#especially if you follow people who support trans folks

[lil-lycanthropy]

Just saw a post from a (formerly) beloved mutual that was talking about how all the hate for jk fuckwig is uncalled for and there’s no evidence that she’s been transphobic.

Like…read the room cis

(t*rfs don’t FUCKING interact)

[marzipanandminutiae]

I have a question, where would gnc/trans people get their clotges in the days before the selling of premade clothes? I assume some was stealing from relatives, and that soem of them did know how to make clothes, but that doesn't seem at all likely to be the most common method

That is an amazing question!

Unfortunately for a lot of people, we don't really know- many trans folks flew under the radar and as such details of their lives are unclear. Legendary stagecoach driver Charley Parkhurst, for example, left no sort of record as to where he got his clothes (especially since he lived in a cabin in the middle of nowhere for many years of his life). And figures like Mary Jones, a Black trans sex worker from the early 19th century, flit into and out of the pages of history so quickly that there's barely enough info to get their vital statistics, let alone shopping habits.

However, my guesses would be as follows:

Secondhand shops. These have existed for a very long time, and if you already have at least one outfit that makes you read as the correct gender, nobody would question you going through that section of the store/market/whatever.

Sympathetic conventional tailors or dressmakers. This is almost certainly where middle- and upper-class GNC or trans people got their clothing- one can hardly imagine legendary writer George Sand buying her suits secondhand, after all. And since humans have always been human, and Let People Dress How They Please; They Aren't Hurting Anyone is a sentiment I've seen at least as far back as the 19th century, I suspect there were far more of these than many people might think.

Clothing workshops catering to the demimonde- that is, to theatrical companies for costumes, or to sex workers. Certainly this is where drag performers got their stage gear, and one imagines people for whom gender variance crossed the line from performance to identity- like Fanny Park and Stella Boulton -might have turned to their costumers for everyday attire, too. And catering to sex workers probably got all sorts of requests that were seen as outre for the time (in a roleplay capacity- most sex workers dressed conventionally while not actively Doing Sex), but their money was as good as anyone else's.

Friends and relatives. Some families knowingly supported their crossdressing or trans loved ones. Even partners who married the person in question as the binary opposite gender could fall into this category- Lili Elbe (though she lived after premade dresses began to rise in popularity) first experimented with feminine attire in dresses and jewelry loaned by her enthusiastically supportive wife Gerta Gottlieb. In fact, Gottlieb was bisexual, and their marriage was only annulled because Lili was a woman now and same-gender marriage was illegal in Denmark at the time.

Also yes stealing from your relatives was also an option, of course. if they were less than sympathetic

The king of France???? this is the wildcard, and my absolute favorite: the Chevaliere d'Eon, when she transitioned in the 1770s, got the king to not only formally state that she had been assigned female at birth (there had been speculation about her physical sex for years at this point) but to pay for her new wardrobe of gowns. Absolute Queen.

"but didn't her mantua-makers notice Some Physical Things?" she's believed to have had some form of gynecomastia, based on her autopsy, and they'd never have cause to see her in less than her calf-length chemise. if they did see anything, they kept their mouths shut, and rightly so.

[tombfreak]

ASPD and being a "bad person"

the backhanded support for aspd

There's a very backhanded type of support for people with ASPD. In attempts to get moral highground and fight against the demonization/stigmatization of the disorder, it's almost entirely watered down to "Oh you just lack empathy and have mean thoughts :)". It's entirely infantilized to the point where people who actually exhibit their real symptoms are just "bad people", or "using their disorder as an excuse for their bad behaviour" because "that's not what ASPD is actually like!!"

Moralizing disorders does nothing but cause harm to people suffering from mental health issues. You cannot cherry pick which presentations of ASPD are deemed acceptable when the whole disorder revolves around being and doing socially unacceptable things.

"It's ok if you lack empathy!" Is the only support I really see for ASPD, which is true, but only if we don't have empathy in ways that they think is acceptable.

I don't have empathy for people of colour, or people with disabilities, or trans folk. My empathy can't just turn on for people who I know deserve it. I can't relate to their struggles, I can't feel for them, I can't even really care. And lacking the empathy required for me to feel these things towards others is exactly what causes me issues in my life. It's socially unacceptable. It's dysfunctionally anti-social.

But thats very much the tip of the iceberg. Lacking empathy isn't even in the DSM-5 criteria for ASPD, and a lot of people with ASPD do experience empathy in their own way.

There's also the issue of "it's ok to be angry, it's ok to have mean thoughts, as long as you don't act on them" or "it's ok to not care, as long as you pretend you do" or "it's ok if you lack empathy as long as you're compassionate"

The issue is that people with ASPD are only supported and accepted if they're in a place where they can conform to prosocial behaviour, which is incredibly difficult to do and does require a degree of recovery. And not a lot of people are willing, or able to, get to that point in recovery.

If you say you support people with mental health issues, then you need to accept the part that actively causes problems as well, even if it makes you uncomfortable. You can't just love the "antisocial personality" and hate the "disorder".

People with ASPD will act in ways that makes them a morally "bad person". That's the entire premise of the disorder. If you water it down to the point where the person suffering has to be good and follow your social standards, then that's not an anti-social disorder anymore.

And I know it's hard to stomach people with ASPD sometimes, especially if they're not in recovery at all. We can be mean, insensitive, aggressive, insulting, morally skewed, or just a complete asshole in general. We can say unacceptable things, we can do wrong, and we're prone to it. You don't have to like someone to support them.

Supporting someone with mental health issues doesn't mean you have to like what they do, or who they are, or be friends with them. You're allowed to remove someone from your life if they're causing issues in yours. Supporting someone with mental health issues means you are able to leave them alone, and not go out of your way to shame them for things currently out of their control.

Yes, recovery is very important, but trust me as a recovering addict and someone with ASPD, you cannot force someone to be better. All they need is to know that they have room to breathe and grow. Support is giving people the space to do that. Backhanded 'support' is saying that you'll let them have that space but only if they currently fit in to your personal standards.

[systemrestart]

From Alison Bechdel's "Dykes to Watch Out For". Strip name "Au Courant", from 1994

I'd never seen this strip get posted, so I want others to see it. Mo, the character expressing 'concern' over the inclusion of trans women (as well as bisexuals) in lesbian culture, is often portrayed as being overly self-righteous, jumping to conclusions about others, and not critically examining her own biases and worldview. She was also the character in the comic commissioned for Transgender Warriors, where she learns she was wrong for being anxious about sharing a bathroom with a trans woman.

Mo is often either the butt of the joke, or receives a stark lesson in these interactions (whether by confrontation or just becoming socially isolated, because she's difficult to be around). And I found this framing important, especially as I've heard discussion of TERFs trying to claim Bechdel as one of them.

This comic was not made to validate Mo's opinions or feelings. The characters in Bechdel's comics are often messy, short-sighted, even bigoted. They're human. This comic does not valorize or 'condone' these flaws, merely shows them for what they are, as well as the consequences that come with them, and the effects they can have on your communities.

[Update Note: Recently learned some new things about Bechdel's feelings/choices regarding trans issues (particularly transmisogyny), link here if you're interested in reading. It seems that beyond DTWOF, Bechdel 'supports' trans people in an esoteric sort of way, but is seemingly unwilling to unpack deeper transphobic feelings/views, or her ties with TERF-aligned people. Deeply disappointing.

I don't think that impacts DTWOF itself much (except the framing of the character Janis, may make a post about that someday), as again all of the characters in DTWOF have wildly varying views, and that's The Point, but, it's something I think people ought to know if we're going to have a discussion about Bechdel in connection to TERFs and transmisogyny]

Transcript of the comic below the cut:

[ID: A "Dykes to Watch Out For" comic strip by Alison Bechdel, featuring the characters Mo and Lois. The conversation is as follows:

MO: Oh, jeez. Here's a submission for "Madwimmin Read" from someone named Jillian who identifies as a transsexual lesbian.

LOIS: Cool.

MO: The cover letter says, "I hope you'll consider changing the name of your reading series for local lesbian writers to be inclusive of transgender and bisexual women writers too." Oh, man!

LOIS: Guess it's time to get with the program, huh?

MO: What am I supposed to do? Have bi women and drag queens come in here and read about schtupping their boyfriends?

LOIS: Why not? I'm sure they'd have a unique perspective on the topic.

MO: Lois, I'm still trying to adjust to lesbians using dildos! What am I supposed to make of a man who became a woman who's attracted to women?!

LOIS: Love is a many gendered thing, pal. Get used to it.

MO: Well fine. Let people do what they want. But I'm not gonna add this unwieldy "bisexual and transgender" business to the name of my reading series. I don't even know what transgender means!

LOIS: It's sort of an evolving concept. I mean, we haven't had any language for people you can't neatly peg as either boy or girl.

LOIS: Like cross-dressers, transsexuals, people who live as the opposite sex but don't have surgery, drag queens and kings, and all kinds of other transgressive folks. "Transgender" is a way to unite everyone into a group, even though all these people might not self-identify as transgender.

LOIS: In fact, the point is that we're all just ourselves, and not categories. Instead of two rigid genders, there's an infinite sexual continuum! Cool, huh?

MO: How do you know all this stuff?

END ID]

[bfpnola]

Abolition For Beginners (2023 Edition)

In honor of Tyre Nichols and all others we have lost to policing and imprisonment. In honor of Black History Month. In honor of Better Future Program's mission to educate and serve marginalized youth globally... Let's break down abolition, again. (As usual on Tumblr, tap for better quality.)

Better Future Program's Linktr.ee | Donate | Liberation Library | Open Leadership Positions | Staff Application | Discord Server

Image description below. Written by @reaux07. Proofread by the volunteers and supporters of @bfpnola.

Image Description:

[ID: All of the following slides use a wrinkled, black fabric as their background with black text (bolded red added for emphasis) on top of white boxes with rounded corners. “@bfpnola” is written in the top right corner and the sources for the slide are in the bottom left corner. 

Title Slide (No. 1):

Written in red text, “UPDATED FROM 2021 EDITION.” The outlines of the word “ABOLITION” is written line by line 8 times in light grey with the year “2023” written on top in bold, white lettering. Below, written in red within a white bubble and red arrow, it reads “FOR BEGINNERS*.” Across from the bubble, “@BFPNOLA” is in red. Below, in red again, the asterisk mentioned before leads to the following note: “This post is heavily text-based so if you do not learn best by reading, feel free to utilize our Abolition Study Guide in our bio under "Social Justice Resources" instead!” Lastly, white stars and outlines of grey circles can be seen in each corner of the slide.

Slide No. 2 reads:

Abolition is an anti-capitalist, intersectional framework that aims to not only destroy the cages created by various “industrial complexes,” but to create inclusive, effective alternatives for addressing harm. As defined by Dr. Jennie Wang-Hall, an “industrial complex (IC) is a system that creates profit through embedding into social inequities and providing an ineffective product that keeps consumers under-resourced and returning for more.”

The most common examples of such systems? Prison and policing, psychiatry, foster care/family policing, the military, and even the Family (as an institution, not kinship altogether).

Despite common misconceptions, abolition is not just a negation of what currently exists, but an active evolution of what community-based support can and has looked like. Abolition is about the radical working-class imagination, about Black and Indigenous imagination.

If individualistic, reactive, punishment-based strategies are maintained, true accountability and rehabilitation will never exist. Instead, we can choose to be proactive, analyze the circumstances that perpetuate violence, and address harm at the root! Of course, no one is saying that harm will completely cease to exist, but to paraphrase butch anarchist Lee Shevek, wouldn’t it be a profound improvement to expand our capacity to respond to harm and challenge our abusers, rather than being restricted to system-granted authority? Especially when such systems deliberately ignore the suffering of marginalized communities (e.g. people of color, queer and trans folks, women and femmes, Mad and disabled folks, and so on) to begin with?

Sources: @Dr.JennieWH, @ButchAnarchy, Stella Akua Mensah, Erin Miles Cloud, @WokeScientist

Slide No. 3 reads:

Before we continue any further, let’s destroy the myth that cops actually stop violence. First off, we can’t depend on crime stats at face value because this begs the question of who exactly gets to define what counts as a “crime” and why (e.g. drug possession and sleeping in public vs. tax evasion of the wealthy and wage theft). Continuing, crime rates often only reflect violations that have actually been reported, chosen to be shown, and deemed out of line. By this logic, crime rates are simply reflections of cops’ perceptions, not of the material and emotional realities of the proletariat (i.e. the working-class).

As for perpetuating violence, “US law enforcement killed at least 1,183 people in 2022, making it the deadliest year on record for police violence.” (And those are just the deaths that were reported. In our home state of Louisiana, turns out the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, as of January 12, 2023, has been unlawfully destroying records of officer misconduct for at least 10 years.) Many (69%) of these murders were cases in which no offense was alleged, were mental health or welfare checks, or involved traffic violations and other nonviolent offenses.

This is, of course, without even touching on the involuntary servitude (i.e. enslavement) and maltreatment ongoing in American prisons. How many more deaths must occur before the general public says enough is enough? Or is this acceptable since these are working-class, disabled, Mad, non-white, queer, and trans lives being lost?

Sources: @InterruptCrim, The Guardian, Mapping Police Violence, @VeriteNewsNola

Slide No. 4 reads:

So we agree police are harmful. Why abolition instead of reform? Historically, reforms have either provided further funding to the prison, foster care, and psychiatric industrial complexes and/or just reinforced harmful ideologies surrounding policing as a whole. And trust us, these systems already have more than enough money. In the fiscal year of 2021, at least $277,153,670,501 were spent on federal law enforcement and prisons as well as on police and prisons by state and local governments. Can you even conceptualize a number that large? We could end all American medical debt with that much money. We could even provide clean water and waste disposal to everyone on Earth!

Continuing, reforms like body cameras are pitched as making officers more accountable, that if “done right” policing will actually keep people safe, and that those who do not use excessive force are suddenly no longer guilty of perpetuating centuries worth of systemic oppression. In reality, body cameras require further funding and increase surveillance!

Similarly, civilian oversight boards and the push to “jail killer cops” reinforce the belief that cases of murder, assault, falsifying information, and so on are exceptional occurrences rather than intrinsic to the very nature of policing itself. This is where the phrase “All Cops Are Bastards” comes into play, stating that while the individual character of some officers may be morally permissible, all cops are part of a “bastardized,” or corrupt, system.

Sources: Security Policy Reform Institute, Matt Korostoff, @CriticalResistance 

Slide No. 5 reads: 

Even laws don’t prevent police violence, e.g. the murder of Eric Garner despite the NYPD passing a policy against chokeholds, or the murder of Daunte Wright despite the passing of the George Floyd Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act and a separate Justice in Policing Act of 2020.

Alternatively, we can advocate against the expansion of policing “responsibilities,” i.e. not allowing officers to address Mad individuals in vulnerable states, the housing crisis, or people who use drugs (PWUD). We can reroute funding into non-coercive, peer-led initiatives for harm reduction, de-escalation, first aid, and self-defense. And maybe most importantly, we can reaffirm that EXTENSIVE power can, in fact, be found amongst everyday folks like you and me!

Abolition is not a one-and-done sort of deal but rather a progression of steps toward an infinite future of improvements. The act of building parallel infrastructures and modes of governance while the previous ones still exist is known as dual power. Abolition must begin as dual power. We can start today!

And in building such, these steps cannot: legitimize or expand oppressive systems we aim to dismantle, create divisions between “deserving” and “underserving” people, preserve existing power relations, or utilize exclusionary, one-size-fits-all, standardized treatments.

Sources: @ProjectLets, @HarmReductionCoalition, CrimethInc., Survived & Punished NY

Slide No. 6 reads:

One of the main questions brought up, though, is what abolitionists plan to do in the case of homicide, rape, domestic violence, and other harms. While this is entirely valid, this question seems to imply that 1) police are already effectively responding to such harms rather than perpetuating and/or ignoring them and 2) that there is one collective abolitionist response.

For one, the majority of sexual assault, for example, goes unreported and less than 0.5% of perpetrators are incarcerated. (And this assumes that through the reporting process and incarceration, survivors will somehow find healing, perpetrators will find understanding, and that sexual assault does not continue within prisons.) Meanwhile, let’s use our hometown as one example of many, a complaint of sexual violence is filed against a New Orleans Police Department officer every 10 days and nearly 1 in 5 NOPD officers have been reported for sexual and/or intimate partner violence. 

And secondly, we have a plethora of organizations like Critical Resistance and cultures like that of the Diné (Navajo) to learn from and build upon. We don’t have to be stuck within this false dilemma fallacy, that there is only policing or total chaos. Don’t you see that that is the state’s way of constricting communal power?

Sources: @RAINN, @CopWatchNola, @WokeScientist

Slide No. 7 reads:

To expand this conversation, abolition heavily aligns with the political ideal of “anarchism.” Anarchism supports the absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual. And despite its negative connotations, anarchy also reflects an evolution of community-based care rather than just a deconstruction of what currently exists.

A simplified version of its 6 agreed-upon principles are:

Autonomy and Horizontality: define yourself on your own terms, we stand on an equal footing

Mutual Aid: bonds of solidarity form a stronger social glue than fear, support your community

Voluntary Association: associate or don't associate with whomever you wish

Direct Action: accomplish goals directly rather than depending on representatives or authorities

Revolution: overthrow those in power who enforce coercive hierarchies (ex. white supremacy)

Self-Liberation: you must be at the forefront of your own liberation, freedom must be taken

While being an abolitionist does not require alignment with anarchism, it is worth considering how the state plays such an enduring role in various social harms. Concurrently, whenever you treat other living beings with consideration and respect, come to reasonable compromise rather than coercion, and decide to share or delegate tasks, you are already living by anarchist principles.

Sources: Peter Gelderloos, David Graeber

Slide No. 8 reads:

So, how can you get involved? How do we continue the efforts already being made by activists worldwide? After such an overload of information and even more to learn, we understand how political frameworks like abolition can seem daunting, but they don't have to be! Here are some general next steps:

Read the "8toAbolition" steps.

Look into "podmapping" so you know whom to run to when you have been harmed or perpetuate harm.

See if there are any pre-existing mutual aid networks in your community, and if not, start one with your neighbors or peers!

Begin to research issues affecting communities other than your own. Abolition is intrinsically tied to all of us as we are all surveilled. For example, do you understand how prison and policing further ableism, transphobia, or the sex trade? What about policing internationally (see our allies in: the Kingdom of Hawai'i, Palestine, Artsakh, Kashmir...)?

Research the differences between capitalism, socialism, and communism. Abolition and anti-capitalism are foundational to one another as well.

Look into the other industrial complexes we named in the beginning (psychiatry, foster care, the military, the Family...).

Volunteer (remotely or in-person) with organizations like Better Future Program (@bfpnola) to both educate yourself and directly serve your community!

And if you're looking for further reading/listening, BFP offers over 3,000 FREE social justice, mental health, and academic resources in our Linktr.ee, including study guides for beginners. While we can't promise that the struggle for liberation will always be easy, BFP will always do its best to support you in whatever way we know how.

End ID.]

[trans-androgyne]

It feels like it keeps happening, that I find a post by a trans woman funny and go to check her blog to see More Good Posts. And then the fifth or so one is some shit like “whiny transandrobros need to be taught a fucking lesson”

I just don’t get how this is so prevalent. Despite my constantly reminding myself that most trans women are nice and cool, I’ve started getting anxious about following them if I haven’t seen A Post about trans guys

I feel so guilty for falling into community-splitting mindsets like that :/

Is there anything you do to keep yourself from getting paranoid about this shit?

Honestly, it’s hard not to feel impacted by it that way; it’s been difficult for me to keep up with posts in the transmisogyny tag due to how often certain transfems will misrepresent and be hostile towards “tmes,” especially trans men in particular. The people I know and I have been having to search “transandrophobia” and “transmasc” on everyone’s blogs before reblogging posts about transmisogyny or following people who blog about it. But it’s a little easier outside that sphere. Like you said, most trans women are wonderful people who don’t mean harm to transmasculine folks and it’s important to remember that. Some people will be shitty, that will always happen. There are still aphobes running around long after the worst years of aphobia and there will still be transandrophobes, a portion of which could be trans women, for probably a good long while too. I’m lucky enough to have cool trans women in my life who will dunk on the shitty ones right by my side. There are of course more trans women and blogs out there that support transmasc folks who discuss their oppression, and I hope that you have some luck finding them.

Some cool and funny trans women I know online are @starryjoy and @velvetvexations , I don’t know if their blogs are what you’re interested in but I hope seeing them helps :)

[redgoldsparks]

What a time to be trans and alive in America. If you follow me, you are probably already horribly aware of the hundreds of pieces of anti-trans legislation that have been introduced in nearly every state, some seeking to ban trans healthcare for both minors and adults, some to ban drag, to ban trans people from restrooms, from sports teams, and in some of the most extreme cases take trans children away from parents who support their transitions. I highly recommend following The Trans Formations Project for their daily updates on the progress of these bills through the state government. They also have a very helpful tool on their website where you can search representatives by state and see exactly which legislators have introduced or voted on anti-trans bills, so you know exactly who to call and complain to about their terrible policies. The Trans Formations Project is active on insta, tumblr, twitter, discord, tiktok and FB. They are currently seeking volunteers and taking donations through their website. If you have the means, here are some other organizations you can support to combat these bills:

ACLU or especially the ACLU of Tennessee, which is ready to fight Tennessee's new anti-drag bill in court

The Trans Law Center especially their Trans Health Legal Fund, which provides resources for trans people facing investigation, arrest or prosecution for seeking healthcare

Trans Life Line, a crisis support line in English and Spanish

Trans Latina Coalition

The Marsha P Johnson Institute

TGI Justice Project

For the Gworls

Keep up your courage! Keep up your strength! We've also had some pieces of good news this week too- Minnesota has become a refuge state for trans folks seeking gender-affirming healthcare, Michigan just expanded their protections of LGTBQ citizens, and Wyoming rejected a trans healthcare ban. All is not lost, but if you see a bill moving through your state's legislation, please do make some noise about it!

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[newdog14]

I want to talk to everyone who's still saying "I know Biden is bad, but Trump is worse, so just vote Blue."

I know that American Politics sucks right now. Everyone is a bad option and every year our options get worse. I get it, and it sucks, but here's the thing: If we keep saying "Vote Blue no matter what!" then the Democratic party is never going to get better. In fact, it'll probably get worse, because if ignoring the voices of their voter base doesn't lose them votes, then why bother listening?

If you want things to get better, if you want politicians that you can vote for without feeling like you've betrayed your ethics, then we need to show that we WILL stop voting for people who we don't agree with. We need to show that the American people have heard Biden's Administration say "There are no red lines for Israel" and we do not agree.

Politicians only care about us for our votes. If supporting genocides demonstrably loses votes, then politicians will take note and change their policies in accordance. But if we vote Biden no matter what, if we vote Blue no matter what, then they aren't going to listen to us when we call and protest and scream.

Now, some of you may be thinking, what about Trump?

There is a chance he won't be able to run after all; he's currently in a legal shit storm that got his ability to do business in New York revoked. And with many of his co-defendants and associates pleading guilty things aren't looking good for him. Even if he can dodge the numerous felony fraud charges he's been hit with, this is going to be an expensive, embarrassing, dragged out process that will severely limit his time and funds for campaigning.

That doesn't mean he won't find his way onto the ballot anyway, but he hasn't won the Republican nomination yet. Even if he does though, sticking by Biden doesn't mean you're putting someone better in the White House. Given the ever climbing death toll that Biden is not just ignoring but enabling, it’s getting increasingly difficult, at least for me, to believe that Trump is actually worse. They’re both bad, and they’re both hurting people, so instead let’s look at why so many are clinging to the democratic party, even in the face of a genocide.

I know the biggest reason so many folks are hesitating to cut support for Biden is that they're worried about what that means for those of us in the United States.

Who will stop the anti-trans bathroom bills that keep popping up? Who will keep abortion bans off the books? Who will prevent censorship in schools?

Well, in point of fact, not your president!

Think about it. Did Biden being president put a stop to Florida's "don't say gay" bill? No. He had zero impact there.

Is he what stands between Virginia and the Abortion Ban currently being proposed for the state? Also no. He's not involved at all.

Has Biden stopped the bans on Drag Shows so many states are trying to implement? No, the Federal Courts have been doing that, including judges who were appointed by Trump.

See, the President of the United States is all about the big picture. Their opinions matter, and they can set a tone for their party, but they don’t control everything. Their impacts on the governing of states come from the people they appoint, like judges, but even then, most people will still do their jobs over pleasing the person who got them that job. Especially so because federal judges are actually really difficult to remove, and that only really happens if they’re so bad at following the rules that congress gets rid of them.

I’m not sure if Biden can’t stop states from making laws or if he just wouldn’t, but either way he’s not protecting us. 

The President honestly can’t do a hell of a lot to the American people, especially not in just four years. That’s why we survived Trump’s first presidency, and it’s why we as a whole would survive it if he got a second term.

The place where a President’s influence is immediately and drastically felt, however, is in the international sphere. The American people are protected, the citizens of the world are not, and with that fun little “well we’re not declaring war” workaround, the President, aka the Commander in Chief of the US Military, can do a hell of a lot of damage.

The people of Palestine may not survive another four years of Biden’s presidency. If things carry on like they are, they may not survive the remaining one year of his term.

So we the American people need to show that we will not stand by a president that endorses genocide. We need to show that we will not stand by a party that endorses genocide. We need to start talking, and loudly, about how we will not be voting for Biden next year. We need it to be clear that it is specifically his foreign policy that has lost his support, and that we will not be willing to just switch him out for a newer model who reminds me of no one so much as a modern day Aaron Burr.

There are a lot of things that we can do to express our displeasure for Biden, and for Israel, and there are a lot of people who can help you call for change, plan boycotts, organize marches, and determine where to aim direct action to have the greatest impact. But all of that needs to be done while putting our votes where our voices are, or else all of that rage will burn out and nothing will really change, just like it has in the Black Lives Matter movement.

In this case, as we do not currently have a better option, the place to put our presidential votes is with no one.

It’s not an ideal solution, I know. After all the years we’ve spent saying, “Vote! Vote no matter what! Vote or else you can’t complain about what happens!”, not voting feels like one of the most counterproductive moves to make. The reason we have to do it though, is because voting in the same sort of people and hoping they’ll make things better isn’t working, and we’re never going to get new options if we keep supporting the old ones. Cutting support for Biden, for Democrats on the national level, without a viable alternative isn't an easy choice to make. It's scary and I admit that it's kind of a gamble. No one has ever tried it before, not the way I'm hoping you all will.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” It’s time for us to break. No more unconditional blue votes. 

We have to force the Democratic party to recognize that their voting base will not just mindlessly support them, and that the candidates they put forth will be expected to hold up a certain moral standard. Our democracy is skewed to favor the opinions of corporations and the mega rich, but politicians do still need the masses to vote them into office, just like companies need us to buy things so that they can make money in the first place, and voting margins are tight enough that just like in the Speaker of the House vote, it won’t actually take that many of us to throw a wrench in the party’s bottom line.

We might not be able to win, but we can make sure that they lose until they shape up and start making meaningful changes.

And you may be thinking, won’t that just leave us in the hands of Republicans?

I want you to scroll back up. Look at all the bills I brought up that Biden didn’t stop. We are already in Republican hands, and the majority of Democrats are not willing to actually stand up to them.

That said, not voting across the board isn’t what I’m asking you to do. 

Our choices for President may be shot to hell, but there will be other people on that ballot in 2024. Local people, who will very directly affect your hometown and not much outside of it. Vote for your local sheriff, for your school board members, for your mayor and your state delegates. 

These are the people who control whether or not your senator can pass a drag show ban. These are the people who enable or block bills that hurt LGBTQ+ students. These are the folks who vote on whether or not to pass abortion bans. And in local elections? Your vote really, truly counts in a way that it just can’t on a national level.

And it’s not just people who wind up on your ballots. Local initiatives for conservation, funding for infrastructure, redistricting drives, and changes to your state’s constitution appear on your ballots too, and those are things that you’re going to want to have a say in.

There’s more to this mess than just voting or not voting, of course. There is always going to be more than one step we have to take to force change. That's why we cannot and do not vote inside a vacuum. We still have to make calls, and go to protests, and put our money where our morals are. Change isn't easy, and when you're fighting a decades old machine it's not quick either. But the longer we drag our feet about pushing back, the longer we keep betting on the lesser evil to change, the worse our options will get.

It might feel hopeless right now. Like our voices don't matter, and that we're screaming our lungs out alone. We can't give up though. We can't give into despair, and we can’t let up the pressure before new voices step forward, even if it takes time, and even if it takes more effort then checking a box or sharing a post.

One step will never be enough on its own, but every step we take adds up, and when we take those steps together we magnify our voices into something that cannot be ignored.

This is how we force our politicians to change: consequences and losses. If we start up early enough we might even get better options who could actually win the presidency, but we can't balk if we don't.

I know you might be scared to lose this election. As I write this, it feels counterintuitive, and it's something I never could have imagined saying years ago. But we can't change our political options unless we force politicians to change, and that only happens if they can't get elected as they are.

So don't elect them, and make sure they know that you're doing it on purpose and for a reason.

[wheelie-sick]

What sort of things can perisex trans folk do to uplift intersex voices? (Genuine question)

on the surface level you need to be following intersex activists and listening to as well as sharing what they say.

from there you should start to look into literature by and about intersex people and intersex experiences. you need to have a solid understanding of intersex experiences and lives to understand our community. our community is incredibly diverse, no two intersex people are the same, getting a taste of what different intersex people have experienced gives you a glimpse of our world. this also goes to support intersex creators and authors who are often sharing very vulnerable stories (make sure you actually pay when you can! leave a tip/purchase the book)

when reading about intersex experiences remember to be careful about which sources you use for education. many intersex writings are not there to educate perisex people. it's disrespectful to use these pieces of writing as educational resources

after reading something be sure to share it with the people around you and on your blog. it's so hard for intersex people's writings to get out there because we are so erased from every community.

from there you need to start deconstructing your internal sex binary. this is especially important as a trans person because the sex binary and gender are incredibly intertwined. even if you have a solid understanding that gender is not binary, even if you have deconstructed the gender binary entirely, I guarantee you the sex binary is still lurking in the shadows. the trans community looks at sex in an incredibly binary way to the point that "sex is binary, gender is not" is a common phrase. when the trans community talks about sex or gender ask yourself where intersex people fit in. start to actively consider how intersex people are being excluded and how intersex people fit into the equation-- this goes for both cis intersex people, cistrans intersex people, trans intersex people, and all other intersex people.

in the process you should also be deconstructing other intersexist views of the world. even if you logically understand these are untrue or harmful they are likely still playing a role in how you act and perceive intersex people because they are ingrained in you by society. some examples of concepts to deconstruct:

the medicalization of intersex people (e.g seeing us as disordered)

the strictly defined boundaries of intersex existence (e.g seeing intersex as a term only for people with ambiguous genitalia)

the aversion to discussing intersex bodies because they often involve gonads, genitals, and reproductive organs

etc.

getting on the same page as intersex people is vital to being an ally.

to be a true ally you need to do more than just sharing our writings and reading our books. those are great starting points but helping us goes deeper than that. as a perisex person you have privilege over intersex people. intersex people are denied the understanding that we are experts on our own experiences. perisex people defer to other perisex people when talking about intersex people, they see us as fallible while they view perisex people as impartial.

as a perisex person you need to not just uplift our voices but also use your own to support us.

get involved in our movements and speak out alongside us. call out intersexism when you see it, join us in fighting IGM, nonconsensual HRT, the medicalization of intersex existence, and so on. you voice has a lot of power so you should be using it to speak alongside us. always remember that we can speak for ourselves, but voices in support of us are always welcome. echo what we say and give credit to activists for their efforts and ideas.

with that said, some conversations are not for you. no matter how involved in intersex activism you are some conversations don't need your opinion or voice. when an intracommunity discussion is happening keep quiet.

thank you for this question, sorry it took a minute to get to it 💕 other intersex people are welcome to add on

[bullshit-tqia]

hi, i hope trans-androgyne's army doesnt go after you too heavily. they are notorious for sending their followerbase after folks, especially people who dont agree with their politics. they spread lies about people and let their girlfriend abuse people so that they can say it "wasnt them".

i was in their server for a while before i left due to my own triggers, they allow MAP shit and support no-contact p*dos. they allow white folks to shit talk poc trans men and be racist, all because they support trans women. i have screenshots and have been in the works with other ex members for a few weeks to make a larger scale post. please be careful. (please dont feel like you have to post this, either.)

As I’ve said before, I’m taking this with a grain of salt.

I honestly doubt they “allow MAP shit” or “no-contact pedophiles.” That is wayyyy too out there for me to automatically believe is true. There has to be something you’re leaving out. I’ll need screenshots to believe that. Same with the racism, that’s too crazy for me to automatically believe.

I’ve also had contact with @trans-androgyne in the past and have a little swarm of their followers in the notes so I’m not going to be surprised if it happens again. I don’t care, this happens online all the time. This is what rabid followers do, I bet in the past, at least once, this has escalated to a point where trans-androgyne had to tell their followers to stop. But a lot of people don’t listen, because they get really upset when you insult their favorite tumblr user. Parasocial af.

That’s how I feel with their girlfriend “abusing” people if someone disagreeing with their politics. That’s not abuse. That’s more like a partner supporting their partner in what they think is a crusade to defend their partner’s character. You don’t have to twist it around to make it seem vicious when it’s more pathetic than anything else.

It reminds me of this:

[nothorses]

out of curiosity, would you happen to know of any trans women and/or trans fem tumblrs that are safe to follow as a trans masc?

it seems that nearly all the trans fems and women i was already following* have begun to post transandrophobic and/or baeddel sentiment

i want to follow more trans fems; i just want to keep myself safe in the process

*disclaimer that i know it's only a vocal minority of trans fems who dislike trans mascs, i just don't have the energy to seek out and vet a bunch of accounts myself right now

this isn't specific to transfems, but I do have a list of folks who are not transmasc but support use of the term "transandrophobia", and a good amount of those people are transfem.

I will say that personally, I usually just follow people and then unfollow/block them if I come across something shitty (or vet them if I see something that feels off), rather than try to vet every single person I follow upfront. that may not be practical for you, and that's fine, too! but just in case alternatives are helpful to anyone.

I also think it's pretty rare that anyone has exclusively bad takes, and it is, imo, entirely fine to follow and reblog the Good Stuff from someone who also has shitty takes- especially if you straight up don't know about the shitty takes yet. more than a couple people who I currently have blocked, and even some folks who vocally hate me specifically, are also people who I at one point followed for a long time, who I actively liked at one point, and who have said some good, solid stuff that I wholeheartedly agree with.

I avoid those folks now & I disagree with a lot of what they say, I think a lot of their actions are harmful, but like. it's okay to be surprised, is all. it's okay to agree with some of the stuff they say. it's also important to be critical about why, how you're interpreting it vs. how they mean it, why they believe what they do and whether that should prompt some questions about why you do, etc. but like. sometimes people with bad opinions also just have good opinions, and sometimes they even have them for the same reasons you do, and that's normal.

just to say that I hear the safety aspect you're speaking to, and of course if you say it's purely about safety for you then like, totally. I think there's also a tendency towards paranoia around the Good People I Can Follow and the Bad People I Can't Follow, and I want to encourage folks to question that, if it is where they're at.

[itgetsbetterproject]

Advice for LGBTQ+ students going back to school this year:

We asked our community what advice they would give LGBTQ+ students going back to school this fall and they ANSWERED and now we are cryinggg:

🍎 Nothing gets better in a vacuum. It gets better because of the experience you gain, the relationships you build, and the tireless effort of people you may never come to know. Why? Because you are worth it, sweetheart. We will love you with profound depth until and after you begin to love yourself. - Nick

✏️ Identify your safe people. I had a “safe person-safe place” sign on my school bus. Any student could approach me at anytime for any need and I’d have their back. This was especially true for my LGBTQ+ riders. I like to think I set the tone of inclusion for all my kids to follow. Once I declared the bus a safe space with no room for intolerance, the kids all felt free to be themselves. And they were all beautiful, wonderful people! -Lisa

🏳️‍🌈 I had someone in high school that NEVER talked to or associated with me. We ran into each other at a party a few weeks ago. I got hugged. I also got invited, with my husband of 22 years, to a party this weekend. It DOES get better. People grow up, learn things, and change. -Michael

🏳️‍⚧️ Just because it’s safe for some people to be “visibly out” doesn’t mean you HAVE to be. Do what makes YOU feel comfortable and SAFE. Being out and proud and loud is great, but you can still be proud without being obvious if that’s what you need to do. There’s not just one way to be, it doesn’t make you any less valid - Kaitlin

🍎 It is entirely up to you where and when and how to be out or not be out.

Find your people - other queer & trans kids, allies, teachers, school staff & love each other fiercely

Find those who will speak for you when you can’t speak up for yourself.

Find safe spaces & people outside of school, find spaces and people that allow you to be you.

Know that you have a whole community of queer and trans and non- binary folks cheering for you, supporting you & loving you. When no one else is, imagine us surrounding you. - Heather

✏️ Be bold, be brave, be unapologetically you. Embrace your authentic self, radiate your truth, and let the world witness the beauty of your existence. - Daniel

🏳️‍🌈 School is only one part of life - a relatively small and short part. Even if it feels enormous and all-consuming now. Make the most of it if you can. Just wait it out if you need to. It does not last forever. - Sera

🏳️‍⚧️ Remember that you are equal to every person. No one is superior to you. And, this segment of your life is far from permanent. Try to enjoy it, but realize that it will remain in the past as you advance into the future. You are in school for the primary reason of learning. Be a glutton for this learning, because what you learn is truly among the things that cannot be taken or stolen from you. Don't give up on your dreams, no matter how farfetched they may seem. I thought my dreams were lofty when I was in school. But I found that I had never aimed higher than I could easily go. There is a vast world of people who already love you, and I am surely one of them. - Marc

[ineffable-rohese]

Did I just break down sobbing hard because I saw a video of a trans man singing a German art song beautifully?

Absolutely.

The prospect of losing my singing voice is literally the only thing that makes me scared of going on T. Everything else is either extremely positive, positive, neutral, or annoying but fine. I've been a singer as an identity since I was 12. It's how a lot of people know me, and what I'm known for. I'm not bragging when I say I could have had a significant opera career if not for the ADHD that made it impossible to follow through with things. My voice is an essential part of who I am and sacrificing that is terrifying.

But it's not just my anatomy that makes me excellent. It's my musicality, my sensitivity, my understanding of the music and how to convey it. It's the way I sing the words as well as the notes, the choices I make about diction and power and dynamics. It's the way I embody the music and tell the story with my expression. It's the decades of work to become an expert in a craft. And none of that would be lost. Even if I lose clarity of tone, even if it takes time and work to learn a new instrument, I can still sing the story.

And the article that video was in was from 2010, and even then there was growing evidence of hormone protocols that were helping folks on T keep singing at reasonably similar levels of quality to pre-T. Low doses, slow increases, vocal exercise, speech therapy, keeping singing through the awkward adjustment period. And it sounded like some specific research was ongoing then. Almost 15 years later, there's got to be some even better research and support somewhere.

And you know, sopranos are a dime a dozen, especially for the singing I'm mostly doing these days. Baritones have always been my favorites... 🤞🤞🤞

[catgirl-kaiju]

i'm saying this as a trans man and someone who has watched this infighting that seems to be brewing for a long while so don't think i want to continue it further by dragging you in the mud of it all especially after seeing that you already get targeted by terfs i for one don't even follow genderkoolaid and have a lot of bad takes but i know that their good ones do circulate in my circles for things like databases for trans man hate crimes and what have you things that are invaluable to trans people to have as support in the community the baggage behind a lot of these words that get thrown around like "transandrophobia" just leave a bad taste in my mouth and i feel like if they will have any validity in academia and social justice all the theory will get ironed out in the next few years and so i just don't see any use defending THE WORD let alone THE SLUR THAT MANY USE but i think that it needs to be understood that the word """"transandrophobia"""" is not a organized school of thought with everyone attached to some discord group that has secret infighting targets and takes pot shots at trans women all i ever see is people using the word, talking about WHY THE SLUR IS A SLUR, and wanting to talk about problems trans men face without always having to use the word "misandry" because it is deeply upsetting that in so many ways we are born women, we live as women, and will never escape womanhood i feel like not being able to escape the things people perceive you as and the assumptions and fears (especially the fears people think are justified when they are very much not) are a universal trans experience and so it really hurts to just see people spot a basic word like "transandrophobia" being used in a post and deem an entire group of people bigots i see trans mascs and intersex people do the same for "tme/tma" where they just totally avoid anyone who uses these terms its tearing the community apart and making it harder to remember how much we have in common and bigots want us to be alone and defenseless like that... sorry that this was long winded, i'm sure you've heard all of this before i just felt i needed to vent because its really not about the blog its about the general way people navigate in fighting genderkoolaid is not someone i'm really willing to defend, let alone the other blogs that get tossed around that have been in heavy water so i hope i've made that clear here at the very least

hey i don't really follow what you're saying here. i'm not sure what slur the slur you're referring to is, and i'm very unclear what your point is abt transandrophobia. i'm also confused abt which intersex people u are referring to that don't like the terms tme/tma. i'm intersex and use those terms, and i've seen other intersex folks actually prefer those terms for discussions about transmisogyny because of how it shifts the focus away from very binary way that sex is talked about in the AGAB model.

this is, in general, confusing and makes me uncomfortable in ways i can't really articulate atm. i think chief among them is a kind of "but, what about me" vibe i'm getting from this at a time i am being more vocal than ever abt how transmisogyny affects me and other tma folks.

although i'm not sure what your stance on the term "transandrophobia" and the ideas behind it are, i can say that very much disapprove of it for reasons others have articulated so much better than i could. i think issues that uniquely affect trans masc folks are worth talking about, but i think the framing of conflating those issues with the way transmisogyny functions is just the wrong way to go about it. much like how "misandry" is not really a helpful way to talk abt the ways that cis men are affected by patriarchal systems, as those issues are not equivalent to the way misogyny functions. very telling that before the term "transandrophobia" was used, the same ideas were being described with the term "transmisandry"

[transienttheologyproject]

i hope my followers & others keeping up & supporting this project know that whenever you leave a kind message on my post — whether it be something as simple as a tagging your reblog of my posts with ‘!!!’ or as personal as sending me a message to the effect of ‘this type of work means so much to me thank you for doing it,’ you are helping me keep my momentum going.

bit of a whole big rant below, sorry for the length, but tl;dr i’m just immensely grateful for what support this project has received because the backlash it has gotten has taken way more of a toll on me & my mental health than i anticipated, and your kindness has helped in motivating me to not just completely wipe this whole thing from the internet.

today yesterday kinda sucked. a lot of the past couple weeks have sucked, especially since pushing more of an online presence with this zine, because of course, with something like this you’re naturally gonna attract a range of Christians, from those ‘gender-criticals’ (whatever that means) who think I’m misguided, to those who begin their messages by calling me & my work perverted, to those whose vitriolic transphobia manifests in sending me Gospel verses weaponized as straight-up death threats. and obviously i knew this was going to happen, and it did, even from as early on as when i was posting the calls-for-art.

and at first i handled it well — i deleted whatever i felt wasn’t worth my time responding to, and if i could meme a hate-comment into a promotional tiktok, then i kept it around to do exactly that. and that worked. i told myself i wasn’t going to get defensive and bound up in keyboard wars because the purpose of this specific project, this specific platform isn’t for debating or dialoguing with Christians who don’t affirm trans+ identities — it’s to serve those who are trans+ and Christian, and I didn’t want this intra-community effort to become an inter-community debate forum. dialogue is a perfectly necessary thing, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a time & a place for everything and this project wasn’t meant to be it.

as the weeks went on, however, the negative attention this project was receiving began to take a toll on me. it didn’t help that in addition to the anticipated pushback from Christian peers, some of the trans+ folks i knew gave me a hard time for ‘bootlicking the oppressor.’ i was, and still definitely am, having the most intense experience i’ve had to this day of the exact type of ostracization that inspired me to pursue this project in the first place — too trans for the Christians, too Christian for the trans folks.

receiving comments calling an academic research project i dedicated my entire summer to “perverted” made me doubt everything i had worked so hard on. accusations of “heresy” and “blasphemy” i had expected and received plenty of, but perversion was not something i had anticipated. comments like “you make me sick” made me second-guess everything i had done leading up to that moment — am i sickening? i was falling for the false narrative that exists as the backbone of much of today’s transphobia — that trans+ people are inherently groomers, monstrous predators. i was perverting my body, they said, and scripture, too — and i began to wonder if they were right.

receiving comments like “enjoy your insanity! I hope the boot still tastes good when they've taken away all our rights so you could feel like ‘one of the good ones’” made me doubt my identity as a Christian. yeah, it’s no secret that the anti-trans legislation running rampant and scaffolding an era of fascism in the United States is the result of neoconservative Christians who represent more the Rome that Jesus mocked & condemned than Christ’s mission itself. i began to worry if calling myself Christian identified me with the oppressor and if talking about transness from a Christian perspective was really a helpful endeavor or if i was essentially stabbing my trans+ community in the back.

you’d think that given the nature of this project, i would be better about not letting those sorts of interactions wear me out. because i’m conducting a project that’ll say “hey, trans+ Christians, you don’t have to choose between those two facets of your identity because they’re not mutually exclusive,” you’d think i would’ve had that mindset confidently internalized. or maybe you wouldn’t think that, but i guess i thought so myself. and i guess i thought that expecting the petty backlash & having done enough research to dismiss it was enough to be prepared for it. not really.

from the beginning, i told myself, “don’t let the mean ones get to you, you’re smart and have done your research and know what you’re talking about.” but there was such a separation between myself and my work this summer that i never truly internalized what i was writing about — i believed it, but i didn’t necessarily believe it for myself.

this project has been a labor of love. and i definitely think the labor part got the best of me this whole summer. the literary review was a drag. writing up the annotated bibliography was immensely frustrating and took me way longer than i would have liked. same with the zine’s section prefaces. and i had planned and hoped to meet with and interview several professionals in the various fields examined in the zine — and i totally dropped the ball because of… something that felt like burnout, which actually made me feel like i had committed the biggest blunder of my professional career before it had even begun. I’m still recovering from that.

the mental and emotional toll this has caused me, the academic, spiritual, psychological, and physical strife this whole endeavor has proven to have been has resulted in me sort of dissociating from the project; i talked about it as though it was a passion project of mine — which it is — but as i was working on it, i felt so disconnected from the material. as if it were akin to a homework assignment in a class i couldn’t care less about.

i’ve been in a tough spot regarding mental health for a long while now (for various other reasons besides this), and i’ve reached the point where i’ve wanted to pull the plug on something to just try and break whatever vicious cycle im trapped in, whether that something be as large-scale as dropping out of university, or as low-scale as shaving all my hair off, or maybe…well, maybe since i can pinpoint these online interactions and this research pursuit as a whole as contributing substantially to my poor mental state, maybe i should pull the plug on the zine. screw it, delete the social media pages & the website, make sure artists get their copies & be done with it.

but i have folks who have been legitimately looking forward to this — not even just people of the intended audience! i have cis Christian friends on my college campus who had never met a(n openly) trans+ person, let alone a trans Christian, before they had met me who have demonstrated such a genuine eagerness to learn from the expressions of faith and gender from myself & others like me. i know a Catholic mother — the sweetest woman — who is ordering a physical copy of the zine so she can try to understand and support her two trans+ daughters, and any other trans+ people she meets, better. i’ve had countless people — strangers — message me “this work you are doing is incredible and incredibly needed. thank you for doing it.” i’ve seen several people, folks just scrolling through their tiktok for you page who don’t even usually follow after leaving me comments to the effect of “yknow, this is a strange crossover episode, but i’m here for it, this is cool!”

there are people who want this work out there. and what’s more is that there are people who need this work out there. and i guess every time someone goes out of their way to extend some kindness towards me and gratitude for this project, i am reminded that i am among those who need this work. those little moments ground me in the purpose and mission of this project — to serve my trans+ Christian community, particularly those who may be having trouble reconciling their intersection within those identities especially within the current socio-political climate. and like, that’s me!!! i am a member of my community, i am a part of the people i am hoping to serve.

everything i was (and truthfully, still am) anxious about, everything that was (and is) weighing on my heart is everything that this project hopes to challenge. all the doubt i’ve been experiencing as of late is exactly what inspired me to do this work in the first place.

and the kindness and gratitude so many of you have extended towards me in the past few weeks, especially within the past few days, have truly helped ground me. i’m still struggling to get back on my emotional feet per se, which is why i will ask that if you find a moment, you keep me in your prayers — but i genuinely mean it when i say that every positive tag on a reblog, every share on one’s story and every kind comment serves as a reminder to me that a.) there are people will be genuinely served by a project like this, and not only that, but b.) i am one of those people. you all remind me to take a look at what i’ve done from the perspective of a trans Christian, not of a student researcher or a graphic designer or a social media moderator or any of the other practical roles i had to take on this summer. you remind me to look at this project as the type of person it’s meant to serve. you remind me of my initial hopes and goals with this endeavor.

you remind me to allow myself to be transformed by the work i have done.

when you share with me how inspirational this project is to you, you remind me to let myself be inspired by the work i’ve done. when you share how much this zine means to you, you remind me to let myself take meaning in it.

and i think it’s sort of ironic in a very beautiful way — so much of this zine focuses on the idea of entanglement and the interdependence of many facets of our lives, and it wasn’t until this project became entangled with you all so much that your experience with the zine is no longer just dependent on mine, but that ours are interdependent on each other. the positivity you feel at learning about this project is poured back into my cup, giving me the breathing room to finally allow myself to feel positively about it, too.

so truly, from the bottom of my soul, thank you. thank you for your kindness and your support, and for making it this far in my ramblings if you have. i know it was quite disorganized and probably very repetitive but this is my first time sort of articulating what i’ve been feeling so heavily recently. so, thank you again — i hold each and every one of you always in my heart, mind, and prayers!

<3 - Soup

(the man behind the curtain)

[liana-kerzner-is-a-narcissist]

Liana Kerzner aka redlianak aka It’s Not Therapy tried to provoke this trans woman to suicide.

I am a trans woman living in Ontario, and while I am deeply tired of literally everyone wanting my existence to end… there is one person in particular who actively tried to drive me to suicide. That person is Liana Kerzner. What Liana put me through… no person should ever have to go through.

Writing this post is the opposite of easy. But I am tired of keeping all of this inside and I am tired of seeing awful people scam others out of thousands of dollars when the rest of us have to struggle just to survive and make ends meet.

My trans siblings — Liana Kerzner is NOT our ally. She may be the enemy of our enemy, but she is not our friend, no matter how she seems to be acting on our behalf or how much she seems to care about us. (Seems is the key word there, by the way.)

Liana Kerzner is a masterful narcissistic liar and manipulator who is very good at pretending to care about others, because she likes to use other people. By suddenly being “all in” for trans rights, she is performatively jumping on being vocal about supporting trans folks at best. At worst, she is actively looking for more vulnerable people to exploit through her massive Twitter reach. I know her tricks well, because I was once one of those vulnerable people that Liana Kerzner knowingly took advantage of and caused harm to.

And with Liana Kerzner now masquerading as someone who “cares” about trans folk, and who uses her large Twitter platform to collect followers (ie funders for her next vanity project), I knew I had to say something before she exploits or harms anyone else like she did to myself and many others*.

See, I knew Liana and her husband Steven personally. I knew them before I found myself and claimed the woman I always knew I was, and at one point I was naive enough to think that we were actually friends, that they cared about me as a person. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

In fact, when we were “friends” Liana exploited me for free labor for a number of months for one of her vanity projects. But at the time, I was happy to help out a person who I thought was a friend and I didn’t think to question what she asked of me to do (or to ask to be paid for my work) especially because it started out with her asking for very small things. Liana made it seem like she really needed my help and that she thought I was brilliant; she did all of the tricks that narcissists do when they groom you.

This was also around the time that I was starting to grapple with who I really was, and I wasn’t in the best headspace overall. Liana was someone I confided in about what I was thinking and going through, and she convinced me that I “was confused” and should go on anti-depressants instead of looking more into transitioning. Any time I was having a rough day and needed to talk, we would talk about me and where I was at for maybe 5–10 minutes… but then Liana would complain to me for hours about various people who had apparently wronged her, were out to get her, all of it. People who “did her wrong”. Even knowing what I was going through, she kept saying things like “Oh you’re a man, you don’t know what it’s like for women like me.” We would be chatting on Skype and I know she could see my face fall, and yet she kept saying stuff like this to me about how “manly” I was, all of it. Liana refused to recognize that I was a scared little girl inside a body I hated and felt trapped in, or perhaps she was actively taking joy in knowing how upset her comments made me. I honestly don’t know.

I was naive enough to believe that Liana Kerzner was a good person who was being hurt, instead of recognizing that Liana was in fact the predator who was knowingly causing harm to these other people.

While we were “friends”, and while she never came out and told me to do this for her, there are a handful of people who Liana manipulated me into harassing on her behalf. More than once, Liana had me write and send some nasty emails — ones she demanded to proofread before I sent — to people who she was having disagreements with. Or, in her words, people who were “out to ruin her reputation”. I was also once asked to speak to police on Liana’s behalf and corroborate that Liana was ‘being stalked and harassed’ by a certain person, when I had never actually witnessed any of this behavior from the person she claimed was stalking her. (Police scare me, so I declined. Liana was not happy about this.) Liana also wanted me to back her up when she “had to” make a complaint about supposed sexual harassment by a male friend of hers, claiming that she suddenly feared for her safety with this man — again, meanwhile, I had never seen any of this kind of behavior from him. Not with her, not with any woman. This is what narcissists do, they get others to act on their behalf so they don’t have to get her own hands dirty.

Every month or so, it seemed like Liana had a falling out with someone new; at one point this included her own young nephew and his parents. (These are the same people she started her failed NYE Event Futurecon for, btw.) In hindsight, I’m certain that these people who “had it out for her” were simply, rightfully standing up to Liana’s bullshit and manipulations.

Over time, the unpaid labor or “favors” that Liana asked for got bigger, including some things she wanted me to “borrow” from my day job for her benefit. (Unpaid, of course.) This was also around the time that I decided to come off the anti-depressants and begin transitioning for real. I was scared of so much back then — scared nobody would love me, scared of how my friends and family would take the news, scared of how my workplace would treat me, all of it. Liana knew about my fears and insecurities, because I told her.

And she used it all against me.

The first time I said no to doing an (unpaid) favor for her, she called up my workplace and outed me to my boss. This was long before I was ready to share the news publicly about the woman I was becoming. Not only did this lead to some very awkward workplace conversations about “employee appropriateness” (whatever that even means, ugh)… Liana began to call me at my workplace regularly to scream at me for “letting her down”. Eventually, her harassment of me led to me getting fired.

Then, as I was trying to distance myself from her, one day I got a harassing phone call about an item I had apparently “stolen” from Liana; it was demanded that I return it or pay the replacement item cost, which was quite expensive. Not only did I never steal anything from Liana, this incident happened at a time when I was jobless so I was barely covering my rent and bills. In this phone call, I was verbally threatened that I might face criminal charges, I might go to jail, or be sued… all for something I didn’t do. And the person that I spoke with made sure to tell me that I would be “put with other men where I belong”. Yeah.

I also got harassing emails on Liana’s behalf from her husband Steven Kerzner, who threatened me with lines like “as long as you don’t speak ill of my wife, we won’t have to tell the truth about who you are and what you’ve done.” Basically… trying to threaten me into never saying anything about the hell that Liana Kerzner put me through and the lies she was spreading about me.

A friend very kindly let me know that the Kerzners were also going behind my back, calling mutual acquaintances and telling them that I was mentally unstable, that I was becoming violent, that I should no longer be invited to certain events we were both planning on attending, etc. It was all lies, but this social exclusion and the rumor mill went on for months. I watched people who I thought were friends fall off one by one because of the Kerzners manipulation, threats, and lies.

Through this all, Liana Kerzner repeatedly and actively lied about me to many other people, claiming that I was a pedophile, that I was trying to groom young kids — the same anti-trans rhetoric you see other people using now.

Liana Kerzner also tried to get me committed to a psych ward, with other lies about my mental health and that she was worried I was “a danger to others and myself” and that I was having “delusions” of being a woman because I was “sexually attracted to her and acting out”. (She tried something here in Canada that is called a form one) She tried have me placed under psychiatric evaluation with her blatant lies… ultimately, all for being trans. And for daring to finally stand up to her narcissistic abuse when I couldn’t take any more.

I also got some threatening and harassing emails from other friends of Liana’s, a couple of which called me a “man in a dress” and explicitly told me to kill myself, that the world would be better without trash like me. I won’t repeat everything that was said, but it was a lot. Especially back then.

Liana Kerzner is a liar, a narcissist, a bully, and someone who knows how to quite skillfully manipulate those around her, including lying to the legal system and lying to doctors, to get them to harass and abuse others on her behalf.

There’s more I could tell you about too, but it all boils down to the same thing… Liana Kerzner is only pro-trans rights to suit her own agenda. At her core, she is still deeply transphobic , toxic, and abusive. She’s just good at hiding it.

Her usual MO is to either get people to give her money (ie Patreon, Ko-fi, Kickstarter, etc) and/or to get people to do favors for her for free… despite the Kerzners being rather well off, apparently.

What I will say in closing is this… Liana can keep up the charade of being your “friend” for years, but ultimately she is cruel and manipulative. Liana Kerzner will say and do anything she can to get what she wants out of people — including pretending to be a trans ally so that people like you and me will confide in her, and be willing to pay her money for her “not therapy” bullshit, aka Liana Kerzner’s newest grift.

If you value your own mental and physical health, don’t let Liana Kerzner manipulate you. Take it from someone who has been there, and who has been through that particular hell.

Get as far away from Liana Kerzner’s fake-nice narcissistic manipulation as fast as you can.

*Footnotes:

*Emily Schooley is a brave woman and survivor of domestic violence whom Liana Kerzner has been jealously and maliciously smearing for well over a decade now.

While there’s tens if not hundreds of us who have received the “Special K” treatment from Liana, Emily is the only person brave enough to speak the truth publicly about Liana with her own name, because Liana likes to: make false police reports about, send harassing emails to, get her minions to harass, or threaten legal action on anyone who speaks out about the abuses she perpetuates.

I’m probably going to get more harassment from Liana Kerzner just for posting this, even though my name is not attached to this post, but Emily Schooley’s bravery and vulnerability in sharing what Liana Kerzner put her through is part of what inspired me to stand up and speak my truth too.

https://www.tumblr.com/liana-k-truth — someone else put this list together of some of the many people Liana has knowingly harmed and some of the other problems Liana has caused over the years. It’s well worth the read.

https://futurec0n.wordpress.com/ — some other people Liana Kerzner has harassed and caused harm to