who grew up as a masculine cis girl and never "grew out" of that "phase" can attest to the violence wrought upon expressions of masculinity from women. and this applies doubly so to the subjects of transmisogyny! not only are we punished for any perceived bleed-through of masculinity from our supposed "underlying male selves", those of us who are willingly masculine and thriving as mascs are punished for our failure to conform to the rules of the normative womanhood that is imposed on us (just as we are punished for any willing femininity as "false" and predatory upon cis womanhood—observe that transmisogyny is reactive degendering in every case!).

on both branches serano makes only perfunctory remarks about the intersections with race, class, and colonialism. "sex" as such was made to only be accessible to the "civilized", most of all the white european! for a racialized person and particularly a Black person navigating gender the waters are just not the same; the signifiers of sex neither available in the same way, nor granted the same medical legitimacy. what is the "physical sex" of someone who is de-sexed altogether? how can gender have a "biologically innate" component when its expressions between the bourgeoisie and the working class are at total odds with one another? this all goes for the masculine/feminine distinctions as well. what sense is there in the claim that we have innately masculine/feminine inclinations when globally (and transmisogyny has been made global!) what is feminine and masculine can be very nearly mirrored? nor is "masculinity is always considered superior to femininity" innocent of obviating race. transmisogynoir adds yet further degendering thru the coercive masculinization of someone as a Black woman—masculinization as punishment, again!

and as a final point, the account fails to be materialist. there is no attempt to place transmisogyny in its role as an instrument of political economy or, as jules gill-peterson might say, as a tool of statecraft. it is just a psychological response to the way the world is, as far as serano has anything to say about it. but how did the world become that way, and why?? serano's solution, the abolition of what she calls gender entitlement, is naive to the fact that gender entitlement is necessary to the maintenance of the capitalist state, which is structured thru patriarchy and built on colonialism. it is not possible to reskin this into something innocuous!

this is why I cannot recommend whipping girl as a work about transmisogyny except at the most shallow level. it could be a helpful critical read, but imo, it is just wrong about transmisogyny.

[probablyasocialecologist]

For as long as Bill Gates has been a philanthropist, he’s latched onto popular “world-saving” causes, from population control to polio eradication to standardized testing in schools, each time using his wealth and public relations muscle to appoint himself to a leadership role despite a total lack of qualifications and then changing the foundation’s programmatic direction to follow his lead. Climate change is only the latest cause, and for Gates, it was a convenient way to endear himself to the public all over again as his marriage to foundation cofounder Melinda French Gates collapsed following revelations about the software mogul’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. “I think the clear takeaway is that Bill Gates is not who he says he is,” says journalist Tim Schwab, whose Substack and 2024 book The Bill Gates Problem make him one of the few consistent critical voices tracking the billionaire and his namesake foundation. Per Schwab: Just as Gates tries to assert himself as a leader on climate change by making bogus divestment claims, similar contradictions define his entire philanthropic career. He claims his foundation is delivering innovative pharmaceuticals that are saving lives, for example, yet his foundation stands accused of stifling innovation and access through monopolistic behavior. . . . His track record of failures, which have caused incalculable harm, mean he’s the last person on Earth we should look to for leadership on climate change.

17 February 2025

[malusokay]

Our Brains Are Rotting and Cicero Knew

On distraction, decline, and the intellectual rot Cicero saw coming. (from my substack)

O tempora, o mores—Cicero’s lament still echoes, like a parent sighing at their kid for putting the milk back in the fridge empty. He hurled those words into a world that thought it was collapsing, but honestly, Rome didn’t even know what real rot was yet. Cicero stood in the Senate, cloaked in self-righteous fury (as only Cicero could), accusing the guilty and clutching at virtues that were slipping through his fingers. “Iniquissima haec bellorum condicio est: prospera omnes sibi vindicant, adversa uni imputantur,” he said—history is cruel, always ready to share the credit for triumphs but quick to pin failure on a scapegoat. And oh, how disappointed he’d be to know his words, once etched in fire, are now buried in scrollable trivia, nestled between TikTok trends and threads about the dying sourdough starters.

Our rot is quieter and more subtle, almost polite, like water slowly ruining the foundation of a house no one even lives in anymore. It doesn’t come with swords or collapsing senates, but with screens. Flickering, endless screens. A thousand voices all talking at once until it’s just static, white noise buzzing in your brain. The kicker? We hold the wisdom of entire empires in our sweaty little hands, every speech, every scroll, every fragment of brilliance painstakingly saved by people who didn’t even have plumbing—and we just let it rot beneath algorithmic garbage. We traded Lucretius for lip-syncs, ars est celare artem for captions written by bots.

And Cicero? Poor Cicero, who believed so fiercely in the res publica, in the duty to preserve both morality and intellect—he’d probably choke on his wine to see us not just distracted but actively sabotaging ourselves. “Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum,” he warned, because ignorance of history is the fastest way to stay a child forever. And, well, here we are: eternal toddlers in the nursery of civilization, sucking on the pacifier of whatever mindless content the algorithm spits out next. We’re not just lost; we’re willingly staying lost. It’s almost impressive.

Yet we think we’re clever. That’s the worst part. We think we’ve outsmarted the ancients, with our steady diet of soundbites and videos, each one shorter and dumber than the last. Meanwhile, Cicero would be rolling his eyes so hard they’d get stuck. “Legum servi sumus, ut liberi esse possimus,” he’d remind us—slaves to the rules we create, but these aren’t the rules of a republic. They’re the rules of a distraction economy. We call it freedom, but it’s more like gilded captivity. Every thought reduced to a trend, every story a fifteen-second flicker. What freedom is that? It’s like decorating your prison cell with fairy lights and pretending it’s cosy.

The rot isn’t just in the content. It’s in the way we approach it, like tourists in a museum, glancing at the masterpieces but never stopping long enough to feel their weight. We skim the Iliad, marvelling at its age but missing its fire, its warnings, its unbearable humanity. We quote the poets but only because it sounds sharp on a tote bag, not because we understand the exhaustion behind it. The ancients fought for words like these, polished them with the desperation of people who knew empires could crumble at any moment. And what do we do? We scroll right past, looking for something quicker, easier, something that sparkles.

We are exactly the people Cicero feared: writing tweets no one will read, building monuments to vanity instead of virtue, shrugging off the weight of history for the cheap thrill of now. The ancients taught us better. They polished their words like marble, made them heavy and sharp, meant to outlast empires. But we’re just tossing them aside to chase the next shiny thing. It’s not that we don’t know better—it’s that we don’t care.

And so, our brains rot. Not from hunger, but from excess. From too much noise, too much fluff, too much everything. The cry of O tempora, o mores isn’t dead, but it’s definitely hoarse. And the worst part? We’ve stopped listening. We don’t even notice the silence.

thank you for joining me on my little 4 AM Cicero brain-rot spiral. Usually, things like this stay buried in my notes, but where’s the fun in that, right? Lots of love, Malu <3

[weewookinard]

Imagine

Tommy helps the 118 saving Bathena and Buck has a crush™️ and the crush is bigger and bigger BUT Tommy is late for his shift so he never goes to Buck's loft and so no kiss and getting together.

But Tommy is friend with Eddie now and he's also retaking his spot in Chim's life, being invited to his wedding and spending more time with the 118 and Buck hates it but he is also always so eager to see him even though he doesn't understand why.

Turns out his first muay-thai lesson with Eddie and Tommy is an enlightenment, as well as the boner that grows when Tommy pins him on the mat. He blurts an excuse and run away.

His first action when he arrives at his place is opening Google and browsing through substacks and subreddit. After a few hours he decides to write a post titled "how do you know if a boner is caused by celibate and body proximiy or if you are just horny for your hot friend even though you are straight and he's a man?".

The post is soon to be popular, as well as reposted on twitter, Instagram, even facebook, and he panics a little but cannot talk about it to Maddie or Eddie or anyone else. He goes to delete it but his eyes are attracted by one of the new responses.

The reddit user is nice and tries to reassure him. Talks about his own experience with realizing he's gay, and how it was hard for him at first. He tells him about this man he has the biggest crush on even though he is straight, and they bond through pining and shared failures.

It takes Buck a few days before he goes to this user's account, and looks at his other posts to know more about him. The user is a man, he follows a few sports and health subreddits. He is mostly active on movies subreddits though and Buck finds his takes on romcom funny.

The more he looks at this man's publication the more he finds him endearing.

But then.

He discovers that his new friend moderates a subreddit about LAFD air operations in California and his heart stops. His last post is only from a few hours ago and it's a picture of a chopper. Tommy's chopper.

Fuck.

[librarycards]

hello all, and welcome to my final quarterly book rec post of 2024! this quarter was a huge one for sff (and not only on the heels of my own novel's publication - obligatory Failure to Comply [ebook] mention here!) and an exciting one for catching up on both new books and old ones i hadn't yet gotten to.

i guess you could chalk the dominance of sff in this list up to a need for "escapism", though what unites all of the books on this list is a shared, sharp critique of the world that is, whether satirical or serious or both. i hope you also find something you love & are compelled by in this list, especially as a chaotic year comes to a close. if you want more recs, you can check both the above linked tag on my blog, and my substack, where I share monthly media recs!

without further ado, the books:

All Down Darkness Wide by Seán Hewitt

Model Home by Rivers Solomon

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

Open Throat by Henry Hoke

The False Sister by Briar Ripley Page @flameswallower

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Amatka by Karin Tidbeck

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

Inversion by Aric McBay

thanks, as always, for another year of enthusiasm for my book rec special interest, couldn't do it without you :333

tags below! if i didn't tag you, regardless of whether or not we're mutuals, I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! feel free to make your own post and tag me.

@wheatforme @aldieb @campgender @capricornpropaganda @materialisnt

@closet-keys @podcastlesbian @bioethicists @trans-axolotl @punkkwix

@fatfemmalewife @fatehbaz @lesbianlizzybennet @myalgias @sadhoc

@wozapi @csferreirapoet @floral-ashes @stephen-deadalus @querxus

@snoopyisbisexual @metamatar @heavenlyyshecomes @sawasawako

@growtiredofpublicvulnerability @slowtides @grimesapologist @charliejaneanders

[the-empress-7]

Fb2b didnt post it on instagram, it was on her substack newsletter.

Basically said H doesn’t have a racist, sexist bone, that she doesn’t believe what Sophie is saying, that she is just trying to pin her failures on the Sussexes. That she (Sophie) is acting like Meghan.

The man who called his sister in law limpet isn't a misogynist? The man who used and discarded women like trash after his one night stands isn't a misogynist? The man who was known to push girls into pools and low key SA them in the name of fun isn't a misogynist? The man who partied and did cocaine with strippers in Vegas isn't a misogynist? The man who was too cheap to pay for his long term girlfriend's airfare to his own friend's wedding isn't a misogynist? The man who believed his own grandmother was a colonizing empire builder isn't a misogynist?

The man who said Chelsy was cool because even though she was Zimbabwean at least she wasn't black isn't a racist? The man who wore a n*zi costume isn't a racist? The man who called his army mates p*kis isn't a racist? The man who told a radio host "oh you don't sound black" isn't a racist? The man who even after leaving the BRF only hires white people isn't a racist?

Cool. Cool. Cool.

Meghan and Sophie's situations are nothing like. Meghan had zero receipts. Sophie's biggest receipt is Harry's entire existence.

[drdemonprince]

Happy new year Devon!

Thanks for your new Substack piece, it’s so nice to read something like that which isn’t usually talked about and it echos my own experience and in my friend group but from a femme perspective. I’m cis female and my best friend is a trans chick. When we first became friends her gender dysphoria and journey came up and I started telling her about how I don’t know if it’s the same but I’ve always felt weird when I do things like wear dresses, low cut tops, try to wear high heels or long earrings. I cut myself off and started apologizing profusely because I thought it was offensive to compare these seemingly trivial things with what she has gone through. I’ve always been gnc but super hesitant to be like “oh we’re kinda the same” in case it came across patronizing and condescending or something. She was like No actually that makes me feel Good because these are shared femme experiences. We both struggle with feeling like we don’t fit the “female standard” and that’s actually what brought us close together in the first place. We both struggle with how to initiate relationships, our self/body image, harassment, self esteem, a whole bunch of things. She can put on make up and dress pretty and do things that I can’t do because it makes me feel a bit ill. We both question whether we’re doing the whole “girl thing” right and if we’ll ever be accepted into certain female spaces. But also we’ve found solidarity and unity and a group of people who are all sharing struggles and supporting each other through unconventional life paths.

Thanks for writing about that topic. I think it helps people of all genders and backgrounds feel a bit more unified and less alone.

yayyy love this so much thank you

here's the piece everyone

[dolphin-diaries]

A Conversation With Lucy Kartikasari

An interview with a fellow detrans woman and activist about her experience. Originally posted on the Dolphin Diaries substack.

Dolphin Diaries: Would you introduce yourself and describe how you identify?

Lucy Kartikasari: Hi! My name is Lucy Kartikasari. I’m twenty-eight years old, I live in the Netherlands and I would label myself as a queer, bisexual detrans woman. Aside from my normal day job, I’m an online activist for LGBTQ rights with a focus on community-building between trans and detrans people. I feel like that is very sorely needed in today’s political climate.

So, when people think of detrans people, they usually think about the medical aspects of transition first and foremost. You were a teenager when you started transitioning, and you went through the Dutch transition procedure, is that correct?

Right, that is correct. I was twelve when I started my social transition and sixteen when I started my medical transition.

What has that experience been like?

My experience of it as a teen was marked by long waiting lists—which are still part of trans healthcare in the Netherlands today. After I came out to my parents, we went to our GP, and then I spent about three and a half years on a waitlist before I could even start the diagnostic portion of the transition process. It’s all been quite gatekeep-y.

But at the same time, I don’t think the psychologists involved really understood transition and what might motivate someone like me to do it. For me specifically, the root of my transition was the idea that I’d be a failure as a woman. I couldn’t be that beautiful, thin, hairless doll. So I remember the doctors asking me, have I considered if I could just be a masculine woman? And, no. I don’t think this way anymore, obviously, but back then, for me being a masculine woman also meant being a failure. Anything less than picture-perfect cisheteronormativity was not good enough. So I felt like, I may as well be a man. And I don’t think they understand what that kind of trauma looks like.

So, based on the kinds of questions they were asking you, what do you think they were trying to screen you for?

I think, besides asking if I was just a masculine woman, they were trying to screen for things like sexual trauma. But mostly it was, like, what makes you not want to be a woman? And I would say, well, it’s my body parts. I had a lot of negative thoughts about having extra fat on my body—you know, growing up in a half-Asian household, fatphobia is very common. Only thin women can be successful, and if you’re not under fifty kilos, you’re not thin enough. And so I had a lot of negative feelings about that and my breasts in particular. Just very disinterested in having them, very unhappy with them. And I didn’t really want to be a woman, so I was like, well if I want to live as a man, I should have a flat chest, a penis, and so on. And so, because I was so dissatisfied with my body and with my breasts especially, that assured them it was really gender dysphoria. I don’t think they really understood my cultural context, either.

Would you say it was like, the doctors were aware that women might have bodily insecurities, but surely, if you were really a woman, you wouldn’t hate it that badly?

Exactly. And while I was on the waitlist, I was in therapy, but I was never in therapy with someone who specialised in gender dysphoria. They just looked at me and went, well, let’s wait four years and see if the child still wants to transition. So what happened was, I spent all that time presenting as a boy, at the time that my identity was really crystalising, between the ages of twelve and fifteen. So by the time it came to doing the diagnostics, I was already like, yeah I’m a boy, there’s nothing else to it. I’m a dude.

So it sounds like, since you had to wait so long, you weren’t really coming to a psychologist to help you with figuring out your transness? You just came there specifically to transition?

Yeah. When I first came out, it was to my dad, and I wasn’t sure then. I just said, I think I’m a boy. What would’ve been helpful for me at the time was if someone would’ve sat down with me and helped me untangle my feelings, why I was so insecure about the idea of growing up as a woman, why the trappings of a female body were so traumatising to me. Why I had so many of these weird issues of, like, my bones being too big, my wrists not being small enough. Because I was just like: I don’t want to fail, I don’t want to be bad at this; I may as well do something I’ll be good at.

So that time you spent living as a boy while not being able to access medical transition—how did that affect you?

I felt like I was a victim of my own biology. I felt like, if I was on testosterone, at least some of this fat would be muscle. I know it’s a lot of fatphobia—don’t get me wrong, I’m a gym girl now, I know you don’t have to be on T for that. But I’m still working very hard to deconstruct all these things. Back then, I looked at my unclothed body with revulsion, and I felt like a masculine body would be so much better than whatever I had going on. Going through life as a boy while simultaneously being so disgusted with myself—it was just so much easier to exist in places where I didn’t have to be physically present, like online. I learned to detach my personality from my physicality, to disassociate.

Has that affected your experience with detransition?

Well, I’m twenty-eight now. My adolescence was a long time ago at this point, so it can be hard to reconnect with the way I used to feel back then. But that ability to disconnect from my body has actually made it easier to cope with my bodily insecurities now, too. Because it’s like, even if I feel horrible, even if I were to devolve into some sort of horrific creature physically, I know I’d still be me in my mind, no matter what.

And have you needed to access gender-affirming care as a detrans woman?

Yeah, I’ve had a total hysterectomy, so I’m reliant on oestrogen HRT for the rest of my life. I have had laser hair removal on my face, since the growth there was bothering me quite a lot. And I’ve been planning to undergo breast reconstruction and a treatment for the scarring on my chest.

In terms of access to gender-affirming healthcare for detransition as an adult, what’s been your experience?

As an adult, I found that there really are no protocols in place for detransition—like, they just don’t think about it at all. Some of my interactions with healthcare professionals have been quite callous. For example, when I first approached my doctor about switching my hormones, one of the first things he said to me was, You know it’s actually really rare for people to do this. And I was kind of like, well of course it’s rare. But how is that supposed to help me now?

One of the other things I had to do is wait. I took my last dose of testosterone in September 2022, and I only got to start oestrogen in December 2022.

So that’s like, months with low sex hormones across the board?

Yeah, it crashed pretty quickly. October, I wasn’t feeling great; November, menopausal symptoms were starting to kick in. It was starting to affect my day job. Thank goodness, the company doctor was an older woman, so I just explained to her my detransition and said, look, I don’t have hormones in my body right now. And she understood.

So, for November and January, I was actually experiencing menopausal symptoms for the second time in my life. Because I’ve also been on hormone blockers and nothing else when I was sixteen. There’s some comedy there, menopause at sixteen and then again at twenty-six. Now I look back at it and laugh, but at the time it was obviously horrific.

As for the social aspect of detransitioning, I didn’t really want to tell people about it because I was essentially stealth in a lot of places, especially my professional life. So people in the workplace would see me and interpret me as a trans woman all of a sudden. To be fair, I was working in data engineering, so I think everyone was just looking at me and being like, yep, makes sense.

This dovetails into my next question: what has it been like, outside of online and queer spaces, to live as a detrans woman?

It’s been kind of a mixed bag. I think my greatest concern, or fear, or whatever you want to call it, has been triggering people’s transmisogyny, because they assume I’m a trans woman. I’ve had instances where I, like, went out partying and approached a guy, and then that guy found my Instagram. He saw my they/she/he pronouns, heard my voice. And then he was just like, You used to be a man. And we’re in the middle of a dance floor, I’m not giving him my entire gender history. At that particular club, I was with my sister and knew the security, so I knew I’d be safe if something went down, but it was scary. Dating in general is strange, intensely uncomfortable and scary. I just have to throw my entire story out there, because otherwise it’s like, what’s up with these chest scars? And you know, with single-sex spaces, I go to the changing rooms in the gym with my sister, because I’m scared that, if I speak a word, there will be a problem. Legally I’m still male and I have a traditionally masculine name, so I run into issues because of that, too.

When it comes to my friends and family, however, they’ve been really good. I’ve been so lucky. And I think it’s also because I’ve been so open about my transition and everything that went into it, that people were like, well, Lucy, we love you no matter what. It’s all good; if you want to detransition, that’s fine; if you want to retransition later, that’s also fine. There’s only one exception to that, and it’s my mum. She struggled a lot with my transition in the beginning, so it was quite hard to tell her. Even to this day, I think she still has issues with the fact I want to be a mother, in part because it will cost me a lot of money. So I waited until, like, four months on E to tell her, surprise, I’m your daughter again.

I also worry about certain expectations being put on me again, like the way I need to look, act, sound. But I feel like that’s kind of just being a woman in society, unfortunately.

Have you ever worried about coming out as detrans and unintentionally confirming people’s worst suspicions about trans people?

I find that the one way I combat this is, just by openly stating that this is my experience—I really emphasise that. If you want to take my story and run with it, I can’t really stop that. But I try to be really emphatic of my support for trans people, of my trans friends, even if it’s a little silly. Like, I still do the testosterone shots for my best friend, who’s a trans guy; I’m friends with trans girls; I’m still very much in community with trans people. When I say this so often, it might come across to other queer people as performative—but that’s the point, I need to do this performance when I talk to cis people who really don’t get it. For whom I’m just a confirmation of their worst instincts.

So what has being detrans been like for you in queer circles?

In my local communities in the Netherlands, because I’ve been involved with activism, it’s really fine as I’ve made a name for myself in being very pro-trans rights. Overall, it’s been good.

Were you involved in activism before you detransitioned, also?

I only really got involved in activism as a detrans person. Before that, I felt like there were so many people much more eloquent than me, people who already have huge followings—what could I possibly add to the conversation? But then, about six months after detransitioning, I found a tweet by Oli London [about detransition], and that was a catalyst. I thought, I need to do something about this. I figured that I could add way more to the conversation about being detrans and in community with trans people than anything else.

What would you say are trans people’s attitudes about detransition and detrans people?

I think it really depends on the age. I feel like, the younger you go, the more vitriolic the hatred towards detrans people. Young people and especially teenagers are very prone to black-and-white thinking. I think—and this is going to be controversial—that the trans kids who are incredibly vitriolic towards detrans people are the ones who are most likely to detransition later down the line, because they do not give any room for their doubts and might be reacting this way because they’re hiding something away. But generally, I’d say the older you get, the more someone has been in community with other trans and queer people, the more likely they are to look at your experience in a nuanced way. At least that’s what I observe with my followers. The only exception is—and I know this comes from a place of pain—some trans women who really hate detrans women, because they see it as squandering the gift of natural-born femininity. Like, you had this, I want it and I can’t have it—and you just threw it away.

When you describe your experience to trans people, do they recognise it as a detrans experience? Or is it usually the first time they hear something like that in regards to detransition?

I think it’s usually new to them in that context. I think the only detransition content they’ve encountered before was, let’s face it, Christofascist white nationalist content. Let’s just call a spade a spade. So the fact they’re hearing someone empathetic to trans people, who wants them to have adequate healthcare, job opportunities, everything—that’s new. They’re very quick to rip into certain well-known right-wing detransitioners, but when they respond to me with hate because I’m detrans and I just shrug it off, that kind of defangs it.

On a broader scale, would you say that detransitioning impacted the way you think about gender and sex?

Being a detrans woman just made me realise—it’s all the same thing. It’s always sexism, misogyny; it’s always hatred of the feminine, the unmet expectations of the feminine, failing to be a woman. I don’t understand how people like Chloe Cole and Prisha and whoever else can be like this, because you know they’ll treat you just the same as a trans woman. You’ll get lumped in when the chips are down. There’s so much more to gain in accepting gender fluidity, in community.

What would you say are the biggest challenges to detrans people right now?

I think it’s the fact that the organisations that have been founded supposedly to help us always have ulterior motives. For instance, I have a Brazilian detrans friend, and she complains to me it’s all very Jesus-saved-us there. I’m Australian, so I need to get all paperwork changes through the Australian government, and the only organisation that cares about detransition there is the LGB Alliance. Then you look at the US, and it’s Genspect. These organisations are usually Christofascist. So yeah, there’s never anything that offers a structured way of helping detrans people without that agenda. That would sort out your documents and your healthcare.

So what I’m surmising is, when detrans people need help with legal gender marker change or gender-affirming healthcare access, the only option they see available to them are those right-wing organisations?

Right. We need to take that power away from them.

I very much agree. Lastly, in your opinion, do detrans issues tie in with any broader issues right now?

I think a lot of the things relevant to detrans women tie in with general women’s issues. For instance, speaking as a detrans woman that has been sterilised, there’s reproductive healthcare. The Right has this chokehold on conversations of fertility; they talk about how you’ll never breastfeed, never have babies if you take T for too long, and so on. It’s about reproductive rights and control over everyone who has the capacity to bear children. And of course, there’s trans rights and the encroachment of transphobia. The Right wants to construct a very specific view of gender, of women, and in part they use detrans women to do that.

Lucy Kartikasari can be found over on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Threads. She creates content about her transition and detransition as well as trans and detrans solidarity. Find her other links here.

[nateconnolly]

“I have tried to show you what I am,” says Barb, the protagonist of one of the most controversial short stories ever written. “I have tried to do it without judgment. That I leave to you.”

Barb comes from I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter by Isabel Fall, a science fiction story about gender and imperialism. It was Fall’s first published story. There was no backlog of stories to analyze, and her author’s bio was sparse. Readers weren’t given any information about Fall’s gender identity, but that didn’t stop activists from speculating. “… this reads as if it was written by a straight white dude who doesn’t really get gender theory or transition,” complained Arinn Dembo, President of the science fiction writers’ collective SF Canada. The author Phoebe Barton even compared the story to a weapon against trans people: “Think of it as a gun,” she tweeted. “A gun has only one use: for hurting.” N.K. Jemison joined in, tweeting, “Artists should strive to do no (more of this) harm.” But Dembo and the hundreds of thousands of others were mistaken about Fall’s supposed cis identity. The publisher responded to the backlash by taking the story down and posting a statement about the author’s identity. Isabel Fall was a transgender woman, and self-identified activists for trans rights bullied her so mercilessly that she attempted suicide. Dembo later adjusted her criticism, saying “a lot of people might have been spared a lot of mental anguish” if Fall had made a statement about her gender identity. Meaning, Fall had a moral obligation to out herself as a trans woman. Both of Dembo’s comments reveal a preoccupation with the author that distracts from the text. The recent obsession with author identities is one of the great failures of contemporary liberal movements. In order to win liberation for any given group, liberal activists must focus less on who speaks and more on what is spoken. 

Roland Barthes’ 1967 essay The Death of the Author argued that an author’s intentions and life experiences do not make the “ultimate meaning” of their text. The author might as well “die” once the text is in the reader’s hands. The text is “a multi-dimensional space” that one cannot simply flatten with biographical details about the author. Barthes has largely been vindicated among literary critics and theorists, but his idea has not been well-received among liberal activists. It is easy to refuse to acknowledge multiple dimensions of a text. Moralistic groups like liberation movements might even be tempted to sort texts into a simple dichotomy—“good” or “bad,” without any gray areas—on the sole basis of the author’s identity. That is exactly what Dembo tried to do: she suggested that Attack Helicopter was bad simply because of the author’s (supposed) gender. 

I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter is not a transphobic story. Although an in-depth analysis would be beyond the scope of this essay, I can confidently say that Fall critiqued American imperialism, not transgender people. I think that would be clear to anyone who reads the story. But apparently, reading a story is no longer a necessary step in the process of interpreting it. Barton—who suggested her fellow trans woman was a “gun”-wielding transphobe—had not actually read the story. Jemison also admitted she had not read the story before tweeting that it was harmful. We now have a complete reversal of Barthes’ idea: this method of moralistic interpretation is nothing less than the death of the text.

Fall is far from the only queer storyteller to face backlash for allegedly not being queer. Becky Albertalli, Kit Connor (who was still a teenager), and Jameela Jamil all came out of the closet because they were harassed for telling queer stories as “straight” and “cis” people. It is a common talking point in activist circles that the government should not compile lists of queer people or forcibly out them. Why, then, do activists engage in the same behavior? It simply is not always safe to admit that you are gay, or trans, or autistic, or epileptic, or that you have had an abortion. The reason that we need liberation movements for these groups is the same reason that people might not want to publicly claim these identities.

You can read the rest on Substack

[jackmedwn]

Allen West on Substack: "Will someone please tell Barack Hussein Obama that we have moved beyond his black pastoral intonations. We know how great a failure he was. His soaring feel good rhetoric is only effective on the useful idiots who fail to recognize the utter delusion and empty emotionalism. The …"

The Kenyan skidmark.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Adam Levick

Mahmoud Khalil, the Syrian-born Columbia University graduate and US permanent resident, was detained last weekend by US immigration officers and faces deportation for his activism on behalf of a student organisation, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which supports Hamas – a US designated terror group.

Attorneys representing Khalil have challenged his arrest and planned deportation, and US federal court is set to begin hearing the case soon.

While the legal issues are complex, the move is seen as part of a broader attempt by the US administration to combat the surge in antisemitism and pro-terror activities on college campuses after the Oct. 7th massacre.  While Khalil has become a cause célèbre at the Guardian, an outlet that’s institutionally incapable of seeing antisemitism within the anti-Israel movement, the BBC’s reporting on the row hasn’t been much better – particularly in their failure to report on the extremism of the anti-Israel group in question.

The BBC has published three articles on Khalil’s arrest, two of which mentioned CUAD.  The first piece, “Who is Mahmoud Khalil, Palestinian student activist facing US deportation?, March 12, written by BBC News senior editor Phil McCausland, mentions the group in this sentence:

Activists supporting Israel have accused Mr Khalil of being a leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (Cuad), a student group that demanded, among other things, the university to divest from its financial ties to Israel and a ceasefire in Gaza.

The second piece, “Lawyers argue over moving detained pro-Gaza Columbia activist”, March 12, is co-written by McCausland and Madeline Halpert, as US based BBC reporter, introduces the group here:

Critics have accused him of leading Columbia University Apartheid Divest (Cuad) – a student group that demanded the school divest from Israel and called for a ceasefire in Gaza – which the Palestinian activist has denied.

First, Khalil’s involvement with CUAD is not in dispute. Moreover, contrary to the BBC’s benign framing of the group, CUAD, a coalition of far-left and anti-Israel student organisations, calls for Israel’s annihilation, and openly supports terror, including the Oct. 7th massacre.

Here’s a screenshot from the end of CUAD’s Substack article on Oct. 17th, 2024:

A November 7th CUAD Substack article included a tribute to Hamas Oct. 7th mastermind Yayah Sinwar, as well as an expression of support for the PFLP terror group. Here’s a screenshot of the piece’s table of contents:

Here’s another snapshot from that article:

The CUAD tribute described Sinwar as a “brave man” who will live in the hearts of many, and praised the October 7 Massacre as “Sinwar’s crowning achievement” because the “Al-Aqsa Flood was the very essence of what it is to resist ‘with what we have.’”

Indeed, other mainstream outlets – including Associated Press and the New York Times – have published articles on Khalil which reported clearly that CUAD voices support for Hamas and their Oct. 7th massacre, which the group has called a “moral and military victory”.

In Oct. 2024, CUAD actually retracted an apology it had issued for a Columbia student affiliated with the group who had said “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”

The student, Khymani James, had made the remark about Zionists in a video he posted in January, 2024, in which he also said, “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” CUAD’s retraction of their initial apology was communicated in a press release which clarified that “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance. In the face of violence from the oppressor equipped with the most lethal military force on the planet, where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”

Finally, in addition to supporting the most lethal and barbaric antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust, CUAD has called for the “eradication of Western civilization”.

The fact that the BBC chose to ignore widely available information of CUAD’s full-throated support for violent extremists who seek the mass murder of Jews, and instead told readers that the group merely supports a “ceasefire” and the boycott of Israel, is appalling, but should surprise nobody.