#ableism and transphobia are rampant in these groups

[the-feminist-philosopher]

TERFism is the ideological end of "girl boss feminism" (also known as "choice feminism" and "convenient incrementalism"). That movement was always going to lead us here; was always going to lead us to this idea that an all-female or female-led society would be some utopia.

There is still no consideration for how these circles reproduce racism and classism and homophobia and ableism. Many of our critiques of TERFism mirror the critiques of the girl-boss movement of the '00s. Because TERFism is the evolution of choice feminism.

Critiques include:

The movement solely focuses on the empowerment of individuals rather than uplifting the most marginalized

The movement is chronically white and wealthy

The movement focuses on finding success within the mascuninist and corporatist state rather than dismantling it

Leaders and figure heads for the movement contribute to colonial systems of power and corporate imperialism

The movement is too focused on breaking glass ceilings, often at the expense of black and brown women

The idea that female empowerment lies in economic success and 'weaponizing' features of the patriarchy in a woman's 'favor' is deeply flawed

The movement is focused on women keeping and embodying traditional male power rather than dismantling current power structures

The movement is rife with anti-blackness, antisemitism, classism, and transphobia

They fail to account for how their "female utopia" groups reproduce white supremacy, heterosexism, ableism and classism

They are not skeptical enough of power in and of itself

...

"Girl boss feminism" is a capitalistic and colonial construction, and it has always been headed by very affluent white women who reproduced exploitative systems, often in the hopes that the "American dream" was on the other side. These wealthy women believe that their pursuit of power can be rebranded as some sort-of righteous quest for equality, and that their success as female executives and entrepreneurs and politicians and leaders would lift up the women below them. It's essentially just trickle down social capital.

"Girl boss feminism" is the feminism that taught women it is empowering to work within the patriarchal system and masculinist state rather than work to dismantle this. And it taught women that if they worked within the oppressive system, they could make gains for all womankind.

"Girl boss feminism" is throwing your weight behind the police and the prison system because it "protects women." It's pro-capitalist, arguing that the current power structure can empower and employ women and even make them wealthy. It is pro-imperialist, advocating for military or corporate intervention under the guise of politically or economically liberating oppressed women from those men. And it is pro-gender differentiation; the idea that men are men and women are women and never the twain shall meet.

"Girl boss feminism" is the feminism that taught women that buying pussy pins and hats and lingerie and make-up and t-shirts with catchy slogans (like Adult Human Female) could essentially buy them empowerment and equality. And it never required them to look critically at the capitalist system they operated within.

"Girl boss feminism" is Posie Parker and JK Rowling and pussy hats and all-female work spaces with rampant sexual assault allegations and sweat shops that make your catchy T-shirts and MLMs and the mainstream popularity of expecting an OnlyFans and clothing lines that say "NastyGirl." It is the affluent women who make their "competition with men and the plight of other affluent women like themselves synonymous with the conditions affecting all women." It is the belief that all women are oppressed by the patriarchy, but not all women are affected by other axes of oppression. It's the commodification and co-optation of liberation language.

"Girl boss feminism" is fighting tooth and nail to convince us to protect the features of the patriarchy that have allowed women like them to girl boss, and they're doing it under the guise of protecting these illusory "sex-based rights" women supposedly have. It is ignoring the fact that women and people assigned female at birth were granted rudimentary compensation or reparations for sexism-based discrimination, not special rights for being a woman or assigned female at birth. It is paving the way for the incel and MRA community to challenge this sexism-based compensation as a "special female privilege" and dismantle them in court.

The girl boss is the same person who has stated that the only reason why they would not want to be a woman (and instead a man) is because they think it would confer them male privilege, access to the patriarchal power structure, and the ability to wield and weaponize this power and privilege in their favor. Because they believe it'd be a hoot to be the ones on top.

What will kill this type of feminism? Acknowledging "that a slight expansion of college-educated women’s access to venture capital or mentoring opportunities was never a meaningful change to begin with, or an avenue via which meaningful change might be achieved." We need to become more skeptical of power in and of itself.

I hope that the COVID-19 pandemic revealed this type of "feminism" for the grift that it is. Because "when a country is grappling with mass death, racist state violence, and the unemployment and potential homelessness of millions of people, it becomes inescapably clear that when women center their worldview around their own [ ] hustle, it just re-creates the power structures built by men, but with women conveniently on top."

[just-your-average-tangerine]

I've been going to the lgbt group for like 4 years now and there's definitely been some issues but I've had enough positive experiences to make it worth it.

And they have guidelines in place to try and keep it safe for everyone, one of these is "no isms" generally defined as no racism, sexism, ableism, antisemitism, etc. (Whether those are enforced is an entirely different issue). They've always added the caveat that feminism is the allowed "ism" they used to say inclusive feminism or intersectional feminism but now the "allowed feminism" is trans inclusive radical feminism.

Which is perfectly in line with how many times people in that space have told me that I shouldn't "want" to be a man and that starting t was going to turn me into a monster.

[spellbookbitch]

hi im new to magic and i have almost no idea what im doing do you have any advice for people just getting into magic?

Warning, this is going to be a long and haphazard post. There's a lot I wish I had known when I was starting out.

Honestly, you'll see it everywhere, but research is #1. Learn the risks associated with practicing, especially with entities(deities, fae, etc.), learn different philosophies surrounding magic, just learn.

Make sure to stay protected, learn how to ward. Spend some time deciding how YOU believe magic works.

Take correspondence lists with a grain of salt. Learning what you associate with things, or scientific/medical uses for them is more important, especially for herbs. Also be careful when ingesting anything, and do your research.

Doing small spells regularly can help grow your power, just like exercising can grow muscles and stamina. Don't overwork yourself, though.

Learn the signs of a cult. Lots of metaphysical groups are cults, whether they mean to or not. Stay safe.

Remember that the craft is, and always will be, very personal. No one's craft is exactly the same. If someone is telling you there's one specific way to do things, they're wrong.

Watch out for cultural appropriation and ableism(especially anti-autism sentiments). They're both rampant in metaphysical communities.

You really really don't need to spend your money on a thousand different crystals and herbs. Your own energy can get you a long way.

Lots of books on witchcraft are just taking advantage of it's rise in popularity, so they're filled with misinformation, cultural appropriation, transphobia, etc. Be aware.

Tumblr can be a good starting point to learn, but don't take it as your only source. It's good for learning about social issues involved with the craft, but isn't always great for actual spell work.

Some other blogs I recommend:

@witches-ofcolor because cultural appropriation is so rampant, it's really important to see viewpoints of POC who practice. This blog has so much, and is a really good source of both general witchcraft info and social issues info! On my must-follow list for sure.

@breelandwalker books are on my wishlist for when I'm not broke. Just a really good source in general.

@upthewitchypunx has a lot of good info on witchcraft and community involvement!

I know there are tons of others but those are my favs off the top of my head. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

~Asher

[stevishabitat]

I'm a big fan at heart. I often feel the pull to cross the line from respect for a person's work to hero worship. I *want* the people who make/do my favorite stuff (actors, authors, directors, athletes, music artists) to be awesome people, and I always want to believe the best about people anyway.

But I also know that people are people. And I've watched a lot of people who do stuff I love take swan-dives into really disappointing behavior. Especially when it comes to cis-het white folks and cis-men in general... I have to hold them at arm's length. Expectations are - unfortunately - quite low.

Racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, abuse, greed, arrogance, and general selfishness are rampant parts of culture. Celebrities are not immune, and because of their influence, their trespasses tend to scale larger than other folks.

I generally try not to look too closely at the personal lives and quotes from celebrities. I don't need to see that interview that caught them on a crappy day and they came across kind of like a jerk. Or the paparazzi shot that made them look skeezy. Or that really bizarre tweet that they probably should have kept to themselves.

But as soon as I hear from a marginalized group that so-and-so has done/said a hurtful thing, I try to bypass my instinct to get defensive and LISTEN.

I don't fully buy into cancel culture, but I often do need to take a break from someone's work after I find out they've said/done something harmful and haven't made an effort to make things right. In some cases, I'm just never going to look at their work the same.

[exomoon]

Why do bigots seem to think that just because they are part of a minority that it makes them exempt from saying the wrong thing? “I’m trans stop comparing me to terfs” “I’m mentally ill so it wasn’t ableist” “i’m aspec and aphobia doesn’t exist”. These statements are all wrong. As odd as it is, there are trans terfs. There are ableist nd people. There are aphobic aces. And none of these people should be listened to without critique because despite them being what they are, they still are capable of bigotry. But for some reason, they don’t seem to understand that?

[tmitransitioning]

I’m not gay, I’m a trans woman who likes men, but for some reason this rumor perpetuates trans people too sometimes I think. Why do you think people STILL associate aids being with gay and trans people? I know apparently the cdc has statistics on their website but who gives a fuck. They’re statistics and using them against people further harms people because some people like to associate that with just someone being gay. It’s rediculous, and it’s worse when someone only believes statistics.

cws: death, irl death, mass death, heavy subject matter, hiv/aids -related discrimination

Some of the first isolated cases in the States of what we now call HIV were found in gay men and intravenous drug users. The syndrome we now call AIDS was literally, for a time, called “gay-related immune deficiency”—it was thought to result specifically from gay people having sex. It wasn’t until it spread worldwide, with absolutely massive rates of infection, that the cause started to be looked at as anything else.

To be absolutely clear before I go any further: The association is not due to just gay people having been some of the first reported cases. We didn’t bring this on ourselves.

What it is due to is rampant homophobia (and transphobia, and racism, and ableism, and classism, and discrimination against sex workers) that led people to associate such groups with HIV and AIDS. Disease is immensely and universally stigmatized, and it is often in the interests of oppressive classes to characterize those they oppress as “unclean”. Initial public view of HIV/AIDS as being a “gay disease” both prevented positive people from seeking healthcare, which they often wouldn’t even have access to if they had sought it, and made the medical community unwilling to address its spread. In the States specifically, it also made the government unwilling to address it, particularly while Reagan was in office—his press speaker at one point referred to it jokingly as the “gay plague”, dismissing any concern. His administration’s lack of action, fuelled by homo- and transphobia, was violence that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

Those attitudes don’t disappear quickly. Reagan’s presidency ended less than twenty years ago; there are people alive who lived through and survived it. What we typically think of as the “AIDS epidemic”, during the 80s and 90s, was less than a generation ago. People in medical power then often still are in medical power now, and people who heard about the “gay plague” in the 80s are still alive today. Homophobia, transphobia, all of these axes of oppression that existed then still exist now, and still bar people from seeking medical care.

And: There is still a worldwide pandemic. It never went away; roughly a million people died of AIDS-related illness in 2016, while nearly 40 million people were living with HIV. [source] Treatment exists, and is effective, but a whole lot of people who desperately need it aren’t getting it. A lot of people don’t know that treatment even exists. I agree with you that using statistics to fuel bigotry is bullshit. In this specific case, it’s especially bullshit because HIV is not communicable in the same way that, say, the common cold is. It requires, broadly, contact with bodily fluids to spread. So no shit it tends to be more prevalent in populations that often have bodily fluid contact between individuals and don’t have good healthcare. But people will look at those statistics, and they will use them to confirm their pre-existing ideas that because gay people, and trans people, and sex workers, and IV drug users, and all of these populations—they think oh, these people have higher rates of this, they must be filthy and subhuman because clearly they’re all catching the “gay disease”.

Short answer: Bigotry and oppression, and people looking for “confirmation” of their pre-existing hatred.

I also want to disclaim that I was born after the height of deaths in the States. I was not there; I did not live through this. I have read narratives from people who were, but that is nothing compared to lived experience. If this is a subject you as the reader want to know about, please do not rely on my words as the start and end of your knowledge—seek out accounts written by people who lived through the Reagan administration and the peak of deaths in 1995 and the years after. It’s a period that’s horrifying, and vast, and far more complex than I can do justice to.

- Mod Wolf

[aboriginalnewswire]

Trigger warning for sexual abuse, stalking, rape, domestic violence and large-scale attacks by hate groups. Last Thursday, I criticized the Linux community for continuing to support and center a leader with a years-long, documented history of unrepentant abusive behavior, someone who has actively and systematically nurtured a hostile, homogeneous technical community, and someone who has long actively chased people from marginalized groups out of open source. The retaliation has been terrifying. On Friday night, the home addresses of every member of my immediate family were posted online. I have received literally thousands of harassing, abusive, threatening and violent messages across at least half a dozen separate sites. People speaking up in support of me had their home addresses posted online as well, sometimes within minutes, creating a climate of fear that has functionally isolated me from most community support. I have received slurs of every variety, death and rape threats, and violent and threatening images. They have gone after my business and my family's livelihoods with slander, intimidation and attempts to cut off financial support, and tried to hack into various of my accounts and systems. They have left pages and pages of stomach-turning comments on the front of every internet community I am a part of and that influences my professional community and peers. As I was reeling from my family being doxxed and taking steps to ensure everyone’s safety, the tech press was giving a massive platform to an ex-partner - someone I dated for four months more than 3 years ago - who has, after I dumped him, terrorized, threatened and abused me for years, and continues to do so. This is a person who is a known liar, abuser and manipulator, with a long history of stalking, hacking and terrorizing women, who is now being treated as an authoritative character witness on one of his long-term victims - for the sole purpose of destroying my company, discrediting my work, and terrorizing me into silence. This is a person who has hacked nude photos of me and sent them to my employers - yes, bosses, executive team and investors. (I barely left my house for two weeks after and to this day cannot recall a time being more scared, depressed and humiliated). Details of my private sex life - provided by my ex - are now all over the internet and have been used to justify my abuse, incite more of it, and slut and kink-shame me. Valleywag -- less than a day after stealing stories from me, plagiarizing content from my Twitter, publishing my comments without permission or compensation, and refusing to properly acknowledge my work and job title -- has used its platform to replicate this terrorism and domestic violence to an even larger audience. Nevermind that their original articles had already incited harassment against me (they were posted over and over to the anonymous hate boards that attacked my family); their most recent article on me is an act of pure and spiteful violence following my critiques of their behavior. The past few days have been terrifying, and my heart is broken. This is abuse. This is domestic violence. This is harassment. This is terrorism. While many are eager to claim that I am actually being abused because I'm crazy, a liar, a fraud, a troll, a hypocrite, a neo-Nazi, a whore, because I've had kinky sex, because I dated an abuser, because I'm mean to men on Twitter, because I swear a lot, because I'm a "blogger" that contributes nothing to the field: I am being targeted because of my work speaking up against tech culture. My work is what has made me a target, but it is nonetheless ironically (or maybe predictably) being erased in a frothing media-frenzy to portray me as a useless, insane "PR girl", a hysterical slut with a social media account, and to generate page views from my pain. (I'm posting this on Pastebin because unlike most of the tech press, I refuse to use this abuse as a machine for eyeballs and ad dollars.) In case you’re not familiar with my work, let me tell you about it. A few years ago, I started blogging independently about tech culture, giving talks about it, and organizing resistance efforts on social media. In that period, I produced several books-worth of essays that deconstructed in detail harmful elements of tech culture, discussed useful modes of intervention and resistance, and called out collective complicity in oppression across the industry... including my own complicity. I also began using my Twitter account to talk about my experiences with misogyny in tech, call out inequality and advocate for change - and yes, I use swear words on Twitter dot com, and you will handle it because you’re not a fucking three year old. (I might take your cookies and smash your fucking Xbox anyway, though.) I did this in my spare time until late in 2013, when I started working full-time on Model View Culture, which launched in January '14. In the past year, Model View Culture has produced a body of tech and cultural criticism the size of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We have published over 150 authors. Our publication consistently stands against discrimination, abuse and oppression in the tech industry. We have covered sexual abuse and assault, social media activism and abuse, the surveillance complex, engineering mythology, open source community, accessibility, hiring discrimination, mental illness and disability, consent in product design, workplace abuse, the VC industrial complex, suicide, white liberalism, police violence, codes of conduct, team dysfunctions, and systemic discrimination, violence and inequality at every stage of the technology pipeline. We publish and pay a large and diverse groups of writers speaking to their experiences, to their beliefs and to their sense of justice, to their demands for a better tech industry. We challenge racism & white supremacy, sexism and misogyny, transphobia, ableism, classism and other forms of institutionalized oppression rampant in tech. I believe we have produced more critical content from diverse voices than any other tech media. Model View Culture is not perfect. It is not a panacea. It is not done, or complete. It is one year old, just getting started, and there is so much more for us to do. But we have been an influential, if small, part of the growing attempts to call out and dismantle fundamental problems in the tech community. This work is what people are desperate to stop, by any means including trying to get my family killed by SWATing, trying to convince me to kill myself, terrorizing my supporters, stalking me (I have had multiple men stalk me for 6-14 months at a time), hacking my computers and accounts, "exposing" my sex life, cutting off my funding, belittling and erasing my writing, plagiarizing my content, sending constant rape and death threats, and ceaselessly holding me up for abuse to hate groups. This has been my life for almost two years. I'm sad to say that part of you starts to get used to it. But I also want to tell you about what it does to me and other victims of these attacks. Because of my work, I can no longer make public appearances, speak at events or have anyone know where I am or what I'm doing. I can't have friends over to my house because no one can know where I live. My social life consists only of a few close friends who I feel I can trust. Many of them also undergo the same shit I do - other people don’t understand and find it too stressful to be around. I am traumatized by what is now years of active stalking and abuse; abuse committed by tech workers and unaffiliated individuals, by anonymous harassers and influential figures in tech, and by media both in tech and mainstream. My sex life is fodder for 8chan and corrupt journalists trying to destroy my company because it is competition and it poses a threat to their press-release factories, funded by startups and venture capitalists and uncritically reproducing their propaganda. I receive anywhere between dozens and thousands of harassing messages each week. Anything bad that happens to me is considered “normal” and “expected”, and any reason to expose me to abuse is sufficient. People say I am a "professional victim", suggesting I am somehow profiting off my work, but I am now unemployable in the field I once loved and make a fraction of what I used to make as a tech worker. I spend an enormous amount of money and time securing my safety. It is no longer safe for me to do media appearances as media abuses me, demeans me, violates my boundaries, steals my content and holds me up for abuse, offering no support or protection: every article has resulted in more stalkers and harassment. I am frequently cut off from support because people who support me are afraid to be targeted as well. That's just my everyday. Then there's these recent attacks. Frankly, I am devastated, depressed, vulnerable, non-functional, anxious, paranoid and isolated. I’ve visibly lost weight since last Thursday. My heart hurts and my body aches. I feel humiliated, exploited, and am in physical pain. I'm frightened for myself, my family, my friends, and people in my community who have supported me. I am trying to keep working but honestly, it is incredibly difficult. I had a lot of plans for Model View Culture in the beginning of this year, and unfortunately most of them are going to be delayed by at least weeks as I try to put my self-esteem and sense of safety back together, take the needed steps to protect myself, family and community, and process these feelings of fear, anxiety, trauma and anger. It's devastating to admit the toll this has taken on me, to accept that it is having such a significant impact on my work. I fear that people won’t want to write for Model View Culture anymore because doing this work is actually dangerous. As is, we have to publish far too many articles anonymously, because people fear losing their jobs and their safety for speaking out and telling their stories. I am asking myself how I can actually continue like this and run a company under these conditions. No other tech press is operating under this level of violence and terrorism, and we don’t have corporate money or VC funding to help us defend against it. It’s intimidating. I ask Model View Culture readers and community to be patient during this time. The truth of the matter is that as much as people want abuse victims to be fearless, to come out on top, to not be stopped: at some point, this is simply not realistic. That said, I'm not stopping, I am not going away, and I will continue, even if it happens a little slower or a little later than I planned. Changing tech is my life's work. I'm only 28, so you'll probably have to deal with it for at least the next few decades. This is a set-back for my health and my ability to work, but I'm here for the long-term. I am sad that my new normal is, well, this. But so be it. To everyone who has supported me in this time: Thank you so much. I haven't been able to respond to so many of you because it hasn't been safe to, but I appreciate and value your belief and faith in me. To everyone else: Go fuck yourself. Some specific “fucks yous” go out to: The Linux community, I hope you realize how fucking toxic and broken your “community” is after standing by silently as me and my entire family were terrorized after I criticized Linus Torvalds. I think you are cowardly and spineless and I stand behind everything I said. I also think you need to seriously look at the clear ties the Linux community has to 8chan and GamerGate which led many of the attacks on me. Andrew Auernheimer aka a blast of trash from my past: you started whining and crying the day I dumped your ass and you haven’t stopped since. May the ouroboros eat YOU, easily mistaken for a snake, and may you spend the rest of your days as you have to date - pathetic, prospectless, alone and heartbroken, ever-pining over women who hate your guts and clinging to any last scrap of fast-fading relevance. Milo Yiannopoulos, a failure of a human being but tremendous success as an opportunistic sell-out scumbag who has spent months digging up details on my sex life and leading harassment campaigns against me. Valleywag, particularly Valleywag editor Dan Lyons -- a white man who is 26 years older then me and uses my sex life for clickbait while citing Yiannopolous and Weev as a credible source in order to take me down. Also Jason Calacanis, who has supported my long term stalker Loren Feldman and is basically a shitstain of a human being who we should kick out of tech forever. Vivek Wadhwa, who is building his career off women in tech yet is transparently a misogynistic asshole who has used this opportunity to get back at me for criticizing his profiteering and patriarchal brand of "allyship." Also Elizabeth Spiers who continues to refuse to get the FUCK away from me after MONTHS of me asking to be left in peace. Get the fuck over me and move on with your life as a has-been. You are literally 10 years older than me, yet are relentlessly picking on a young woman with an up-and-coming media career like you once had. You look jealous and petty, and your ongoing obsession with me is creepy as fuck. In the remainder of this post, I am addressing my community. I realize that following my tweets can be difficult and not very coherent, especially as I have navigated the emotional roller coaster of the weekend. My anxiety is through the roof and I haven’t gotten much sleep. While I don't think I should have to explain and rehash my sex life, analyze terrorism against me at length, and somehow summon words out of a fog of anxiety, fear and depression, I want to get my views on the record. They have been dismissed, erased, deemed irrelevant, misconstrued, twisted and deployed against me. So here they are, FROM ME. They have made it too scary to defend me, so I defend myself: I, unequivocally, support ourselves and stand behind us. Lol. OK for real. I wanted to start by discussing my past sexual history. Since we are already so deep into my sex life - released non-consensually and with the sole aim of terrorizing me - let's talk about it. Over three years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to Andrew Auernheimer aka Weev. I had no idea who he was prior to this friend telling me about him and introducing me. I was not involved in the infosec community (still aren’t), was fairly new to tech, and arrived in Silicon Valley years after his most high-profile attacks on other women in tech. As many of you have conveniently forgotten, (even those of you who wrote them!), articles about him painted him as a charismatic, counter-culture hacker taking on powerful and corrupt systems - someone who expressed a number of "controversial" (i.e. sexist, racist and homophobic) views, but these were glossed over as satire and mischief. I was happy to do the same, something which I deeply regret and deeply apologize for. The industry was, as it always has been and remains, enamored and worshipping of the "edgy" young white male hacker who ostensibly reflects a challenge to the status-quo, but in actuality just re-creates those systems under the guise of liberalism, satire and "mischief" aka misogynistic and racist terrorism. Frankly, I was also enamored. At the time, I was really early in my career, didn't give much of a shit about social justice, didn't particularly understand how fucked up the industry was, and was laboring under the profound delusion that my career success meant some kind of feminism. I think I was starting to undergo some type of political realization or awakening and was in some clumsy and inept way reaching out for an alternative framework, a tech “counter culture”. Of course, the "alternative" framework I discovered was some abusive piece of shit who would crawl into my life, use me for money and housing, and then spend years after punishing me for it. Typical. I am also not the only victim of his predatory and exploitative behavior towards his partners and ex-partners. At the time, I was in a bad place (which he gleefully exploited) and frankly looking for some strings-free fun and (unhealthy) emotional support. A good time seemed like having a completely doomed relationship with a notorious, emotionally co-dependent bad boy that I could fuck for a few hours and call daddy in a hotel room, then leave after giving him $40 out of the ATM because he had no money (stemming from a blanket refusal to work, preferring to just take money from women who feel sorry for his miserable existence). It worked for me at the time, it satisfied something I was looking for, and it made my life feel edgy and exciting, even though I know recognize it as a a huge mistake and deeply regret it. But, it happened. To all the people berating me for making poor dating choices in my mid-20s, many who haven't seen their mid-twenties in ten to twenty years: Guess what, assholes. Mistakes. Were. Made. Can you really tell me that you haven't fucked the wrong people? Maybe ones of the dudes I fucked was worse than your partners, but I've always been an overachiever. Like I have previously stated: At least I fucked weev in shame and private unlike the EFF, TechCrunch, the NY Times and all the rest of your favs. To be honest, dating men who are emotionally and physically abusive has been something of a pattern for me, due to the fact that I have disproportionately fallen into these relationships as a former abuse victim AND due to the fact that so many men are abusive, predatory, manipulative and lying scum. Fuck them, and misandry forever. In response to Andrew's allegations that I am a racist, hate-filled neo-Nazi who shared his views, that I am simply a troll or performance artist: I do not, and have never shared Andrew's views, and he didn't teach me shit. Most of our relationship consisted of fucking in potentially disturbing and unhealthy ways, talking about his upcoming trial, sharing photos of red pandas, me bitching about work, watching My Little Pony (i know, i know) and him trying to get as much money out of me as he could. I smoked a bunch of weed, he drank and we ate lots of takeout. As far as his trolling techniques, they seem to consist primarily of convincing people who can actually code to do things for him, then taking the credit for them, so I wasn't really interested in acquiring these “skills” even if I did have a naive fascination with what I then saw as his "innocent" pranks and how they functioned. While it wasn't a big part of our brief-lived (four month) relationship, he often made comments that were racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, misogynist and transphobic. I alternated between being like "hahahaha", “satiring” back to him (including making similar comments), and telling him to knock it the fuck off. In private conversations he assured me that he was just a performance artist, that it was satire and trolling, and that he was actually a feminist (lol). He was always laughing when he said really horrible things. Like the anti-intellectual, self-centered, callous, cavalier and "edgy" white liberal that I fancied myself (And was) at the time, I laughed too and played along. As much as there is lots of feigned outrage from white people about it, this discourse was frankly not much different than that I saw and still see constantly in the tech workplace and at events, online and in the community. Tech prides itself on being "not overtly -ist" when it actually is, despite almost everyone’s vehement protestations. For those who attempt to distance themselves from the racism, sexism, and transphobia of the industry by congratulating themselves that we don’t "say those things": you are full of shit. The tech industry is chock full NOT ONLY of "subtle" issues that let us continue to feel like good people because we don't use slurs, but actual constant and overt abuse, discrimination, and violence - often under the guises of "irony" and "satire”. And I have absolutely participated in it. People demand to know why I won't "defend" myself from the "charges" made by my ex. Yes, they contain a number of outright lies and inventions as well as self-serving exaggerations, distortions and manipulations. Frankly, I’m not going to indulge this circus by refuting and responding point-by-point to the details of an abusive relationship I had years ago. As to the overall tone of the allegations, basically that I used to be an oppressive asshole who held much different values than I do now... well I don't feel a need to "defend" or "deny" that because the truth is, I had for years and years of my past been whole-heartedly complicit in the systems of inequality and discrimination that plague our field. I thought that if I made six figures and did well in my career, acted like "one of the boys” aka white male patriarchs, or played along with them, and was as vulgar, violent, self-centered and cut-throat as the "successful" white men around me, that was "feminism." I gave a shit about my own advancement but for many years didn't really give a shit about anyone else's advancement. I didn't recognize my role in the tech industry as a privileged white woman, and didn't do much of the internal and external work required to divest from those systems. As I started my political awakening, I was primarily concerned with the advancement of white women like myself and didn't give much thought to broader systemic issues, or how I was complicit in the oppression of other groups. My attitudes, beliefs and behavior were 100% born of my alignment with white capitalist patriarchy, and I benefitted enormously (And still do) from it even as it has abused me. Here are two categories of things that are both true. 1. I am queer, mentally ill and a woman. I have been through a lot of hard stuff because of those things. I went through some Carrie-style shit when I came out in middle school. I have had an anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder since I was a kid. Some of my first "real" sexual experiences included being molested and a victim of statutory rape. Later in my life, I've been raped at knife point and dragged across the floor thinking I would die that night. I've been punched in the face by my "lovers". I showed up to my first real job interview with a barely concealed black eye and bruised ribs. I've finished school while I screamed bloody murder into an apartment complex at night pleading for help from anyone who heard. As a working professional I've been sexually harassed, verbally and physically intimidated by managers, underpaid, overworked, denied promotions, humiliated, and subjected to hostile work environment after hostile work environment. I've been threatened with revenge porn by multiple exes, and coerced into doing things I think are unethical by people in positions of power over me. I've had hacked nude photos sent to my bosses and investors. I've been stalked over the course of months and years, been slandered and abused by media, and disowned by my industry for being a woman who spoke up. I am one of the most visible women in tech - not as a respected and valued member of our industry, but as a target. I live in constant fear of the tech community and am terrorized on a regular basis. I am held up for all to see, a public example of what they will do to you if you speak out - and it seems “anything goes” more and more each day as organized hate groups grow in numbers and strength while the tech community grows in apathy. 2. I am a cis white woman who has uncritically profited from white supremacy, cissexism, ableism, classism and other forms of oppression. My success, visibility, and achievements are fundamentally built on the oppression of others, and I spent years not giving a fuck, lending any semblance of a hand, acknowledging my role, or working to dismantle the systems I've been part of. Most of my privileges in life happen as a direct result of a white supremacist capitalist system, and I too long stayed silent and comfortable. From an essay I published in autumn 2013 on my personal blog, called "Finding Out You’re a Sexist, Misogynistic, Homophobic, Classist, Racist Asshole and Hypocrite": "I can only cringe and hate myself when I think of all the times I have totally fucked up and became part of the very problems I hate. Yes, I have slut-shamed, body-policed, name-called, bad-joked, appropriated, derailed, co-opted, silenced, objectified, stereotyped, trivialized, slurred, punished, isolated, insulted, benefited, and stayed silent with the worst of them. A highlight reel of my life profiting uncritically and even participating in the systems of misogyny, classism, racism, cis-normativity and homophobia that oppress my friends, my family, my fellow humans would not endear anyone to me, least of all myself. It fees horrible to talk about. But I am because we all must realize how complete, how intersecting, how deeply fucked up the system is, and the role we play in it. It’s easy to become invested in an image of ourselves as good human beings, without blame or participation in the oppression of other people. Sometimes we even imagine ourselves as a helper to them, a healer, an ally, without even thinking it through." I have made many sexist, racist, transphobic and homophobic comments that were abusive and violent in my life. I have consistently failed to stand against discrimination that affected other people. I've often prioritized my own needs and success above that of more marginalized people. For years, I made no effort to use my privilege and power to help others. I have *literally fucked a neo-Nazi and harbored him with money, emotional support and yeah, kinky sex.* My internalized misogyny and the racism I have reproduced affected real relationships and hurt real people. Because I have had access to white, cis, class and educational privilege, I have been able to protect myself, get amazing health and mental health care, and attain economic security that many suffering the same and much, much worse do not have access to. In the workplace, I got the perks of diversity in tech efforts while more marginalized people were left behind, and I didn't say shit. I benefited and continue to benefit enormously from white supremacy in the tech industry, able to amass financial resources to start my own company and escape the day-to-day grind of the abusive tech workforce, which is not an option for so many. All of the above things are true. As a cis white woman I have both abused and been abused, been a victim of violence and someone who commits violence, been punished by the system and also benefited extensively from it. I refuse to run around insisting that I'm not an oppressive asshole instead of actually doing the work of dismantling the system - inside me and outside me. I heal myself, and I also work to ease, destroy and amend for the pain and oppression I have inflicted on others, that I participate in, benefit from, and bear responsibility for taking down. I also want readers to note that the "redemption" narrative that people are looking for me to manifest here is hugely problematic, centering white people's feelings and experiences, our personal growth over dismantling oppressive systems, and our need to feel like we are "good people." As I've written in the past, I don't believe that "good person" as a framework to approaching systemic inequalities is useful. I don’t think I am a good or bad person. I am a person who has done good things and bad things, and I try to do more good things as I grow. I don't wish to offer excuses for my past. I cannot undo it, nor change it. I remain complicit in and benefit from many systems of oppression, I still have an enormous amount of work to do to divest of my own investment in the system and how I enable it to continue, and I have a life-time of work to do against it, work that I try to do each day. This is work that the tech industry needs to partake in. I invite you to get out of my sex life and to join me doing it.

[planitiautopia]

vibecheck me if u wish - my various stances and rules of engagement r under the cut, and also my short intro👇🏻

a very short intro:

hi. call me cerber. i’m a homoflexible genderqueer guy, i’m perisex transsexual; my pronouns are he/they and sometimes i use xe/xem/xers (or xirs)/xemself

few hills i’m standing on as of rn:

destigmatize being ill

you can criticize the medical institution without bashing the ill who rely heavily on the few accommodations it provides

addicts are also disabled ppl

hate trans ppl? fix ur heart or die trying idgaf

strong solidarity with intersex, gnc, detrans, and retrans ppl, and ppl w/ other marginalized variations of gender expressions, experiences and/or sexing histories; anyone who challenges the white-centric dyadic-binary cis-heteronormativity is my sibling and comrade, especially if they aren’t universally accepted in larger Queer spaces

demedicalize transness and intersexness

fuck exclusionism and respectability politics; Queer liberation is only possible with the liberation of all bodies, expressions and lifestyles

i personally use term ‘transsexual’ to celebrate my trans body; i don’t really care much about the other definitions of this term and how other trans ppl might be using it

identity labels are tools. not laws, not science, not the holy bible of queerness; foucalt got this one straight on point fr

oppression is systemic and intersectional; intersectional theory’s framework is based on nuance; it is Not strictly-unilateral (“oppressor vs oppressed”), Not universally applicable/replicable (“cis men oppress cis women => trans men oppress women, cis and/or trans”), Not arithmetical (“marginalized by X but privileged by Y, thus -1 + 1 = 0 on the oppression scale”), and definitely Not interpersonal (“X group’s member(s) in my community treated me like shit, therefore they as a group oppress me as a group”)

note that i’m Not saying ‘We Are All Oppressed’ or ‘we’re all oppressing each other equally’. many groups are multiply-marginalized. yet, many individuals are oppressed by larger structures that do not explicitly target their groups (ex.: many intersex, detrans, and gnc people are heavily targeted and oppressed by cissexism and transphobia on top of dealing with their own specific discrimination, even tho they’re not necessarily trans; another ex.: many perfectly healthy fat people are targeted by rampant ableism because their bodies are different; and so on). these voices do matter in conversations about oppression bc they help us to see how tightly interconnected all the mistreatments that we face are; shutting these voices down will immediately affect multiply-marginalized people

other marginalized people are not your enemy, the oppressive system is; statistics are nuanced and these nuances are literally pointed out in every single properly done survey; just bc one group has been documented to have lesser % number on a scale of Dealing with A Specific Thing DOESN’T mean that they’re a.) Immune to The Thing and Aren’t Affected by The Thing individually, thus Are Privileged and b.) Benefit from The Thing and must be A Threat to the other groups; saying otherwise is fucking ridiculous! and especially so when percentage are like 1.5-3% and the survey is limited to US only, fucking c’mon y’all

lateral aggression is unfortunately a real thing and we all have to do better

language is inherently flawed, biased, and limited; it cannot be relied on entirely when discussing thins like morality, the “validity” of identities, etc. oh, and it’s also completely fucking useless for doing respectability politics shit

thought crimes aren’t real; fiction isn’t reality; video games don’t cause violence, publicly wearing kink gear =/= assaulting bystander, playing DnD won’t make u a satanist; y’all are just susceptible to fear-mongering and very gullible

kink is awesome and good; kinksters are our allies, inclusive and explicitly Queer kink communities are our backbones and shelters. we’re all perverts, keep Pride weird and kinky

sex work is work; decriminalize sex work; swerfism doesn’t do shit for sex workers, unions do

unionize. organize. collaborate. don’t be a fed. amen

ACAB and filthy fucking racists; Disarm and Never Talk To Cops; and fuck prisons; forced labor is slavery; carceral torture, SA, medical neglect, etc. are human right violations, not a part of a prison sentence

decriminalize homelessness; housing, free healthcare and universal income are basic human rights; uplift the poor, outlaw the rich or at least tax ‘em into human decency

also, fuck borders; fuck occupations, fuck genocides, fuck assimilation; No One Is Illegal; Land Back; Black Lives Matter; Free Palestine;

USSR genuinely sucked, actually! tho soviet propaganda still works to this day, soviet censorship is over - read some history of post-soviet countries, learn about the corruption and the abuse of authority, the political prosecutions, the pogroms and the rampant antisemitism, the occupations and literal mass murders, pre-war nazi collaborationism, etc etc etc. usamericans, please stop doing the “the enemy of my enemy is my bestie” thing cuz stalin isn’t your leftist commie daddy lmfao, he was a tyrant. USSR was a tyranny.

and some general psa:

english isn’t my 1st or even 2nd language! i’m also dyslexic on top of that, so i’m very aware that there might be miscommunication issues

this blog isn’t screenreader-friendly but please do describe anything u want and just @ me so i can update it

i reclaim slurs heavily and don’t wish to be censored. tagging my posts with ‘q-slur’ and such will not be appreciated

do ask me to tag general triggers, especially if a post is tagged as ‘#ask to tag’!

can’t guarantee consistently tagged trigger warnings; reminding me to tag things is very appreciated

i will tag my tone on request; i’ll appreciate if you do the same but it’s purely optional on ur part. i’m usually sincere but feel free to ask if it’s unclear

don’t tone-police me if i’m speaking in general terms about topics that upset me and please, please don’t immediately assume genuine hostility when i’m simply not agreeing with ur take or not being overly cautious/apologetic when i’m speaking to u; tho i try to watch my manners, i don’t do eggshelling and it’s a really fucking weird thing to ask of someone

ignore me if u don’t like me! it’s normal and fine, even good for you! block me if u need to!

do tell me if i’m neglecting nuances when discussing intersectional oppression; tho i don’t claim to be always right or to know everything, there are many experiences that i haven’t personally been through and might even never thought of!

i’m ok with criticism and having my ideas challenged, and i truly do appreciate the effort to educate me

that said, there are many experiences i’ve been through and i won’t tolerate invalidation

i also won’t tolerate hateful, provocative, and abusive behavior; i refuse to argue for the sake of arguing and will block ppl who don’t listen, twist my words and/or make arguments in bad faith

everything stated here is but a small part of what i believe in and care about irl; my views may change over time; i don’t personally endorse every single user i reblog from; if u need to know for sure - ask me directly

i don’t owe anyone my personal information; you don’t know me and it’s ok! if there’s no disclaimer, assume that i’m speaking from my personal experience

congrats, u made it to the end! thank you and stay inquisitive <3

last edit: 21/08/24

[freedom-of-fanfic]

It was never an escape. There were always things or people in fandoms that made them unbearable for some of us to be in. If anything was ever different, it's that we used to just take the hint and leave, instead of people starting fights. So really, seriously: hate the anti shit, it's horrible and abusive. But don't fucking pretend things were oh-so-perfect once upon a time, because they fucking weren't.

((a response to this.))

I don’t mean to imply that it was an escape for everyone, because ... well, like you said: there were always things or people in fandoms that made them unbearable for some of us. and I am sorry that it was never an escape for you. I wish it had been.

a few things that made fandom shitty before the anti-shipping wave (that I am aware of):

rampant racism - a thing that is still a huge problem in fandom.

colorism - also still a big problem.

ableism - physical disabilities get shafted and personality disorders get maligned.

homophobia/queerphobia/transphobia - the straightforward, ignorant variety was more widespread before LGBT/queer groups got more visibility. (fandom hooked up a lot of people with better resources and helped them find themselves.)

ship wars - now dressed up in purity culture, but still the same basic ‘my ship is better than yours’ wank. 

abusers with cults of personality - obviously still a problem. hugely popular antis (and others) that advocate/encourage harassment of people who disagree with them are current examples.

as a white person in fandom, racism and colorism - two problems which I think have severely harmed a lot of people in fandom - have had little direct negative effect on me.  And shipping has never mattered much to me as a matter of canon. I usually have a favorite character I bicycle around or I only care about gen content, so ship wars were almost always someone else’s problem. so yeah - my fandom experiences were pretty painless before anti-shipping came around to stomp on the fun of everyone who wasn’t already in pain, which means I probably have rosier memories of the pre-anti days than many others.

I don’t say this to paint over the pain that existed before anti-shipping got big: I’m not saying that pain should be ignored just because I didn’t personally experience much of it. but I am saying that it’s not better that more people are losing an escape from rl hell that they previously had.

(there was a point when I felt like some of the problems I listed above were getting some meaningful, nuanced discussion. I felt like there was particularly a strong chance that people who suffered from fandom’s color-blind form of racism and racist/colorist treatment of characters were on the way to seeing some improvement. 

but to be frank: anti-shipping - shame culture in general - have so completely loaded these already-loaded subjects that it’s encouraging people who most need to step up - white/privileged-by-nationality/etc people - to take advantage of their privilege to ignore the problem instead.  This increasingly puts the onus for fighting racism back on the people suffering from it directly, and that’s some fucking bullshit. we need to get our heads out of the sand and step up despite the fear of getting destroyed, but people who are ready to destroy (not just correct) anyone who makes a mistake while learning/genuinely making an effort to be a white/privileged ally need to step off, too.)

[siryouarebeingmocked]

SJWs get salty about Seth MacFarlane and family guy.

Local SYABM discovers he’s on blocklist

> Mediocre White Man

How to make SYABM assume the rest of your post is wrong, in just three words.

> but because the motherfucker donated some money to LGBTQIA groups and stumped for Bernie, he’s hailed as a progressive.

Pay no attention to the obvious leftist leanings in the shows you’re complaining about, such as repeatedly skewering conservatives.

> Seth MacFarlane created shows that dealt heavily in anti-black racism, antisemitism, ableism, Ace Ventura-levels of transphobia,

Yes, the idea that straight men might be disgused by the idea they’ve been fantasizing and admiring a trans woman is “transphobic”. 

Also, I don’t think the movie ever makes it clear whether Finkle was trans, or was just that desperate to escape the shame.

Oh, and spoilers for a 1993 movie.

> rampant and vicious misogyny,

Is it “misogyny” or “making fun of gender stereotypes for men AND women”?

>normalized rape culture,

It’s funny you should mention that, considering the show has downplayed F>M rape, which usually isn’t included in “rape culture”.

> pedophilia as a joke,

Also, Prom Night Dumpster Babies.

>and violent Islamophobia.

He’s an athiest who makes fun of Christians, but clearly Islam and Judaism should be exempt from mockery. He also makes jokes about violent Islam.

> He taught generations of young white guys 

Let’s see...Season 1 aired in late Jan 1999, Jan, so I guess someone born on that date would be 18. So it is, technically, generations of men. Two generations.

>that this shit was okay to say and believe because it was “just a joke” – hell, I’ll bet there’s a good Venn diagram between Family Guy fans and Trump supporters –

One of the most popular animated sitcoms in America? Yes, I should think so. Also with Hillary supporters.

> and anyone who criticized him was just some boring, humorless PC police asshole.

Including the people who complained about his “shoehorned atheism”. Because we all know how much religious people tend to be PC.

Also, I love the hypocrisy here; you’re complaining that FG’s critics are stereotyped, while stereotyping the show’s fans.

/

The rest of the line is “Or get ‘er done.” A reference to Larry the Cable Guy, who has a lot more than just a catchphrase. Also;

Early on in the special, Birbiglia declares that all jokes are offensive to someone. It’s a sentiment that a lot of people (not just comics) share. He smartly critiques this notion of political correctness without actually getting too political.

Oh wow, it’s almost as if someone took these quotes out of context to support their argument!

[thedoctorisadhd]

acephobes are so hypocritical like i’ve seen acephobes who aren’t TERFs make basically the exact same statement as TERFs would. like TERFs say “men aren’t women” whereas (non-transphobic) acephobes turn that right around and go “cishets aren’t LBGT” and then get really pissed off when they’re compared to TERFs for completely legitimate reasons (including that same old rhetoric that forces you to admit that technically it’s true).

and then there’s the fact that they expect us to stay out of the LGBTQ+ community and then, despite having just told us to stay in our lane, go ahead and flood our tags with hate. like that’s already gross even if you didn’t add the part about us staying in our lane!! aces literally think they’re broken before they know the term asexual!! (hmm, that sounds familiar???? yup gay people who grew up in religious and conservative families) and like??? they don’t even care that they could cause (usually mentally ill) ace minors to commit suicide.

like seriously if you’re gonna tell us to stay in our lane? you can’t just.. turn around and do EXACTLY what you told us NOT to do.

and then on top of that they’re alway like “ace community has rampant racism!!!!11!! rampant  ableism!! !!!111!! rampant blah blah blah” and so on. basically, they’re implying that EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of the ace and aro community is racist and ableist and blah blah blah.

and these are the same people who would get IRRATIONALLY angry if i (as an ace/aro person) even implied that there was rampant biphobia / transphobia in their community. like bITCH!! there are racists and ableists and so on in e v e r y community!!

i have literally seen an actual post (which i can’t find, so i’m afraid i son’t have a source) trying to call ALL aces out for being generally all-around gross, i think??? and it said “oh guess who said these, the ace community or trump supporters (i think it was trump supporters. it’s a miracle i even remember this much about that post)” and then proceeded to list a bunch of gross quotes and then what did it say??? it attributed EVERY SINGLE QUOTE to ONE ace person.

ONE.

like... that’s.. not how it works, my guy.

and you know what’s the very most gross, hypocritical thing i’ve seen from these people?

they complain about getting shunted into a group with straight people when aces use the terms allosexual and alloromantic. (like right-handed doesn’t do the same thing, smh.)

and then they turn right around and compare us to donald trump (tw for rape mention) by using that awful meme that makes fun of ace headcanons.