#black trans lives matt

[queercodedrogue]

There are predators on here who actively groom minors and black trans people have been harassed by people and by staff and kicked off of Tumblr by staff for YEARS btw

[sharkgirl15cosplays]

As an on and off fan of Taylor Swift, I want to say that I realize now that I have excused certain behaviors in the past three years that I should have seen as a pattern. Her association with Matty Healy and her silence as the BIPOC and Jewish swifities has been the cherry on top. I don't know yet if I will be back, but if I am, I hope I remember these past three years and am quicker to call out her problematic behavior. The activities and people she has associated and worked with in the past three years are concerning.

For the Healy apologists who were like this is all an act to bring awareness to these problems, is that really any better when the bringing awareness looks exactly like the problem? Like you'll have kids seeing him doing that salute or saying those things and think it's ok.

Taylor, I hope you do better and take accountability and decry racism, transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny, but for the forseeable future, I'm out because I'm listening to my BIPOC friends who don't feel safe in the spaces you've created, and I can't listen to you while thinking of that.

I was excited for Speak Now because it's my favorite album, and I didn't own a copy, but I'm canceling my pre-order because I care more about how my fellow fans feel than just enjoying your music. I realize I have the privilege of just doing that, of just listening, but right now, it brings me no pleasure.

[m00kieblaylock]

Love you, Mike 💕🏳️‍⚧️

(Actually having your faves have the right morals is the best 🥲)

[pghlesbian]

(via A Second 30 Year Old Black Trans Woman Killed in DC)

Rest in power  ItsA'nee Johnson​

Rest in power, A’nee. Your light shined brightly during your time in this life, leaving a legacy on the hearts of your loved ones. You deserved so many more years to embrace life. I am so sorry we did not create a better world for you.

May your memory be a revolution.

[disteal]

I only ask cause you usually seem to be pretty up to date on the goings on of this site, but what the HELL is going on with tumblr's CEO? Why are they having a meltdown responding to asks? What's the trans misogyny accusation about? Why is tumblr apparently being run by children?

Thanks in advance.

This is kind of a long story so this is sort of TLDR for brevity but there’s more going on here.

Some context if you weren’t aware; Tumblr has been accused multiple times by its userbase for fostering TERF staff members and covering for them when making transphobic moderation calls. Things like; an overeagerness to ban trans women for posting nudes despite not addressing nazis or bots for years, or protection of notable TERF users who flagrantly break TOS by organising hate campaigns. The users who collected evidence of this became huge targets for these “””alleged””” TERF mods and users and were basically hunted online for sport. Up until recently the “terf mods” take was considered a bit of a conspiracy theory by some who assumed it was more likely to be an automation problem mixed with transphobic reports.

This week: tumblr user predstrogen was recently permabanned (for a second time) following a mass reporting by TERFs. This, obviously, pissed a lot of people off, and a fairly routine “the fuck haven’t you banned the nazis yet??” ask was sent to photomatt, the CEO.

Photomatt, INSANELY, replied, misgendering her multiple times and defending his decision to personally smack down the ban hammer by citing predstrogens nudes, but by his own admission the far more heinous crime was this absolutely ridiculous post;

Matt has also contacted the FBI over this stupid shit despite predstrogen not living in the US.

Lastly, during this very public announcement on the kangaroo court hearing, matty drops this absolute nuclear bomb about Tumblr having some internal drama when they’d discovered an external contractor was A) a transphobe wielding mod authority to be transphobic B) criminally selling moderation (likely to TERFs).

Despite this obviously being on the record somewhere, this is clearly news to fucking everyone including myself.

It’s also worth noting that predstrogen has not been the only recent ban; several black people and black transfems have been instabanned after directly asking matt for accountability (the user i’ve seen specifically named was @rulerofpurple and his partner)

So, naturally, people are fucking furious they spent years getting gaslit by staff, who had been assuring us of their even-handedness, but surprise!!! Trans women WERE being uniquely targeted, and even worse, likely targeted by the people who they could never seem to deplatform despite constant death threats and doxxing!! And despite all this assurance that Tumblrs internals are now perfectly free of transmisogyny and racism, it’s pretty obvious to just about everyone that Tumblr staff are chomping at the bit to ban trans women.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for tricking my grandma into misgendering her cat?

Background: my (19F) grandma (67F) is a southern baptist and pretty conservative. My cousin (Matt, 24M) is trans, he came out to his parents and mine about two years ago because he knew we would be supportive, but he waited until he was on T a couple months and was mostly transitioned socially before he officially came out to our less supportive relatives, like my grandma.

Since Matt came out to everyone else (which he did by showing up at family Christmas with a “hello my name is” sticker on, which I thought was hilarious) my grandma has refused to use his correct pronouns, name, or anything, saying “it’s hard to switch” as an excuse. Matt has cut off contact and everyone else in the family just kind of avoids talking about him around her.

I am in a weird situation because my family lives the next street over from where she does, and we have always been pretty close. Since she started being so shitty about Matt, though, I’ve put more distance and just stay polite when she’s over.

Okay so now to the AITA part. About two months ago my grandma wanted to adopt a cat, and my best friend volunteers at an animal shelter so we were helping her. We showed her pictures of some of the cats and she saw an older male who was all black with longer fur and said she wanted to adopt “her.” I started to correct her saying it was a male cat, and then realized the opportunity I had so I kept my mouth shut. I made a point to handle all the adoption stuff for my grandma so she never saw anything indicating the cat’s male-ness, and then brought home her new “female” cat, pink collar and all.

Last week “Miss Kitty” (such a creative name) got a paw injury and at the vet they told my grandma the cat was male. My grandma told me and my parents about it when she was over for the Fourth of July (we had family and friends over for barbecue, including Matt’s parents). I made a point from there on to continue using “she” for the cat and still calling “Miss Kitty” instead of “Mister Kitty.” It took her a minute to notice but finally she called me out and said “he’s a boy, stop saying she.”

I immediately snapped back with “oh so it’s easy for you to switch the name and pronouns of your cat but not your own grandson?” Everyone got quiet and she got all flustered, trying to say it’s different, but I just said “oh okay, so you put more effort into using the right words for a cat who doesn’t even know English, got it.”

My mom told me to stop and leave it alone. I said “I’m just saying, it’s pretty clear who she cares about more.” And then my mom told me to leave the table if I was going to act like that. I just got up and took my plate in the kitchen and finished eating.

After everyone left my mom lit into me and told me that what I said was cruel. I said I was just teaching her a lesson and that maybe now she would think about it different. My mom said that I just made things worse and humiliated her on purpose in front of everyone. My dad had been quiet but then just started laughing. He realized that I had been playing the long game, and it wasn’t a mix up at the shelter- I led my grandma to believe the cat was female. He basically said “that was wrong but also hilarious” and now my mom is mad at both me and my dad. When Matt’s parents told him he thought it was super funny and said he isn’t mad at all.

My mom wants me to apologize, but I am not sorry about what I said. I don’t know if I should feel bad about tricking my grandma, because I didn’t technically outright lie, I just didn’t correct her when she assumed the cat was female. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[hollyhomburg]

Before I Leave You (Pt.66)

(Sneek peak)(Omegaverse au, Mafia au, Bts x Reader)

Summary: Your track record with trying to survive is a checkered one. This is a red spot among the black and white.

Tags: Blood, Guns, violence, near death experiences, everyone lives nobody dies...but someone does die this chapter, horror, non-lethal injury, talks of death and dying, a bit of body horror, forced murder? Trans! tae, Tae is briefly dead named in this, implied/referenced intimate partner violence, flashbacks, brief suicidality.

W/c: 8.0k

A/N: ahhhhhh <3 we're finally ready for this part of the story <3 i wonder what your guys reactions will be, i'm really glad i decided to split this chapter into two peices! it's much cleaner this way. don't be 🥲 too mad at me.

Previous part - Masterlist - First part

Chapter 66: Go for the Throat

You hold your breath. Still peering around the corner, watching and waiting for the man to spot you.

But he doesn't, after a breath where his soft footsteps echo, you wait, but nothing happens. You peak back around the corner. 

You absorb and catalog the details as fast as you can; the black ski mask, covered by one of those traditional masks, wooden with red lacquer. This one is a little different than the one that Jimin had; this one is white with red splotch on the cheeks, not twisted with thick eyebrows in a snarl. Like a ghost sent down from above to rob you of your humanity.

The bulletproof vest stops at the collarbones. The gun itself is black and a generic model. The long end is extra bulbous with something that might be an attached silencer. Hands covered in black nitrile gloves, leathery at first glance. There is a knife at his waist along with a barrage of other small things. Rope and a knife, duct tape and handcuffs. His heavy boots look steel toed and reinforced.

The man (because it is a man you realize; tall, maybe taller than Namjoon) trains his gun at the landing on the top of the stairs. Pointing it in the direction of Hobi, Tae, and Jin’s hushed voices.

Hobi giggles and it sounds so bright. Echoing off the walls and filling the house.

There is a phone cord tangled in your hands, long and white. You grip it tight.

This man might be silent but you’re quieter as you slide your bare feet across the smooth floors. Your strides are so quiet, you take one step and then another until you're behind the man, mirroring him.

You remember when Yoongi redid the floors, it was one of the few things that he did right away- before the pack came to live here (to love here). It took him weeks and weeks of sanding before he got them to his liking. Days more of brown dark stain that colored his hands ruddy until the soft matte finish stuck. Every pass with the belt sander and dirty rag a movement of love, a meditation for it.

Yoongi made every inch of this house with the same loving intent; to make it a home for all of you. You won’t let it become a grave. You won’t let this person stay here and ruin it.

Most people get it wrong; In order to kill, it is not a matter of elegance or effort. There is no such thing as a perfect kill, emotionless and analytic. it being justified only gets you halfway. There is no way to do it perfectly or cleanly. People die just as they live, messy and hopeful and dirty.

Murder isn't a matter or wanting or wishing, It’s a matter of rage.

It’s always been this way. Rage has been chewing a hole through you from the moment that you pulled the trigger with Geumjae. From the moment you said ‘I do’. Rage that these violent things have been done to you, that they continue to happen, that you can’t just get away from all the hurt and trauma.

Rage has eaten you clean through to the bone. Only now you're the hungry one. Right now, only three words run through your head;

How dare she.

How dare she send this man into your house. How dare she point a gun at the upstairs, in the general direction of your nest and your packmates. The altar at which you so desperately cling to, for sweet dreams and sweet worship. How dare she even think about hurting the people you love.

There is no courage, no bravery, no thought in your head about how stupid it might be as you step closer behind the man. You are not a trained assassin. You’re just an omega.

The adrenaline rush is an old friend, you know how to use it. You grip the phone cord in your hands and take a quiet steadying breath. He doesn't see you, he doesn't hear you, he doesn't know that you're behind him.

Wolves always go for the throat, whether they’re cornered or hunting.

The assassin’s foot ascends the bottom step. You don’t let him get to the second before you’re moving, hurtling forward. Footsteps light as a butterfly’s wings. Your hands go over the man’s shoulders. The cord no more than a white flash across his vision before you draw it tight across his neck.

Coming Saturday February 3rd at 5pm EST (Time Zone Adjustments Below)

[astraltrickster]

Something I want to point out in yet another wave of mass bannings is the structural aspect that makes up a good chunk of every single one of these. That is, even if everyone on staff was perfect on queer issues, even if Matt and his bullshit disappeared and handed the site over to a literal saint tomorrow, we would STILL have a moderation bias problem if we don't magically solve the longstanding hard problem of making moderation at scale fair.

How so?

Imagine two users. One is a cisgender, heterosexual, white, abled person; the other is a trans person, or a Black person, or an indigenous person, or a disabled person, or any other marginalized person, or likely MORE than one of the above. Both like to kind of toe the line of acceptability re:"mature content" (or anything else really, but "mature content" is what's causing the problem here for many reasons). They go about their lives, they do their thing, they mind their own business.

User 1 flies under the radar basically forever, because pretty much nobody is going to object to them.

User 2...is likely to not be so lucky. User 2 is likely to run into bigoted asshole trolls who will mass report them for shits and giggles because they don't like trans/Black/indigenous people existing on the internet, or they don't like recognizing that disabled people can be horny, or anything else. So they'll report, and report, and report, until at least one of two things happens:

1) The automated system goes "oh fuck this one must be REALLY bad" and bans them automatically, and/or

2) The report lands on the desk of a human moderator and at least one is, at least arguably correctly, found to be a violation of TOS.

You see the problem? An enforcement system based on user reports, while still being....probably? the most efficient system we have - one of very very few that can even be argued to work AT ALL at scale - inherently leads to a situation where marginalized people are scrutinized more heavily than others. Even when the rules are being interpreted 100% fairly, even if everyone on staff is a perfect paragon of justice with no human flaws whatsoever, who never misclicks, who never makes a snap judgment because they had a bad day, who has zero societally imposed biases whatsoever, they're still ONLY punishing violations from the most marginalized people. People who don't get reported - usually mass reported - are effectively not bound by the rules, while people who are going to get reported for "terrorism" just for existing will have every arguable violation tracked. This is inherent to the system. This is structural.

This is an aspect that I think we should all be focusing on and trying to change a hell of a lot more than we are.

[oc-poll-tournament]

OC Poll Tournament Round 2 Poll 3

Propaganda below the cut:

Nat Finch (he/him) @albatris: I'd like to submit Nat Finch! he/him, 25 years old, brand new baby vampire. he works the night shift at dodgy petrol and convenience store Stop 'N' Go, where he falls asleep on the clock and encourages shoplifting. he's schizotypal like me and he loves cats, cooking, and his friends! he's the protagonist of my campy gory horror trilogy, though he'd rather not be!

he's short and fat with red eyes and lots of freckles. his hair is long and black, often uneven and choppy in length, because he just cuts tangles out instead of untangling them ❤

he's a sweet boy, earnest boy, awkward boy; he doesn't have many friends at the start of the story due to his paranoia, psychosis, and social anxiety, but by the end of it has a whole bunch of good friends AND a kitty he adores named Grub who purrs like a faulty tractor

in this story vampirism is a sentient entity and all connected via a hivemind known as "the Garble".... it lives in the vampires' blood and can manipulate their thoughts as well as give them heightened strength and speed, claws and fangs, and night vision when they need it. it can be useful, but mostly it's a bully and an inconvenience

at the centre of the Garble hivemind lives the very first vampire, an undead rotting corpse and the god of vampires, and a few of their close friends and confidants. all life force collected by regular vampires flows to them at the centre and grants them immortality and power. it's a sweet deal for the folks at the centre, and a terrible deal for ordinary vampires like Nat who rarely reap any real benefits from their condition, but are threatened and manipulated into participating in this system regardless

Nat's story sees him struggling to solve the mystery of how and why he was turned and trying to balance his kind, caring nature with his new violent condition... and eventually leads him to, "hey, I think I'm going to hunt down and eat the rest of vampire god"

good for him!

some other Nat Facts:

huge drama queen (will play up being sad and pathetic to get what he wants)

vampires are hardwired to seek warmth and coziness so Nat is always down to snuggle 24/7

bouncy cheery overexcited lad who will grin for weeks if you say something nice to him

vegetarian, aside from eating people, which he insists does not count

speaking of eating people, primarily preys on rich pricks and abusive bosses

is too awkward to tell his neighbours he bought them a cute knitted blanket he thought they might like for their corgi because what if that's a weird thing to do. this has been going on for three weeks

is too awkward to tell his neighbours his name is Nat, not Matt. this has been going on for three years

has a giant scary monster mode full of eyes and teeth >:3

please consider voting for my boy!

Conor (he/him) @pen-of-roses: Submitting (to absolutely no one’s surprise, i’m sure) Conor! He/him trans former-pirate current nuisance to most known and some unknown shards of Esharial.

His entire past would be too long to get into, but the spark notes is after waking up with no memories, hoped on ship, died, came back, went a little insane and killed a bunch of people, lost the closest thing he had to family, went a little more insane, and is now trying to figure out how he got his abilities and maybe screw over the deities of Esharial along his bloody and wine filled path of debauchery (current sanity: questionable)

He can’t lie, can hear others lies and their emotions, and though you can kill him, really it’s only a waste of time and energy as he’ll come back and likely kill you for it

[duckprintspress]

National Non-Fiction Day: 31 Titles to Get Your Queer Learn On!

In the past year, we’ve posted a lot about our favorite queer fiction titles. We wanted to take Non-Fiction day to talk about the non-fiction titles that have impacted us! Whether self-help, memoirs, psychology, history, sociology, or a different non-fiction genre, these are books that have helped us learn, helped us teach, helped us improve, helped us see and be seen, and helped us be more informed. So join us as we introduce our thirty-one recommendations for National Non-Fiction Day!

Fine: A Comic About Gender by Rhea Ewing

Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children by Diane Ehrensaft

Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen

Here For It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America by R. Eric Thomas

Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians by Austen Hartke

Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi

transister: Raising Twins in a Gender-Bending World by Kate Brookes

!Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons by John Paul Brammer

Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb

London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885 – 1914 by Matt Cook

Queering Your Craft: Witchcraft from the Margins by Cassandra Snow

Female Husbands: A Trans History by Jen Manion

The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities by Janet W. W. Hardy and Dossie Easton

The New Queer Conscience by Adam Eli

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society by Cordelia Fine

Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity by Ryan Lee Cartwright

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine

Queer Budapest, 1873 – 1961 by Anita Kurimay

LGBTQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care by Kimberly D. Acquaviva

Queering Colonial Natal: Indigeneity and the Violence of Belonging in Southern Africa by T. J. Tallie

Handbook of LGBT Elders: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Principles, Practices, and Policies edited by Debra A. Harley and Pamela B. Teaster

LGBT Transnational Identity and the Media by Christopher Pullen

Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations by Serena Nanda

LGBTQ Cultures: What Healthcare Professionals Need to Know about Sexual and Gender Diversity by M. J. Eliason and P. L. Chinn

The Terrible We: Thinking with Trans Maladjustment by Cameron Awkward-Rich

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community edited by Laura Erickson-Schroth

You can view this list as a shelf on Goodreads!

It can be so difficult to find good non-fiction resources on queer topics. Which titles to DO you recommend?

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

We are living through a great showdown between hysteria and reason. On one side stand the adherents to the cult of transgenderism, hawking their hocus pocus about gendered souls and self-authentication through castration. On the other side stand those of us who know that biology is real, and that every cell in the human body is sexed, and that a man is as likely to become a woman as that chalice of wine is to become the blood of Christ during Mass (apologies, Catholics).

You’ll never guess which side some New Atheists are taking in this clash between delusion and truth. The crazy side. The side that says a bloke with a beard and balls can literally be a lesbian. Which is infinitely more cranky than the idea that a bloke with a beard and balls can literally be the Son of God. How did rationalist bros, those secularists on steroids, those Dawkins acolytes whose hobby for years was to make fun of the faithful, become devotees of such a strange, post-truth sect?

One by one, atheists are falling at the altar of trans. This week a Twitterfeed called The New Atheists slammed Richard Dawkins for becoming a TERF. Dawkins is a rarity in the new rationalist ranks: he thinks people with penises are men, not women, just as bread is bread, not the body of Christ. He is ‘utterly confused’, decreed his angry apostates. Biology ‘isn’t black and white, it’s a full spectrum of colour just like a rainbow’, they said. This hippyish belief that humans can pick their sex from a multicoloured smorgasbord is entirely an article of faith, of course, not science. Behold rationalism’s turncoats.

We’ve witnessed Neil deGrasse Tyson, America’s best-known scientist, bow to the creed of gender-as-feeling. In a TikTok video he said ‘XX/XY chromosomes are insufficient’ when it comes to reading someone’s sex, because what people feel matters along with their biology. So someone might feel mostly female one day but ‘80 per cent male’ the next, which means they’ll ‘remove the make-up’ and ‘wear a muscle shirt’. Sir, that’s cross-dressing; it does nothing to refute the truth of chromosomes, which absolutely do tell us what sex a person is. As destransitioner Chloe Cole said to Tyson, you’re ‘confusing basic human biology with cosmetics’.

We’ve seen Matt Dillahunty, a leading American atheist, promote the mystic cry that there’s a difference between ‘what your chromosomes are’ and your ‘gender identity’. ‘Transwomen are women’, he piously declares, perhaps keen to prove that while he might be fond of bashing the old religions, he has not one cross or blasphemous word to say about the new religion. Well, no one wants to be excommunicated from polite society.

Stephen Fry is another godless lover of science who appears to have converted to the trans belief. Phillip Pullman, Stewart Lee and others who were once noisy cheerleaders for rationalism are likewise strikingly reserved on this new ideology, this devotional movement which, among other things, invites young women to submit themselves to bodily mortification in order that they might transubstantiate into ‘men’. Seems like something a rationalist should question.

Then there’s Humanists UK. Even Britain’s most influential God-free organisation has thrown its lot in with the Flat Earthism of the post-sex ideology. It entreated the British government not to change the definition of sex in the Equality Act to mean ‘biological sex’. Why? Because some people have a mysterious inner gender – soul? – which apparently counts for more than their biological sex when it comes to the question of which social spaces they should be allowed to enter. Forget biology, forget science; make feeling king. Some women resigned from Humanists UK over what they viewed as its abandonment of ‘compassionate, scientific [and] rational’ principles in favour of the unreality of gender subjectivity.

Witness the treachery of the atheists. Yesterday’s warriors for rationalism are now footsoldiers of postmodern delirium. The religion-bashers who came to prominence in the 2000s now pray to the gods of gender correctness, whether from fear of cancellation or because they really have had a Damascene conversion to the idea that feelings override reality; that scientific truth must sometimes play second fiddle to our flattering of the self-esteem of men who say they’re women, women who say they’re men, and presumably mere mortals who claim to be God. After all, if Dave with his dick and five o’clock shadow can literally be a woman, why shouldn’t Gary be the Second Coming? Subjectivity rules, no?

The rationalist bluster of the New Atheists was all sound and fury, it seems. The minute a real struggle over reason exploded into public life, they vacated the battlefield or joined the other side, crying ‘transwomen are women!’ as they went to signal their fidelity to the new faith. It’s easy to bash the old religions, especially Christianity. Newspaper columns, invites to literary festivals and conference halls full of the fawning godless middle class awaited those who said: ‘Jesus walking on water? As if!’ The consequences of deviating from the trans ideology are far more severe. Columns are taken away, invites evaporate, the middle classes will gather to scorn not cheer. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that some public atheists value their reputations more than rationalism.

What makes their desertion of reason even more galling is that they’ve done it in response to a neo-religion that really is harming the young. Fundamentalist Christians might try to convert gay kids out of their homosexuality, but this new religion mutilates them out of it, by transing young lesbians into ‘boys’ and gay lads into ‘girls’. Faith schools might promote zany miracle stories to their pupils, but this new cult imbues kids with far more disorientating beliefs about 72 genders and girldick and lesbians with penises. The old religions frown on blasphemy, and so does this new one, with its treatment of any ‘denier’ of its theological criteria as a social leper. Especially if the ‘denier’ is a woman: yes, this religion also hates uppity women. And yet it is at this moment, with all this unfolding, that some rationalists take a break from rationalism. It is moral cowardice in the garb of social justice.

Others go further than to criticise the complicity of some New Atheists with modern unreason. They say these godless agitators are to blame for the new madness. In chasing God from society, in further weakening the church, they ‘created a void that a new, dangerous ideology [has] filled’, says Tim Stanley at the Daily Telegraph. Kill God, get trans. Which means that even Dawkins, TERF-ish as he is, is partly culpable for the lunacy he now laments.

I think there’s something in this. But the problem is not that the New Atheists made a ‘void’ that others rushed to fill. It’s that they actively helped to foster the very hyper-atomisation that underpins an ideology like transgenderism. With their promotion of the post-God and post-humanist belief that human beings are nothing more than genetic machines, bundles of DNA in a pitiless world without meaning, the New Atheists contributed to our era’s great, tragic retreat of the individual from the social world into the self. From the external world of connection and engagement into the diminished universe of genetic determinism, bodily transformation and jealous cultivation of one’s own narcissistic virtue.

So, yes, there is a line from Dawkins to trans. Dawkins’ contribution to elite thinking was colossal, especially with his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. He made evolutionary biology mainstream, the idea that we humans are not as special as we thought. Our universe has ‘no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference’, he once wrote: ‘DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.’ Dance to its music. The most striking thing about Dawkins and other neo-Darwinists was not their atheism, said the great moral philosopher Mary Midgley, but their ‘fatalism’. In The Solitary Self, her stinging critique of the new evolutionists, Midgley rebuked Dawkins for his depiction of ‘helpless humans enslaved by a callous-like fate-figure’. Only his fatalistic view was more deadening than that of Ancient scribes, she wrote, because this time the ‘cosmic bully’ controlling our fate is not a ‘pagan deity’ but ‘a chemical, DNA, a part of our own cells’. ‘Like other organisms’, she lamented, we’re seen as ‘lumbering robots ruled by [biology]’.

The Dawkins view grew in influence in the 1980s and 1990s. It was given expression in the soulless technocracy of the New Atheism. It merged with other atomising trends of our time – the decline of social institutions, the rise of a culture of fear, and, yes, the withering of religion – to exacerbate a view of the individual as utterly alone, a genetic creature more than a social one, ruled not by reason but by instructions sent by our DNA. ‘Biological Thatcherism’, Midgley called it.

And here’s the thing: if we are our biology, and that alone, doesn’t it make sense that individuals who want to change themselves would feel the need to change their biology? If we dance to the music of our DNA, doesn’t it follow that people who want to become something else, something different, will have the urge to change the music of their DNA? In short, there is a link, surely, between the post-1970s reduction of the human being to mere genetics and this new millennium’s fad for trying, however forlornly, to alter oneself at the level of genetics. Taking hormones, cutting bits off, removing testes, removing ovaries, injecting, mutilating, pursuing a ceaseless, pitiless war against one’s very biological essence. That the trans movement, and identitarianism more broadly, treats the body as the sole site of change should not be surprising in our era of biological Thatcherism where there is no society, no morality, no good, no evil – just bodies, stardust made flesh, all following genetic impulses. There is a close relationship between the modern ideologies of atomisation and the fruitless infernal war the young now wage on their own bodies, on their DNA prisons we’re all told we inhabit.

Perhaps Dawkins is the grandfather of transgenderism. I jest. But I do think we need to wriggle free from this clash between biological determinism on one side and self-destructive biological ‘liberation’ on the other. Biology is real, but it does not control us. You cannot change your sex but you can change your circumstances. That, however, requires that we go beyond both the biological Thatcherism of the new sciences and the neoliberal self-regard of identity politics and rediscover our place in a world of other people and other ideas. We’re social creatures, not ‘lumbering robots’ to be controlled or, worse, carved up and replaced with new parts.

------------------------------------

Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His new book – A Heretic’s Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now.

[avenlovescoke]

Marauders Era Headcanons - The Marauders

Dude, i'm so tiered of all of the misogynist and ableist/grossophobic marauders posts on tumblr so imma try to get that fixed! Here we go for Some headcanons of the marauders

Remus John Lupin :

Sexuality : Bisexual

Gender : Transmasc (had a non binary era so he's alright with being called he/they) by the way one of my favs hcs about remus being transmasc is that his deadname is Venus Lupin and the whole "my name is Remus" started off as a joke cause he read the myth about Remus and romulus being raised by wolves but... well it wasnt a joke anymore by summer before hogwarts so he cut his hair short without his parents knowing the very night before hogwarts and had so much gender euphoria that he couldn't sleep. He started taking hormones so soon (by his 13) that no one knows he's trans except the marauders obviously, Lily, Mary and Reg ! (Marls still hasn't figured out)

Lover : Sirius Orion Black

Nationality : WELSH NO ONE COULD CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE

Family : His father is a scientifist and a searcher lycantophobic that tries to find a potion against the phenomen that he calls "against universe's laws". He divorced Hope three years before hogwarts and Remus lives with his mother ! Hope lupin works at a bakery and she's such a Sally Jackson variant.

Patronus : Wolf

Animagus : Werewolf

Fancast : Matt Hitt

Sirius Orion Black :

Sexuality : Omni (Male pref)

Gender : Genderfluid (He/She/They)

Lover : Remus Lupin

Nationality : Born in France, moved in england at 5

Family : The Blacks

Patronus : Used to be a Dolphin but wasn't able to corporate it after James's death

Animagus : Black Shaggy German Sheperd

Fancast : Louis Seriot/Conan Gray

James Fleamont Potter :

Sexuality : Pansexual

Gender : Cis man

Lover : Regulus black

Nationality : English (Mexican Mom)

Family : Mia and Monty Potter :D

Patronus : Either a Nurse Shark or a golden retriver

Animagus : Stag

Fancast : Reiky devalk/Omar rudberg/xolo maridueña

Peter Oscar Jonah Pettigrew

Sexuality : Ace and demiromantic straight guy

Gender : Cis man

Lover : none

Nationality : English (Swedish mom)

Family : Raised by a single mom

Patronus : Hedgedog

Animagus : Rat

Fancast : Lewis Capaldi

[offbookkeeping]

okay this is semi obscure but i will now be listing off my favorite off book episodes that you should absolutely listen to right now

(not in any particular order)

• 277. wine from the hospital floor with addie weyrich

• 165. one two tree with eliza skinner

• 146. bachelor quest with the 2 johnnies

• 118. barn of darkness with paul sabourin

• 87. what's in thrift store with sasheer zamata

• 13. attorney at love with nicole parker

• 4. curses curses curses with jamie denbo

• 283. all black everything with ross bryant

• 229. breadtime: who will survive with rachel bloom

• soap opera! with kelly marie tran

• 224. the other scottish play with katie berry

• 83. night at the natural history museum with janet varney and steve berg

• 247. a single pull up to save the president with peter benifaz

• 209. non stop socks! with lilan bowden

• 275. this book only happens when you read it with rashawn scott

• 270. PMS: perpetual mischief season with gilli nissim

• 196. get haim to the greek with shaun diston

• 189. anything goes: in montana with demi adejuyigbe

• 198. can i compare you to a cheese? with sherry cola

• 177. trashassic trash with nick mandernach

• 161. clear eyes, full hearts with arden myrin

• 114. billionaires and future children with carl tart

• 23. o little town of doggywood with paul f thompkins and nicole parker

• 21. murder on the picturesque express with scott aukerman

• 299. clueless: a paints mcspectrum mystery with scott aukerman

• 102. love island: normal edition with elliot glazer

• 29. reborn in the fire with rachel bloom

248. cowminal house (animal house where the animal is a cow) with brendan dowling

• 88. tacoma valley with douglas widick

• 213. moms, bombs, and dante's gone with laci mosly

• 271. kisses to my critics with tim murray

• 250. intermission! with alice stanley jr

• a seastar is born with jeff hiller

• 80. candy crushin' it with mark mcconville

• 81. sean cullen live at sketchfest

• 99. mirage à trois with lucas hazlett

• 102. the cat five and the bad boys with heather anne campbell and nick wiger

• 73. The Dr & the Beast with D'Arcy Carden

• 74. actually, love with matt rogers

• 291. every place i cry live at permanent records

• 110. keeping pace with pace with the cooties

• 75. a cup of christmas with paul f thompkins and nicole parker

• 66. we object to fear

• 228. mariah who are ya? with matt rogers

• 34. zigging through time with ross bryant

• 96. summer stock: the musical with joel kim booster

• 290. the podcast about a ride about a show about YOU with tony rodiguez

• 6. wolf/tuck:LIVE! with d'arcy carden and paul scheer

• 11. shift your north: LIVE! with griffen newman and michael cruz kayne

• 18. touched by a gabriel with ashley ward

[bunny-heels]

all my blogs are finally fully backed up so.

Matt is a fucking idiot. imagine being in charge of a website that advertises itself as the gayest place on the web when in reality all you do is sulk in your office being upset and whiny because people rightfully call you out on your hypocrisy, ignorance, neglect, and blatant bigotry.

there is a literal genocide happening that's been going on for years killing innocent people. a non-binary teen was beaten to death and the killers have basically gotten off free. and this fucking dumbass decides to worry about what people are saying about him online as if he isn't sitting in a pile of money like every other jackass CEO is dong. the fact Palestine isn't one of the listed trending tags on tumblr when i see news about it every 5 posts is ridiculous.

he's just like any other rich guy. he doesn't care about the wellbeing of others, thinks only for himself, puts others down when they feel threatened, and just wants more money.

tumblr stopped being a safe place for "outcasted" people years ago, even before the porn ban. in fact, maybe it never really was for outcated people. trans, black, and disabled users have been getting put down by this site for a very long time, and its fucking disgusting. this site literally houses the largest percentage of LGBT+ and disabled users i've ever seen if we're going by the polls where literally the option of cisgender and neurotypical is always under 1%. they literally are the reason this website still exist, because they've created their circles and safe spaces for them to feel comfortable sharing their life experiences and adventures through life.

most people on this site can't go a day in their real life without some form of harassment or hardship, they don't need that transferring to their digital life. every group of people deserves their own corner for them to have fun and get away from everything for a while. if that's taken away, you are left with people who are just throwing tantrums, and the actual users who made your site usable are now out there probably doing better than you and getting more respectable support than you will with your group of crying babies.

Matt is not a 13 year old kid running a GMod DarkRP server. Matt is not a 26 year old forum mod. he is a 40 year old CEO who is the founder of a well known blog creation site. he has an extremely important and powerful position, yet he is choosing to put his own immature feelings first before thinking about the safety of his own userbase that is literally used as this sites selling point.

the fucking audacity to do this shit to your own users that you literally use for a selling point when you won't even allow for certain tags to show up in the search because you claim for them to have sexual content meanwhile other tags are full of hatred, bigotry, and downright defamation of innocent people who just happen to live different lives is fucking gross. i absolutely cannot believe society and social norms have let the minds of people in power get this fucking bad. it's almost impressive, in a tortured lab monkeys way, not in an innovated and breakthrough way.

please protect all trans users, especially trans women/trans fems. please protect black users, disabled users, all people of color users, homeless/financially struggling users, harassed users, victims of assault users, Palestinian users, jewish users, any religious users-any user that you know for a fact could be thrown away by this bullshit system any day now, protect and take care of them, and make sure they know you'll always be there no matter what.

this post will be rebloggable because i want to pass these links.

palestine related links:

arab.org

gofundmes

esims

PCRF

funds for gaza

POC related links:

BHM mutual aid

american indian college fund

black family mutual aid

trans related links:

freedom oklahoma

transformationskc

trans liberation

suggestions for more plus any corrections are appreciated. reblogging and replying to add your own links for mutual aid and donations is extremely acceptable and encouraged. i apologize if anything in this is worded incorrectly.

if this is taken down despite me being a cis straight chick, you know why.

[larkermarker]

Finally got around to making a super simple ref sheet for my ew redesigns. These have been floating around in my head for around a year.

These are also the designs for my eddswhirl au. To keep it short, eddswhirl is just my spin on the main series. An au where I can shove my headcanons and interpretations that might not be canon compliant. Also timeline and story changes that I want to make.

Some additional design notes below

Tom possession timeline thing I made this quickly agahag

Details for each stage

4 to 7

Not possessed yet

Just a normal kid with big pupils

8 to 12

Got possessed by a wrath demon a few years ago (thanks to dad)

The demon is affecting Toms body physically

Eyes fully black now

Doesn’t like that kids point that out all the time

A little self conscious about his eyes

13 to 17

Teeth are growing in unnaturally sharp

Braces are barely helping

Anger management issues

Shifts a little under extreme stress or anger but can’t change into a full monster yet

Thinks his black eyes make him look cool and edgy (just like all those ocs he saw online that use black eyes when they turn evil)

18 to 36

Not experiencing any new major changes to his regular form

Alcohol helps keep him emotionally numb (the demon can affect his emotions even when not under stress)

Can shift into full monster form now (he can't really control it)

37 to 38

Demon is taking over more of Toms body

More features from his monster form or bleeding into his normal form

It is exhausting Tom physically and mentally trying to keep it down

Lashes out more

38 to 39

Finally gets a successful exorcism preformed (parents tried in the past but it didn't work)

He is a lot happier and expressive with that thing gone

Eyes turn back to normal (cursed) but still has sharp teeth

Over all he is feeling good

40 to (when he dies?)

Oops! Tom developed eye cancer after some time

The demon was the only thing preventing that from happening (it wanted to keep its host alive so it protected, or lessened, most inner and outer damage that came to Tom)

His eyes are completely white

Got a visor (thanks Tord) to help him see again

And some Tord rambles (he is all i have the most thought out rn)

Tord is not totally evil in this au

He does initially plan on taking over the world, but chickens out of going through it

His dad sucks (also one of the motivations for Tord wanting to take over) and he doesn't like to think of him

His mother and him have a strained and distant relationship

They do bond more as Tord gets older

Tords family moved to the UK when he was a teen

No one knows he is trans until after a few year living with the other 3 boys (he told them)

Likes to joke that he is the straightest in the house

Still likes his anime, guns, and robots

Dated Matt for a few months before he left

He left for around 6-8 years to join the army and to go to uni

He knew Paul for a few years before join the army

Tord was planning on going to uni to improve his engineering

Was also going to go back to the house to improve his giant robot prototype, he knew it was far from being battle ready

Skip to a few years in uni and now Tord was having second thoughts on the whole red army thing

He tried to get in contact with Paul but he couldn't reach him

The contact info must have been changed on Pauls end

There has been someone continuing Tords plan behind his back, a left over Tord clone from "Spares" (im going to call clone Tord, Red)

Red had made it look like Tord changed his mind on going to uni, coming up with a different plan that could still achieve their goals

Red had a more talkative, confident, and charismatic personality than the other Tord clones

Great at controlling an army, and pretty decent with machines

But Red wasn't doing this for himself, he was doing this for Tord

He had an obsession with living up to Tords goal

Also a big Tord simp

Planning on the two of them leading the army together after Tord returned (he would even let Tord rule solo if he wanted)

After the events of "The End", it just left Red with a ruined plan, friendships broken, and Tords work and public image in shambles

In the future, Tord teams up with the boys to take Red down

Tord is the one to finish Red off

I have it so the au can go down two routes

Tord can either pretend to be Red so he can dismantle the army, or pick up where Red left off (pissing off his friends who he just got to trust him, especially after he told them that what Red was doing is what he was planing to do years ago)

[palmettoshitposts]

seth (finally) gets what he deserves (seth lives kefu style)

for all that seth claimed he wanted to leave palmetto, he found leaving really hard. he may or may not have ended up drunk on wymack’s couch one time. he’s down the road in columbia as a trainee social worker; he feels so out of his depth, it’s harder than he thought to see these kids in the worst situations imaginable and parents who just refuse to fucking learn.

he’s started confronting the fact he grew up around a shit tonne of prejudice and that he’s been a dick to people who have stood beside him. he knows he’s made progress when allison - who’s become a bizarre sort of friend - reveals she’s dating renee, a trans woman, and he doesn’t feel the disgust he used to. he’s genuinely happy for her and happy she’s moved on from the unhealthy shit they had together. it probably hurt both of them more in the long run than any kind of enjoyment that had at the time would let them believe. again, he’s maturing.

he ends up with a lot of lgbt kids on his caseload and begins to really hate himself for being just like people who’ve hurt these kids. parents and siblings who acted like he did that have hurt them, made them runaway or even hurt themselves. his mentor, carmen, is a very brusque older black woman who tells him it’s in the past. he needs to leave it behind and recognise the fact he doesn’t do it now and actively hates it as progress. matt comes down every couple of weeks and they work out together. seth rants about all of this. he’s so fucking angry and matt’s just smiling. when the rant is over, matt just says he’s proud of seth. seth tells him to fuck off.

there’s one particular case that seth cant get his mind off of. he knows he should do what carmen says and just leave the cases at the desk but seth just cant. dante is twelve year old who is so fucking angry at the world because of how its treated him and everything he’s seen. every placement seth finds for dante lasts no longer than 3 weeks and time and time again they end up at the office, dante with his singular bag in tow and pissed off expression firmly on his face. one night, they cant place him at all and seth resigns himself to a night in the office with this now thirteen year old.

“god, you little asshole. maybe i’d be able to sleep if it wasnt for you,” seth sighs at one point, entirely exhausted. dante just genuinely laughs for the first time since seth has known him.

dante eventually just refuses to speak to anyone other than seth. the next morning, he’s refusing the singular placement the entire team have been able to find. seth’s like fuck it, and becomes his temporary foster parent. dante lives with seth for two weeks, and seth has no clue how to be a parent, but dante doesn’t care. he has a bed and a door that locks (andrew hands seth a lock that weekend in columbia - something thats become a tradition for all of the foxes from the canon year to attend. he just goes ‘for the kid. trust me.’ and seth does it without question. he and dante work together to screw it to the inside of his bedroom door), food and clothes. some dude that will play video games with him and call him a loser and buy his favourite foods and doesn’t expect him to be polite or ‘normal’. he promises seth he’ll try at his next home. it sort of breaks seth’s heart because he’s fairly certain the issue is the foster parents, not this damaged kid who reminds him of a fox in almost every way.

it lasts six months before dante runs away. he shows up at seth’s house with a black eye and a duffel bag, and a nonchalant attitude that is entirely fake. he begrudgingly tells seth the foster father found out he’s gay and ‘didn’t like it’. seth wants to kill him. dante is 13 and a grown man has raised his hand to him because what? he likes boys? fuck that. when dante is in bed that night, seth gets the closest to relapsing he’s been in years. he didn’t know dante was gay and it doesn’t fucking matter at all. he’s so fucking angry at the world and at his past self. there isn’t an ounce of disgust directed towards dante but seth is too fucking mad to see that for the progress it is. after a text to matt, he passed out on the sofa, exhausted from sheer anger. matt arrives then next morning to help them both out for a couple of days and seth realises he has a fucking family.

seth is still fuming the next morning and isn’t going to hide it. he makes it very clear it’s not directed at dante, though. dante is touched at how angry seth is about this. because it’s on his behalf, and in his defence. and the fact that seth allows him to see that anger, and that this isn’t okay. dante hasn’t had that before.

after that point, seth becomes dante’s long term foster parent. he sits dante down and offers to have him live with him until he ages out of the system. the ball is entirely in dante’s court. dante thinks seth is mad if he thinks theres anyway he’d pass up on that offer. seth is the best thing that’s ever happened to him and he tells him as much. it’s the first time in as long as seth can remember that he cries in front of someone else. dante is stunned and in awe of the sheer vulnerability of this scary looking asshole. dante is so fucking glad he doesn’t have to leave.

lilly devi is a bad ass family lawyer who’s been on the edge of seth’s social circle for years. a proud south asian trans woman with deep purple hair, a range of facial and body piercings and cochlear implants she takes off as soon as possible - shes about as unlikely a lawyer as seth is a social worker. shes close with renee and allison and comes to seth when a bunch of allegations about a foster parent appear on her desk. it turns out dante was just one in a line of kids abused by the same man. seth spends that night at the gym with matt, furiously working out until he can no longer think about how broken the system is.

lilly seems to keep her cool while dealing with the case. seth cant understand it - he’s still so fucking angry (something matt and dan seem to find weirdly endearing when they had dinner together?) - but he can appreciate her hard work. with minimal disruption to dante’s new, calm life, lilly navigates a successful motion to remove the bastards fostering licence and hands over the evidence she’s collected to the criminal courts. it’s out of their hands now but it’s been so swift and successful that seth is slightly in awe of this woman.

lilly swings by his office that night with a wicked grin. seth has privately thought shes stunning for a long time but hasn’t acknowledged it properly. it wouldn’t have been appropriate. besides, she knows about his shitty past attitudes.

but lilly surprised him.

“ren’s swinging by to see dante if you fancy a drink,” she says.

“to celebrate the case?” seth clarifies, a bit dumbfounded.

“as more, if you fancy. ball’s in your court,” she said, that grin still in place.

(for the record, dante has always thought lilly was a fucking badass and was thrilled when he found out they were dating)

(seth begins learning sign almost immediately. the first time he tells her he loves her, it’s in asl. it’s not lilly’s first language because of a shitty family who refused to learn for her but it is her preferred one. lilly gets down on one knee then and there, proposing with a random ring off her own finger. seth cherishes it forever)