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twst-discourse-bot · 2 years

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An Open Message to The TWST Fandom

If you have seen this post before, this is a repost. The previous version was not showing up in the tags.

This post is for anyone who has seen the posts of, interacted with, or felt harassed/made uncomfortable by the blog fandom4lesbians:

You are engaging in a bad faith argument with a racist, homophobic, TERF whose only interest is driving a wedge in the fans by starting pointless discourse using buzzwords and skin-deep morals to support their irrational words.

I have seen people already begin to put the pieces together as to who this person actually is and I wanted to come forward and present everything I felt obligated to dig up. I have evidence and connections that this person, “Marie” who claims to be a black trans lesbian aged around 16-18, is the one behind several genshin and twst accounts that have been seen in the tags before.

The Former Accounts (chronological order):

genshin-lumine

yuunatsukuyomiinwonderland

mult1fandoml3sbian

fandom4lesbians (current and most recently created)

Unfortunately, because I had not considered that I would ever need to make this post, I do not have as many screenshots as I would like, but please read what I have to say and draw your own conclusions. My goal is not to throw some overzealous teen to the wolves, it is to get rid of a nasty person who has made it their hobby to harass TWST and genshin fans. That being said, I am not in the genshin fandom so I do not know the full extent of what this person has done there, but I will mention what I know for sure.

If you’re wondering who I am, the answer is literally nobody. I am a lurker who is sick and tired of bigoted idiots taking over fandom spaces and making others uncomfortable, I just so happened to have some physical evidence against this one. I am also an adult, so I will attempt to remain calm and mature throughout this post, but please forgive me if tension rise a bit.

I will also potentially be making additional posts if more things come up, but I will not make any promises.

Evidence to Follow:

1. genshin-lumine and racism/homophobia

approx. 1-2 months ago, this blog popped up for me in the TWST tag, they had a long list of TWST OCs (all of which were female and darker skinned). nothing suspicious there, until

they made several posts claiming that--in addition to Leona, Ruggie, and Jack-- Kalim and Jamil (characters who are known to be middle eastern and even south east asian inspired) were also black because (paraphrase) “there is no way a character with skin that dark couldn’t be black”

furthermore, they made claims that shipping two male characters together was fetishizing mlm... but has no problem with wlw ships? this is where the TERF claim comes in, it’s nothing explicitly “man hating” but it’s not subtle either and the behavior continues in the future

all of this occurred in the span of a couple days, and people rightfully messaged them explaining that what they were doing and saying was wrong (i was one of them and gave them the benefit of the doubt, but quickly saw that was pointless), but the user only doubled down and refused to listen

i think at this point people also started going after their OCs, calling them boring, Mary Sues, stupid, etc. and that seemed to get a bigger reaction, but nothing major yet

i’m guessing enough people had gotten sick of them and were flooding their inbox with messages so they deleted. to start fresh.

2. yuunatsukuyomiinwonderland; Lumine 2.0

this blog started out pretty inoffensively, but something caught my eye as soon as i saw their post in the TWST tag. they made an OC (female, darkskinned) named Yuuna Tsukuyomi using the TWST chibi picrew--like many others have done, nothing wrong with it--but what stood out was the description. the wording and construction of the post was nearly identical to those from the lumine account. so i got suspicious immediately

once again people began messaging them, saying mainly that a non-Japanese person naming a non-Japanese character after an important Shinto god was not a good look, and again this person refused to listen, saying that it was their right to do what they wanted with their character

but people knew something was up, myself included, and after the circus that was genshin-lumine, i wasn’t being nice anymore and messaged this person in no uncertain terms that we knew who they were and to fuck off, we didn’t want them there

so they deleted, again. but guess what? something interesting happened when i was looking through my browser history for evidence that i wasn’t going crazy:

and this is when i knew that i had something. moving on.

3. mult1fandoml3sbian: the Return of Yuuna

now at this point, i thought it was over and was proven wrong. this account was essentially Yuuna Tsukuyomi but with a reskin. instead it was Yuri (i think) Amaterasu. again, same language, same chibi picrew, same problems. furthermore, the time between the creation, or at least awakening, of these accounts is too coincidental. genshin-lumine deleted and then soon after yuuna pops up, then yuuna deletes and around one week later this one comes out with a near identical blog just different name

and the problems start once more. i believe this is the point where they began receiving a lot of explicit anon hate, mainly racism and homophobic things which were... not pleasant to read by any stretch and i don’t condone anything that those anons sent. you are no better than her, you are equally bad if not worse. but these messages were brushed off with short, “zingy” responses, one-liners really, or some form of “that’s not nice”, despite the really gross things that were being said. and the traffic of these posts didn’t slow or stop, the user was seemingly responding to every one they received

so i doubt the total validity of those messages, but i will not outright say the user sent them to their own account bc i don’t know anything for sure

but, time passed and this blog was deleted as well. then, less than 3 days later...

4. fandom4lesbians, the Most Recent BS

here is when i lost all faith that there was a god.

it was really the same cycle on repeat, but this time they hit it big in the genshin community. the blog is still up at this point and refuses to stop so i recommend looking right at the source to see what exactly they are doing and what they received.

to summarize, they made inflammatory comments about two newly revealed female genshin characters being in a relationship and condemned people that shipped them with male characters. immediately afterwards they received a slew of vitriolic and disgusting messages to their inbox about their identity and race. however, my current theory is that they started out sending less offensive things to themselves but attracted other bad people (genshin is full of gross weirdos) that thought they were real and jumped down her throat with even worse comments.

but then the traffic stopped for a peaceful day or two, and then started up again full force and now they are spamming the TWST tag with their fem vs masc MC garbage

and many other prominent users have received messages in their inbox asking the exact same version of “what do you think of fem!MC in TWST anime?” literal copy and paste

and to my great joy, no one gave them the time of day, even when poked further by additional anons telling them to answer the question seriously. clearly that was not exactly the reaction they wanted. long live the Shrimp!

also, remember Boycott Ghost Marriage? that was this clown and plays further into my TERF claims

5. Conclusion

is anything in this post enough to be considered hardcore evidence in a court of law? no probably not, but i hope your critical thinking skills are developed enough to see my point

these four accounts all cropped up one right after the other, they were all genshin and TWST related, they all had something to say regarding the fandom and how they treated female characters/made bigoted comments towards minority groups/have the exact same habits and writing style in their posts

another thing i noticed is that they all reblogged posts from an account called damnfandomproblems as part of their first few posts, just another suspicious thing to add to the pile

6. What do YOU need to do?

ignore them, block them, report them. if you’re brave enough, go to their blog and tell them to go away, but whatever you do, don’t stake too much brain power on it.

and for the love of god, don’t be racist, homophobic, etc. to counter their BS

best case, they’re a troll who needs their IP banned. worst case, they actual believe the idiocy they’re spreading and aren’t going to stop spamming the tag until someone doxxes them or something (don’t do that, that’s illegal)

if anyone has further evidence of this person acting a fool, i will have my inbox open and welcome discussion

#twisted wonderland #twst #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #genshin impact #genshin

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the-owl-house-takes · 10 months

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“How is Belos a colonizer??” Bro needs a basic history 💀 How do you think Belos got to Connecticut in the first place? Also he genuinely colonized the Boiling Isles with how he took over don’t overlook that.

He can hate multiple things?? LMFAO the puritans hated tons of minorities witches included, even if we take the puritan shit out Belos is still bigoted I don’t understand why people are trying to defend him? 💀 He’s literally Belos

“He was not racist where the hell did that come from” bro do you hear what you’re saying - think about what time period he came from.

“There’s quite literally no homophobia or transphobia in toh” that’s only limited to the Boiling Isles 💀 and Belos definitely not from there

“I think it came from Luz being a POC” “it’s not a race thing” “idk where that idea that witches are a race came from but it’s definitely odd” literally just look at where Belos came from. All bigotry ties together mind you. For example you can’t advocating for women’s rights while being transphobic (TERFS) cause then you’re putting not only trans people down - but yourself and other minorities as well. It all connects. Also nobody is saying witches are a race 💀I don’t understand how Belos fans in all the time brainrot ting over Belos don’t realize what time period he came from and how’d it effect him?? (I am a Belos fan myself)

“It’s a fictional character guys!”

Yeah and people love thinking realistically abt him lmao. The fictional character arguments are always so lazy + ignore the real-world messages - yes he’s a fictional character. People like him because he’s so realistic. There are real, yes real people out there, who if they had the chance - would do the exact same things he did just to get rid of a minority. Thats not an exaggeration that’s simple how deep bigotry can run and I love how Belos’ can be portrayed in multiple ways.

Also saying that Belos only hates magic purely because Caleb got ‘corrupted’ by a witch is not correct at all. That bigotry was there longgg long ago 💀 if anything that only amplified it. Belos doesn’t have a justifiable reason to hate witches/magic (Caleb falling in love with a witch is not justified hatred.) he simply does it because he holds those bias & allegories for 400+ years. Note this can extend to how differing witches are to humans in Belos’ eyes. How LGBTQ+ is acceptable for witches while in humans it’s sinful, unnatural, etc. How witches don’t have racism (I swear to god if one more person tells me that there’s no people of color on the Boiling Isles, HAVE YOU SEEN GUS?? 💀) whereas Belos came from an era where racism (to put in its simplest terms) was very much thriving!

The Boiling Isles represents literally everything a bigot like Belos would be against, witches included. Witches can be gay, witches can be people of color, etc. “Belos hates witches only” doesn’t really work for him and what his character is written for. He’s an allegory of bigotry and with the way he acts & speaks you can definitely see it. Fiction affects reality and reality affects fiction.

“He wanted control over the magic and to limit it to what he wanted.” That’s true! I’m unsure where you were going with this? He actually didn’t want this, he only used the coven system as a way to kill everybody easily in one take. He simply needed to gain control over magic first - that was never apart of his original plan. He was out here to kill because the boiling isles represents everything he is against.

“But Caleb came from the same time period and he’s not bad!”

I love comparing Caleb & Belos together sm. Further cementing into the ground that Belos being a bigot is all his doing is because Caleb unlearned the bigotry. Caleb was also a colonizer, he was also a witch hunter! He also likely held those other harmful beliefs for most of his life! But Caleb changed, whereas Belos clung to those beliefs. That’s why I love these two they’re a great example of why bigotry is taught and can be unlearned! Acknowledging this can add to their stories more, give them more depth, add more realism to an already scary villain! The reason Belos is so scary as a villain is because of how real he is - there genuinely are people out there who’d do the same as him if given the chance.

As a POC who studies a lot about how bigotry develops - I love studying Belos, he’s very well written in this regard imo! I feel like people who don’t want to acknowledge the rest of Belos’ bigotry miss the point of his entire character arc 😭 he’s somebody who fell into the deep extremes of bias & hate - let him be hateful.

I hope this helped the original person to have a better understanding of this topic? They seemed ill informed/uneducated so I hope my rant helped 😭(not saying that as an insult btw)

#the owl house #toh #character analysis #long post

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angel-in-shibari · 2 years

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you obviously know nothing about what "terfs" believe in. radical feminism is a far left movement. your whole rant is so embarrassing and clearly shows you've never read any feminist theory, been in feminist spaces, or interacted with a single radical feminist ever.

if radical feminism is far left, why do you and the far right both want to commit genocide against trans people, sex workers, homeless people, disabled people, etc.? I've never seen a single radfem say one positive thing about any of those groups of people. it's always "they are a disgrace to feminism! they shouldn't exist! they make all women look bad! we need to get rid of them all!"

and before you say "oh genocide is such a strong word", this is the official definition of genocide from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: The Convention defines genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such." These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group.

you already have at least three of these right now for transgender people. trans people are more than four times more likely to be murdered, assaulted, or raped. laws are being passed to strip them of their rights, and you freaks scream so much about "protect the children" which you think can only be enacted by forcing the child to live in a very specific restrictive and harmful way, rather than letting the child make their own decisions. sex workers are also facing some of these, particularly by making their work illegal. you paint all sex workers as helpless victims being trafficed by some gross man, but most of them are literally just people who record their own porn at home to make money, and rather than victims of abuse, are instead victims of poverty and capitalism. if you actually cared about helping them, you'd fight to raise the minimum wage and get rid of stupid restrictions that prevent them from working normal jobs, instead of throwing them in jail because they sell their own ass pics online. homeless people are also major victims of capitalism, as well as being tightly interconnected with the trans community. a large portion of houseless people are trans, and trans people are more likely to be homeless than cis people, mainly due to transphobia. but rather than helping them, ie providing them with houses and jobs and accessible food and water, you want to make it illegal for them to exist, and encourage police to destroy their tents and steal what little possessions they have. and disabled people get the most shit. as someone whos both physically and mentally disabled (plantar fasciitis and arthritis at age 20, as well as autism, anorexia, and add), I can tell you first hand that we get treated like absolute shit, and half the time aren't seen as human. I was fired from my last job because I dared to ask to use a cane at work. nothing is accessible for us, we are constantly excluded from society, and if we ever want to get married and have children, our benifits are taken away. I've seen multiple instances of children being taken away by cps from moms with eating disorders or histories of self harm. they think that because they had trouble taking care of themselves in the past, that they are incapable of healing and unable to provide for their children. even worse, people constantly beg people with autism and adhd not to have kids for fear of passing down autism and "cursing their children with that terrible illness". I can say that ignoring the people who constantly treat you like shit, living with autism is absolutely fine and not at all a curse.

I've never seen any single one of you terfs advocate for the rights of these groups even a single time. it's always hate and bigotry with you. you'd rather us all die than do a single thing to make any of our lives moderately easier. I doubt you even see any of us as human. and you dare call yourself a feminist? you dare call yourself left wing? you make me sick. honestly I think every single one of you needs therapy.

#long post #kvetching

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wild-wombytch · 10 months

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Hey ladies 💗!

You can call me Tañ. I'm a 24yo European disabled dyke with sometimes approximate English. I'm also an anarchist and believe genders and sexual exploitation are as oppressive as (and products of) patriarchy.

I'm a veteran of the Reddit misogyny and purge against "TERFs" for saying neo/microlabels and bi/pan "lesbians" are harming real lesbians and bi women. I was already starting to be skeptical and tired by trans women talking over lesbians with pretty misogynistic takes, so I decided to look into the so frowned upon radical feminism and gender critical ideas, sensing this Reddit drama was just the tip of the iceberg. That's after years being a TRA/libfem.

I'm tired of the marketable liberal feminism and queer communities and catering to males' feelings, when they're actively hurting lesbians to satisfy their ego and so called feeling of erasure (forcing females who want nothing to do with males to cater to their mental health still or trying to coerce them into sex). I'm also tired that "lesbian" is always associated with porn, especially porn for straight men. So I hoped to get to know the radfem community here better, because you are the only ones who seem to give a fuck about women at all these days and trying to keep women from mutilating their beautiful bodies instead of caring for their mental health. I almost did that to myself due to the trans agenda convincing me that I was a "nonbinary transmasc" and not just a good ol' dyke not aligning with heteronormativity, so here I am. I'm still reading and learning about radical feminism. To be frank, I've been quite brainwashed into the TRA/pop feminism cult bs and genuinely have to rebuild myself psychologically and get all these things I interiorised (to be honest, mostly out of fear of being thrown out of my own lesbian community, leftist and "feminist" spaces) out of my head. Including things about my body and the "queer community" pushing for us to cater to men and shutting ourselves up instead of saying things as they are. I hope I can learn by interacting with the community here. I frankly need some sorority to help me out of the patriarchy and its genderist Hell. This ideology definitely made feminism go back of 50 year. Males can wear dress and be feminine without needing to get into our locker rooms and females can be butches and bind to alleviate dysphoria without being men.

What else to say? I don't want to say too much for now, because the world is so fucking dangerous for women, especially if they go against the men ideology. I really hope to find a peaceful corner here where I can interact with other lesbians without getting witch hunted for stating science and that I'm not into penises and without fucking men filling up the only internet spaces where we can just have women talks about women issues without always centering or integrating men.

I also discovered things like the Moon School, which helps me healing my relationship to being a woman and starting to accept again that I'm a lesbian and don't have to convince myself I'm either trans or having to be exactly like straight women or that gender matters. I'm learning to get rid of the internalised misogyny and feeling like I can't love what I want to love, especially if it's "girl things" or be emotional...etc I'll likely open up more and act more like my confident self once I'm used to be able to state my opinions without getting banned. Probably expect some NSFW and New Age content here. I have a spiritual approach to what it means to be a woman (exploring Wicca and the Dark Goddess).

I'm still learning to use Tumblr, so apologies if the tagging is shit or if the reading is hard on my blog for whatever reason (tell me if I can make it more accessible!). I'm still not confident being here, hope I'll learn. Feel free to DM or send recommendations in asks (about how to use Tumblr, radfem communities, radfem books/Youtube channels, women-centered spirituality...anything really) or just introduce yourself! Straight women have valuable inputs too, but I'd prefer to interact with other lesbians and ex-TRA, since we have more shared experiences. Hope I'm not being weird by spam liking and reblogging your posts there!

Also warning word that my beliefs are bound to adjust as I learn about radical feminism and heal my own relationship to being a woman. I'll still navigate radical feminism leaning, but might go more tirf or other orientations over time.

⚠️ Everyone except the dni can follow, I won't tell you "pro TRA kys" like people say about TERFs 🤷🏻. If you don't want gender criticals, misandrists possibly in the future TIRF, TERF, SWIRF, Dianic Witches or whatever to follow you, you can block me. ⚠️

Again, I'm too new to know exactly what I'm going for except radical feminism.

DNI : Men in general, bi/pan/male "lesbians" (febfems are cool, I refer to mspec "lesbians"), conservatives, alt right, the genderist/MOGAI crowd can respectfully interact and is welcome to like and reblog, but you're on thin fucking ice

#terfblr #terfsafe #terf please interact #radfem please interact #men dni #tumblr bios #radical feminists do interact #radical feminists please touch #tw long post

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empyllon · 1 year

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People are in general, disillusioned and claim that abstaining or not, voting with their wallets don't work.

•

But, they forget that engagement matters, and the real non-fungible token is your attention. Re-releases and installments are ultimately just attention grabbers, and by and large, the true "manspreaders" of media in the sense that they prevent actual new content from claiming space, and new creators to push new ideas.

So what to do about shitty/problematic media?

Well, considering the ethics, in this specific case of Hogwarts Legacy;

Buying to-then stream the game, even if donating the money does not rid your hands of the fact that you contributed to stochastic terrorism in your home territory (not to dismiss off-region tragedies, they deserve their own space). So simply put, your money went into the pockets of people who use fear and hate to restrict LGBTQ+ rights, and by extension, your rights (it starts somewhere, you know it). It sucks but your allyship is rescinded, sorry hun.

You could here, refund the game once you learned to do better, but then, you have already given attention and time to this.

So what then? Well, honestly if you want to be an egotistical prick and still play the game, do it. Don't act like playing a morally vague card removes you from being held accountable. The argument that you are "supporting" developers is moot, the only thing you are supporting is upholding your skinnerbox of self-gratification, while trying to hold face. Piracy could be an option if you dont want to pay, but streaming is still off-limits, displaying the media might put you in criminal trouble but you are removed from the financial-foodchain. However, you are still trading your attention-NFTs away.

It's here I'm reminded about an article in how Russia supposedly has weaponized social media to divert attention (Fri Tanke, Sans #3, 2022). And honestly, you can see it happening all over the web. MAPs claiming they belong in the LGBTQ+ community, the far right racking down on drag queens, terfs against transpeople, gamergate, r/animetitties now publishing news etc. The tactic is as old as rocks, to "divide and conquer". I would honestly call it divide and divert – much like how pickpocketers in the street are in groups of 2; one to distract, one to pilfer. You simply aren't aware it's happening.

With this in mind, I propose the following tactic instead of posting spoilers, instead of taking the piss out on disillusioned fans and instead of perhaps, maybe converting one; get to cash in on the attention NFTs.

What I mean with that is, simply, hijack the conversation, don't engage with people – let them engage with you, simply divert attention – if they can be distracted, you win. The new currency is hype and attention, you might get far instigating hate, but your speech-checks will fail more often if you aren't some top of the line salesman.

Hashtags are the modern way to sift through content, and the algorithm can be manipulated. It's theoretically possible to use the same means the right has used on twitter; taking the hashtags and keywords to divert attention elsewere. Let others instigate if they want, but add to the noise by drowning out the potterheads with irrelevant media and attention grabs. You've seen it happen with the Tate circus, you know it works.

It's effective and likely less chance to fail. And sure, some people will insist being a potterhead is do or die, that they deserve to have their inner-child make-a-wish dreams of the Nth HP game be fullfilled. So let them be that sour kid then, playing with their toys, in their own sandbox. A self-serving person is as likely to want to engage in topics on ethics, as a grouchy toddler to eat their veggies. You aren't looking to divert their attention, you wanna divert the others that are open to it. And if Jackson Galaxys theory is true; a no must be followed with a yes.

So instead of playing Hogwarts Legacy, I suggest;

Authors

Roald Dahl — The Witches

Jay Eaton — Runaway to the Stars

Terry Prattchett — The Color of Magic / Equal Rites

Susan Cooper — Silver on the Tree

C.S. Lewis — Narnia books

Among Gnomes and Trolls (Org. title Bland tomtar och troll)

Directors / Studios

Guiellmo Del Toro — Pinocchio, Pans Labyrinth, Cabinet of Curiosities

Cartoon Saloon — Song of the Sea, Wolfwalkers

Team Cherry — Hollow Knight (Silk Song is due soon)

Super Giant Games — Hades

What would you hold this space for?

Retweet, reblog, share. The algorithm knows. Make some noise.

#hogwarts legacy #harry potter hogwarts game #harry potter #fuck jkr #jk rowling #literature #video games #hogwarts mystery #post hogwarts #hogwarts express #potterhead #fantasy #wizard #hp #signal boost #signal boooooost #signal b00st

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the-feminist-philosopher · 2 years

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You just doubled down on your argument that believing transgenderism is misogynistic automatically aligns you with conservatives.

I could give you a big list of horrible atrocities being committed by right wing men with access to guns, the mass shootings because of a lack of gun control, would that convince you that we need to disarm the proletariat? Does wanting an armed proletariat mean that you support right wing violence, because you agree with conservatives that people should have the right to own guns, even when those guns are being used to kill innocent children?

Maybe if feminists weren't being attacked by the misogynistic male left, and could actually have a voice in the left, desperate women with no resources trying to find support for our human rights wouldn't feel like the right wing is the lesser of two evils.

I mean, when trans activists are nailing dead rats to rape shelters, deplatforming feminists who speak out about misogyny, shutting down and controlling any conversations about women's rights to make sure that men are being centered, and witch hunting any lesbian who refuses to take penis, and sometimes even going so far as to rape and murder women, it's not like feminists are going to get any solidarity with so-called left wing movements, who prioritize males over women. Your movement is literally cannibalizing feminists and then wondering why these desperate women are going, "Hmmm, well left wing men want to get rid of all women's rights forever in one fell swoop by controlling the legal definition of woman, and conservatives want to chip away at my rights slowly over time one by one... I have no resources, who can help me?"

Idk, maybe let women speak about our oppression freely in left wing spaces, provide resources to feminists, allow women to have female only spaces and organize around our class consciousness rather than trying to maintain male control and male hegemony and male definitions of womanhood? And then women will come back to the left, where we used to be, until this trans movement (which btw has all the same goals of the Men's Rights Movement: destroy female class consciousness, destroy female only space, etc...) took over.

You just doubled down on your argument that believing transgenderism is misogynistic automatically aligns you with conservatives.

Because it does. The only people who believe this are on the right, often the far-right, of the political spectrum. You must not like to read?

So I am going to lay it out for you again (because copy-paste is easy for those who refuse to read):

Politically, TERFs have put their eggs in the same basket as people passing anti-abortion policies, people trying to pass girl's genital inspection policies for sports, people trying to ban LGB books, people who want to repeal the right to gay marriage, and people who believe that a woman's "place" is in the home- serving a husband and children all to score a political point against trans people.

Literal white supremacists and white supremacist organizations (See: Richard Spencer’s Radix) are trying to turn TERFs into “race realists.” And they're actually having a lot of success because 1.) the movement is chronically white, 2.) the movement is built a lot on social fears, and 3.) the movement often uses crime statistics as a recruitment and justification point. Literal white supremacists are using the TERF's social grievances and crime statistics to "enlighten" these supposed feminists about what they call the "race question." Over-policing and capitalistic deprivation of resources have devastated black and brown communities, making members of those communities the disproportionate victims of incarceration. Simply pointing out crime and incarceration stats without nuance, which TERFs like to do with their "trans women are all sexual predators" crime argument, has actually helped the bottom line of white supremacists.

They're also using the standard TERF's belief in the divine feminine-- the idea that natal women have a unique biology which should be protected and venerated-- to convince them that there are "masculine" and "feminine" energies and turn them onto the trad life. And they're tapping into the TERF's unaddressed "benevolent" sexism-- a type of sexism that positively rewards people assigned female at birth for observing their sex-assigned social prescriptions from presentation to roles to a cis identity, and which holds that women should be protected (by the [masculinist] state) and revered, most especially for their unique biology-- to convince them that "modern society" and "modern feminism" is diseased and the antithesis to their liberty. And it's working. It's working precisely because TERFs are so eager to separate people into "biological" castes so that men are men and women are women (and never the twain shall meet), define women as "the sex that can bear offspring or produce ova," and reify gendered associations, specifically the association that men are Aggressors and women are passive Recipients of said aggression. This ideology actually does quite a bit to uphold patriarchal ideas that define women as a discrete biological category and it also encourages a system whereby men act on behalf of and choose for women (the Aggressor v. Recipient social prescription does a lot to justify rape culture, or men acting aggressively on behalf of and choose for women).

^This is why notorious misogynists like Matt Walsh have shown open support for high-profile TERFs and have taken the "Adult Human Female" slogan and run with it. There's a reason these men on the "right" of the political spectrum can't stand the existence of trans people, but will voice support for TERFs and their ideology and use their language. The TERF ideology is sexist and they're sexists, so it follows.

Additionally, over the last several years, many rad fem leaders and organizations have come to ally with LGB &T hate groups and the Christian right because they, "know who real women are." It is these christian right groups like the FRC and ADF who are behind many of the anti-abortion, anti-women movements through the U.S. and Europe. They're also behind a lot of anti-trans policies and legislation.

You can read a bit about who is behind funding these policy initiatives, and how much money goes into these campaigns below:

European Parliamentary Forum

Southern Poverty Law Center on the ADF

Southern Poverty Law Center on the FRC

And you can read about the connection between these groups and trans-exclusionaries and radical feminists below:

Southern Poverty Law Center on the Far-Right Anti-Trans Laws

Southern Poverty Law Center on the Anti LGBT Campaigns

Political Research Associates on Partners with the Christian Right

An "Unlikely" Ally

The Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) even accepted a $15,000 donation from the religious freedom giant, the Alliance Defending Freedom. They've also co-authored anti-trans parenting guides with the Family Policy Alliance and the Heritage Foundation. They've held conferences and panels with Christian-right organizing groups too

We've also seen countless radical feminists appear on Tucker Carlson Tonight and the Ingraham Angle, two Fox hosts well-known for whipping up anti-immigrant, xenophobic sentiment in America's Christian Nationalist movement. Speakers included: Meg Kilgannon, Kara Dansky, Tammy Bruce, and Julia Beck.

The term "gender ideology" even has it's origins in conservative Christian circles. And don't even get me started on their use of "hygiene" to describe cis people and the fact they co-opted the idea that certain people (in this case, trans people) have "contaminating" genes. Plus, TERF complaints about the supposed existence of "cancel culture" and "woke culture" echo conservative and right-wing rhetoric.

would that convince you that we need to disarm the proletariat

Some of your favorite pseudo-feminist anti-trans leaders are billionaires and business owners who run sweatshops to bring you the pussy hats and "Adult Human Female" shirts and pins that say transitioning is conversion therapy and rape culture.

You don't give a shit about the proletariat. Otherwise, you'd care about impoverished and prostituted trans workers. If you cared about the proletariat, you'd care about the trans workers packing your Amazon shipments and making your Starbucks and building your smart phone and striking alongside other factory workers and subduing exactly those mass shooters you like to mention again and again. And if you cared about the proletariat, you'd listen to prostituted trans women on the sex industry.

The US has a white supremacy problem. And there's a reason many of it's terrorists mass attack bars and events full of trans people.

You don't give a single damn about the proletariat.

So, let me get this straight. The people stripping others of abortion rights, forcing children into genital inspections, who want to ban gay marriage, who are burning books, who want a Christo-fascist empire are the "lesser of two evils."

"[T]he progressive and conservative elements of Fascism [are] bound together: the 'progressive' cause... is but a means to a 'reactionary' end, the destruction of the parliamentary form of government. Women thus [have] key social and political roles to play in the battering ram fascism [takes] to liberal democracy."

They literally believe in creating a white-supremacist, christo-fascist nation and you think "Yah, these are the guys to side with. But only temporarily until we can destroy those libs!"

You'd rather choose white supremacy over advocating for trans people even though advocating for trans people in no way attacks women. And then had the audacity to suggest I am misguided in saying you're motivated by hatred:

You cannot claim to have a genuine desire to free women from oppression while thinking white supremacy is the lesser of two evils.

deplatforming feminists who speak out about misogyny, shutting down and controlling any conversations about women's rights to make sure that men are being centered, and witch hunting any lesbian who refuses to take penis, and sometimes even going so far as to rape and murder women,

Only people being deplatformed are misogynists and sexists.

Men are not being centered in any trans-positive discussion of human rights or misogyny or sexism. You're just a bigot who cannot see trans women for who they are.

"How one becomes a woman is not, I think, our job to police, even as everything about that process is worth inquiry and detailed understanding. Having been surrounded by born women who do not identify as women particularly, and reject feminism as having nothing to do with them, it has been inspiring to encounter transwomen who do identify as women, actively oppose violence against women including prostitution (in which those who engage have little choice), and are strong feminists. “Woman” can be, in part, a political identification. To be a woman, one does have to live women’s status. Transwomen are living it, and in my experience bring a valuable perspective on it as well." -Catharine Mackinnon

Trans women are women.

No one is hunting down lesbians who don't want to suck dick. This is an outrageous outrage-buzz point. No one is forcing this. This is not a thing. There is no observable pattern of behavior among all trans women that suggests lesbians are systematically pressured into taking dick. The trans community- the community, the whole- recognizes that it is okay to not want to have sex with someone. You can say no or yes to anyone you want and literally do not need to justify it.

(But, please, for the love of fuck, do come up to someone- even a trans person- and, unprompted, talk about how you don't want to have sex with them and think their genitalia is disgusting and thay are just *so* unattractive. That is sexual harassment. Rule of thumb: if you'd slap a man for saying it, don't repeat it to a trans woman.)

it's not like feminists are going to get any solidarity with so-called left wing movements, who prioritize males over women

And the right-wing prioritizes women? They find solidarity there? I'm sure they certainly don't prioritize traditional gender roles or anti-abortion, or marital rape (/sarcasm).

THESE are literally the people who are trying to deny you your rights in "one fell swoop." They are hardly the lesser of two evils. In the US, most of the most prominent anti-abortionists are being investigated for child sex trafficking. They want to murder all Jewish people and start a race war. They believe we should be ruled by biblical law; that we should put people to death for being gay, trans, or an adulterer. They literally support child-marriage. They're dismantling voting rights, dismantling Title IX, dismantling bodily autonomy rights, and dismantling non-discrimination laws and you think they're the "lesser of two evils?"

Your movement is literally cannibalizing feminists and then wondering why these desperate women are going, "Hmmm, well left wing men want to get rid of all women's rights forever in one fell swoop by controlling the legal definition of woman ...allow women to have female only spaces and organize around our class consciousness rather than trying to maintain male control and male hegemony and male definitions of womanhood

Okay, so, again, feminists- true feminists- reject the attempt define womanhood because it is inherently subjective. They understand that defining a woman and one experience of women ("womanhood") 1.) will leave a lot of women out, and 2.) is ultimately about power.

We can no longer ignore how biology, biological discourse, and the terms and words we use to refer to our material reality are structured by historic and current social and political views. A biological reality becomes cognitively significant through this discourse and these terms we use and concepts we engage with. So, defining “women” as “females” -- and thus emphasizing a label that is ascribed to all at birth along patriarchal standards of "correct" genitalia and "best" fertility -- is itself a political choice influenced by one’s socialization rather than one that can claim to neutrally reflect what the world is “really” and "materially" like.

The reliance upon one standard definition not just for the women's-experience, but also for the female-experience, is laughable, at best. And not just because definitions are inherently imprecise and inadequately encompass the entirety of our lived experienced and the material world. But also because the definitions of words are literally socially constructed. They were created and have since been defined and influenced by oppressive structures like the patriarchy and white supremacy and colonialism. This defining of our experiences is influenced by cissexism, intersexism, heterosexism, and sexism.

There isn't a single property that makes "womanhood" or "femaleness." And that's pretty widely accepted. There's no single thing that single-handedly makes for "womanhood." It's not like after a certain number or configuration of properties converging at a particular time, you get "womanhood." There should never be some one standard against which all bodies are compared or measured for the correct amount of "femaleness" or "womanhood."

So, when people want to create a standard measure for "femaleness" or "womanhood," we need to ask WHO gets to set these standards or properties of "femaleness" or "womanhood" and WHY they're the authority. In any claim about which measures or properties are adequately "woman-enough" are assumptions about power and authority. Who has the power and authority in our society to decide who is "woman-enough?"

The fact society defines "women" as ova producers and child bearers (i.e. the very definition of human female; the sex that has the ability or potential to bear offspring or produce eggs) or even as vagina havers and uterus havers (i.e. the insistence that, "only someone with a uterus or vagina is a woman") is a result of socialization in a male dominant society that has striven to define "woman" as a discrete biological class, female.

Even radical feminist Catharine MacKinnon (an actual radical feminist, and she supports trans women) understood that to be defined as female is to be an object. You do not get to consent to yourself; to your femaleness. It has been defined and ascribed to you and for you. Because male dominant society must see to it that female is a woman and "clearly" a woman, opposite that of "man." It must see to it that women are women and men are men and that the two ought be separate because this allows said society to prescribe certain bounds to each group.

Certain bounds of behavior. Certain bounds of public life. Certain bounds of private life. Certain bounds of presentation.

And this all helps foster the reification of gendered associations that decrease the perception of women as empowered agents and even human. These bounds of behavior assign to men the role of Aggressor and to women the role of passive Recipient, helping to reproduce sexual violence against women by decreasing their agency. These social prescriptions encourage men to act on behalf of women from making financial or relationship decisions, to deciding when and where and how a woman has sex, to the definition and social prescription of "female," and to the reproductive alienation of those assigned female.

Thus, "female" is far from a neutral scientific observation and "woman" is far from a scientific category.

“Any attempt to catalog the commonalities among women … has the inescapable result that there is some correct way to be a woman. This will inevitably encourage and legitimize certain experiences of gender and discourage and delegitimize others, subtly reinforcing and entrenching precisely those forces of socialization of which feminists claim to be critical.” -Carol Hay

And then women will come back to the left, where we used to be, until this trans movement (which btw has all the same goals of the Men's Rights Movement: destroy female class consciousness, destroy female only space, etc…) took over.

AKA... restrict trans people's bodily autonomy and existence for my own comfort because you don't have any actual ideas for how to advance a woman's life unless your work is tied to suppressing the rights of some other group. You don't want to liberate women, you want to throw trans women under the bus and use their backs as a stepping stone or ladder so your skirt doesn't get dragged through the mud.

You guys hate femininity, so have no solution to the arbitrary gendering of clothes and clothing standards beyond shaming women for wearing them as "not feminist enough." And then when they walk into a bathroom looking a little too "male" for your liking, they're harassed, forcing women into a double bind where they aren't feminist enough for you if they are feminine, but also aren't "female" enough for you if they are not feminine.

You don't want to do anything to attack the gender binary or the idea that if female->woman->feminine, if male->man->masculine. You simply don't. You don't want to challenge the idea that certain types of dress and behavior and standards *must* apply to people on the basis of the sex caste they were assigned into. I mean, the transphobe go-to insult for trans women is "men in dresses," which makes no sense as an insult unless you think that dressers are inherently lesser because society deemed them "feminine" and because you think men "shouldn't" wear dresses.

You don't want to tackle gender differentiation- of the idea that men are men and women are women and they fundamentally must be two separate and impermeable castes.

You don't want to tackle benevolent sexism and the deification of (certain) women (as long as they follow certain behaviors). You're group will claim that having a period is materially neutral in one breath and then in the next say that people should be celebrated for their fertility. Without any consideration for how the necessity of (white) female fertility is a patriarchal and white supremacist construct.

You're all unwilling to use epicenic language, like person-first language (person with the capacity for pregnancy), second-person language (if you can get pregnant...), or gender-neutral language (chair/chairperson, camera operator, parent, child, etc...).

You all literally do not want to abolish gender or the gender-sex binary. You don't want to create a society of gender-non/existent/neutral children. You all think that's indoctrinating them into "transness." All you want to do is legislate trans people out of existence. You want to make their identities non-existent. You don't want to abolish gender, you want to abolish the chance for permeable gender expression in favor of a gender that is acceptable to you.

You want to silence trans voices, not uplift women. You want to use trans bodies as your platform from which to preach and evangelize your ideal binary and the standard for which you believe all women should meet to qualify for "womanhood."

Modern feminism holds that social categories intersect at the individual level to reflect multiple interlocking systems of privilege and oppression at the social-structural level. Intersectionality is about overlapping systems of oppression and privilege, and how inequalities operate together and exacerbate each other.

The TERF's insistence that cis women (“females” as you’d put it) are a culturally subordinate caste while trans women are members of the oppressor caste entirely discounts the ways in which sex, gender, and cis/trans status intersect. “These intersections produce more complex, shifting, and context- dependent power relationships than are captured by [a simple, binary] M > F formula.” This M > F formula also leads to an over-emphasis of sex subordination in TERF circles to the point that many believe that the patriarchy is the most pivotal and consequential axis of oppression. Too many completely write-off or ignore the intersection of privileges and marginalizations, from racism to cissexism to homophobia to intersexism to classism.

This has led the rad fem movement to fail to address how these systems are reproduced within their organizations, which is why the movement remains chronically white and middle class and predominately straight. This also lead them to ignore the way women play a part in the reproduction of oppressive systems (and even the degradation of democracy), making it easy for anti-pluralistic ideologies which deny these oppressions to spread among TERF ranks.

This is also how we get reductive takes like, "It's empowering to deny a homeless man socks when you're a woman, because he's a man." And this take is all over TERF twitter, calling them "moids."

Trans women do not have systemic power over cis women. They do not have access to the patriarchal power structure and are unable to wield it in their favor. The patriarchy literally hates their existence. All the misogynistic men who rush to the defense of white women like JK are all well known for despising trans people. There isn't a single "MRA" who doesn't want trans people dead.

The fight for bodily autonomy and freedom to live and let live; to identify however one sees fit is hardly "cannibalizing" the left. Transphobes will not be accepted in feminist and liberation movements, period. That isn't cannibalizing our own, that's letting reductive and reactionary movements know they aren't invited and we will not tolerate them. You've made your bed with literal Nazis. We don't want you among our ranks. You are not a feminist. And now you feel put out because you have to sleep in the bed you made.

Amazing. Everything you just said is wrong.

The only reason that femininity (defined as: the attributes or characteristics of a woman) is considered "weak" is because the patriarchy has convinced you that women are "weak" and that anything feminine is inherently "lesser." Nothing about femininity is inherently about being weak or pretty or demure or delicate or graceful. Even "feminine," the adjective that oft refers to those traditional standards has more than one application. As a noun, it literally just refers to a gender or the female sex.

It's literally just the characteristics you use to define your own femaleness. There's nothing capitalist in self-identity and forging your own path of "womanhood."

But the patriarchy has convinced you that anything and everything the female sex does is "lesser;" that any attribute a woman characterizes herself with becomes "weaker."

"Online alt-right corners have demonized feminist paradigms in an incredibly effective way. They saw the disaffection women felt toward the idea of convenient incrementalism and how it failed to liberate women. So, they made feminism synonymous with stagnation.

They saw women's legitimate grievances against systemic violence and oppressive structures and how addressing them would challenge male-dominance in society. So, they used those grievances to convince some women that other women with less social capitol and power are a threat and the reason for their insecurity.

Suddenly, liberal feminism no longer referred to a paradigm; to a type of feminist theory that held that laws are the primary barrier to civil emancipation. It was a boogeyman. And its existence was a threat to women. So it must be destroyed.

Women have key social and political roles to play in the battering ram that fascism takes to liberal democracy. The white man needs the white women. He cannot hope to uphold white supremacy and the hierarchy of race and sex without her.

Convincing women that feminism is really just their oppression repackaged in pink sparkles was one of the smartest things the alt-right could have done. They've been convinced that feminism has become 'girlbossing' and denying your material reality and the exploitation of your labor and alienation from your reproductive functions and the destruction of happiness and family and community and inherently capitalist. It isn't your liberation. Its your prison; the place of eternal double-binds where you aren't "woman-enough" if you can't have kids but you aren't "feminist enough" if you chose to be a mother." X

#long post

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who-is-page · 2 years

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I keep seeing the whole "staff is pedophilic and transphobic" stuff floating around, but every Google document I've read on it only showcases fandom drama and argues why so-and-so fandom/ship that a staff member was a part of or reblogged is terrible/evil/bad/etc., rather than showing anything demonstrable of actual IRL pedophilic actions and transphobic attitudes. While I think we can all agree that the author of HP is awful, I don't think someone shipping characters from the books actually counts as them being transphobic or a TERF in any way. And note, I'm saying that as a trans person; I'm not interested in petty flamewars and faux fandom activism. Someone being a part of one fandom over another does not really change my life in any observable way, and I'm a little sick of people implying it does or using it as a cudgel to bash other people and accuse them of things that might not be true. I need real, actual transphobic rhetoric and not just ... Draco and Hermione ship art ... to believe that someone is actively, maliciously against trans people. In the same way, avoiding Harry Potter like the plague does not actually make you a perfect little angel of gender activism who's actively working towards trans rights and equality. Sorry, but not sorry! No one in either scenario is doing jack shit! Go to a fucking protest, donate actual money or goods to a trans person in need, and support trans-owned projects and businesses if you want to claim you've done actionable change, because I'm sick of arm chair activists who don't actually do shit but then act as though their word and online harassment campaigns are single-handedly saving lives everywhere. You're not helping anyone.

The way staff handled target harassment of one of their members was probably overly-harsh, but I was also on this hellsite when Tumblr ruined one woman's entire career in ecology because of baseless accusations of zoophilia(iirc), so I'm also not exactly sympathetic to the deleted after witnessing what that stuff can do to someone's career. Something something fuck around and find out. I'm especially not super sympathetic given now my dash is just fucking covered in "if you have ever liked [long list of seemingly fucking random fandoms and fictional ships] you're an evil, no-good person in your core who probably wants to vandalize buildings and kidnap children!!!! But we all already knew that because we're the Elect good pure beans who have never touched those Evil Fandoms isn't that right followers :)" type commentaries because of it.

This is just a personal rant, but as an out trans person who was openly queer and homeless for five years, who's actually affected by and faces real-life transphobia pretty fucking regularly, this drives me nuts. It's fucking fandom wank and it has literally zero moral judgement values whatsoever attached to it by virtue of its existence. People are just using it as an excuse to sit on their ass and claim they've 'helped fight against transphobia,' when in reality they're too terrified to step away from their computers and work to tackle the actual physical injustices trans people regularly have to wrestle with. Unfortunately, some of us--like me!--don't get the option to just hide behind a screen and pretend that if only we could eradicate all Harry Potter fans from the universe, we could magically rid the world of transphobes.

#personal #rant #vent

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zire-in-space · 3 years

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This Is Always Going To Be My Pinned Post

I'm through with humanity right now, as so much shit has made me go batshit insane over the extreme marginalization by other marginalized peoples. So I'm making this my official pinned post to rid and block anyone that are these things below:

Anti-semetism: I couldn't give two fucks if you are a redneck conservative alt-right winged asshole or some wannabe woke anarchist or progressive. There are no differences between a white or black anti-semite and I make no fucking exceptions for it.

Homophobia: Pretty much the same as above I do not give two shits if you are democrat or republican, and I definitely do not let any homophobic hate on my blog, whether from a black or white personor anyone in between.

Transphobia: I dont care if your a lesbian/gay person, if you're black or white, if you're a woman or not, a feminist or not, a Democrat or not, I do not allow any type of Transphobia on my platforms.

Sexism and Misogyny: Again, I do not care if you are white or black, democrat or conservative, man or not, lgbtq+ or not, I do not tolerate nor allow sexist or misogynistic shit on my blog.

Racism / Prejudice / Colorism / Anti-Blackness etc: I couldn't give a thought of a fuck for this shit, I do not care if you are black and support or are a black fake woke activist for BLM or if you are some white degenerate All Lives Matter supporter or activist, or if you're a asian or hispanic or muslim or native american. I. Do. Not. Care. What. Race. Or. Ethnicity. You. Are. I do not tolerate any racism nor marginalization from anyone.

****addition to the racsim/prejudice part:***

(I also do not want anyone playing Oppression Olympics with my posts. There is not a marginalized group that is more oppressed, nor is there one less oppressed. This is always a move made by some of the black community or lesbian/gay terfs to both ignore/wave away issues related to other marginalized groups, but also to be able to discriminate and marginalize other groups (who are non-privileged). I am aware other communities do this aswell, however I have been seeing a pukable amount of this within those two communities. Those who defy this rule will be blocked and reported.)

***end***

Xenophobia: Another I-don't-give-two-fucks-who-you-are thing. If you are black or white, lgbtqa+ or a cishet, woman or man, I do not want nor tolerate any xenophobic slurs or hate speech at all. And again my tired ass don't care if you are some fake woke anarchist or centrist or liberal or conservative or progressive. I do not care.

Albeism: I do not care who you support. What race you are. What religion you may be. I do not accept any excuses nor give any exceptions or listen to whatever dumbass arguement you will give to be an albeist piece of shit.

This post will stay pinned for as long as I want. Until people realize they cannot try me with their prejudice asses, until this blog is a total blockade away from any of the things above, and a true safe space for any and everyone who is a decent human being, it will remain this way. I do not care. Unless you are getting depressed by my posts and want an occassional cute comic or oc backstory then you go to my asks.

This blog is a safe space for those who want to crack a joke to chill out. Talk about controversial stuff but also understand you cannot say that the amount of given humanity towards certain groups is a debate. Maybe bring awareness to an issue without the stress of aligning withsome dumbass strict blm usage or with hateful xenophobic rhetoric. For trans women to go to talk about feminism and their support without the stress of terfs and radfems. For lgbtqa+ people to feel welcomed without the dreaded feeling that the people of this community I want to build will suddenly harm them with their sexuality/gender identity. For non-christians to go to and not get pitted against the bible or god or jesus and feel like they can practice their religious beliefs without being hunted or mocked for it. For black people to go to without the dreaded fake woke white people demanding blm focus on blue lives matter instead of focusing on their brothers and sisters and other colored peoples. For nuerodivergent people to go to without the constant albiesm hate and rhetoric from nuerotypicals.

At this point I could not care less if my blog only had colored, immigrant supporting, lgbtqa+, non-christian, nuerodivergent or disabled pro-choice feminist women in it. As long as it takes to make all of Tumblr understand and know about my blog and that it is absolutely inclusive and extremely progressive and anti-capatalist and pro-choice.

Till then, this post will be pinned.

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caecilius-est-pater · 4 years

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Really now, anti's? Did the meaning change or something because I'm very sure anti means anti-pedo shipping, anti-incest shipping.

To quote that one meme: well yes, but actually no. Antis are to “let’s stop pedophilia in fandom!” as TERFs are to “let’s support women’s rights!” - sounds good in theory, but in practice ineffectual and mostly just an excuse to bully people. I’m going to choose to be optimistic and take this as a good faith question from someone who genuinely doesn’t know, so I’m going to explain why.

The ideology sounds great at the surface level, like hell yeah, let’s get rid of pedo shit! Who wouldn’t agree with that? But once you go past the absolute shallowest surface level and say, OK, now what steps do we take to accomplish that? then you start to hit snags. Legally, the only stuff that’s banned is images/videos/etc of real life children being abused. Things like ship art or explicit fics of underage fictional characters are perfectly fine. Therefore, legally, anyone making that content is not breaking any rules.

If you say, well, I don’t agree with that, I want more things to be banned, then you have to come up with new rules of what should and shouldn’t be allowed. Who gets to decide that? Is there a committee? How are committee members chosen? How do you account for biases in the committee, such as race or age or gender? Once the committee has come to a decision about the new rules, how do you enforce them? What do you do about people or groups who refuse to follow the new rules? How do you spread the news to all of fandom that there are new rules in the first place?

And what about the rules themselves? How do you define “pedo content” beyond the legal definition of featuring real children? Maybe you say, that’s easy, let’s just go with all sexual content featuring people under 18. OK, cool, you’ve now made it illegal for minors to talk about their own experiences. Minors have sex, minors fantasize about sex, minors masturbate, minors experience rape and abuse, and now you’ve just put a gag order on all those millions of people. I don’t know about you, but I think letting people draw/write fictional characters having sex (even gross, weird sex) is the lesser of two evils compared to hurting millions of real, living children.

And anyway, how do you define “sexual content” in the first place? Is it OK if there’s no graphic detail? Is masturbation OK? What about sexual fantasies? How about making out? At which base do you draw the line between “acceptable expression of sexuality” and “pedophilia”? Or is any expression of sexuality not OK? Kissing? Holding hands?

At this point you’re probably saying, gee tumblr user caecilius-est-pater, that sounds both untenable (how are we going to get all of the internet to agree to unite under One Committee To Determine the Rules?) and like an insane unending rabbit hole! Nobody could ever do that! Yep. For better or for worse, we as a bunch of randos on the internet just do not have the power to change the broad planet-wide rules of what does and does not count as pedophilia.

You can probably see how this is a problem for the anti movement, which is all about enforcing those new, stricter rules. The ones that don’t exist and realistically can’t exist. How do you enforce nonexistent rules? The answer antis have landed on is to just make them up, every man for themselves. As you can probably imagine, this... doesn’t work too well, to put it lightly.

Some people think it’s OK to write about CSA as long as the author actually experienced it, other people think it’s never OK and even real life CSA survivors are pedophiles if they write about it. Some people think aging up teenage characters is OK, other people think if they’re underage in canon then depicting them in sexual situations at any age counts as pedophilia. Some people think sexual depictions of characters who look young (art styles with big eyes, short characters, characters with high voices, etc) is pedophilia, even if the characters are canonically adults. Etc ad infinitum.

Which brings us to the two things I said antis are: ineffectual and and a front for bullying. It should be obvious how the movement is ineffectual - you’re never going to get anywhere with removing bad people from your community if nobody can agree what a bad person actually is.

The bullying comes in because it’s very hard to get people to bully someone, but very easy to get people to join a witch hunt. “Let’s all harass and doxx this person because they’re a jerk” isn’t gonna get me very far, but “Let’s all harass and doxx this person because they’re a pedophile” is going to bring out a mob with torches and pitchforks if I can convince everyone I’m telling the truth. And by the antis’ mutable definition of pedophilia that can include anything from teenagers kissing to consenting adults who knew each other as kids, I’ve got a lot of tools in my arsenal to convince people.

And the insidious part is that nobody can defend you without immediately opening themselves up to the same accusations, because if you're being called out as a pedophile for supporting a ship with a height difference, anyone who says, “hey, I don’t think that’s pedophilia” is now also supporting ships with a height difference, ergo supporting pedophilia. (And if anyone is thinking “you’re making all these strawman examples up, nobody actually believes that”, I envy your blissful ignorance but let me assure you, I am not.)

And that kind of situation leads to an atmosphere where everyone is terrified of doing anything wrong or they’ll be the next one viciously attacked, and the only way to keep good social standing is by continously attacking other people whether you agree with the extreme ideology or not, and that’s how you get bullying, harassment campaigns, and anti groups that have become genuine, legitimate cults. I’ve lost the links but there are some truly chilling twitter threads about that if you’re interested.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, whether it was a case of the proverbial road to hell being paved with good intentions or whether the movement was co-opted by people who didn’t actually care about stopping pedophilia and really just wanted an excuse to cyberbully people, the movement has evolved to a point where it’s mainly a harassment campaign with only the thinnest veneer of actually trying to prevent pedophilia. Nobody is out here running charity drives to donate to help abused children or making their own safe spaces where people can view art and fic without worrying about encountering triggering content - in fact, antis have been offered multiple sites to use as replacements for AO3 where they can set whatever TOS they want and have always refused. The only thing most antis do to combat pedophilia in fandom is callouts and harassment.

Not to mention the irony in the fact that so many of the people targeted are, in fact, minors. In their quest to avoid people potentially getting hurt by fictional content, they’re doing real, tangible hurt to actual, living people, including kids.

So that’s how we got here. Being anti-pedo and being an anti are not the same thing, and if you see a reference to the latter, it means a member of a specific pro-censorship movement focused on hurting (mainly young, marginalized) people as “activism”.

#(gets out my bat and takes a crack at the hornets nest)#long post #caecilius dixit #Anonymous

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jaskiersbard · 4 years

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The Fantastic Beasts Franchise and JK Rowling

Alright, so...hi everyone.

I don’t know how many people follow this blog anymore because my main blog of operation is now @alwaysahiccupandastrid - I still try to keep this blog relatively active though, just because it was my original blog, I’ve had it since I was 13, and I have so many memories attached to it.

I’m aware that a lot of the people who follow me, especially since late 2016, do so because a) I was a loud and proud Fantastic Beasts fan, b) I wrote some Newtina and Jakweenie fic, and c)...I don’t know. I literally don’t know why people bother following me anywhere because I don’t feel like I have a lot to say. But, anyway, many people probably follow me due to Fantastic Beasts and my posts/fanfics within the fandom.

Those who follow my active blog will already know my feelings and thoughts, but because of the fact many things about this blog - me, the posts for the last four-ish years, the url itself - are Beasts related, I felt it was necessary to come and write an actual post here instead of just reblogging things and calling it a day. I’ve always been very outspoken online, but I’ve been avoiding a certain topic of conversation on this blog for years now, and I’m finally in a place where we can discuss it.

I am, of course, talking about the hot topic that is JK Rowling.

Back in the days between FBAWTFT and FBTCOG, I was a very outspoken defender of JK Rowling and her decision to defend Johnny Depp’s inclusion in the films. Now, this is something I still stand by to this day, and due to the evidence that has since come out, I’m even more steadfast in the opinion that keeping Depp was a great decision. I am fully in support of him and the way he’s currently battling against his abuser. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about right now. As I was saying, back in the day, I was outspoken about the opinion that “we don’t know the full story” etc., and as a result I received very colourful anon messages. Now, to my knowledge, none of these were about JKR being a TERF/transphone, but I think it’s important to mention that at the time I scoffed at the idea she could be one. I openly admit that I didn’t listen to what other people - including actual trans individuals - were saying about JKR and her transphobia because I frankly didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to admit that the person who wrote something that saved my life could be so hateful and a bad person - that, and at the time I passed it all off as “wokeness out of control”.

It is now 2020. Up until last Saturday night, I was still in support of JK Rowling - I didn’t agree with some of the stuff she had said, but I was trying to be positive and have hope by telling myself that she didn’t mean to be transphobic, that she just didn’t know what she was doing was wrong, even though the evidence clearly showed otherwise (I.e. her liking transphobic / radfem tweets). I said to my followers on my Beasts page that instead of cancelling people outright, we should be attempting to educate them instead, and if they choose not to learn then fine. And, being 100% obvious, I didn’t want to admit it because I frankly already was feeling annoyed at two different Beasts cast members for different reasons: Ezra Miller (for choking a girl) and Dan Fogler (for his tweet about BLM - admittedly that was probably him being well intentioned but not saying it right). So yeah, I didn’t want to cancel another member of the Beasts “family”.

I had JKR’s tweets on notifications, and for the most part over the last few weeks, it was all about the Ickabog. However, on Saturday night I noticed that she had suddenly tweeted something completely different, and I looked at it. Given that I had adamantly defended her and said “freedom of speech” for so long, it’s telling that my first thought upon seeing her tweet was literally “for fuck sake, Jo, why”.

I won’t post her tweets here but to sum that first tweet up, it was her being annoyed over the term “people who menstruate” being used in an article instead of “woman”, and mockingly saying “there used to be a word for that” before pretending she didn’t know the word. She knew that tweeting it would start arguments and anger, and yet she still made the decision to do so. Her follow up tweets frankly dug the hole deeper; she tried to defend herself by saying, to sum it up, “I have a butch lesbian friend who agrees with me” “I just care about women’s rights!” And “IF trans people were marginalised I’d march with you!” (“If”, of course, being the real kicker here because what do you mean IF. They ARE. Every DAY.)

Since then, JKR has written an essay on her website defending herself and her opinions, and yes, I read it. I read it a few times, in fact. At first, I felt my anger simmer and felt I had been too hasty to make anti JKR jokes, that I was wrong...but then I read it again properly and realised that what she had written was a piece that turned herself into the victim, and that despite putting on the appearance of her saying she supports trans people, including the phrases “I support trans people” and “of course trans women are real women”, she still spewed much transphobic vitriol and hate. She cited no sources for any of her proclamations or statements about statistics, implied that trans men transition to escape their “womanhood”, that trans women are men in dresses, that trans women are dangerous to “real” women (aka cis women) and shouldn’t be allowed into women’s changing rooms or toilets. There was also the autism comment, and the implication of autistic girls somehow not being able to make decisions or whatever.

I’m going to get straight to the point: I don’t support JK Rowling or her radical feminism.

As someone who is a proud feminist (libfem?), I can honestly say that never have I felt threatened or like I was being silenced by the inclusion of trans women in feminist spaces or conversation. Never. In my second year at sixth form, I was in charge of the LGBTQ+ club until a new leader with better leadership skills could step in, and - put simply - that year, the club was made almost entirely of first year transgender students. Even though I had called myself a trans ally for years, I realised there was a lot I didn’t know, and I learnt quite a lot from these students. I continue to still learn today. They were some of the nicest and most intelligent people I got the chance to meet, and I can truly say that at no point was I ever worried to be in a room alone with a trans woman, nor was I concerned about which bathroom they went in - bathrooms are bathrooms. Speaking of bathrooms...when I was at uni during a particularly tense rehearsal a few weeks before our final show last year, a guy in our group made me cry and I ran to the women’s bathroom to escape. Not only did the other girls come to comfort me, but you know what? The guy came in and apologised profusely to me. Did any of us girls give a shit about having a guy in our toilet? Absolutely not. It’s a fucking toilet. And, on that note, I was never worried about a trans woman or even a cis man attacking me in the toilets. You know who DID attack me in the toilets regularly? Other cisgender women.

As a feminist, I fully support trans women and am not threatened by the inclusion of trans women in women’s spaces or in women’s rights discussions. While I agree that cis women and trans women inevitably go through different struggles, at the end of the day, we all identify as women and are women. I think that if your feminism is so threatened by the existence of trans women - TERFs, RadFems, JKR, looking at you - then your feminism is flimsy and not feminism at all.

As a woman, I find it highly offensive that JKR and many RadFems focus so much of womanhood and feminism on an involuntary biological function that, frankly, many of us would rather do without. Yeah, I’m talking about periods - no matter how proud I am to be a woman, I still fucking hate periods and would get rid of mine if I could without erasing my chance of having kids someday. I can hear the RadFems accusing me of “internalised woman hatred” for saying I hate my periods, but you know what, they suck and they hurt and fuck them. The fact that JKR (also the the radfem movement) reduced “women” to just people who menstruate and can have children, and vice versa, is incredibly offensive and misogynistic. For a start, trans men menstruate, intersex people can, non binary can etc. Next, not even ALL cis women have periods - women who are menopausal, young women who haven’t started puberty yet (some do start very late), some women don’t have regular cycles, some women have medical problems that affect their cycle, some women are on birth control that can stop their cycles. So the idea of women being defined as “those who menstruate” is offensive not only to trans/intersex/non binary individuals but also to cis ones too.

As I write this, I’m a 22 year old woman who is still learning and changing every day, and one of the things that I’ve found myself thinking about recently - especially since we’re in lockdown and we have nothing BUT time to think - is about myself and my identity as a woman. What prompted this was when I saw Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved book, “Little Women”, which I’ve since read, for my birthday back in January, and I left the cinema feeling exalted and powerful with my own identity as a woman. (I’ll be returning to LW in a bit)

After some thinking, I’ve realised some things. For me, my identity as a woman is not just because once a month my uterus decides to shed; I do not identify as a woman just because I have certain physical features. I am not a particularly feminine person either, and I’m what some may call a “tomboy” (a phrase I actually don’t mind but I know a lot of people do for understandable reasons since it’s a phrase designed to differentiate people who don’t conform to society’s expectations etc) because I prefer video games and more geeky stuff to shopping or dressing up or make up.

For me, there is no one way a person has to be or appear in order to identify as a woman. Women are beautiful, complex human beings; we are not defined by our genitalia, by an involuntary biological process. Women are strong, intelligent, and interesting people - no two are the same. For example, some decide to raise families, some choose to pursue a career, some do both - all of these are valid and none are more “feminist” or “womanly” than the others, because it’s our as women. I guarantee that if you lined up every single woman in the world - cis AND trans - no two would be the exact same.

I mentioned “Little Women” earlier, and as I was pondering over what makes me identify as a “woman”, I thought a lot about a certain quote from the 2019 film that has stayed with me since it was first said in the release of the trailer. It’s spoken by Jo March to her mother, and I’ve started to understand what for me makes me a woman.

For me, being a woman is all of this: having minds, hearts, souls, ambition, talent, and being beautiful each in our own ways. Women are capable of love and empathy, capable of desire, capable of the most complex and human feelings and emotions, and coming out the stronger for it.

Sex is one thing; gender identity is another.

I won’t dissect every single thing JKR wrote in her essay, but I will just say this: her comments regarding autistic girls are extremely tone deaf and she does not speak for those with autism. I’m going to be honest and admit something here I haven’t before: I have not been diagnosed with autism or aspergers but I AM currently on the waiting list to see someone who COULD diagnose me. Apparently I show signs of a potential diagnosis, so...we’ll have to see. But I have friends who are autistic, and they’re disgusted by JKR trying to use them to support her TERF arguments. Autistic and other neurodivergent people are absolutely capable of making decisions and are NOT people who need to be babied or have their hands held, to be told who they are. It’s incredibly ableist of JK Rowling frankly.

I would also like to point out... I’ve seen people saying “but she doesn’t hate autistic people, Newt is autistic!!!” - yes, but JKR didn’t write him as autistic. Eddie Redmayne chose to play Newt as autistic - JK Rowling didn’t do shit.

It’s also time that I acknowledge that both Potter and Beasts inevitably hold JKR’s problematic views, and that by denying her ownership of her work, we’re not holding her accountable for the horrible things she’s done. This includes - but is not limited to -:

Anti-Semitic stereotypes in the goblins

Lycanthropy being used as a metaphor for AIDS - an illness that is heavily associated to the gay community, and also there was the panic of the AIDs crisis in the 90s where much misinformation and homophobia was generated and spread because of it.

Adding further to the lycanthropy point, one of the infected individuals - Greyback - is stated to have a sick preference for infecting children. Not only are werewolves tied to harmful gay/AIDs stereotypes, but also to the disgusting and frankly wrong notion that gay people are pedophiles.

The only Asian character is called Cho Chang. Cho Chang. That’s two steps away from outright just calling her “Ching Chong”. It’s not a name an actual Asian person would have.

The Goldstein sisters are probably distantly related to Anthony Goldstein, who JKR confirmed (on Twitter of course) is Jewish, meaning that Tina and Queenie are most likely Jewish too (and Goldstein is a Jewish surname). However, despite the fact that the first FBaWTFT is set DURING Hanukkah in 1926, there’s zero signs of them celebrating or observing it. Maybe that’s more on set design than anything else, but come on - if I, a fanfic writer, can do some research, JK/the crew of a major movie can too!

Adding on from that, gotta love how one of the JEWISH main characters then decides to join the Wizarding world equivalent of Hitler. I already had problems with Queenie’s characterisation in CoG, but that’s the icing on the cake.

POC/Black characters - in both series but since I’m a Beasts blog... Seraphina Picquery, a Black female president serving a term during a MAJOR wizarding world crisis, is severely reduced to have only 3 lines in CoG. Nagini’s only purpose is to be the only friend of Credence, a white man, before he joins Wizard Hitler and abandons her; she’s also an Asian character who we know one day permanently becomes a SNAKE, and who goes on to actually have a piece of Voldemort’s soul inside of her?? And some do see her as his slave, though you could argue that she’s actually the only being that he holds any love or respect for. Leta Lestrange is a half-black woman who is killed/literally sacrifices herself for TWO WHITE MEN, and who’s death was literally confirmed to have been added in last minute.

Also, the whole Lestrange storyline was fucking nasty: white Lestrange Sr imperius-ed a black woman (Yusuf Kama’s mother), raped her, and she then died in childbirth. I’m sorry, what the fuck??

In Harry Potter, Seamus is a terrible stereotype of an Irish person - he likes to blow things up. Look up the IRA and their bombings. Fucking Irish stereotype. As someone with Irish grandparents and who is proud of their Irish heritage, this really pisses me off.

Let’s not forget the whole Native American cultural appropriation. That truly speaks for itself.

So here is where I speak candidly to everyone who follows me and/or sees this post. While Beasts is no longer my No. 1 fandom these days, it and Potter still hold a huge piece of my heart. I have 5 wizarding world tattoos, so much merchandise, and I can safely say that being a fan of both series has shaped me as a person. Both of those series helped me get through the darkest days of my life, including bullying at school, my Nan passing away, and my mental health struggles.

This is why what’s happened has impacted me so much and broken my heart. For me, it feels like it’s tainted now because of Jo and her views. I know that we should separate the art from the artist, but when her views are so clearly woven into the very fabric of the Wizarding world, it’s a huge problem.

Here’s another part of the dilemma - I do not wish for the Beasts films to be cancelled. I’m well aware that the *cough* people who dislike me will say I’m trying to be negative, trying to boycott the series blah blah blah, but that’s truly the last thing I want. I still love the story, the characters, the soundtrack, and I want to know how it ends, if only for my own piece of mind. It’s also important to add that by boycotting Beasts, it’s also harming the hard working thousands of others who worked on the films: the cast, the crew, the extras, the musicians, etc., not to mention the fans who actually are invested in the series and have taken solace in it. It’s not fair for them to all suffer over the actions of one TERF.

This is one of my biggest worries, however: the Fantastic Beasts films do NOT have a good reputation as it is. The second film was boycotted by some due to Depp, and now there’s talk of people boycotting number 3 because of JK Rowling. Lots of people already talk hatred about it, and this will only fire that hatred up even more.

There’s also talk of Eddie Redmayne potentially being kicked from the franchise due to a “leak” that he doesn’t want to work with JKR anymore, but this could be sensationalist news reporting. But if it came down to it, I can honestly say that I would rather continue to have Eddie play Newt than keep JKR as a writer. Eddie has done more for Newt than even JKR has, and if he goes, then that will be the last straw for me within the fandom. That will be when I take a sharp exit out, sell my FB merch and have my tattoos covered.

To add, the Fantastic Beasts scripts are...not great. Or, at least, what we saw on-screen wasn’t. Maybe that’s David Yates being the literal worst (fuck you, Yates, you suck) and cutting all the parts with strong female characters, but I honestly don’t think that JKR can write screenplays well at all. I think she’s clearly better at writing books, and that’s fine - books obviously allow for more time to explore characters and story/plot arcs etc, and film scripts offer way less of those chances. I don’t think screenplays allow her to write what she needs to in order to tell the story she wants to, hence why CoG was kind of a hot mess. So maybe it’s just that she’s not suited for screenplays and should stick to books.

Honestly, I kind of just wish that WB would hire another person to finish writing the Fantastic Beasts movies - obviously they’d have to keep JKR on board to tell them the actual plot, but get someone who can actually write screenplays and not be problematic to write them.

By now I’ve gone on long enough that I’ve forgotten my original intent while writing this, so I’ll try to sum up and end now. In short, I am extremely disappointed in JK Rowling and do not support her or her views any longer.

I don’t know how any of you guys are feeling but I would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts, especially other Fantastic Beasts fans. I want to also add that, as always, my DMs and inbox are always open - if not here, then always at @alwaysahiccupandastrid where I’m more active nowadays.

Finally, you guys don’t need me - a white cis woman - to tell you this but you’re all valid and magical and fuck JK Rowling. Her characters would all be ashamed of her, and the characters we grew up with would not stand for the bigotry and vile hatred she spreads under the guise of ““protecting women””. Several of the amazing actors from Potter and Beasts have spoken out against her and her tweets: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, Katie Leung, Chris Rankin, Eddie Redmayne. Some have been...less inspiring (Tom Felton, Evanna Lynch, looking at you two 👀)

I’m sending love to everyone right now. I wish I could say something more useful but I’ve spoken enough - I’ve made my opinion clear. I love you all, please stay safe.

#fantastic beasts and where to find them #fantastic beasts: the crimes of grindelwald #jk rowling #harry potter

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bye-bi-birdie · 4 years

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Every attempt by gatekeepers to veto names for "the community" just shows they don't actually want a community unless either they get to dictate who's allowed or it only contains people exactly like them.

"You can't say queer community because not everyone identifies as queer/people are uncomfortable with that term"

Well let's just assume for a minute that the person wasn't specifically referring to the community of people who do identify as queer but was talking about the whole nebulous "community" encompassing everyone who isn't straight or cis (and ignoring for now that gatekeepers would exclude large numbers of people who fit under that category as well) then what happens when we decide that is an unacceptable term? You've already shrunk the group you're calling your community down by a fair amount of people by excluding those who don't really fit into any group except queer.

Well an unfortunate number of people would be ok with that, let's move onto a pretty big one.

"You can't say gay community if you're not talking only about gay men and lesbians/you can't call yourself gay if you're not a gay man or lesbian"

This one still pops up surprisingly frequently imo. It's a favourite of terfs, although obviously scrapping queer is too, because it assumes that terms or groups can be watered down if they aren't kept to a strict set of rules and definitions. So we can't have "gay community" for non straight or cis people as a whole because that's not ok to use for bisexuals, pansexuals, asexuals, aromantics etc. Of course there's also the issue of whether "gay" would be a term that non cis people felt included in even if there wasn't pushback to using it. Many people who don't like queer are fans of using gay instead, terfs hate both if you're referring to a group not just including those they count as gay but it's not only terfs against it as an umbrella term. Still very divisive though not as inflammatory a word as queer.

"It's just LGBT/it's LGBT+/it's LGBTPN/etc. etc."

Many people who aren't ok with queer or gay insist it's "just LGBT" often with the hurried addition that pan and nonbinary people "go under" the B or the T respectively if they're not quite to the point (or at least not openly) of excluding those identities as well. "The LGBT community" is ideal for most gatekeepers but obviously a problem for everyone else. The + is sometimes tacked on as an afterthought to placate anyone who didn't get a letter and "LGBTPN" was a short lived attempt to show pan and nonbinary people that aspec exclusionists weren't going to turn on them and it was rather hastily discarded when it became apparent that was untrue. "LGB" is obviously only favoured among trans exclusionists and some of them blatantly prefer "LG" which really is the ultimate destination of all the gatekeeping over who's allowed in the community no matter what bi or trans or any other gatekeepers say who insist it's not the goal to be rid of all the mspec people or nonbinary people or whoever, just the "bad" ones (although normally they'd say "fake" not bad) because when you're trying to appease gatekeepers there's really no end to it.

MOGAI and (and QUILTBAG although it's seen less often) are generally at best not taken seriously, usually assumed to be full of "trenders" and at worst accused of attracting predators. "SGA" or "SGA and trans" tend to denote gatekeepers, different types depending on which they use, and have the unfortunate connotation of conversion therapy.

In the end there's never going to be a term everyone agrees on because "everyone" includes different people depending on who you ask. Denying people the ability to use a term that best describes the community they're a part of because it's "too broad" is only ever going to show that you think you can decide who gets to be in a group that there's not even any consensus about and it's going to show that your relation to that group is framed through the lense of gatekeeping.

People don't have to use queer if they're uncomfortable with it of course but it's always going to be the term I prefer because it's the most all encompassing and not focused on squishing people down into the restrictions other terms come with. If I see people talking about the queer community I know they're most likely not trying to shove anyone out so at the end of the day whether or not there's a cohesive community of any kind I'm gonna stick with the queer community.

#long post #queer #queer discourse i guess #don't really know what this post is i just started typing and im sick so ignore me if i make no sense #exclusionist tw

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canarycontessa · 3 years

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in no particular order, things I've learned having PCOS

1. Root cause, root causes, ROOT CAUSES.

Do you know what the course of treatment looks like if you don't address root causes? It looks like a bandaid for each individual symptom: progesterone to "jumpstart" your hormones (which you can only take for a few months before it starts fucking with your bones), metformin for your insulin issues, electrolysis or waxing for your facial hair, etc.

NONE OF WHICH gets down to root causes or is in any way approaching a permanent solution (with the possible exception of laser hair removal or electrolysis).

I’m not knocking these things; if they help in any way and fit your course of action, go for it. But these things are not a cure. There is no formal cure for PCOS, but the thing that puts it in a kind of remission is a complete sea change in terms of how you eat, sleep, exercise, and just generally live your life. Everything from the eggs you buy to the type of pads you use is up for reevaluation.

2. Exercise does not (directly) affect fat loss, only muscle gain, body comp and hormone regulation. Know it’s benefits and its limits in your regimen. Or, you cannot out-exercise a poor diet.

Your particular relationship to the scale is something you need to nail down and fast. If you know you’re obsessive and prone to daily weighing, get rid of the scale entirely. If you like tracking yourself week to week, go ahead. Either way, please know that your progress wrt: diet and exercise aren’t always going to be reflected on the scale.

Unless you’re doing some sort of bodybuilder bulking/cutting thing, then you’re typically going to lose fat WHILE gaining muscle if you have a sensible plan. This can translate to looking better and losing inches while staying the same or even going up on the scale. Don’t be fooled.

All of this goes for everybody, really, but it goes double and triple for people with PCOS. Get the “calories in/calories out” mindset out of your head. Focus on your hormonal balance. Go by how your clothes fit, how you look naked, how you feel when you move, the feats you become capable of that you weren’t before.

3. Your desires are not shallow. No, not even your "shallow" ones. Wanting to look good naked, wanting to not have stubble or hyperpigmentation, and wanting a sex drive that’s more on-point is just as valid as wanting to have a baby or wanting to prevent your prediabetes from becoming full blown diabetes. Period. No buts. I said what I said. And if anyone tells you otherwise or tries to make these things seem frivolous?

Tune them the fuck out.

You’re the one who has to live with this disorder, not them, so they can fuck right off. Yes, even your doctor or your mother or your boyfriend or your minister or whoever the fuck. Yes, even other people with PCOS.

I say this as someone who never has and never will want children, and is more concerned with preserving my health and beauty well into my middle age than I am with fertility. I’m not curing cancer, but neither is any broad that wants to get knocked up.

We each want what we want. Let’s leave each other to our own wants, shall we?

4. There's a limit to what a doctor can (or sometimes is even willing) to do for you here, so you have to take the wheel. Remember what I said about band aids? Unless you go to an endocrinologist or someone who specializes in hormonal/reproductive health or just a general practitioner who gives a damn, you’re not going to find an abundance of help with a doctor.

It’s sad to say, but a lot of general practitioners are either unequipped, underqualified, uninformed or (worst case scenario) just flat out uninterested in helping with what they consider a nebulous disorder at best, or a series of low-priority nuisance issues at worst.

My main solution to this is to understand deeply and unwaveringly: They may be the doctor, but you are the expert on your own lived experience. Find a doctor that not only knows their business, but who knows that you two are a team.

I’ve been lucky enough to experience both ends of this spectrum. Yes, even the bad ones.

I’ve had the best insurance money could buy utterly wasted on a doctor that spent months of my time telling me my kidneys were shutting down due to blood in my urine when I already made it clear that the “blood in my urine” was actually my menorrhagia. He completely discounted my lived experience of menstruating for a full 15 - 20 days out of EVERY MONTH and came up with a disorder of his own, wasting so much time sending me back for renal scans whenever the “blood in my urine” didn’t correspond to my test results reflecting perfectly normal kidneys. This guy outright told me that he was more concerned with my hypertension than he was with addressing anything else going on with me. As if it wasn’t all connected.

I’ve also had supposedly lesser medical staff that took my concerns seriously, conducted examinations promptly, listened to what I had to say and actually laid out what my options were so that I could decide how we should proceed from there. It was one of these places that actually found out that what I’d been dealing with for years was PCOS, giving the beast that tormented me a name so I could draw a target on its back. They broke down their methodology for determining it into layman terms I could understand:

“your period has these abnormalities, you have these visual markers (skin tags, facial hair, hyperpigmentation), your insulin is up in the prediabetic range and you have multiple benign but problematic cysts on your ovaries. We’ll test a few other hormonal markers in your blood and urine panel but otherwise it’s safe to say you have PCOS”

5. There will be people will treat your illness as trivial, not real, a product of unclean living, a product of hysteria and/or all in your head. Even loved ones. Even doctors Even yourself, at times.

6. Hopelessness and discouragement are almost literally parts of this illness, so treat them as you would any other symptom. I say almost literally because mood swings and a higher probability of depression come with the turf. Also, the uphill battle you’re facing from medical professionals (see Item 4) and even your loved ones just piles onto all this. Overall, this hormonal disorder just wears you down. Self care becomes even more important than ever before, as does finding a community of other women dealing with this.

7. Don't get sucked into terf shit while trying to reclaim your femininity. This isn’t really about the disorder itself, I just really wanted to sound off on this right quick (keep in mind I’m a cis woman saying this, I’m not as informed about trans issues as a trans person, but I’m trying to be a good neighbor here. Please do your own research and please understand that hitting up your nearest trans person doesn’t count as research. Google is free and there are literally so many academic and anecdotal resources).

My POV on this is as a cisgender black woman with this disorder. I’ve had my femininity questioned, mocked, and outright denied (misogynoir at its finest) since I was a child. I’ve seen people both overtly and subtly project their weird ideas about gender onto me. And yet I know I don’t go through even a TENTH of the bullshit and violence that trans women of color do. My pain may be legitimate, but it does not give me or anyone with any integrity a free pass to turn the trans community into one big punching bag for my own frustrations.

There’s nothing terfs love more than preying on vulnerable women that they feel they can recruit. Learn to spot the dogwhistles and reject the sales pitch. They’ll try to court you and make you feel so understood and welcome. Don’t fall for it. I don’t care if J.K. Rowling herself becomes your best buddy. Don’t go there.

#pcos #menorrhagia #misogynoir #transmisogyny #transmisogynoir #hyperpigmentation

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the-light-of-stars · 4 years

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hi!!! I remember reading one of the tags on one of your posts about how white people are like always racist and that they need to constantly unlearn racism. That's a vague summary so sorry but in the tags you said there was something psychological to do with it? Can you explain that so I can use it to explain to others???

Hi anon!! First of all it’s great that you’re trying to learn more about stuff like this and want to help explain to others!!

Second: I am white, so I can’t draw the line at what is or isn’t racist and my opinion/ arguments shouldn’t be the focus here. Instead I’d suggest reading through some of the notes of the post you mentioned because some actual POC, who are affected by day to day racism, explained more about it there and I don’t won’t to speak over their voices. (Also the op isn’t by me I’ve just reblogged it, but idk if that’s what you meant).

However since you asked about a particular tag and I don’t want to leave you without an answer I’m going to explain what i meant with it - if I’m overstepping here though, please tell me cause I really don’t want that.

Ok so in the tag you’re talking about I mentioned that internalized racism , on a sociological basis (there’s probably psychological explanations about it as well but I’m not a psychologist) can be related to the term of the Habitus.

Habitus is an important term in sociology that in its most common understanding has been introduced by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

To put it simply the Habitus is aspects of behavior that are 1. Usually unconscious and 2. Internalized through society and social standing. It’s not something someone was born with but something someone was born into.

Basically Bourdieu researched differences between social classes (and other social identifiers) and found out that members of specific groups didn’t just identify as members of their group because of objective criteria (for example wealth) but also because of their behavior - which, in many cases, the people didn’t even realize themselves - and that this is a phenomenon that happens not only in one aspect of societal structures but all of them (eg not just when it comes to class, but also to race, gender, orientation, etc etc.) and is something that is learned by exposure to the social circle you live in and also will stick with you your whole life, even if you can change parts of it.

(Because Bourdieu mainly researched different social classes and because I’ve only ever experienced xenophobic microaggressions but not racist ones in that sense, which means I lack the necessary understanding to talk about those in depth (also I’m white so it’s not my place to say what is and isn’t racism) I’ll use an example about classism instead)

For example: a rich person that has been born into wealth will never really know what it is like to be poor and what struggles poor people face. They can read all literature on class disparity in existence, and yet because they lack personal experience they will never truly know what it is like to be poor. So I’m all their actions, even if they try their best to not be classist, this lack of personal experience and the lack of understanding that comes with it will shine through in one way or another, usually unintentionally, because it is simply part of their ingrained behavioral structure. To them something can be completely innocuous and yet show their lack of understanding that’s been ingrained through growing up in the society they did in.

As an example: a rich person has a poor friend, who they care for dearly. One day when out and about together, the poor friend accidentally breaks their new phone and starts to panic about it. The rich friend tries to calm them down : “It’s ok please don’t cry, it’s just a phone - you can buy a new one!” . To them this statement shows their concern for their dear friend and is an attempt at calming them down by reassuring their friend and making them see the situation isn’t that bad and is fixable.

But instead of calming them down, this statement makes the friend cry even more. Because they can’t just buy a new phone, they don’t have the money. They’ve been saving up for this phone for months and now they have to cut edges all over again while also havibn to deal with not having a phone in a society where having one is pretty much a necessity. But the rich friend didn’t consider that - they couldn’t! Because in the life they live a 1000$ phone can be replaced at any moment, like you could replace a missing paper clip (I say, as if I haven’t panicked about this once as well cause I had to spend 2€ on a whole new pack of clips and couldn’t pay for my lunch that day because of that..). To the rich friend the situation registered only as a mild nuisance, but not as something worth crying or panicking over, because to them that’s what it is, which is why they acted accordingly.

They acted like they did because it’s the behavior and worldview they grew up with, and because it’s impossible for them to really understand the experience of someone who isn’t rich, because they’ve never had to experience it themselves and grew up in a society that was nothing but beneficial to them. So what they can do in the situation of the example, is apologizing for unintentionally upsetting their friend even more, educate themselves on why their friend reacted like that (eg learn about poor peoples situations through first hand accounts or scientific literature) ,work on themselves to ensure they won’t make the same mistake a second time, examine their behavior to see where it stems from and how to unlearn and help their friend , for example by offering to buy them a new phone (though they also have to accept it if the friend refuses their help or tells them it’s not their business.). And of course they also have to , at least try to, accept that what they did was wrong and that they aren’t exempt from making mistakes again in the future (because unlearning learnt behaviors takes a crap ton of work and won’t ever be fully possible, which is something that anyone who ever had a bad habit (-> which stems from the same root as the sociological term: the Latin word habitus , which has a lot of different meanings but literally translated to ‘something one has’) and tried to get rid of it knows.)

Bourdieu mainly focused his studies to the concept of Habitus on social class , but the concept is translatable to any other kind of socially learned behavior.

A straight person will always show homophobic behavior.

A cis person will always show transphobic behavior

A male person will always show misogynistic behavior. (Also before any terf tries to use this for their rhetoric: trans women face the same issues cis women face (as well as the added issues specific to trans people), because they are women and have to deal with misogyny as any other woman does. So don’t even try). (Edit: I first wrote ‘a cis male person will always show misogynistic behavior’ which is exactly the kind of unintentional mistake I’m talking about. Because writing it like this is already making a weird distinction between cis and trans men, and also implies trans men would be excempt from misogyny when they , just like any other men, aren’t either. Sorry for that!)

And, most importantly in the context of the op and your ask as well as the current situation, a white person will always show racist behavior.

No matter how hard a white person tries, no matter how much they educate themselves, listen to the voices of people in racial minorities (in this specific case black people), or how much they help - they can’t ever understand completely and can’t ever completely get rid of their internalized behavior , so with their Habitus they’ll always show their being privileged in a racist society.

Does this mean white people should just go ‘well if I can’t ever get rid of my internalized racism I don’t even have to try’ ? No. Because even if you always will keep making unintentional mistakes, it’s better to make those unintentional mistakes once, acknowledge them and try to avoid them in the future , than it is to make an unintentional mistake and then keep repeating it intentionally for the rest of your life simply because you couldn’t be bothered to try better.

Does this mean white people should be patting themselves on the back for trying to unlearn? Also no. Because for one like I said its impossible to ever truly unlearn every racist behavior, and two: trying to unlearn bad behavior isn’t some great feat, it’s basic decency. Just like in the example you wouldn’t call the rich friend a hero for trying not make their poor friend upset again, because that’s basic decency - of course they shouldn’t make their friend upset again that’s what being a friend is! So in a similar vein being an ally to Poc is trying your best to not harm anymore, and to acknowledge that even if you’re not doing it intentionally you’re hurting others with your behavior and help uphold a harmful system as long as you just ignore and profit from it.

As an example for this just read some of the replies on the op you mentioned: there’s dozens of white people applauding themselves for being ‘not at all racist’ or saying it’s impossible for them to be racist because their parents are voting for democrats or because they themselves are part of a different marginalized community (eg a woman, or part of the lgbt+ community). when that is just. Not the case. Because racism is a learnt behavior that can never get rid of completely. Because people don’t just learn behaviors from their parents but also from the rest of society (and even if they’d only learn from their parents they will also have internalised racist behaviors). Because being part of one marginalized group doesn’t mean you automatically have perfect understanding of the struggles of everyone else and this are now infallible (if that were the case then please explain how the leader of Germany’s most notorious right wing extremist party is a lesbian woman). Etc etc.

So, does this mean you should self flaggate over every little mistake? No of course not. You should realize your mistake, accept it and try to unlearn the behavior that led to it. Constant self punishment doesn’t help and might just make matters worse. And more than that by self flaggelating you will end up forcing others to pity you for being sad, instead of rightfully pointing out your mistake or investing energy to help or learn themselves - which is especially isnidious if the people that have to ‘cheer you up’ are poc themselves. It will also prevent people from pointing out your mistakes in the future because they’ll be worried you’d self hate for it again, making it even harder for yourself to unlearn bad behaviors. (also yes this point might be a bit hypocritical for me because I tend to apologize a dozen times to everyone for any small mistake no matter what the mistake was even about, but that’s something I try to work on bettering because oh wow is that a toxic behavior, no matter how understandable it might be)

So, lastly, what can you do? You can realize your mistake. Accept it. Learn what caused it and why it was harmful. Try your best to not make this or similar mistakes again. Understand and accept that you will inevitably make mistakes again. Understand that you’re not infallible. Understand that you live in and profit off of a harmful system. Listen to people from the affected communities and accept their opinions. Help where you can - even if it’s just by being a good friend. And don’t victimize yourself in the process.

I hope this made it a bit less vague and made my tag clear. Also again: I’m not infallible either and since I’m white i also might make hurtful mistakes, so if there’s anything wrong in this reply or if I’m overstepping with this please let me know so I can try to fix that. Also for the same reason take my opinions and explanations with a grain of salt and look up what people from the actually affected communities have said about this topic.

I hope this was coherent enough and I wish you (and everyone else who might still be reading at this point) a great day, Anon! (Also : if youre able to and want to help people who are actually affected by racism there’s many organizations and causes that currently need the help! )

#anon ask

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