#along with all of the women she knows believe in what radfems believe in

[shimenchus]

it's so telling when someone says radical feminism is "white woman shit" and you bring up the fact that in many places such as africa or asia, the only feminism that prominently exists is radical feminism, and for those places it's just considered regular feminism that you get told those women live in places that aren't progressive enough for them to understand their actions properly. to say these women are too dumb to realize that their beliefs are "bad" simply because they don't align with western mainstream liberal feminism is rooted in xenophobia and racism, not to mention a lack of understanding of the struggles and violence women from these countries regularly go through, which can range anywhere from fgm to men rubbing and wiping their cum on the back of women's clothes in trains. but of course, as usual, there's no intelligent response to this so you just end up getting blocked or get rape wished on you.

[genderkoolaid]

hey! if you have the spoons, would you happen to have any posts/anecdotes refuting this thread? https://www.tumblr.com/neondyke/719263498717233152/nonhoration?source=share

so. one of my big problems with how we talk about TERFs is the sort of conspiratorial energy some people have towards them- not in that TERFs don't lie about their beliefs, but the idea that all radical feminists are part of this huge conspiracy where none of them actually believe any of what they say. The idea that no TERF actually, genuinely cares about women, or gender non-conforming people- or that none of them hate men.

Just because TERFism is misogynistic, harmful to GNC people, and often allies with conservative men, does not mean every TERF hates other women, GNC people, and likes men. Its vital to be critical of what TERFs say vs what their actions say- but we do ourselves and them a disservice by shoving our fingers in our ears and essentially saying that no TERF can be genuine, and I actually know what they really believe in their hearts. This is especially important when you aren't interacting with high-level TERFs (especially those making bank off public appearances & books & shit), but like. regular smegular everyday women who got radicalized, or people who are on the verge of being radicalized and are put-off by people who seem to be incapable of seeing TERFs as having genuine beliefs.

I say that all because the idea that TERFs aren't misandrists, that they don't really hate men, is just straight-up ridiculous. It assumes that radical feminism was born exclusively as a reaction to trans women, that none of its theorists or activists were genuinely trying to apply Marxist analysis to gender/sex dynamics and create a better world for women. Which ignores other parts of radical feminism, like their anti-sex work rhetoric/whorephobia. (If you have access to JSTOR, I recommend reading "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism" by Ellen Willis, a former radfem; it dives into the problems with 60s radical feminism from an inside perspective).

I absolutely think TERF hatred for trans women is not exclusively a result of their misandry. This is because all transphobia is systematic, and everyone born and raised in transphobic society has transphobia woven into their thinking. So if you are a cis woman, probably one who has had traumatic experiences with misogyny coming from cis men- probably one with some interest in leftism, who is annoyed by liberal #girlboss feminism which feels lackluster, who is envious of the subversive, direct-action, "tear the system down" feminism of the past- and you have an unexamined, ingrained bias against trans people, well. TERFism will provide explanation and affirmation for your trauma and the promise of the radical feminist action of your dreams to allow you to lash out at your oppressors with the logic of the guillotine. Your unexamined bias against trans women will mean you don't see their transmisogyny as unreasonable, and even if you never really thought about trans women before, its gonna be real easy for you to accept them as a threat to Real Women.

But to assume that every time a TERF says "men" or "male," she means "trans woman," is just ignorant. TERFs are surrounded by cis men, because they live in the same society as us. They see cis men acting misogynistic, many of them have been personally hurt by cis men, they very much mean "cis men" when they say things like "all men should be castrated" or "all male babies should be aborted"- how exactly can you talk about males as a sex and never refer to cis men? When they talk about how using dildos or any sort of penetrative sex is patriarchal and Bad, that's not because they hate trans women, its because they see anything that could be associated with maleness as bad.

Here's a quote from Sylvia Riveria's very important work "Queens in Exile, The Forgotten Ones":

"Oh, yeah, we mixed with lesbians. We always got along back then. All the division between lesbian women and queens came after 1974 when Jean O'Leary and the radical lesbians came up. The radicals did not accept us or masculine-looking women who dressed like men. And those lesbian women might not even have been trans."

TERF hatred for transmasculinity goes back far before ROGD and the idea of transmasculinity as a social disease affecting "innocent young girls." Here's a quote from Leslie Feinberg's Transgender Warriors:

"A view that the primary division of society is between women and men leads some women to fear that transsexual women are men in sheep's clothing coming across their border, or that female-to-male transsexuals are going over to the enemy, or that I look the same as the enemy."

If TERFs have no real hatred for men or masculinity, why did/do they attack butches & transmascs? Why, before ROGD was the trendy way to attack transmasculinity, did they specifically attack us for being too masculine and therefore imitating the oppressor? The idea that trans women are the only ones blamed by TERFs for ROGD is also false- adult trans men, especially those with any public influence, are frequently blamed for "preying" on young "girls." (Also, fun fact: that last quoted paragraph ends with: "Trans people of all sexes and genders are not oppressors: they, like women, rank among the oppressed.")

Lastly, I feel like we- all trans people- have an issue of trying to match our genders & the way our genders do impact how we are treated, with the way our sexual/gendered misgendering also impacts how we are treated. For example, I am often frustrated by trans men who are resistant to talking about how trans men face misogyny because "it feels like misgendering." I don't think we can really deal with transphobia unless we cope with the fact that we are trans people- we are socially placed between genders and punished for that, and that means that we will be attacked because of our relationship to our gender assigned at birth (although not exclusively). See this post for more of my thoughts on that.

Obligatory "please don't harass any of the people in the screenshot above, just block them & move on" notice

[aropride]

trying to draw lines of who's queer and who's not is unhelpful and a waste of time and i find it's an impossible task to categorize something as uncategorizable as attraction and identity. i've started thinking of it as more of a sociopolitical label as well as an identity label, and in my opinion that's a lot more useful than sitting around trying to decide if a guy who's only ever been attracted to women and ryan reynolds counts as queer or not. because i feel like if, for instance, a straight cis man who does drag and regularly engages in trans activism and sits down with his state senator to discuss making trans sanctuary laws or whatever. wants to identify as queer. i don't really care? i don't think that affects anyone negatively. i think if someone's involved in queer activism and the queer community and they want to use the word queer for themselves i think that's fine and i think it's not any of my business.

also there's this tendency, especially online, for people to go "well what if an allocishet person uses the word queer for themself even though they arent!" and that doesn't feel like a helpful thing to worry about because like.. what if? who is really getting hurt if a gender nonconforming cishet person identifies as queer? or a woman with two husbands? i saw a post along the lines of "we've got straight girls calling themselves fagdykes this is why inclusionism is bad" and i mean. first of all i genuinely just do not believe that. i don't think there are cishet women calling themselves fagdykes. i don't think people who wouldn't be considered queer by cishet society are often proudly declaring themselves part of the queer community in general. people don't paint targets on their backs for fun. i think it's much more likely that the person they were mad at was nonbinary or bi or otherwise queer. but even if they were, like. if for some reason a completely cis completely straight woman wanted to reclaim slurs for herself, she probably has a reason for that. and it's not really our business anyway.

and i think if someone actually is "only identifying as queer to infiltrate queer spaces and cause discord and hurt people," i think that's a them problem, not a "person who uses labels i don't fully get" problem. and i don't think that happens often except for possibly in discord servers, and i think that's generally called "lying" and "being an asshole."

whenever i see stuff trying to draw a line on who's queer and who's not, whether this person can say fag or not, whether it's okay for this person to use they/them pronouns or not, whatever. "are polyamorous people queer?" "can a cis guy use they/them pronouns?" i think of ace/aro exclusionism and bi exclusionism and nonbinary exclusionism. because the arguments sound the same. something about not being "oppressed enough," about "stealing resources" (what resources?), about "well these ones are okay but those ones aren't," about fakers, about people reclaiming slurs they can't use, about how they're "making us look bad," how they're "not queer enough," whatever. and i think it's petty and useless and pretty stupid when we're in the face of a rise in violent transphobia to focus on that instead of actual problems.

i had a friend in high school who talked about how she doesn't understand sexuality and gender and gender roles because she's autistic. she was a lot like me in that we'd both pick at strict definitions of things like "queer" or "trans" and find exceptions to common strict definitions until they fell apart entirely. and she identified with just her name, not trans, not nonbinary, not cis either. not bi or pan or ace or aro or anything else, and not straight. just herself. and she was fully accepting of me and other queer people in our life and was involved in queer activism and was actively deradicalizing her mom from radfem ideology. i don't know if she identified as queer then or if she does now, but if she did/does, i don't see why she shouldn't. i don't think it'd be my place to tell her not to.

i don't know. i just think if someone wants to consider themself queer it's not my business why. because they probably have a good reason. and i think trying to define something like queerness is an impossible task, and i think there's better things to do. it's not hurting anyone for someone you or i see as allocishet to identify as queer for whatever reason. sometimes you don't have to understand the intricacies of someone's identity and life story and why they use certain words for themselves.

[pillarsalt]

How do you cope with loneliness? My friends are so important to me but sometimes I feel like I can't fully relate to them anymore, and I just think about how they would hate me if they knew I was GC. I have TIF and even a few TIM friends that I love and cherish very dearly because I can see that they've just fallen victim to a toxic ideology feeding their body dysmorphia and self-esteem issues. But I can't tell them how genuinely worried I am about their mental health or send them detrans testimonies that I think they would relate to because they'd think I was some hateful violent monster that I'm not. Even the content creators that bring me joy and comfort are all so fiercely anti-TERF and it just makes me sad. I don't want to hurt anyone. I even distanced from the radfem community a bit because I felt like I was becoming too hateful towards men and TIMs when I truly believe many of the ones in my life are just trying their best and fell victim to a manipulative ideology that myself and other women also fell for. It's not that I wish I was still a TRA, because I feel much more at peace internally with my identity and my belief system, but I don't know if I can say peaking has made me happier overall. I feel like I don't fit in anywhere now. Making radfem friends helped a little bit but it's not the same as being around people I've known for years and gotten close to for reasons other than this one shared belief. I don't just want to abandon them all. And it's FRUSTRATING to see people spew misinformed fearmongered nonsense and not be able to actually help them dissect those beliefs. Feeling like the only one who sees things for how they really are, but forced to play along regardless, is just so restrictive and isolating.

To be completely honest with you, I don't have a great answer. I've been lucky to have one or two close friends at a time to whom I can tell everything, including my uncensored feminism-related beliefs. I've also been (and currently am) in friend groups with multiple people who identify as trans or are dating someone who identifies as trans, and have had to keep my thoughts and opinions to myself to keep the peace. I agree it's incredibly difficult sometimes, and I know a fair few of them would instantly drop me if they knew I was a "terf". It's kind of funny because I know some of them have an inkling of what I think about the issue, but say nothing so they don't have to fight with me. If anyone asked my opinion directly, I wouldn't lie, but I admit that I lie by omission.

It is hard to watch the ones who take the medicalization route hurt themselves. My ex girlfriend and I still talk, she's a they/them nonbinary now and despite always and still being very feminine and never expressing discomfort with her body before (including posting thirst traps often,) she wants to get a mastectomy soon. It sucks because of course after having looked into this phenomenon for so long, I'm well aware of the complications and side effects that can result from a major procedure like this: phantom pain/itching, extensive and restrictive scarring, the risks of infection and necrosis, and of course the risk of regretting having an entire organ unnecessarily removed from your body later on when it's no longer fashionable to do so. It sucks that voicing even the mere suggestion that it might be a bad idea is enough to have you shunned as an apostate. I genuinely care about her and I would feel similarly if she was having any other radical cosmetic surgery like breast implants or a BBL. At the end of the day, our friends will make their own choices regardless of how we feel about it, and the only thing we can really do is be there for them in the end.

I feel similarly to you in that I don't want to hurt anyone, only to protect people and especially women from the harms that are intrinsic to trans ideology. Unfortunately, you can't help anyone who doesn't want to be helped. Sometimes though, you can play dumb and ask questions that might get them to think a little bit more about the rhetoric they're repeating. For example, I often go out for drinks with coworkers, one of whom is a she/they nonbinary woman. One time she said something about how she couldn't be a full they/them because she's still 'girly' sometimes. I said something like "doesn't it seem kind of regressive to associate how feminine you are with how much of a woman you are? what about butch lesbians?" She didn't have an answer and brushed it off, but I could see the cogs turning a bit. Playing the uninformed normie pointing out the obvious sometimes gets them to realize how twisted the logic in trans echo chambers can be. And I think sometimes expressing your disagreement with the dogma can show your friends, who know you well and know you're a good person, that, contrary to what they've been told, not everyone who disagrees with gender ideology is an evil nazi out to slaughter transwomen in the streets.

But yes, in general, it is very very isolating to hold radical feminist beliefs. I'm sorry you're going through it. One thing to remember is, there are tons of women even in your general vicinity, who like you, don't buy into gender rhetoric but aren't saying anything in order to preserve their safety and social lives. I do believe that as the world seems to be becoming more aware of the reality of the situation, more and more people will feel able to be open about their dissent, and it will become less of a fringe opinion as the flaws in the ideology are exposed. Here's hoping I guess. Keep your chin up anon.

[opinated-user]

Idk, like laughing about abusive exes can be fine, the situations are often absurd in hindsight, but when it comes to sexual abuse... I just don't think there is any situation in which someone else should make jokes and laugh about that. The survivor? Sure, but not others. Especially not on a podcast??? Ignoring how it's absolutely horrible optics, we are speaking about someone who prides herself on being a safe space, so it's safe to assume that a good chunk of the audience has similar trauma. You as the podcast host need to keep that in mind!! It's already a difficult subject, but in this instance it has to be handled with extra care! And not bad trivializing jokes!

Which brings me to the 'joke'... The implication that its normal for straight men to sexually abuse and neglect their partners? That's some radfem bullshit. Women can and do abuse partners, I know of several victims, one of them being Mikayla herself? It's also really fucking disgusting towards men who cherish and love their partners. Absolving women as a whole of the perpetrator role is really not the argument you want to be making when talking about a female perp! And it's so diminishing to mikailas experiences to basically imply that she was dating someone who, of course, would abuse her, that's what these 'straight Guy types' do after all!

It's just all over infuriating!

Like I understand if mikaila doesn't want to make a big deal about it, it's a painful subject, but by publishing this anon lily has made it impossible for her to do speak up! Lily should have had a private conversation about this with her along the lines of 'i know we agreed to make fun of our exes, but I might have overstepped in this instance, if you weren't fine with it, it won't happen again' or something. She has already admitted that such a talk hasn't happened because 'mikay would tell her if it bothered her' because it's always so easy to bring these things up...

Anyways mikaila deserves better. At minimum a lily who is better to her.

i think you bring up a very important point there, anon, and that is that MO is not the one making the joke. 90 people have voted in the poll until now and literally just one thought that MO was joking. even if you believe that LO was trying to difuse the tension out of MO talking about such a serious subject, it doesn't really come across as something that MO expected or wanted on that moment, given how she doesn't laugh nor sounds more relaxed after that point. more so... can you even imagine that MO does something like that to LO when she talks about all the alledged horrible sexual abuse Lizzy subjected her too? does anyone think that she'd react positively if she was in the middle of her "i was horrifically abused, i was raped a hundred times" usual rants and MO was positively wheezing before saying that LO dated a straight guy? LO would have MO's head for breakfast faster than you can accuse anyone of being a radfem. if you do hear the rest of the podcast, nobody does that for when LO does talk about all the alledged assaults she went through. but when MO is the one talking, suddenly it's okay to spontaneusly giggle and laugh out of nowhere before her or MO said anything remotely funny. KP sounds like she's letting out small giggles only because LO is already laughing and she sounds so uncomfortable the whole time, but that may as well be my own interpretation. it... it's just gross. it makes me feel gross to hear that. it's gross that's how LO feels comfortable talking to and about her wife. it's gross the way she treats her. especially because MO was the one editing all the podcasts she was in. hours and hours of work editing what was surely a lot longer than 2 hours and not pay at all.

[werewolffem]

i want to socially detransition (never started medically for various reasons) and i know its probably the best path for me to reidentify as a woman again. im very short so even if i DID transition i would have very slim chances of passing convincingly anyway, plus the various health issues connected with medical transition that are swept under the rug by the trans community.. im only attracted to women (so ..a lesbian) so the internalized homophobia probably played a big part, im 20 now and been identifying as male since i was 13-14:/ my friend group during middle/high school, with whom i no longer talk to, was also mildly homophobic towards me and i think this pushed me to ID as "straight transman". im very scared of "reverse coming out". i lost a lot of friends in the past ~two years due to being severely depressed & its always hard to be all alone and im afraid being a desister is going to alienate me even more:/ i know what i should do (be a woman), but im too cowardly right now. especially after spending my 'formative' years like this.

if you believe it is the right and best path for you, then it 99.9% is. i started out by questioning it as well, thinking about detransitioning, about how i was actually a lesbian, the abuse/trauma/homophobia that helped attribute to this, and of course the danger of the hormones that wrecked my body. it took me some time to accept it due to the fact that i was afraid of losing my friends that i had made through transition. i went to and spoke to the "mean radfems" about it, those who i knew detransitioned, because they were the only ones i could trust to get actual helpful advice from.

i won't lie and say it's not true, but it's likely some friends will drop you for detransitioning -- for some reason they see this as some act of betrayal? they put detrans + radfems as one even if someone isn't a radfem and simply detrans. it is very possible this will lose friends but WERE they ever actually your friend if they drop you for doing what's best for you and who you are?

internalized homophobia plays a big part in this, i know for a fact. my mom yelled at me for being gay. was actually disgusted with me and told it to my face that she thought i was disgusting but proceeds to gaslight me into thinking she didn't which furthered the issue. sometimes you just have to come to terms with things by yourself rather than getting the resolution you needed from someone. knowing the internalized homophobia is there is the first step into deconstructing it within yourself and accepting/coming to terms with yourself. it takes time and a lot of work but you can do it!

if you choose to desist, you will be lost. I'm not trying to scare you but you'll feel like you're lost, you have no clue who you are anymore because you immersed yourself into an identity for so long and at so young. you'll have to find yourself again, but it will feel so freeing once you do! detransitioning for me was so awakening? i have been able to heal from certain things and find myself again, like my true self, and not hide as something for safety and coping. my depression and anxiety even eased up after detransitioning, especially stopping hrt as well.

what you choose to do is up to you, but i will be here if you need help or someone to talk to. this is all just information from me personally and it's not the same for everyone who desists/detransitions. it can be a lonely experience but there are people here who understand and can help along the way. so don't be afraid to reach out to me or someone else again. i know where you're coming from. there's no time frame for this. give yourself time to think things over, do what's best for you, do what you know will make you happy. for me, it was finding myself again in detransitioning. can it be the same for you? yes. but give yourself time ❤️

[starsilt]

One day you are going to realize you took the side of  fascists and nazis and the evil in this world and I hope you embrace and feel the shame of that and grow from it. You’re young, you’re supposed to make mistakes and learn from them. I hope you do, least you become hate you think you’re standing against in the world. Terfs and radfems are hateful and despicable and a stain on feminism and absolutely not any sort of human rights movement, or anything good or positive, it’s a campaign of hate and exclusion that kills living breathing people in real time through policy and rhetoric. Trans rights are human rights, and you are in fact transphobic.

i never said i was transphobic, and the heart of the radical feminism movement is about liberating female people. being a terf is not hateful. being transphobic is. being a terf does not kill. i would gladly retract my statement if you could provide statistics on how radical feminism kills. being hateful towards trans humans is not the goal or even on the agenda of a terf. to reiterate, when you see terfs being transphobic, they are simply being transphobic. trans rights are indeed human rights. for some reason i think maybe y’all just have no idea what radical feminism is, and instead decide to go along with the hive mindset tumblr follows blindly, but i can’t quite put my finger on it…. oh yeah, also, isn’t blindly following and leading a mass movement that harasses a group of people with certain beliefs (such as those who send terfs death threats, dox those people, block them immediately without discussion or critical discussion just on the basis of them being a terf…) inherently fascist?

also… why a stain in feminism? i personally believe libfems are a negative feminist route because it caters to male comfortability and is digestible to the public eye. liberal feminism cringes at the harsh realities that a colonized and capitalist society impacts females, especially poc, from unconscious beliefs about what true womanhood is, or if you’re a trans man, what being a man is (convoluted ideas about what gender is vs what gender expression is that leads to lifelong unpacking and sometimes consequences. some people are genuinely trans, and they transition for the better! some females find themselves after transitioning to unconsciously escape csa or misogyny and regret it), to conforming to beauty standards by starving themselves (using they/them instead of she/her because i truly believe trans men have a place in the heart of radfem ideologies as trans men were born female and lived a life being socialized and treated as a female before they transitioned) in order to feel worthy of love, to always needing to check the backseat of their car before getting in, how your self worth in society is measured by your ability to be sexualized (how “masculine” women are not respected and ostracized simply because of presentation while “feminine” women are regarded in higher respects in comparison, yet even that is not respect sometimes but a desire to get something from that women), to to to… these are just examples off the top of my head. there is no space for trans women in radical feminism because they did not grow up female, did not experience life and society as a female before transitioning. there is so much depth and nuance to everything i’ve said and more. i wish people would at least try to open up conversations with those willing to discuss (obviously don’t even try with transphobes because just like most people who hate terfs, you’ll likely just get an immediate block and/or hatred). i know you did not as for this but i’m tired of there being nothing being said at all <3 love u babe let’s talk again

[mitskiesque]

I'm not here to debate you as people are entitled to their own opinions. However, I do want to at least understand your point of view, seriously.

From my relatively new understanding, since I'm new to all of this, society has conditioned women to be insecure of their natural faces and presented makeup to them, convincing them that they'll be more likeable with it. My own [religious] mother was a victim of this and told me multiple times to avoid makeup because it damaged her skin, along with other beauty products. She constantly tells me that I don't need to do my nails, makeup and other things because God already made me beautiful and I get the sense that she is trying to protect me. My mother faced the risk of ostracization for choosing to stop wearing makeup and my father would ❝subtly❞ suggest she put on makeup because she was ❝embarrassing❞ him.

I'm questioning about just how ❝empowering❞ it is to reclaim makeup, given that you're playing right into the hands of the patriarchy. If makeup was as good as it has been claimed to be, why do we have woman like my mother telling me that I should stay away from it? Why does my father feel embarrassed when my mother is willing to go to church with her bare face?

Can you tell me what makes makeup empowering?

Going to give you the absolute benefit of the doubt here bc you seem very young. I want to start off by clarifying that I am not a terf and I think radfems participate in a hate movement. I’ve never said makeup is inherently empowering. I don’t believe that of anything.

If you’re referring to my post about like alt/“egirl” makeup styles, I do think that ALTERNATIVE or antifashion makeup styles can be empowering. I think we need to look at antifashion and counterculture through a lens of sociopolitical analysis to understand how it can be empowering, and that’s something that I’m interested in.

So, yes, society has conditioned women to use makeup in CERTAIN WAYS to be more conventionally attractive. Makeup cannot be inherently empowering, thusly. However, there are many ways that makeup, like clothing and hair, can be used as empowering forms of self expression (this is very elementary and a well known idea). Are drag kings “succumbing to the patriarchy” by wearing makeup? What about AFAB drag queens, like Venus Envy and Sigourney Beaver? They’re using it as a kind of elevated performance, to express ideas about society and gender presentation, right?

So, when a drag king or afab queen uses makeup for that empowerment, I think that a parallel can be drawn between that and, say, the makeup styles employed by siouxie sioux in her performances.

This is clearly not making her more “conventionally attractive”— if we compare to the beauty standards of the year this photo is from, we can see a distinct separation from the trends of counterculture and that of the mainstream. Let’s also look at a more recent example of the same kind of counterculture being employed— Lolita fashion styles both in Japan and abroad, and the more “editorial” styles that have been on an uptick recently in online communities that center around makeup and fashion.

I’m not going to go too in depth about both the origins of Lolita subculture and the fashion, because I’d like to focus on makeup styles, but it’s important that you know two pieces of background information. Lolita subculture traces its origin to a feminist counterculture fashion movement that aimed to empower women and girls by embracing a more childlike, less sexualized form of dress (Haenfler). The second is that, generally, makeup goes along with dress in counterculture style movements. Exceptions exist (such as when the counterculture statement is not wearing any; although this is still essentially a makeup choice that reflects the subculture). You can read more about Lolita (and other countercultures) from a sociological lens in the article I linked below. I highly, highly recommend you take a look at not just the Lolita section, but the research about other subcultures as well.

So, in Lolita, the makeup facilitates this expression just as much as the dress. This can be seen in the fact that male-presenting Lolitas (more commonly known as Ouji) also wear makeup, including afab lolitas who present as masculine while in Lolita. (Source: Kawamura 2006). These makeup applications also do not flow with the mainstream trends of the Japanese cosmetics industry. Therefore, in the case of Lolita (and other counterculture fashion that considers gender expression, like Decora Kei), makeup use facilitates a subculture expression that goes against the mainstream and aims to allow participants to explore alternate modes of gender expression.

I started to formulate this idea, after seeing a radfem post that e-girl makeup (characteristic of overapplication of blush, enlarged eyes, and highlight on the nose) was ‘disgusting’ because it made the participants “look sick”. She seemed to think that this was a feminist stance to take— but actually, if we use the lens we have applied to previous countercultures on 21st century “alternative” makeup, we can see that in reality what she is reacting to is the fact that the makeup does not make these women conventionally attractive, and is instead inspired by subcultures from countries like Japan. Here I am going to draw a distinction between what I am considering “alternative makeup” in 2020-22, because online trends that fall more along the mainstream have caused some confusion about the term. For visual reference I suggest looking up Jazmin Bean, Rico Nasty, the Afrogoth movement in general but specifically jinxaddie and vladvonkitsch on Instagram.

The mistake to make here would be viewing counterculture makeup through the same rhetorical and analytical lens as you view mainstream makeup, assuming the goal is, essentially, fuckability. When makeup is used as part of a counterculture uniform or ensemble, it is recontextualized and becomes part of the overall statement the counterculture aims to make.

I would also like to emphasize that everything I’ve said about makeup use and counterculture is true of all women, cis and trans— trans women are affected by the mainstream societal attitudes around makeup as well, and actually a larger number of trans women participate in fashion counterculture, and therefore makeup counterculture applications apply to them and are in many instances driven by trans women.

[gateauxes]

the war on gender terror

At this point in my life, the presence of mostly-white liberal feminism is inescapable. While I'm excited to see more people taking baby steps to a radical analysis, largely I am frustrated. On the other hand, involuntary exposure to popular feminism is the reason why I'm noticing a trend in it. Here's my report from where I'm standing: the liberal feminists don't know it, but reactionaries are trying to scare them.

Reactionary feminist projects begin the same way as any other reactionary project - concern trolling liberals over topics at arms' length from the main goals of exclusion and domination. With regard to reactionary feminists the progression of topics are well-known: women's sports & 'human trafficking', then domestic violence shelters & kinky porn, then policing gender-segregated bathrooms, defunding trans healthcare, and opposing sex work of any kind. I've been watching a pessimistic thread emerge in liberal feminist (and radical!) circles which I believe has been pushed into place by reactionary feminists. This bio-pessimism places women into a perpetual state of victimhood that can never truly end due to the essential rapacious nature of men. If this seems like the same shit the second-wave lesbian separatists were peddling, that's because it is. What I want to question is how today's essentialist pessimism differs from its initial appearance.

RADFEMS ARE OBSESSED WITH DICK

Reactionary feminists have not dispensed with a religious-conservative perspective on the power of the penis - and by extension they imagine women identically to how the rest of the right views women. The penis, apparently, is the mechanism by which rape becomes possible. Therefore, any engagement with a person with a penis is a grave risk. Vulnerability is a mistake if you might be dealing with a rapist. The MeToo movement activated an enormous public forum about how incredibly prevalent the violence is, but I now see it used as a tool for re-framing this prevalence as a biological reality. (MeToo, even without being used as a tool, was ineffective at acknowledging that violence is perpetrated by all sorts of people). An explosion of survivors talking openly about violence as an unacceptable status quo has been infiltrated by reactionary feminists who whisper that this is the fate of all women, always. The new bio-law absorbs the third wave's progress in acknowledging diversity of experience - right up to the point where it would be forced to note that sexual nature, like categories of racially-dictated nature, is a myth.

This pessimism rooted in the power of the penis is hypervigilance beyond a realistic assessment of risk. (I also blame true crime podcasts and the media in general) This is not the careful awareness of one's surroundings which comes naturally to many of us. What I'm describing is avoiding going out at all, because of statistics on sexual violence which may not even reflect the risks in the neighbourhood. This, for instance, is purchasing and insuring a vehicle for the express purpose of avoiding public transit. I frequently notice that popular discussion of domestic violence neglects to mention the disproportion of violence toward people with disabilities, asserting that all of us have identical risk. Ultimately, this is the justification for a culture of exclusion as the only recourse to the ever-present threat of men. The fortress must be defended, and the enemy could be anywhere.

BUT HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET LAID?

I do not want love or children, so my interest in sex is purely recreational. I have been told this is not in line with my female nature - I stand before you deviant and happy. However, anyone attracted to men must grapple with the contradiction of desire and very real risks. I support caution, and even precaution. My concern is with a bio-law that requires a baseline of suspicion if one is to survive, the assumption that one is always a moment away from violence. To be explicit, how am I supposed to have fun when I am letting the enemy penetrate my figurative fortress?

I think this is why kink is such a problem for reactionary feminists. The only way to make the horror of sleeping with the enemy worse is to find that some people like to confront, satirize, and role play the power dynamic. To choose recreational pain or literal bondage flies in the face of the notion that a woman’s lot is to be in constant pain, and to tolerate penetration as a miserable necessity. The reactionary feminist must sleep with one eye open, aware that her biology has already sealed her fate, and mitigate vulnerability by excluding the threat, since she can’t defend herself (biologically speaking). This is why trans women can’t stay at the domestic violence shelter, this is why you should worry for your life if your boyfriend watches kinky porn. As with vanilla dating, there are true risks - and reasonable precautions. But kink is about play with vulnerability - there is no room for play under the martial law of bio-pessimism. By hijacking post-MeToo popular feminism, reactionaries can reinsert the bone-chilling suggestion that it’s all rape, all the time. All the men want kinky sex, because it’s the closest they can come to hurting women the way they secretly wish to. According to this logic, the only way to safely navigate the risk is constant surveillance of men, the self, and any woman who could be a traitor. He’d better not be watching kinky porn, you’d better not be watching kinky porn, and the women in the kinky porn are either hapless victims or remorseless collaborators. Once we have arrived at this point, it’s obvious why the next step is a crusade against any pornography, and a mission to ensure that kink is understood as something men want and women tolerate. 

How can reactionary feminists get this done? By linking the prevalence of trauma with the increased visibility of alternative sexuality & gender, from kink-at-pride to polyamory to transcending assigned gender. They ask, do you feel uncomfortable when you see all this change? We’ve all been traumatized - who do these people think they are, flaunting a lifestyle that feels wrong to feminists like you? You should trust your gut, they urge. Perform a little more vigilance to be sure you’re safe. If you find yourself unable to open a dating app or sit next to a man on the bus without feeling deep dread and revulsion, that’s vigilance, and realistic given the state of things. Any - and most - men mean women harm.

REDPILLS AND RADFEMS BELIEVE THE SAME SHIT

Incels hate women, reactionary feminists love a certain kind of woman. This distinction is relevant, especially since incels pose a physical threat to women in general whereas reactionary feminists only attack trans people, black athletes, sex workers, the wrong kind of queers, kinksters, child athletes... Despite their own active hostility toward many types of women, reactionary feminists hold up incels/redpillers/the far right as evidence of the threat that all women live under. There is no doubt that women face misogynist and antifeminist violence. Reactionary feminists are are far from the only ones highlighting this. What’s worth investigating are the given reasons that a target is vulnerable, and what should be done to mitigate risk in the future. In these, an incel and a reactionary feminist are in perfect harmony. Instead of a realistic assessment of risk at an individual level, or an assessment of group dynamics that allowed a survivor-victim to fall through the cracks, both parties will insist that all women are simply unsafe at all times. This notion suits a reactionary feminist’s goal of closed-rank suspicion, and an incel’s dream of terrified submission. This perspective neglects to really ask why things turned out the way they did, because that’s not the point. Whether women are innately inferior or innately vulnerable, we must travel in flocks if we want to survive. The reactionary feminist offers herself as the shepherd, having assured the flock that the enemy is close at hand. Women cannot, of course, be a pack of wolves. Members of a wolf pack work cooperatively but diverge at will.

THE WAR ON GENDER TERROR

The cumulative effect of this mindset and focus is a miserable hypervigilance, which is further hostile to any who are not miserable and vigilant. We know this scrutiny well from living inside a war on terror, which resulted in a vast expansion of state power to exclude, surveil, and punish. Because they have not abandoned their desire to dominate, reactionary feminists would like to do the same along the lines of gender law. Exclusion requires a concrete set of criteria by which a person can be marked acceptable or unacceptable, and there is trouble when a person shifts between the two. Whether you’re an immigration agent or an officer of the gender police, you’ve got to demonize those who shift, and shifting itself. Special attention should be paid to possible ulterior motives. At the overt end, this looks like the myth of the predatory trans woman and the slavery-complicit sex worker. However, these will not be widely accepted until the audience is made nervous by less ridiculous threats with a basis in reality. Sex trafficking is real, and pickup artists really do share tips online about how to pick up, manipulate, and coerce women. However, alarmist chain-mail suggesting that ‘gang members’ are stealing women off the street via box trucks does not reflect reality, but rather supposes that the threat could be any construction worker or labourer with a truck. Given the way people of colour are disproportionately represented in blue-collar work, the implications of this racially-biased hypervigilance should be obvious. The rapid dissemination of information (true or false) online is useful when stoking fear of ulterior motives. Genuine desire to spread a message that could save another woman fuels the sharing of partially-true and emotionally charged statements. Given the existence of incel and pickup artist subcultures, it seems believable that most men could have consumed advice on how to covertly film during sex, or remove a condom without being noticed. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant - the thing to do is be cautious. No matter how they seem, anyone could be concealing their motives. It begins to make sense to suspect a male social worker, or police bathrooms. Furthermore, failure to agree to this assessment of risk is evidence of insufficient solidarity with the rest of the female sex. Solidarity is imperative, given the horrors made visible by feminists who just want to protect women. Inaction could suggest complicity, and asking for a source on a claim is indicative that one does not believe victims. An avalanche of scorn awaits those who ask questions out of turn. the terror cannot end until the defenses are fortified and the infiltrators exposed. As footage of atrocities is replayed during news coverage of foreign occupations, the danger inherent in womanhood must be grimly acknowledged when we consider stepping out into the world.

WHAT IS MY POINT?

Reactionary feminists cling to the second-wave notion of sex and gender as stable categories by which most oppression can be measured. For reactionary feminist strategies to be accepted by a popular feminism informed by intersectionality, popular feminists must at least partially believe in the inherent vulnerability of women or the base instincts of men. While this sentiment was more readily at hand during the second wave of feminism, third wave feminism resists homogenizing by sex, race, or class. While white liberal/popular feminism has an embarrassing tendency to acknowledge intersectionality only out of politeness and/or use it as a cudgel, even performative acknowledgement is a ward against overt essentialist dogma. For this reason, reactionary feminists must harness movements like MeToo, incel attacks, and further misconstrue actual misogynist violence to encourage hypervigilance against terror. The war on gender terror perverts the desire to confront diverse facets of misogyny into the pursuit of covert internal threats. The war compels commitment to defending the home front. A feeling of perpetual vulnerability is the perfect environment for the proliferation of exclusionary strategy. We must feel our goodness and our weakness to the core. Fully enjoying relationships with men, sexual diversity, and private moments of peace are collateral in pursuit of remaining ever-vigilant.

[amoei]

I saw your interaction with dj-exrad and I think you're right. Without major inflation and economic collapse, the best we could do is implement social democracy instead of fully revoking capitalism. She's rather naive in her protests she'll take down capitalism and restructure society. Okay, how? Crickets. Unions allowed companies to pay female workers less than men even if women in a union get paid more than women who aren't. It's imperfect. My father's in a steelworkers union and I remember him telling my mother they voted against including expanded paid parental leave as one of their healthcare proposals when it was time to renegotiate benefits. Since men and women are not equal, sexism does effect how far economic equality goes. It's just naive. She needs to work within this parameter and not judge women who are reasonably wary of men always putting women's issues on the back burner.

I think when we're young and see all the injustices in the world. We all like to think of ourselves as revolutionaries.

Like in those cheesy post apocalyptic ya novels. There is always that one person who is destined to be the savior of all humankind. They will save everyone. The great hero.

I often think dj-exradfem and many other radfems are along the lines.

We all think of ourselves as the main character in the world's story and to an extent it is.

But I live in reality. Once u have a very thorough understanding of American politics and economic role in the world and how it is tangled up with the economy of other countries you come to understand (unless a massive WW3 breaks out or major economic collapse)...

Capitalism will not go anywhere. It's not going anywhere. Aspects or theories from communism are good.

But using it as a benchmark for how to run a government or country?

It's crack u have to be smoking. Where every historical example has led to the worst atrocities and human rights violation we have ever see.

All concluded with major loss of life totalling millions.

I believe all radical feminists, ex-radical feminists, liberal feminists and even Marxist feminists & all kinds of feminists NEED TO BE REALISTIC.

I know it hurts but your not going to be some grand hero or savior for women. And the liberation of women & girls will not happen in our lifetime.

But what we can do, is actually enpower women & girl children now.

Through education. Through non-profit organizations saving women and girls from sex trafficking. Teach them how to hunt, farm, self-defense and give them land to sustain themselves. And owning a gun.

To free women and girls from the patriarchy starts with self-sufficiency.

And then, we can work from there.

No political theory capitalism or communism or socialism will save women.

Women need to save themselves by being self sufficient.

[radfem-gossip]

I sent this to the radfem confession blog but only got one response and really need some advice so I hope this goes through. A family member who I trust very much told me that his mom has been accusing my dad of raping her for a long time. The family member who told me this has heard the story many times over the years, which means she was telling him this when he was a minor. I’m not very close with the accuser/victim so it wouldn’t be an easy thing to bring up with her. And even if I brought it up with my dad and he said it wasn’t true I would always feel suspicious anyway. I’m thinking about going low contact with most of my family, but I don’t know what to do with this info. My dad will always be around any time I want to visit my family. It goes against everything I believe in to not believe a victim, but I feel guilty believing this of my dad, and I feel guilty not believing this of my dad. My dad and I aren’t what I would call close. I did spend time with him during my last trip to my hometown and it was nice. He’s helping me pay off my student loans. I’m just having a really hard time reconciling the image I have of my dad (which is by no means perfect) with someone who could commit such a horrible crime. I don’t know at what age this supposedly happened. I do know that they never got along and that both are mentally ill. I don’t know what to do or how I can ever look my dad in the face again. My friend told me I should sit down and ask her what happened, but I agree with the person on the confessions page that doing that is just not realistic, and I’m also not just gonna assume that she would be comfortable talking about this with me (she also just tried to commit suicide shortly after separating from her husband. There were no beds open in the mental hospital so they just sent her home and within days she was back at her job. I’m sure you all understand why this might worry me). We are not close and I don’t want to get in her business like that. It’s hard to think of my dad this way because despite his anger issues and substance abuse issues in the past he seems like he’s always been respectful of women. I know that the “perfect family man” is just as capable of violence as anyone, and he wasn’t perfect. I would really just like some advice or to hear if someone has had a similar experience where a close relative was accused.

.

[rametarin]

Little note hider. Or, alternative title: “Ante up for arguments.”

So a few days ago I made a post about the tactics I remember from my youth.

Actual disruption and propagandists that filled little girls’ heads with emotionally charged political shit and encouraged them to, “stawt convuhsayshuns uwu” to, “change society.” And we’re talking kids being emotionally blackmailed to accept many of these subjective things as truth.

Taught to argue with other children, the age where they weren’t even really clued in on how to read or argue with academic buffoonery or emotionally charged appeals to authority.

I remember quite well the interactions.

Babby Radfem: “Our society is racist.”

Me: “No it isn’t. Societies can’t be racist, only the people in them.”

Babby Radfem starts citing known examples of racism talking about slavery.

Me: “Yes I know you can talk about things that happened, that doesn’t mean society is racist, it means there are racists in it.”

Babby Radfem: “Proof? You have any proof? :^) Because I have proof of what I’m saying! So YOU have proof for what you’re saying?”

And you have to understand; these little socio-politically programmed children didn’t just waltz into a library and grab up some Feminist Book of Statistics. They were coached, they were groomed, they were armed with bogus academia huffandpuff and then set loose to go after kids who’d never even heard of these issues before.

In my case, I learned what the concept of rape was because a baby radical feminist informed me because I was a boy, and, “epidemic societal rape” was a thing, that she could never wholly trust me of be comfortable around me, because, “men in our society are so violent and rape women.” Not really an appropriate mindset for a girl under the age of 7. Or a boy, for that matter.

It’s at that point they’d put on this big performance with that smug, disgusting expression on their face, setting up a bunch of articles and examples of things that’d happened in the past and examples of singular racist assholes operating, conflating that deliberately with, “a racist society.” Because you know, if one member of the hivemind super colony acts bad, I guess to socialists that’s, “proof” that “society” didn’t do its job in programming them right, or something.

And it’s at this point that no matter what you say, they aren’t looking for a reasonable discussion where you respect one another’s positions and perspectives, they’re looking for a show trial, and they think they’re being clever by trying to make you defend the actions of actual racists, since in their minds, you’re denying their actions ever happened.

No matter what you say, like broken interfaces, they’ll just sit there smugly reminding you, “you aren’t proving society isn’t racist yet! Do you even have an argument? Do you have proof? Any actual PROOF, not emotionally charged denials? Still not seeing any proof of what you’re saying. Guess you don’t have an argument. I’m sorry, I don’t accept crybabying nuh-uhs, I’m a rational person with a scientific mind :^)”

I say again, this shit, these big blowhard guns, were brought out and used on me. I was fucking 5, at the time. It’s not like I was going to stand up, shout, “Foucult was a boy toucher and a monster!” and show the 10 page report with bibliographed citations. You can’t spur of the moment refute someone handed a book wwwwaay about their age range just to tell you bogus statistics like women only make 50-75% of what a white man makes, “for the same job,” that demands you also spur of the moment disprove what they’re saying in order to dispute or disregard it at all.

Then plays to the peers around you like your outrage over the things you’re being accused of by proxy of being a boy, is just because you don’t like, “hearing the truth.”

And you know what this behavior influenced? Yeah. Annoying Youtube Atheists of the 00s. I’m an atheist, but the difference between me and An Annoying Youtube Atheist, is I don’t make not participating in an organized religion or believing in supernatural creators. While the other considers themselves an intellectual for arguing with probably the easiest arguments to disprove and discredit you can possibly engage.

So when I talk about shit like this that I witnessed and observed happening in the fucking late 80s, early 90s, of course I’m not going to have “proof.” Who the hell happens to have examples of such a random a sporadic thing in the wild? The odds are literally a million times better now than they were when our communication and interactions were in person, without internet, with only access to the information resources in the books you had in your local library or in your house.

The, 1.) Inflammatory Statement 2.) Whipping out a book that may as well have been written by Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro for all the bias it has 3.) “Here’s my proof. You have proof? Any proof to source your beliefs, or do you just have feefees? :^)” approach, predates on people being both unfamiliar with the subject matter, as well as not having the resources to effectively dispute the claims.

It’s predatory, it’s deceptive, and it is used to socially browbeat women into their corners, whom them become like enablers and believers and supports in the pew after their cryfests, powwows and ‘come to socialist Jesus’ moment.

But no, I don’t currently possess any proof of this phenomenon or effect, and the mercurial social nature of young girls means catching this interaction in the wild is very unlikely. Which is exactly why that disingenuous request for, “Proof? :^)” is so disgusting.

Even when you HAD proof, the next step after isn’t to concede they’re wrong. It usually went in a number of ways.

1.) The person requesting proof goes dead inside and ignores what you’re saying, and if they respond at all, it’s simply to speak as if you hadn’t just shown them the proof, still arguing as if it wasn’t shown. I guess in a silly attempt to socially override the new information from the discussion and give the speaker the burden of proof to try and make it stick to their denial filled, teflon minds.

2.) They meet all the effort taken to argue with stupid shit that wastes your time and energy. Replying to a thorough rebuttal that rebukes and dismantles the things they are saying with, “KUNG POW PENIS, *GIGGLE*” or just going “DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!” and giggling to show they don’t actually care what you have to say and won’t take you seriously. This one is done alone or only when they have other supporters there that won’t accept opposition as legit or genuine, proof or not.

3.) They’ll simply retreat and then scream if you follow them. If they retreat, the conversation effectively ends, and they won’t hear any more of it since it threatens to challenge them, OR they simply wanted to convince people to take what they have to say as fact and it’s a waste of their time to sell lies to people that know they’re lies. But they will scream and make the priority that you’re apparently following or harassing them, when they see argument is futile.

4.) They’ll nod along and pretend you’ve corrected them when you demonstrate you aren’t going to believe what they say, because you have both proof and conviction that their argument is weak, they don’t have a leg to stand on, or you throw in their face you know what they are. But, they won’t retract their stance, they’ll simply go on to, “stawt that convuhsayshun” with someone else, to try and convince them of their politically charged talking point.

5.) They’ll start crying or looking like a kid with their hands caught in a cookie jar, and admit, “I was just twying to stawt a... convuhsayshun..” Which is code that means, “I was trying to propagandize and make you think this thing was true, and make you mad about it as if it was the truth.” This typically happened when I called them out in front of adults that also didn’t agree with the things she was saying, had been programmed to say, and was around adults that could cite proof that what they were saying was false.

It happened so often I realized that at some point it might be in my best interests, to at least THINK about how to prove arguments to random strangers.

In the past, being sidewound by baby radical feminists that, “just started conversations” around the water cooler, axes to grind disguised as random conversations, was a thing. They were like social guerillas or velociraptors. But they were always tangentially rooted in whatever thing they’d been handed to read in order to sound smart.

So, if you knew the contemporary radical feminist talking points, had the time, literacy and resources to research and understand the holes in their claims, where they substituted for integrity, you could unravel them. Or could critique things like sample size or the likelihood they arrived at their conclusion and worked backwards to meet the result they were looking for, or started with a faulty premise.

And when they tried to stretch and flex and get believers and followers, presenting these, “facts” (that were not facts, but lies, subjective talking points, or just feelings) trying to use the trust bonds of friendship to get people to accept them as true for risk of hurting the relationship and their friend’s feelings (an exploitation of people, by the way) you could dispute them.

But they really do not like that, and once you reveal yourself as someone capable of shooting holes in what they say, they’ll only bring out their talking points to your mutual friends when you, ye that has identified yourself as capable of disputing what they say, aren’t around to dispute them.

Pre-internet, pre-cell phone, this was the methodology by which radical feminist zealotry was reproduced among young girls and young women. And drove them absolutely fucking nuts for a few years, until they resolved it and came back to reality. For one reason or another.

But do I have proof of this? Not on hand.

[gendercynicalgrantaire]

A little bit ago I saw you make a comment about how radfems fail to realize there are trans normies. I've been thinking about it and I wanted to ask, other than yourself, do you know very many trans people irl who are normies who don't have any explicitly homophobic or misogynist ideas about gender and sexuality? I know they exist. But I've been disappointed by more than 1 transman who I thought cared about me and respected me as a lesbian when we really got into discussions about sexual orientation. Like I try not to become jaded but its really hard when I have trans friends I trusted for a long time and then they tell me same sex attraction is harmful or that gender roles are innate (ie: "I know I'm not a woman bc I don't vibe with xyz stereotype that I believe is true for every other woman I meet unless she identifies otherwise". I don't think every trans person is a actively toxic or anything but I feel like homophobia and misogyny is so rampant and explicit from the trans community in current year it's really hard not to be jaded as a defense mechanism.

Hi! So I found the post you were talking about. The intention I was trying to communicate wasn’t so much that normie trans people are unproblematic in their views of gender, but more so that there are trans people out in the world just trying to live their lives who aren’t narcissistic manipulators like a lot of internet TRAs might come off as.

When I call trans people “trans normies,” I’m defining that as trans people who are mostly not online and mostly not involved in trans discourse. And trans normies, like other kinds of normie, sadly tend to have some unexamined assumptions about how things work based on the dominant culture they were raised in.

Most of the trans people I know irl fall into one of two categories: the ones I meet at PFLAG meetings or trans-centric spaces, and the very rare ones encountered out in the wild. I’m going to hazard a guess that most trans normies are the latter-- they tend not to run in circles with many other trans people, and they also tend to be more interested in passing to blend in, both of which make them more difficult to find. They, like me, tend not to really run in the “trans community.” And admittedly, it’s even rarer that I meet a visibly trans person in the wild that I grow close enough to that I learn all about their gender philosophy, because I too have internalized assumptions about other trans people’s feelings that make me jaded against them (I’m trying not to fall into the idea that I’m “not like other troons” lol), and I’m trying to work through it to find and see if there are ones who have gender philosophies I can vibe with.

Most trans people whose gender philosophies I have heard, then, are the ones I meet in PFLAG and trans-centric groups. So probably a little less normie, but there are still normies mixed in there. And I’m not gonna lie, some of the ideas I hear make me cringe a little or feel like they would quickly fall apart if poked at. I don’t know if there’s a single trans philosophy out there that’s going to satisfy the gender critical community. But what I can say for trans people is that the vast majority of them that I have met irl believe in the following (paraphrased):

- If someone’s sexuality/dating pool excludes me, that’s their business. It can be a little disheartening knowing how small my dating pool is, but trying to convince people who don’t want to date trans people to date trans people is not a solution. I want a partner who loves me for me, not one who pretends to love me for woke points.

- XYZ stereotype does not mean that someone is a man/woman/nonbinary. (Insert just about anything in the XYZ. The trans and nonbinary people I meet in real life are also some of the most pro-gnc-cis-people people I know.)

- I am consciously aware of how I make cis people uncomfortable, and I make a conscious effort to mitigate that discomfort to the best of my ability while still living authentically and keeping myself safe.

- Cis women can have their own spaces. It doesn’t concern me.

- Obviously there are issues that only impact natal females and ones that only impact natal males.

- I understand that I have the biology of a certain sex. I might be uncomfortable with having a body of that kind, maybe even to the point where I don’t like to use the anatomical terms to describe my body in contexts where I can avoid it, but I’m obviously different from a [cis man/cis woman]. If I didn’t understand that, I wouldn’t be calling myself transgender.

I make these points because of their relationship with gc discourse. It’s inconvenient for gendercrits and radfems to acknowledge that there are trans people who feel this way. It’s even more inconvenient to know that the number of trans people who feel this way is not insignificant and thereby easy to dismiss.

In particular, I want to focus on the second point: stereotypes do not a gender make. Because honestly, most of the trans women at the PFLAG meetings aren’t talking about how they played with dolls as kids or how they just love being expected to wear make-up (often in an effort to pass, because unfortunately our gendered society does turn make-up into a tool for reading as female), and the trans men there run the gamut from hyper-masc to fairly feminine. There are a variety of trans philosophies I’ve listened to that stray away from the idea that simple gender stereotypes make a gender.

More often the story is one of alienation -- alienation from one’s body, from one’s appearance, and/or especially from society. And this alienation usually disappears (or at least fades into background noise) once transition has been undertaken. The trans person in question might not always have a satisfactory explanation for why that is -- and again, I don’t think any explanation fits the radfem/gc ideal -- but it is distinct from the rhetoric “wigs and dresses don’t make you a woman,” “lack of those things doesn’t make you a man,” which trans people are generally well aware of. This is what I hear most often from other trans people regardless of sexuality, mental health history, class, or any other dividing lines that gendercrits like to use to explain trans people away as simple, easily dismissible categories (think Blanchardianism).

Hmm...I hope that answers your question? I know I probably went off the rails there. Again, I can’t claim that trans normies can’t be problematic, or even that most of them aren’t problematic. Most normies in general are problematic because they tend to live less examined lives. But I also know there are trans people out there willing to listen to and calmly discuss the other side of things, especially if their viewpoint is just parroting what they’ve generally heard from the mainstream side of trans discourse.

In that regard, you’ll have the most luck with passing trans people and trans people who’ve been settled into their identity for a while. Non-passing and newly-out trans people tend to be defensive and self-conscious in a way that more seasoned and socially integrated trans people just aren’t. That’s another post in and of itself though. If a trans friend of yours says something along the lines of “I know I'm not a woman bc I don't vibe with xyz stereotype that I believe is true for every other woman I meet unless she identifies otherwise” (if they use that wording -- not sure if that second part is what they actually say or just the implication you’re picking up on, but chances are they don’t think every woman vibes with it and just need that pointed out) but they also seem like a chill person and you feel safe doing so, don’t be afraid to calmly and casually bring up a point of disagreement. It might not be something they fiercely cling to or have even really thought through all that much.

[uncloseted]

tw: transphobia😭 hi I'm a radfem cisgirl (I hate using "cis" and "trans" words but here I need to for the sake of the story) I've got a friend from ny highschool (we're in college now) who's also a radfem and is always sharing great feminist stuff. Yesterday, she shared the comment of a girl saying "this fight for abortion (it is illegal in my country) is for men/people with vaginas too!" and mocked it. I preferred not to make up any opinions about her because of one single post. But today, she shared a picture of Miss Spain 2019 (a trans girl) who talked about her experience with sexism, and mocked her too. This time, it was obvious to me she was just being transphobic trash. She received lots of backlash and deleted the post, but instead made a new post complaining about people caring about transphobia but not about sexism (a very stupid post, if you ask me). This time, along with some comments from other girls respectfully telling her to stop being cruel and mocking towards trans women, she received a lot of support from other TERFS (although these TERFS said they hate being called TERFS just for being honest and brave lmmfao). They said that transwomen don't belong in radfem because they just suffer from discrimination, not oppression, and listed some reasons why: according to them, trans girls don't suffer: obstetrician violence, forced pregnancy, feminicide, child marriage, genital femenine ablation, glass ceiling barriers, being implanted "maternal sense" while kids, getting their ears perfored while babies, among other stuff, and that differentiate ciswomen biological reality from trans women biological reality isn't transphobia. Other girls said they knew transwomen who were mean to them, using derogatory terms to refer to ciswomen and they were mean and cruel, using this argument to generalize about all transwomen smh.

I'm just so stoned that people could be so cruel to transwomen and set them aside from the feminist fight when they suffer from already being excluded from so many things. It sickens me that some people don't belive trans people exist and treat them that bad, specially trans girls. I wish I could debunk the info this TERFS are spreading because it's so dangerous and enables transphobics to keep harming transpeople and I find that unbearable, but I am not as informed as I should be to debute all their lies at once. Could you help me?

So starting with the question of transwomen in radfem spaces, I don’t think many (if any) transwomen would say that they experience the exact same type of discrimination that cis women do.  There’s often this idea that “trans people don’t believe in biology”, but that’s a bad faith argument.  Trans people understand biology very well, often more than their cis counterparts do, because it’s such a big part of their identity.

Yes, transwomen don’t suffer obstetrician violence, forced pregnancy, child marriage, genital feminine ablation, etc. (I can’t even find any articles on the ear thing).  They do experience femicide, at way higher rates that cis women do. Transwomen are women, and they’re discriminated against in their own way; sometimes that’s because they’re women, and sometimes that’s because they’re trans.  Transwomen are largely supportive of fighting with cis women to rid the world of discrimination for all women, cis and trans alike.  

By contrast, TERFs seem to think that because transwomen sometimes suffer a different type of discrimination than cis women, they can’t be “real women”.  But that argument makes no sense to me.  The vast majority of affluent, white, straight, cis women will never suffer the violence that is apparently so central to the cis female experience.  They’re extremely unlikely to experience femicide, child marriage, genital mutilation... and yet they can acknowledge that those issues are feminist issues, even though they’re not universal to all women.  Why shouldn’t the discrimination that transwomen face also fall under that umbrella?  And if they can accept that women who have had hysterectomies, or women who have chromosomal differences, or women who are intersex, or women who present butch are all women, why shouldn’t transwomen also fall under the umbrella of womanhood?

Further, is that really all that womanhood is to TERFs?  Experiencing the trauma and discrimination that so often accompanies being a cis women?  I don’t think inclusion to a group should be predicated on the amount that one has suffered or how many “oppression points” they’ve amassed. And I don’t think being a woman should be predicated solely on biology, especially given that we never really know what kind of biology a person has just by looking at them.  What “being a woman” is is a metaphysical question that derails the discussion of trans feminism, and it’s a question that I don’t think a lot of TERFs actually have a good answer to.  It’s just an easy way to put the burden of proof on trans people and trans allies and waste our time (but if you’re interested, I do have an opinion on this. I just think it’s best saved for a different time).

In terms of trans people being oppressed, there’s all sorts of data to suggest that trans oppression is very real.  In the US, trans people were banned from serving in the military under the Trump administration, a decision that was only overturned a few days ago, and the Trump administration also reversed the Obama- era Title VII policy that protected trans employees from discrimination.  Trans people are overwhelmingly lacking legal protections- there are no federal non-discrimination laws that include gender identity, and in some states, debates over limiting the rights of trans people to use public bathrooms are ongoing.  

About 57% of trans people faced some type of rejection from their family upon coming out.  Around 29% of trans people live in poverty (compared to 11% in the general population and about 22% in the lesbian and gay populations), and that number is higher for trans people who are Black (39%), Latinx (48%), or Indigenous (35%).  27% of trans people have been fired, not hired, or denied a promotion due to their trans identity.  90% of trans people report facing discrimination in their own jobs.  Trans people face double the rate of unemployment that cis people do (about 14%) and about 44% are underemployed. This is despite the fact that a reported 71% of trans people have some level of post-secondary education- actually higher than the general population, which is about 61%.  It’s often cited that women earn 77 cents on the dollar compared to men, but that statistic doesn’t even exist for trans women.

54% of trans people have experienced intimate partner violence (compared to about 24.3% of cis women), 47% of trans people have been sexually assaulted (compared to about 18% of cis women), and about 10% are physically assaulted in a given year. 

About 22% of trans people and 32% of trans people of color in the US have no health insurance (compared to about 11% of cis women), and 55% of trans people who do have insurance report being denied coverage for at least one gender affirming surgery.  29% of trans adults have been refused healthcare by a doctor or provider because of their gender identity.  In one study, 50% of trans people said that they had to teach their medical providers about trans care.  Trans people are four times as likely than the average population to be infected by HIV.  41% have attempted suicide at one point in their lives, compared to 1.6% of the general population.  

20% of trans people have been evicted or denied housing due to their gender identity, and trans people are four times more likely than cis people to be homeless.  Only 1/5 of trans people report that they have been able to update all of their identification documents, and 41% have a driver’s license that does not match their gender identity.  22% of trans people report that they have been denied equal treatment by a government agency or official, 29% reported police harassment, and 12% reported having been denied equal treatment or harassed by judges or court officials.

75% of transgender students feel unsafe at school because of their gender expression, 60% are forced to use a bathroom or locker room that does not match their gender, 50% were unable to use the name and pronouns that match their gender, and 70% of trans students say that they’ve avoided bathrooms because they feel unsafe.  78% of trans students report being harassed or assaulted at school.

And these are all statistics that focus on trans people at large.  The discrimination is worse for transwomen and especially transwomen of color.  All of that certainly sounds like systemic oppression to me.

Every person who chooses to be a TERF perpetuates this discrimination.  It’s just bigotry towards trans people, plain and simple.  And for what?  A reactionary fear that all transwomen are secretly sexual predators and all transmen are confused girls who don’t know better?  Unfortunately, men can be sexual predators just fine without having to jump through the convoluted hoops trans people go through to be recognized as their true gender identity, and transwomen are way more likely to be sexually assaulted than they are to be sexual predators.  There are no reported cases at all that transwomen are dressing up as men to assault women in bathrooms.  There aren’t even statistics on how frequently trans people are sexual predators. And transmen are just as capable of making informed, thoughtful decisions as cis women.  

TERFs shouldn’t be pitting themselves against trans people.  There’s just nothing to be gained from doing that.  They should be working alongside trans people to fight the patriarchy and the discrimination that cis and trans women both face, regardless of what that discrimination entails.

Last thought.  Not to be a stan or anything but if you’re interested in learning more about these issues, Contrapoints has a number of really good videos on the topic of TERFs (including one that just released today!). They delve a bit deeper into the actual questions that TERFs often bring up and provide some nuanced answers.

[shinra-makonoid]

1. I know you meant it in a sarcastic way but do you think TRAs are the reason so many ftms feel more welcome in radfem spaces? Because many of them if they 'came out' as a radfem usually had the experience of being repressed homosexuals that clearly have no connection to GD by the way the tell from their perspective. (such as being obviously urged by the environment to transition, whereas most transsexuals (in my experience) try to convince themselves of the opposite/ find excuses).

2. In many bios I notice the description 'former-dysphoric female' or 'victim of the gender cult' like they realize they were obviously only exposed to the 'tucute' side and never met real transsexuals (which to be fair is kinda rare but still). I'm just wondering what makes someone switch to radical feminism when they had so opposite views. Because I did hold radfem beliefs as a teen but had no opportunity to share them. I kinda grew out of it.

3.But why? I know you don't know me but I always wondered how someone came up with these beliefs like Dworking, Simone de Beauvoir. Cause I reached the same conclusion as them despite never reading anything from them. And that's scary. You said you were a tucute. How did you came to this? And how did you get away? Do you think some people will always stay in these cult-like groups and why do some have the ability to get out and some don't? Is it biological or social that some can('t) do that?

There’s many thoughts with this so it’ll be long and potentially messy.

I know you meant it in a sarcastic way but do you think TRAs are the reason so many ftms feel more welcome in radfem spaces?

I’m not sure TRA are the reason so many FtM feel more welcomed by radfem spaces. But I’m pretty sure that mainstream feminism in itself has a hand in this. GNC females (trans or not) usually feel out of place regarding their own place in society, and feminism is right there to pick them up. From there, they have a community in which they can rely on, with a specific set of beliefs to follow. You have basically two major communities of feminism, the libfem and the radfem.

Radfems are like the special club of the “enlightened ones”, while libfem are the lazy ones who just follow the trend of feminism. So, I suppose, depending on how implicated you are in feminism and gender, you get to be close to one or the other. There is also the fact that homosexuality/bisexuality in itself will come with a set of experience as a young woman who will surely push you more on the more radical side.

I long time ago now, when I was still a TRA, I’ve known someone who didn’t know if they identified as a lesbian or a FtM, and was heavily in the radfem discourse. We discoursed a lot together, and despite our very different views, we managed to bond. They brought me to nuance my views and reach that kind of “peak” where you actually realize that biological sex DOES exist in fact (crazy right). And I helped them realizing that the radfem discourse wasn’t always godspell. Idk what happened to them since, it’s been a long time. But anyway, it really made me tend to the other side of the balance, even though I’ve never subscribed to it, because I couldn’t, with my own existence, you know? At least there’s something in me that wouldn’t.

I think a lot of FtM comes through that path at some point, and violently shift to the other side as a reaction from when they were a TRA. Finally they are “enlightened to the truth of the world”, and therefore become radical feminists, because they HAVE to be a type of feminism (because otherwise they say that it means you don’t support women’s equality, and you are not appreciated). I personally stayed a long time with a feminist label, before understanding how crappy it was, by wondering about the male side.

__

Which brings me to the other point. As girls of our generation, we all were raised with feminism in mind. It’s an ideology that was thrown at our throat. Every time that we did something that wasn’t “typically feminine”, it was feminism. Playing with the boys was feminism. Playing video games was feminism. Going to STEM was feminism. Not wearing dresses was feminism. Our normal behavior (GNC behavior) became feminist. We became, despite ourselves, some kind of representant of the powerful female that we “needed” to be, to bring back some balance in the world. It’s very dehumanizing when you think about it. We are warriors for the feminist belief, and our simple behavior is suddenly perceived as something courageous when it is simply how we exist. So, even if you don’t read the feminist books and all that shit, you are still bound to feel like a flavor of feminism, by the simple fact that you exist. Add to that, that it’s very socially good to be seen as a feminist. I think that’s how most of us get trapped in that.

We are social creatures. Finding our peers is a necessary step for us to stay alive. And if it comes with a set of beliefs that need to adopt, then so be it. That’s how we get in.

__

I know you don't know me but I always wondered how someone came up with these beliefs like Dworking, Simone de Beauvoir. Cause I reached the same conclusion as them despite never reading anything from them.

Why did you come to the same conclusion as people who supposedly did sociological thesis and were eminent respected people in my country? Because it’s what felt right, it’s your intuition, your set of beliefs based on your biased experience that showed you that. It’s the same reason as to why all culture have a religion. We love to believe, we need to believe, and we love wishing for things to be the way we think they are. It’s the reason why those people were fake. They based all of their observation on their personal life and wishful thinking. They created a world that they had in their head, and projected it on reality.

It was very easy for me to think that males were abusers on the basis of my experience. I was already mindful of men, because that’s what I was taught from my family, but my bad experiences reinforced it, and feminism magnified it to a phobia. It’s this endless circle of people validating your biases, an echo chamber but on a life-scale. People who believe or behave a certain way will stick with the other people who believe and behave a certain way, as we’re a tribal creature.

__

TRA/Radfem, any cult-like thing, will have that. They will discourage you from considering the opinion and the view of the other side, because it will be deemed as being false/wrong/sin, and will also continue to validate the things that you already believe over and over again. They ARE the enlightened ones. They are the ones who discovered the truth among the falsehood. They are sure, persuaded of what they think, that it is the Truth. 

They also spew a very anxiety-driving feeling. Radfems are persuaded that all females who transition are brainwashed by the cult. Do you want your fellow females to end up in a cult and hurting themselves? Obviously not! So you help them, you try to convert them, because you feel the urgency of the situation. “She needs to be saved”. It’s a bit like the Christian persuaded they need to save you from hell.

__

Do you think some people will always stay in these cult-like groups and why do some have the ability to get out and some don't? Is it biological or social that some can('t) do that?

With time, and seeing all of these groups, I became sure of one thing. Certainty is poison, in my opinion. The world is made of nuances, and a lot of them we can’t yet grasp accurately. I am certain of nothing. I try to doubt at every step, and for everything, because in the end, even if it’s very uncomfortable, it is also the best way I found to be able to navigate without getting too stuck somewhere. I have beliefs that are still tied to my values, I will probably always have those, because we aren’t machines. But I am aware of that, and it allows me to take a step back, and think “Why is that so important for me to believe in?” “Why do I believe what I believe?”

Those two questions are the fundamental ones that need to be asked, in order for someone to rationally think. Along with that, you have to understand what constitute a fact, and how to differenciate it from an opinion. The people who get stuck in cult-like mentality are the ones who do that. But it’s not something that you just do. It’s really something to live by. Skepticism. I am lucky because in France, there are a lot of content for people to understand better science and skepticism in general. It really helped me.

Some people won’t ask themselves those questions because they never thought about it. Some people won’t ask themselves those questions because the feeling coming from it is very bad. When I shifted away from the TRA belief, it was a nightmare. When I looked into the HSTS part and how they didn’t believe in any “gender identity” the way we conceive it, I was also crushed. It’s a bad feeling, to feel the way you view the world getting destroyed by other views. It leaves us with uncertainty, fear, vulnerability, that we have to handle. We are left with more questions, less answers. It’s not easy. I would go as far as saying it’s physically painful.

It is easier to just repeat the same mantra, and get stuck with that feeling of certainty that is comforting. It is safe, and you have people thinking the same way you do, you are never alone anymore, you don’t doubt anymore. You know the truth, after all! It’s a very pleasant feeling, to know the truth. But is it an accurate depiction of reality? We are all guilty in that. You, me, the most rational person in this world is guilty of it.

__

What matters to you? Having the most accurate reality you can grasp, or your comfort and sensation of having the truth in your hand? The answer to that might be obvious, but it is actually a very difficult one, that one has to ask themselve often.

[aphroditeslesbian]

Hey, August. My sister is an EXTREME libfem. Hates terfs. Listens so all these podcasts with “male feminists”. I don’t know. I don’t know if I should try to tell her that I feel very strongly—that radical feminism has helped me so much and I hold a lot of radfem beliefs. She doesn’t know this. Idk if she should ever know. But I feel weird. I care about my sister so much. We get along. And ofc ppl can have different beliefs and politics. I should be used to this, as I have a lot of right wing 1/?

Right wing family members. So I should be used to this by now. I just feel very alone, because I have to admit, I resent the mainstream LGBT community. I feel like the evil, cruel woman they think I am. But I have just had ENOUGH. (2/2)

Hey, friend! I’m so sorry you’re struggling, and also for taking a while to respond. This period of my life is taking its toll on me, lol. Anyway, I hope you see this response.

I’m sorry you’re struggling with this. I think the best approach with your sister, if you’re close, and feel it’s important that she understands how your opinions divert on this matter, would be to tell her about your different opinions as well as you can, without actually using the words “radical feminist” or “terf” or what have you. This way you can expose your ideology and make yourself understood and even respected without raising their defenses immediately, because they have such a strong aversion to the idea of radical feminism.

People usually respond very well to basic radical rhetoric: the idea that women’s biology is an important part of the definition of womanhood, in the context of fighting against misogyny is not actually that wild. Saying that women’s biology is the reason why they’re oppressed, and that women deserve to be protect against crimes against them... Not that wild. The idea that woman has been historically oppressed by man is not only true, but easily proven by statistics and hard facts. 

They may say “oh, but what about the TIMs, their feelings, their well being, their rights?” and the best response I’ve found when debating with liberals is to just point out all the ways in which trans activism directly and negatively affects women’s rights. And they may say “so do you hate men then?” and the best answer is probably to say that you hate men’s actions against women, their behavior, and that though sure, they’re entitled to trying to improve, it is not feminism’s job to help them with that, as a movement for female liberation.

I grew up in a Christian environment, and my close friends have conservative view points even if they don’t outright consider themselves right wing. I find that using language that is clear to them is the best way to make them understand my opinion while not feeling like they’re a direct attack to their own belief systems. 

Honestly, I’m sure that as someone who has family who are aligned with right wings politics, you’ve had to learn this yourself. Sometimes, it’s all a matter of keeping a level head and using the right language... And also knowing when to tap out. 

If you think your sister is too far gone, and might somehow make your life harder once she knows about this, it is totally okay to not reveal your beliefs. I know it can be extremely isolating to hide such a huge part of your politics, especially when lately the mainstream ideas about it are so backwards and directly harmful to LGB individuals and women. But your personal safety and mental health comes first. 

There are people out there who agree with you and are willing to stand behind you. You are not alone, and you have us. I know it’s hard, the need for community is very strong in us humans, and I feel it too. But yeah, it’s like arguing with that one annoying uncle who makes shitty sexist comments every chance he gets: there’s no point, he’ll come out of it feeling vindicated, and you won’t be able to change his mind. 

I also will say... Embrace being the “evil cruel woman”. You have reasons behind your beliefs, and you know them. If people wanna paint you otherwise, that is their loss. I’m sure you are kind, and nice, and caring. You’re entitled to also be angry and done with all this bullshit we’ve been fed by the qu**r circles lately. So if they wanna view you as evil, let them. Continue on your own path, it’s okay. It’s okay to not have mainstream beliefs, it’s okay to disagree. It’s okay that people may not like you for this. What they think of us doesn’t actually change the reality of what we are. Understand that, and stand strong with that knowledge. 

I’m not saying it’s easy, nor do I think my words are magic and poof you’ll be healed of your worries. But trying to shift your perspective on what it means to be disliked for believing women deserve basic decency is a good first step to stopping letting other people’s shortcomings and other people’s hatred make you feel hateful yourself.

I wish you the best, and whether you decide to tell your sister or not... Know that you don’t stand alone. Take care, stay safe.