#females and trans women] but they still are The Other in some way and therefore must be both a man [human] and something else)

[astraltrickster]

Since the wave of mass site migrations there is one REALLY worrisome trend I've been noticing: the number of radfem posts I've been seeing ending up on my dash, reblogged unknowingly by people who think they're just base-level feminist statements, has all but gone back to c.2014 levels. Everything seems good on a surface level, but I spot one dogwhistle, or something strikes me as being a little too absolutist, and I check into that...and sure enough, the road leads back to terf city.

So here's a quick PSA:

Please be careful with your Feminism 101 sources.

See, terfs and their close relatives KNOW we don't like them here, so they don't tend to lead with their well-known hatred of trans women. On top of that, there is a problem with a subset of radfems on this site who purport to be trans-inclusive - i.e., they openly support trans women...but DESPISE trans men (often more than they hate cis men, because of the whole "joining the enemy"/"gender traitor" myth pushed by terfs) or any nonbinary person who aligns partially with manhood or masculinity, especially if they're AMAB (they often think they can "save" - i.e., conversion-therapy - the AFAB ones).

Therefore, on a single-post level, it is very, VERY hard to tell the difference between a basic feminist statement that, yeah, patriarchy exists and that means there are lots of awful double-standards around gender where women broadly get the shorter end of the stick and these standards AFFECT every individual in a society and that's something we should work to change, and a statement that these things are absolute and inevitable, either because Biology or because those double-standards are too deeply ingrained to EVER overcome without giving up and starting over from scratch (whichever is convenient), and the only solution is hardline female wombyn-born-wombyn separatism or at LEAST excluding trans people from public life for, at best, making it too hard to tell who's ~safe~. In fact, sometimes on that single-post basis, they could potentially even be identical - though less frequently than many people thought in the heyday of "OP was a terf so I stole this post but anyway all men are walking rape threats and need to accept that any reasonable person will always hate and fear them on sight".

So what can you, random newbie, do to avoid unwittingly passing one of these messages on without turning into some kind of horrible "feminism is cancer" chud?

Well, one of the easiest ways is the Shinigami Eyes browser extension, but I personally don't like to rely on it because 1) you can't use it on every platform (sorry mobile app likers), 2) in my experience it's somewhat common for "trans-inclusive" radfems to be flagged as safe because someone saw their positivity for trans women but not their hatred for trans men, and 3) I just don't like to promote the use of browser extensions as a substitute for learning what radfem rhetoric is and why it is, in fact, anything but feminist; it is very beneficial to terfs if the ONLY thing you know of their rhetoric is "they hate trans women".

The hard but better way is to actually familiarize yourself with what to look out for. Here is an inexhaustive list:

Category 0: Tags to add to your blacklist

Your blacklist filters out posts with the blacklisted tags in the reblog you're seeing, OR in the root post. Therefore, if a radfem post that looks like it's just base-level feminism does breach containment somehow and end up on your dash through someone else, it will still get caught if it's tagged with any of these:

Terfsafe

Radblr

Radfem

Terfs/radfems do interact/do touch/please interact/please touch, etc

Category 1: Terf-ese and dogwhistles

Some of these, especially those near the top of the list, are immediate telltale signs. Others are less certain, but they should at least raise some eyebrows.

"Gender critical" - literally a synonym for terf just used to make the ideology sound more legitimate; they often claim that terf is a slur

"TIM/TIF" - "Trans-identified male/female", a way to delegitimize trans identities

"Febfem" - female-exclusive bisexual woman; a bisexual woman who rejects her attraction to men; essentially a modern term for "political lesbian" (a group which claimed that lesbianism is not a sexual orientation that some people just Have, but a political choice to reject men)

"Butch flight" - the claim that trans men are butch lesbians transitioning to escape lesbophobia and gain male privilege

"Adult human female" - this very simplified dictionary definition of "woman" is something of a rallying cry

"Let girls be tomboys/butch" - some people say this in response to old repressive gender roles in things like dress codes, or even people holding trans women to a higher standard of femininity than cis women, but if that is not explicitly the context it's very likely that this means "stop the evil plastic surgery racket from force-transing every little girl who even looks at a truck, which they're TOTALLY doing"

The inverse, while less common (terfs tend to be very open about not wanting men to be feminine in any way because of "deception" and "false security"), is also one to look out for - sometimes it's a statement against binarism and gender essentialism, sometimes it's basically an assertion of the Blanchard "feminine homosexual man vs. autogynephilic man" model of what a trans woman is

"Compulsory heterosexuality/comphet" - an aspect of heteronormativity whereby it's common, especially for younger people, to try to force themselves to experience heterosexual attraction when they don't. Useful as it may seem, the term was coined by radfems. Most people who are not terfs or other radfems who want to discuss it will discuss it under the umbrellas of heteronormativity and amatonormativity

Hogwarts houses - this is a sneaky one; far from everyone who read those books or even enjoyed them is a terf, but since JKR's full-tilt descent into fascism via the gateway of transphobia, terfs HAVE been using this as a way to seek out their own and mark themselves as safe; let this also serve as a reminder that if you are NOT a terf PLEASE REMOVE THIS FROM YOUR BIO; it WILL both draw them to you AND cause you to be immediately distrusted by anyone else, saying "I DO NOT CONDONE THE VIEWS OF JKR" will not help because terfs can and do lie about that too in communities where they have to stay crypto, at best you're granting them plausible deniability

Referring to men and women as "males" and "females"

Usernames referencing "female" reproductive anatomy - may be a good sign if they're attached to trans-positive modifiers like "boy" or "they", but a username like "divine-vagina" or "ovariesofpower" (note these are theoretical usernames, not ones I've encountered in the wild; if someone does have one of those usernames and isn't a radfem I'm deeply sorry) is probably a terf

Hatred of makeup and plastic surgery - look, no one likes the beauty industry, no one is going to dispute that beauty standards are a nightmare, but this is frequently a smokescreen for hating gender confirmation or anything that helps with the "deception" inherent to transness; be ESPECIALLY wary of anyone talking about "TikTok plastic surgeons trying to sell their services to impressionable teenage girls", this usually translates to "gender confirmation surgeons telling young transmascs that there are options for them", and remember that you either believe in bodily autonomy or you don't, there is no third option

Category 2: Ideological concepts to look out for

This is some of the beginnings of crossing the line from feminism to radfem bullshit - if the rest of the post seems cool but starts heading in these directions, don't assume it's hyperbole; get it as far away from you as possible.

Patriarchy, men-oppressing-women, is THE root system of injustice from which all others spawn. Some will acknowledge that other factors may intersect, but will still claim that they are lesser. Bringing up the long history of white women getting men of color, especially Black men, killed via weaponized fragility and false claims of sexual violence, is just a series of flukes and pointing it out to refute this notion that men vs. women outranks all other inequalities is just whataboutism.

Because patriarchy is so far-reaching, it affects every individual, and because it trumps all other axes of oppression, this means that in every interaction between any man and any woman, the man will be the one with more power.

Men, due to socialization, biology, or both, are categorically incapable of recognizing women as full people. This is not only a broad pattern, but an inevitable fact, true of every individual man, no matter how hard anyone tries to change it.

There is a singular Universal Female Experience. According to terfs, this is an external force; trans women don't have this socialization experience, therefore they can never truly know what it's like to be a woman. According to tirfs, it is internal; trans men process their experiences internally as men from birth to death and therefore have no claim to truly understand any experience of misogyny directed at them.

The experience of being a woman is, first and foremost, suffering. It is therefore to be expected that a certain subset of people would transition to try to escape it - but it's the wrong answer, and this practice of either self-destruction or betrayal must be stopped at all costs. Anyone who wants in on the miserable experience that is womanhood, on the other hand, is at best insensitively looking at a burning building and going "wow, that looks so warm!", blissfully but cruelly unaware of the misery of the situation, and at worst is lying to satisfy a fetish.

Women are categorically incapable of abusing men, because patriarchy outranks all, down to the individual level. Some may also say that this is true because of biological differences in physical strength. (Very feminist, isn't it, to say "the strongest woman is still weaker than the weakest man and nothing can ever change that"?)

There is, fundamentally, no difference between a person with some subconscious misogyny problems and an incel mass shooter; both will abuse women, and therefore both must be treated as threats.

Because the power differential between men and women is so great, a woman cannot TRULY meaningfully consent to sex with a man; all sex between a man and a woman is rape.

Because rape is such a common trauma among women, the very existence of men - or penises, for that matter, even fully clothed ones - in a space where a woman doesn't expect them is traumatic and itself tantamount to rape.

Lesbians don't just have their own unique flavor of oppression experience like any other queer subgroup; they are in fact THE most uniquely oppressed and vulnerable of all, because being a lesbian is first and foremost not about attraction to women, but rejection of men (recall the ties to political lesbianism). Some radfems will embrace contradictory labels or slightly varied personal definitions for other queer subgroups - but if you're anything but a Kinsey 6 who would never even consider making an exception, and 100% a binary woman, you CAN'T identify as a lesbian. You cannot identify as a lesbian if you wouldn't dump your partner or try to conversion-therapy "her" if "she" came out as transmasc. To a tirf, you cannot identify as a lesbian if you're on the butch-transmasc cusp, if they're willing to admit such a cusp exists in the first place. To terfs, you cannot identify as a lesbian if you would ever date a trans woman, let alone if you ever have.

Again, this is far from being an exhaustive list, but it covers most of the most common things that set off my own alarm bells. Additions are more than welcome.

Remember, the danger of letting radfem posts slide because they seem okay on the surface is twofold: one, you're directing more people to their blogs and exposing them to more people they may then target, and two, when those concepts that cross the line bleed out into your gender theory, the result is bad for you and everyone around you.

[johannestevans]

Hi, as an intersex trans masc person I was just wondering if I could ask/clarify a couple things about your posts about being referred to as "afabs"

This is entirely out of a desire to better understand other perspectives so I'm sorry if its a bother, it isn't intended that way

Is it that you generally dislike being referred to as afab because it references a gender that is not your identity, or is it specifically it being used as a noun that causes the issue?

If it is the noun issue, could I ask if you can elaborate on why?

I was under the impression that afab/amab were useful and accepted ways to refer to someone's physical sex at birth, which is what is relevant in discussion about pregnancy etc. Have I misinterpreted something here?

(I'm also autistic so idk if I've missed some tone issue or sarcasm or implication here, I'm just trying to understand better so I don't offend others)

I hope you're doing well and thanks for your time x

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "PHYSICAL SEX".

And even if there were, right?

Calling me an "AFAB", the implication is meant to be that BECAUSE I was assigned female at birth and had ~female parts~, that means I must have ~female parts~ now, as if these things don't change with time and hormones and surgery, as if because I was erroneously described as female, I am the same physically as I was as an infant, and therefore I share in common everything with anyone else who was also described as female at birth, erroneously or otherwise.

Of course anything to do with being "female" isn't my fucking identity, as a man.

AFAB and AMAB stand for Assigned Female at Birth and Assigned Male at Birth.

Being assigned male or female was an event that happened in the past. I was also a fucking baby at birth. I'm not a baby now, am I? Just because I was an infant then doesn't mean you would prefer to me as an ex-infant or previously an infant. That has 0 bearing on my identity as an adult. It's bizarre to bring it up.

AMAB and AFAB are perfectly useful terms to describe that specific event - the event at birth when you were assigned a sex, incorrect or otherwise.

What relevance or frankly, business, is it of anyone's what sex a ten-year-old was assigned at birth? A twenty-year-old? A forty-year-old? A seventy-year-old?

There are loads of trans people who never went through the wrong puberty, and have had various surgeries. There are plenty of trans people who have been stealth since they were kids, where many of the people around them never had any idea they were trans and/or intersex, and they just went through the puberties they were most comfortable with.

There is no "AFAB" or "AMAB" experience that is universal to everyone based on what sex they were assigned at birth. That is a lie, it is a fiction, and it's not even a convincing once if you actually talk to a variety of other trans and intersex people. Words to the contrary are generally just based in gender essentialist ideology.

What does it have to do with anything, except that some freaks basically still think of assigned sex at birth as what you "really" are, or having a big impact on your current identity in perpetuity?

In a few years, the abilities of surgeons around uterine transplants will have improved. Within twenty years, I expect we'll see more trans women having pregnancies, and in general more people carrying pregnancies after having womb transplants and other organ transplants.

Just say "people who can get pregnant". Just say "people carrying pregnancies" and "pregnant people".

Stop trying to imagine that someone's ~femaleness~ or ~maleness~ is what the crux of the matter is here. Stop trying to project the male and female """"""biological""""" bullshit onto people when it doesn't apply to them.

There is no such thing as universal biological or physical sex under male and female categories, let alone shared experiences based on those categories.

Just eliminate that shit from your mind. It's a fucking cancer.

[gatheringbones]

[“A reminder I find helpful is that trauma, especially developmental trauma, often shapes our thinking into this polarity, this all/nothing, pink/blue, man/woman. When I view the rigidity of this binary through this lens, I can also be more compassionate towards myself and others when we get caught in its net.

All/nothing patterns are tough to break out of, after all. We can notice the rigidity of the gender binary in a range of ways: the gendering of chromosomes, body parts, behaviors, mannerisms, clothing, emotions, toys, experiences, and so on. All/nothing thinking patterns are those that view duality as the only option. For example: you are male or female, good or bad, with us or against us. Given that we live in a cloud of historical, intergenerational, cultural and social trauma when it comes to gender, it makes sense that we have internalized much of this thinking.

In fact, even when we get away from binary ideas of gender, we might still engage in all/nothing thinking patterns, if we are not careful. For example, some young people who identify as trans and/or nonbinary have internalized such a deep need to police gender that they might be afraid of being viewed as “trans trenders” (that is people who think they are trans because it’s “trendy”). Within this paradigm, you are trans or not (another all/nothing pattern). There is no exploring, playing or considering; there is simply, you are or you are not. Some trans and cis people alike question the validity of nonbinary genders, and then other trans and/or nonbinary people turn around and talk about “truscum,” that is, those trans people who align with a medicalized and pathologizing model of gender and believe that dysphoria is an essential trait for some people.

All/nothing patterns are insidious and, if we are not careful, we tend to reproduce the same discourses that oppressed us, creating and recreating boundaries around gender identities and experiences to make sure we know who is “in” and who is “out,” who is “with us” and who is “against us.” While these patterns are understandable, when people are hurt, in survival mode and trying to protect themselves, this is not conducive to healing or liberation. As long as there is policing of gender, any gender, there cannot truly be liberation. This is a really tough one for many of us who have been hurt by rigid gender binaries, and who might have come to our identities through hardship, risk and loss. It is so tempting to feel that now that we are “in,” whichever label, identity or experience that “in” might be, we get to police others and make sure that “fakers” and “trenders” are kept out.

We are simply afraid. Afraid that if we let anyone in who is not 100 percent certain, or in agreement with us, or just like us, we might get hurt. We are afraid that whatever we have built will be blown away. It is understandable. It is what everyone is afraid of. Trauma keeps us afraid of one another. Colonial and patriarchal ways of thinking divide us, and seduce us into believing that, if we behave in certain ways, we too could have power over our little domain, whatever that domain might be. However, these are all lies, lies that trauma tells us and that oppression thrives on. These dualities of Men are from Mars and Women from Venus, cis women against trans women, sex workers versus SWERFs (sex worker exclusive radical feminists) are all deeply rooted in historical, cultural and social trauma.

How can we, then, find another way? The idea of another way is key. If polarities are foundational to all/nothing patterns, our way to liberation can only be found in a third road. Building and nurturing flexibility in our individual and collective soma (bodies) is therefore key. Practicing saying and noticing the maybe, the pause between breathing in and breathing out, reflection, curiosity, slow, kind and consensual relationships are key to healing. We cannot heal from gendered trauma when we are still caught in rigid polarities, still invested in finding a perpetrator or savior so that we can stay in a victim place. Or so invested in being the irredeemable perpetrator that there is no hope for us. Once more, it starts with us, our own gender journey and dismantling internalized polarities first.

Once we engage with this work, we can then support those around us—be they clients, students, fellow community members and communities—to challenge those polarities within themselves and one another. This might all seem very idealistic, and it is. I truly believe we cannot move towards healing through violence. If we are to heal from gendered trauma it has to be through relationships: human, messy, complicated, infuriating, joyful, loving relationships. We cannot be in relationship when we are in opposition. We can be in a tug of war, push and pull at one another but, as long as we stay locked into these patterns, we can only view ourselves as victors and losers. In the meantime, the only victors seem to be systems of oppression.”]

alex iantaffi, from gender trauma: healing cultural, social, and historical gendered trauma, 2020

[sorin-sunchild]

Ok last post about this but here's some simple points that it's imperative you read and understand if you genuinely care about trans people especially as one yourself;

A) No sex or gender is virtuous or sinful by default. It's a persons words and actions which determine what kind of person they are. Leave this 'innate sin' Catholic bs at the door and send the pedestal you're forcing trans fems to sit on out with it.

B) Therefore any trans person can be transphobic, transmisogynistic or transandrophobic including if they're amongst the group targeted by the intersectional terms. All of these types of bigotry are unacceptable, regardless of your personal perceived impact on yourself and others. Nobody should be subject to any kind of bigotry.

C) This does not mean ALL members of X group are Y kind of bigots but it also doesn't mean that no X group members are Y kind of bigots. It's good to be careful of these lines of thinking in anyone if we want to get rid of it but see point A.

D) Holding individuals accountable and opposing the general ideology of transmisogyny, transandrophobia and general transphobia (including nonbinaryphobia, exorsexism and transmedicalism) is more affective than demonising a whole group based on their identity. If members are radicalised or bigoted already, they're not changing their minds because you yelled at them to kill themselves nor are they unworthy of redemption.

E) Listening to people directly about the bigotry they face is the key to understanding bigotry you might not face yourself.

F) Trans unity is the tool we need to craft a fortress so strong we can weather any storm but it won't work if we believe that's enemies in our own lines.

G) Using female-orientated insults towards trans mascs is still misogynistic. Using male-orientated insults towards trans women is still transmisogynistic. Telling anyone to kill themselves for existing loudly and in a way you disapprove of, puts you in the wrong automatically. Telling someone or a whole group to kill themselves also invalidates anything else you wish to say before or after said statement.

H) Failure to understand any of this means you are helping no groups, or even yourself, instead you are likely contributing to trans harm. Including harm to the groups you are most personally invested in helping.

Equality doesn't mean making the oppressed the oppressors and it sure as hell doesn't mean the oppressed oppressing each other. Stop doing the TERFs jobs for them.

[spacelazarwolf]

ngl i fucking hate most conversations around “socialization” bc there’s like three ways it goes: 1. they assert that all trans people were socialized as whatever gender they were assigned at birth with no nuance or exception, 2. they assert that all trans people were socialized as whatever binary gender they most closely relate to, or 3. they assert that all trans people were “socialized trans.” and like. idk how to get it through y’all’s heads that socialization is a wildly fickle and individual experience.

i am autistic. i am also a trans man. i was socialized female. the mask i developed, the social rules i was given to follow, they were for women. the way i learned to speak, to interact with others, the way my life was supposed to go, it was based on how a woman should sound, should look, should feel, should act, should live. i didn’t realize i was some flavor of trans until i was in my mid 20’s, and didn’t realize i was a trans man until i was 28. i’m only 7 months on t and still do not pass. there is literally no planet on which i was “socialized male.” i was also not “socialized trans” because i didn’t even know being trans was an option until well into adulthood. i was given no other option than to conform to gender norms, so i didn’t spend my youth and teen years being bullied for being gender non conforming because i quite literally was just not allowed to be gender non conforming. when people insist i wasn’t socialized female, it erases the trauma i experienced from growing up with such strict gender roles, it ignores the fact that i have had to put in active effort as an autistic adult to start the process of unmasking (which is exhausting and traumatizing) before i can even begin to learn a “male mask” that will be safer in public if i start to pass. it ignores everything about my individual life and boils me down to my genitals, which i could have sworn we didn’t like when ppl did.

does that mean that everyone’s experience has to be exactly like mine? fuck no. there are plenty of trans people who come out very young and do get to grow up presenting as their actual gender and therefore are “socialized” as that gender. there are plenty of trans people who have always been gender non conforming and therefore experienced a lot of backlash that gender conforming cis people of the same assigned gender at birth wouldn’t have. there are as many trans experiences as there are trans people. and this doesn’t even begin to take into account things like race or ethnicity or fatness (hoo boy did that affect gender shit for me) or disability or any other kinds of intersections of identity.

basically, we have got to stop acting like there is a way to determine what a trans person’s experience has been based on nothing but their assigned gender at birth or gender identity.

[femsolid]

There was a talk show on french TV the other day about trans parents and their children. One of the guests was a butch lesbian truck driver and her daughter. The show's host asked the daughter if there were any telltale sign that her mother was a man and the daughter said that her mom ("dad" she called her) had interests and hobbies that were traditionnaly associated with men. I still can't believe I have to hear this shit in 2023. The mother said that she just couldn't bear the thought of being a "masculine woman". She just could NOT be a masculine woman. No way. Being a butch lesbian was unacceptable to her. Therefore she had to be a man. She said she had nothing against masculine women, that she even fell in love with one, it just couldn't be her. But sitting there on the couch... she was exactly that. She was not feminine, she was not a man either, she was a butch lesbian. She just had to pretend (and make everyone pretend with her) that she was a straight man for her to be okay with who she was. And that was pretty sad. Because in the end it means she still isn't okay with who she is. An interesting thing she said was that she only started thinking of transitioning after she heard some french idiots use the word "queer" and she looked it up on the internet and discovered all the propaganda associated and then here she was, boom, a man. An online epiphany. I'm happy she found a way to let go of the pressure of femininity and hope she's happier this way, but the thought process behind it is so incredibly regressive, sexist and homophobic it's hard to stomach.

There was also a transbro invited with his daughter. She said that she and her little brother found out about their dad by discovering his secret instagram account on which he was pretending to be a woman. She also explained that since he had started his transition he was making his children's life a living hell at home. She justified and excused it by claiming he was going through female puberty. The father nodded with a big smile on his face. Haha cute and amusing. Apparently, his doctor told him that the hormones he's taking are turning him into a teenage girl. And teenage girls are annoying, emotional and irrational of course, we all know that, so voilà. The daughter of another transbro said the same thing, that her dad was going through his teenage girl phase and was therefore crying and screaming for no reason. The show's psychologist suprisingly intervened to say it had nothing to do with being female and everything to do with the artifical hormones intake causing mood swings. I would argue that narcissism and misogyny are at play as well.

Another interesting part was when they discussed the fact that trans identified parents have often fantasized about being a member of the opposite sex for a long time but their family on the other hand typically had no idea and is shocked when they discover it. The trans identifying person rushes everything because in their perception they've been waiting for a long time. So they're like: now you know! So pretend with me and be okay with it! But to the family it's completely sudden, so to be asked to forget about the person they know, stop using their name, be an unwilling witness to their sexual changes and be just fine with it is... an impossible task.

And on the topic of sexual changes there were discussions, initiated by the psychologist, about how disturbing it is for the children to become involved in their parents' sex lives. Because through talks of phalloplasties, vaginoplasties, estrogen to induce breast growth, etc, the parents are indeed making the children a part of their sex lives and all the (now adult) daughters agreed that it was uncomfortable to say the least. Like when your dad is recovering from turning his penis into a hole or getting fake breasts you're forced to become aware and part of it. It was interesting that only daughters were present as well. Of course all of them, no matter how uncomfortable, said we should support transitioning and that was the conclusion of the show. I didn't listen to everything because I was working at the same time but. Yeah. All in all, the usual.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

"having a period is not a feminine thing" true! Not all women are massively feminine. "It's just something some bodies do". Uh huh, "those bodies" all have uteruses. As a transexual man I hate that shit like this is spread around. Myself and the rest of the >1% of the population having a specific neurological condition doesn't mean idk my dad can menstruate bc "some people who menstruate are men". The whole thing of transexualism/gender dysphoria is that your sex is the opposite of what your brain says. Then again, I'm not hurt by acknowledging my biological reality bc that's leftist cuck shit

You might be the most mentally healthy FTM I've ever spoken to, XD

No, really though, it's great you have your head on straight about this in ways that very few other trans people seem to. And you're right. "Feminine" =/= woman. Feminine and masculine are terms used to describe things that are generally associated with a specific sex, but they're not indicators of that sex. Feminine men are still men, and vice versa. But all women are female. And males can't be female. Therefore, only women can have a period.

[olderthannetfic]

Kimberlé Crenshaw, who invented the concept of intersectionality largely to discuss the specific experiences of black women, would have nooooooo patience for the suggestion that black men don’t still benefit from male privilege in their own ways, lol. I think a lot of people in your anons need to understand the difference between suggesting that cis het white women don’t overall have it better on most metrics than black or trans or gay men, and pointing out that even marginalized men still benefit in *some* way from male privilege, and even very privileged women still experience misogyny. You’re not measuring them against each other by doing that; reduction of this discussion to a mathematics game of “who is the most/least oppressed” shows the person doing that, in fact, has not understood the point of intersectionality and therefore needs to stop smugly throwing that word at people who just give the definition of male privilege. What illustrates the point of “male privilege still benefits marginalized men, misogyny still hurts privileged women” is not comparing them against each other, but against people of similar levels of overall privilege/marginalization who are the other binary gender. Black men still generally benefit in some ways from being male in ways that black women don’t — if you need details on what that is, actually READ black feminists like Crenshaw and Lorde and hooks rather than just appropriate their arguments that you don’t understand, and lol, most black feminists would have WORDS for this bizarre idea that their femaleness somehow shields them from police and other institutional violence, and the numerous cases of black women being murdered by police put hard evidence to their critiques, too (the “innocence” granted to femaleness in white women just does not apply to black women in a white supremacist society) — and likewise, wealthy cishet white women still experience misogyny that wealthy cishet white MEN do not. (For evidence of that, just see… any cishet white female celebrity who has had any negative media attention ever.) I really don’t understand how people can do this same calculus with other forms of oppression — relatively privileged white cis gay men like Pete Buttigieg still experience homophobia, this is extremely obvious when comparing them with similarly-privileged straight people; and a poor person of color who is cis and straight still benefits from being cis and straight and their life would very likely be even worse if they were not cis or not straight, and cis and straight people in poor communities of color often perpetuate homophobia/transphobia to non-cis/straight people just like cis and straight people do in any other community — and yet not recognize that gender privilege vs. oppression works similarly. And there’s no excuse for men just deciding that’s not a conversation they want to have: not because it’s bad for cis het white women when they refuse to do that, but because it’s bad for women in their own communities who are similar levels of overall social privilege and marginalization to them. It does black WOMEN a disservice when black men decide that that’s something they can just opt out of entirely because they don’t like the way some white women have historically talked about it. And in general, white people and black men need to stop appropriating black women’s writing about feminism and racism without actually engaging with what they actually wrote, ESPECIALLY when it’s in service of ideas that those black women would very much not agree with at all.

--

[xxlovelynovaxx]

First of all, you're not cunty, you're just a cunt. Important difference. Second of all, you're a transandrophobe, and given the deeply rancid gender essentialism of transandrophic trans people, there's a good chance you circle right back around to being transmisogynistic as well in the ways you justify transandrophobia, especially to butch trans women and multigender trans women.

Second of all, I hope you're not a hypocrite and are applying this to ALL historical figures. You can't call anyone that did not label themselves with our modern labels a trans woman, lesbian, gay man, nonbinary, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, aromantic, polyamorous, or any other modern label. The only exception may be intersex variations in some cases, which may still be determinable by genetic testing in some cases.

Oh, wait, even actual historians will say "we have evidence that [historical figure] was likely [gender] and identified as/loved [gender] and would possibly have identified as [gender or sexuality labels] if they existed in modern times". Y'all really took the sociological concept of "people's identities and labels are influenced by the culture and placetime they lived in and therefore it would be somewhat inaccurate to ascribe labels heavily based in our current cultural zeitgeist" and said "oh okay we can use this to erase queer people from history this is great!"

You really read historians saying "Tumblr's reading comprehension is piss poor" and said "oh, historians are pissing on the poor and want us to join in!"

Also, as an aside, people calling someone a trans man as shorthand because they were a person assigned female at birth who lived their whole life as a man and was buried as a man and only got outed literally after death is hardly some big disrespectful thing, and maybe you should pay attention to the fact that you're allying yourself with literal te/rfs who are just mad that they're "losing another lesbian to the evil Ti/fs" and will happily hypocritically label that man a lesbian.

I think maybe actually calling historical figures trans to fight transphobic erasure is good actually. Context matters.

[tanadrin]

Hello! Bisexual cis man with BDSM/noncon fantasies. Two things that I think might be kind of interesting about my sexual situation:

First, although I recognize that "autogynephilia" is an awful, transphobic concept used to delegitimize trans women, it does kind of accurately describe me. In most of my life, I'm pretty much comfortable being, presenting as, and being perceived as a man. Sexually, however, I have a lot of fantasies in which I am a woman, and sometimes get kind of sad that I don't have breasts or a vagina specifically in sexual contexts, though on the whole I quite like my body and current genitalia situation and wouldn't actually want to make any changes.

Second, my kink fantasies tend to be about certain power dynamics or situations, and I nearly always enjoy imagining myself as either party. If I watch/read noncon porn, or just imagine such a scenario, I might picture myself as victim or perpetrator, depending on my mood. Likewise, in an IRL kink scene, if I'm interested at all, I'm pretty much always happy playing either role, though again I do sometimes have a preference for one or the other in the moment.

One unusual way these interact is that the "girl version" of me is exclusively submissive. In a dominant role, I'm pretty much always envisioning myself as myself, a man with a penis. When I'm being submissive is when I'm much more likely to envision myself as a woman with a vagina. The closest thing I've experienced to dysphoria was when I was I was subbing during cowgirl-style PIV and my partner made reference to my cock, when I had been imagining myself as having a vagina that she was penetrating with a strap-on, and it fairly violently broke me out of the fantasy. I've considered the possibility that this is just some sort of internalized misogyny (submissive=female/receptive) but it's not like I really have any control over it so I mostly just enjoy it for what it is.

I think autogynephilia is a bad concept etiologically bc I don’t think there’s much evidence to support the “erotic target location error” Blanchard hypothesizes is even a coherent idea. Aside from AGP as described not encompassing a huge swathe of the transfem experience—almost certainly the vast majority. There is another equally compelling model to me that nonetheless accounts even for the experience of self-identified AGPs, which is that sex is necessarily an extremely gendered activity. Most people, including most *cis* people, have a strongly gendered sense of themselves in an erotic context.

Thus I would expect it is pretty usual for someone who is mostly cis by default, or who is not dysphoric in most of their life (or is disconnected from that dysphoria) and therefore not often preoccupied with the issue of their gender presentation, to twig on that issue most strongly when it comes to their erotic life, if they are in fact in some capacity trans, because it is really really hard to disconnect from issues of gender even in our comparatively egalitarian society inside the bedroom.

I was mostly cis-by-default as a kid (though there were Signs in retrospect), and it wasn’t until adolescence, when I began to notice “hey, that’s weird, I like imagining myself as a girl a *lot* more when it comes to thinking about sex” that I began to consider these questions more deeply. And even then it took a while—not only because I grew up in a time and place where awareness of trans stuff was pretty bad, but because I was so meh about gender in other areas of my life (and un-confident about myself in general) that the idea of staking an actual positive claim in contravention of societal expectation of my identity was kinda scary. Terrifying, really. And that’s something I still have issues with as an adult, and not just around gender identity.

I think this experience is not all that unusual among folks who don’t realize they’re trans until adolescence or adulthood. Couldn’t say how common it is in the general population of such folks though.

I’m not saying you’re really trans or would be happier identifying that way—I mostly just wanted to pontificate on my alternative hypothesis of AGP. People should use the label that feels most useful to them (if they want), and if you identify as a man but like imagining you’re getting fucked like a woman, AGP is useful for that purpose. I hope you find someone to peg you and call you a pretty girl!

[autolenaphilia]

The ideas of misandry/antimasculism is a subject that annoys me enough to write two long blog posts (here and here). A major part of it is claiming that "trans women suffer from misandry". But another part of the problem I realize is that it ends up equating the basic feminist concern with male violence as some kind of man-hating prejudice, as some essentialist stereotyping of men as violent and predatory. And usually the argument goes in transmisogynist ways to argue that the oppression trans women experience are “actually caused by misandry, as the predatory man stereotype is applied to transfems as they are misgendered as men”.

And equating a genuine feminist discussion with some kind of prejudice is kinda fucked up, because cis men being violent is a problem. Violence against women, cis or trans, including rape, are overwhelmingly committed by cis men, as the statistics show. This is not because men are inherently violent due to testosterone or the Y chromosome. But because our patriarchal society men as a class are given power. Above all the power to commit violence against women, cis or trans, men who are not masculine and degendered “others” in order to control them and “keep them in line”. Access to this power is only given to men who correctly perform hegemonic masculinity, and a major part of performing that form of masculinity is committing that violence. The patriarchy gives men the role of enforcing the system with violence. It’s not an expression of biology or even “male socialization” brainwashing, but the product of a society that on a systemic level gives men privilege and power, on the basis that they violently exercise that power to keep the system going.

Of course, not all men and not all masculinity. I don’t think to be a man you are by a definition someone who commits (trans)misogynist violence. The men who do are not determined by their biology or their gendered socialization brainwashing to do so. In fact I think all men have the free will to choose not to do that violence, because they are human and capable of understanding morality. Of course, this also means I strongly condemn the men who do, because they choose to do such evil. And while I’m opposed to the concept of toxic masculinity, you can still do whatever things you deem masculine, competitive beard combing or whatever it is men do, as long as you don’t hurt or bully anyone else in doing so.

This is just basic feminist analysis, and calling someone a radfem or man-hater for having such an analysis is bad. It’s not man-hating to be aware of violence from cis men, and therefore wary of cis men. Especially calling a transfem that is fucked up, because a major part of transmisogyny is violence from cis men, and the threat of it. By calling that man-hating we are unable to describe our oppression. And accusing a transfem of being a “radfem but trans woman inclusive” for having such an analysis is even more fucked up.

Because the major problem with “terfs” is that they actually work to further that violence. They hide this by falsely claiming transfems are the perpetrators of that violence, instead of the truth that we are its victims, often from childhood.

Part of the idea behind excluding us from the female bathrooms is that transfems would be forced to use the men’s bathrooms, where we are at strong risk of violence from cis men. And that this will either kill us or at least hurt us. And the threat of it will force us to detransition or just never leave our homes, and preferably kill ourselves.

This is not a genuine concern with keeping violent “men” from accessing “female spaces”. Transmisogyny is always aimed at transfems, not men. The method of enforcing that exclusion from “female spaces” is literally violent cis men coming into these spaces and removing the offending transfem using (perhaps lethal) violence. As one prominent “gender critical” woman, Posie Parker made very explicit. But that basic idea is usually implicit behind every idea of trans-exclusion from female spaces: such exclusion will be enforced by violent cis men (such as the heavily male professions of cops or security guards). Radfems hate transfems, not men.

Of course such violence to ostensibly keep (white) cis women “safe in female spaces” is aimed towards gnc and queer cis women as well. That proves that any of the concern about protecting cis women from male violence is false. Butch women have been violently thrown out of bathrooms because of the trans panic. The “trans bathroom panic” is just a re-run of the “gay bathroom panic” of not that many years ago. The spectre of the predatory trans woman is a development of the predatory lesbian stereotype. And it’s lesbophobia in transmisogynistic form, make no mistake, because it’s usually sapphic trans women who are seen as dangerous. The term “AGP” so beloved by radfems, usually to describe the bad kind of trans woman who is a threat to women, is a stereotype aimed at sapphic trans women specifically. This shows another problem with arguing that the “predatory trans woman” comes from a stereotype of “predatory men”, when the more immediate origin is the character of the predatory lesbian. And that has its origins in misogyny and lesbophobia, not some “prejudice against masculinity” or whatever misandry believers are into.

The idea of “the problems with terfs is actually their misandry” misstates the problem. The problem is that they hate trans women, not men, even if they tend to call transfems “men”. The problem is not that they talk about cis men’s violence, but actually that they further it by providing a “feminist” alibi for such violence.

The idea of the “terf” is often used in functionally anti-feminist ways to label basic feminist analysis as “terfy”. That’s because people’s ideas of “the terf” is more based in old anti-feminist stereotypes of “rabid unshaven man-hating lesbians” rather than any meaningful analysis of the problems with radical feminism and how it actually hinders actual feminism.

I’m not a “tirf” for doing feminism, thank you very much. In fact I dislike the term “terf” precisely because it whitewashes radical feminism of the transmisogyny which I think lies at its very source.

And the idea of “radical feminsm, but for trans women” as a thing that can exist ignores the power dynamics of why radical feminism exists. Radfems have as cis women (despite misogyny) the ability to leverage their status as cis and white women into alliances with male and state violence to “protect” them from the figure of the predatory transfem. It provides a “feminist” justification for that violence. And no one with power is interested in protecting the innocence of trans womanhood.

[self-loving-vampire]

Just for fun, I decided to take the COGIATI test and see how bad it is.

My first conclusion is that my definition of "fun" is rather masochistic at times, and I don't expect other people to find this post that entertaining either. Still...

Question 1 is already so much.

"Describe your relationship with mathematics."

"Girl Math" nonsense coming right out the gate, apparently.

"You are at a meeting. Everyone at the meeting is the same sex as you. The leader of the meeting announces that it's time for hugs all around! How do you feel about this?"

I don't know why they have to specify the sex of the other people here. I don't like being touched either way. There isn't really an option that really expresses how much I don't want people to touch me. At most I can just say it's unnecessary.

"As a child, when you played with close friends, how would you describe the type of play you liked to be a part of the most?"

You know this is a boomer test because "video games" is not an option.

"Which choice most closely describes why you dress up 'en femme', as a woman."

All of the potential answers to this question are on a spectrum between "it is sexual to me" and "it just makes me feel better". There is no option for "I don't actually do this."

And like... there's also cis women who don't dress up like that very often if at all, or who feel nothing about it. Even a vaguely GNC cis woman could very easily take this test and get labeled as a man somehow.

Anyway, I don't actually know what to choose here because this time no answer even approximates how I feel. Normally I would just drop the test upon reaching a point like this but I feel inclined to dig deeper so I'll pick a mild "makes me feel better" sort of answer and continue.

"You are parking your car. You must reverse into a somewhat narrow space to park. What do you do?"

I don't drive. There is no option for people who don't drive. You could take all of the insane trad stereotypes out of this test and it would still be bad just because it regularly forgets rather common types of people exist.

"You are about the age of 14. You have to take a test, but you can chose which test to take. Getting a good grade will result in a big reward. Which test would you choose to take, if you had a week to study first?"

Really not a fan of how much of this test is "men are intellectual and do math and science while women are emotional and do literature and history".

"Your penis and testicles are destroyed, perhaps due to an accident or injury, but they are gone forever. You are otherwise the same as now, but you are utterly without your reproductive organs, just smooth, flat flesh. What is the most realistic statement of how you would deal with this?"

Does the person that made this test realize that what seems to be the most popular kind of SRS repurposes those bits and therefore losing them would also prevent further modification later? Pretty sure most trans people who understand that and have a sufficiently long time horizon would not wish for this to happen even if they don't enjoy having the thing.

But instead I'm getting the impression that the "True Trans" answer as evaluated by the test is to cheer at this.

"You are in a restaurant with some friends. It is moderately noisy, but not loud. A song you know comes over the loudspeakers, but done in Muzak (tm) style, often called "elevator music". Would you recognize the song instantly?"

Honestly if the kind of music I like played in a restaurant, even as elevator music, I would be completely shocked.

"Suddenly the entire world is magically changed. Now you exist in a world utterly devoid of gender. All bodies are hermaphroditic, utterly androgynous in appearance, both male and female at the same time. The culture reflects this, as does all human interaction. You, however, are still yourself inside, with all of your memories of living in our world as it is now. Your feelings are intact, only your flesh has been changed. In this new world, everyone dresses, acts, and lives however they feel at the time, and there is no such thing as being male or being female. You alone remember the world of gender. In such a world, would you still need to dress like a woman?"

Starts as an actually interesting premise for a question but then the actual question is "would you still dress like a woman"? I already don't do that. I already dress how I want so going there would not change anything.

"A doctor offers you a painless, absolutely effective means to be completely masculine. All feminine desires and traits would be eliminated, and you would be happy and content to be a man. You would never need to dress, and you would never want to be feminine in any way again. You are assured that after the treatment you would be completely content. Would you take the treatment?"

You don't get it. I don't think either extreme of gendered behavior is in line with most people's true feelings to begin with. Most men who are safe to express themselves do in fact have at least some "feminine" traits. These categories are made up and especially bad when used to prescribe how one should behave.

Furthermore, sufficiently radical and sudden personality changes are kind of like dying and being replaced by someone else who is just using the same body. This is why I wouldn't cure myself of autism too.

I think even men, cis or trans, have reasons to be wary of this treatment.

"When you look at a person's face, how well can you honestly judge what they are feeling?"

I should note that reading and pattern-matching expressions is not actually the same thing as feeling affective empathy. Anyone could learn to do it with practice and memory.

But also I feel like pointing out that trying to make unlikely claims based on things like expressions and body language is extremely dubious and a lot of people end up just imagining how the other person feels and assuming it to be true even though it isn't. It's often best not to make assumptions like that.

"You are having an erection. How do you feel?"

At this point? It should not even be possible.

"It is grade school. The teacher gives you a gold star on your work for excellence. What is it for? I knew how to multiply. The teacher thought I wrote the best poem. I got my addition right. I had perfect spelling with no mistakes. I knew the name of the capitol."

You may live in a strange world in which math is for boys and spelling is for girls, but I live in a story in which I am the mary sue protagonist and am good at anything I try. I could be getting the award for any subject I wanted except maybe the poetry because I don't have any interest trying to do that.

"There is a voice mail on your machine. The person does not leave a name, they seem to expect you to know them. How easy is it for you to remember who called by the sound of their voice?"

There was a similar question earlier but I really have to say: Even if you don't recognize someone's voice the context of what they are saying would give it away quickly enough that the question is not very realistic.

Especially since I just don't expect calls for anything I have not previously scheduled.

"A stranger is happy at meeting you. He wants to give you a hug. How do you honestly feel about this?"

Did there really have to be two questions about getting hugged by strange people? Are women really supposed to enjoy that kind of thing? The way a lot of the ones on tumblr talk I figured at least some would be outright paranoid or at least very uncomfortable about the idea.

Anyway, I got rated as "65, androgynous". This is not surprising to me considering how heavily this whole thing relies on traditional gender roles that do not go well with my autism at all.

The conclusions drawn from this, however, are especially stupid.

"As an androgynous being, both genders, and both sexes are natural to your expression."

This is true of practically everyone in the world. It's why conservatives and hyper-conformists in general need to punish and indoctrinate people into obeying that shit. If gender roles were as natural as they say it would not be necessary to enforce them and train people into them.

"Permanent polarization in either direction might bring significant unhappiness. It is not recommended that you go through a complete transsexual transformation."

Oops. I already did that and it worked great. It turns out that you can be trans and not want to be some kind of motherly bimbo who dresses exclusively in pink dresses with heavy makeup. There's a whole range to trans people, just like with cis people.

Just like how it would be ridiculous to ban cis women from being women if they're GNC, it's exactly the same with same with trans women.

"You might find a partial transformation of value, if you find yourself more attracted overall to the feminine. You are more likely a transgenderist, than a transsexual."

"Transgenderist"???

Oh, apparently that's an extremely archaic (and extremely confusing) term for non-binary.

But I'm not non-binary, just autistic.

Anyway, 0/10 this test is just bad in pretty much every way.

[korodere]

strange thing is that i identify so much still with the Experience of being a woman, with femininity, but i do not want to be a girl nor be seen as one, but i also dont want to be seen as identical to cis men because that feels diminishing of the life ive had to live and still do live

but i also despise the way t*rfs treat this experience of myself and many other trans men/transmascs as some kind of gotcha against trans people and transfems

like no, it is not woke to treat me as if i am identical to cis men and therefore become automatically misogynistic & benefit from the patriarchy, because i dont and likely never will, i don’t desire to pass perfectly as a cishet man, i desire to always be visibly queer and therefore i will probably always be seen as “lesser” than cis men, even non-passing. i will always carry the trauma of living 20 years of my life as a girl and the other 2, so far, being non-passing trans and still assumed female by Every stranger ever.

but this experience and desire of mine isn’t an excuse to rip on trans women for being “””socialized male””” and therefore not “””really women”””. 

i wish i knew how to articulate this weird feeling i have about myself, maybe it’s part of being nonbinary for me, but i don’t think i’ll ever be able to disconnect from being afab/living a majority of my life as a girl, even if i want to be seen as a boy now. it’s part of why i really identify with “funny” terms like girlboy or joke about being a fujoshi, or still refer to hanging out with my female friends as girls night. its just like Really hard to completely disconnect from the fact that 20 years of my life were spent being a girl

i usually categorize in my head as similar to how cis gay men tend to act about femininity/female friendship, but i think that’s underselling how much more visceral it is for me as a trans gay man. to desire to be on par with cis gay men in terms of how i’m viewed, to enjoy femininity from the perspective of being a man -- dumb things like playing female characters in video games, stanning female celebrities, referring to myself as girlie/one of the girls -- but knowing that i Have lived as a woman makes it feel a lot different.

i don’t dislike it. i view it as an integral part of myself. but that’s in the quiet of my own thoughts, or in the cushy space of online trans existence. when i’m outside, around other people - mostly cis people - it feels like it’s something i should be ashamed of. Like i should be striving to be perfectly cishet passing.

not sure if any of this makes sense. im just saying shit fr. point of the post is im a girl boy. i look like this with he/him in my bio and whatever

[traceofexistence]

so youtube dropped some “trans women in sports” videos on my way, I watched one, it was well analyzed from a scientific point of view, but it only gave example of trans athletes who have won something against cis women, but I doubt it was intentional as the creator’s opinion is that competitive sports can never be truly fair as the genetic advantages of some people simply can not be controlled even in between cis people. over all a good video

then we go to the comments, and while there are plenty positive trans inclusive ones, the terfs are there to.

their talking points start with:

thousands of cases, of trans women breaking records and taking wins from  “reAL wAMeWn”

when you asked them to give you any example of those thousands, they of course move the goal posts and go on about

“but the athlete at 9th place would have taken the scholarship, or would qualify for the olympics, if the trans woman was not participating”

and you reply like a logical person, that the trans woman was 7th, or 6th or 4th, a mere top 10 athlete she didn’t break any records, her times/scores/weights/whateverthehell are similar to her cis opponents.

and they go

“but if she was playing in men’s sports she would be nobody!11!!” 

and you check your notes on a specific athlete to see that she had broken a record in the men’s division before her transition, then she stopped competing, until she was fully transitioned and in the regulation for trans athletes, and she won some local medals she lost some other locals, she didnt won a world title and she didnt break any record, so what the fuck you really talking about here?

“you are delusional, I have trans friends, I’m not transphobic”

then when they have nothing else to say, they go to another of their points, school sports

“but I was talking about school kids at 16 hormone replacement hasn’t kicked in yet!”

you have a perfect solution, puberty blockers

and they ignore all these points and they go back to elementary school biology of “males are stronger than females therefore unfair”  

we been knew that they dont give a fuck about facts at hand even if you slap them in the face with them.

then after that video and some back and fourths in the comments, youtube recommended another of those videos

now the one talking about the thing, is a cis white man, who is gay and a doctor and proclaims that he’s fully supportive of trans people, but the truth is the truth, and what he provides is a lengthy analysis of how male people are stronger than female people after puberty, and plays again and again that rich ass white girl who came 10th in a race and “lost” a scholarship she didnt need, to the 2 black trans girls who competed with her. and how it was so unfair for her.

he speaks of the “HRT reduces strength” for 30 seconds and dismisses it as not enough. shows pictures of some trans athletes that have made the news, but doesnt touch on their performances whatsoever. he doesnt touch at all on puberty blockers, which is probably the case with most if not all trans kids athletes these days. (where they have not been illegal that is)

now nobody ever reports on how many trans athletes are there really

a list on wiki shows less that 50 athletes

in tokyo olympics around 10k athletes participated, only ONE(1) was trans 

of course in local competitions the number becomes bigger, but it is still so insignificant that we are talking about a literal non existent problem

[ninja-muse]

March also felt like it took forever, which I think is due to spring break taking up half the month and work being therefore slow. And yet it feels like a good month, all the same. I got a good ways further with the novel I’m working on, at least for me, put my Easter tree up last weekend, and had a few productive Leaving The House adventures. And one that, while productive, was just kind of a crappy day, but that’s how these things go, I guess. The art show mostly made up for the rest of it. Also, there is now sunshine, some days! And the trees are blooming!

I also read a lot, as always, including one great book and a handful of pleasant surprises, and I managed to get rid of seven reading copies, which feels unusually high. Had a handful of duds too though, including three books that I was really, really hoping would be better, even if I mostly finished them. The dithering I predicted last month didn’t materialize, thank goodness, or at least it limited itself to hour-long bouts after I’d finished something.

About halfway through the month, I realized I’d only read female authors and I decided that hey, it’s Women’s History Month, why not see if I can get through the whole month with only female authors?! This did not happen, but only by accident. One of the books I picked up was actually by a Two-Spirit person, but I’m still counting the challenge completed because really, the goal was not to read men. It wasn’t a hard challenge for me, and might actually have made picking books a little easier, but it’s not something I want to do all that regularly. Maybe next March?

Of course, I’m cheating a little on the challenge because I’m, like, 12 pages into Episode Thirteen because I had to read something on my commute tonight and I didn’t want to wait any longer. I’ve had the book out from the library for a week and a half and it’s going to be due back in the same length of time. My system doesn’t issue fines for late books anymore, but I still like to return books when I’m supposed to.

Also on my TBR for this month: Amina Al-Sirafi, coming from the library on Tuesday, the company ARC for Tasting History by Max Miller, and We Don’t Lose Our Class Goldfish by Ryan Higgins because I was so good about Not Men that I didn’t even read picture books. Don’t have any other plans, but hopefully some of the books “in process” at the library actually go into the system. I’m first in line for most of them.

And now without further ado, in order of enjoyment…

Diary of a Misfit - Casey Parks

Shortly after Casey comes out to her family, she learns that her grandma grew up friends with a trans man. Her need to learn more about him brings her to a reckoning with her own family and childhood.

8.5/10

🏳️‍🌈 subject (trans man), 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: homophobia, misgendering, rape, drug abuse, child abuse

The Magician’s Daughter - H.G. Parry

Biddy’s magical guardian is in trouble and she must leave her island home to protect him (and magic, generally).

7/10

warning: incarceration, mentions of torture

The Librarian of Burned Books - Brianna Labuskes

Three women in the ‘30s and ‘40s find their lives altered by censorship and war.

7/10

Jewish MC, 🏳️‍🌈 MCs (lesbian), Jewish secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (gay)

warning: Nazis

Lent - Jo Walton

Brother Girolamo wants only to bring Florence closer to God, but he’s hampered by something greater than any sin.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary character, 🇨🇦

League of Dragons - Naomi Novik

Napoleon is retreating across Russia but Laurence and Temeraire learn he has greater plans than a mere next stand.

7/10

British-Asian secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character, disabled secondary character

Island Time - Georgia Clark

The laid-back Kellys and the on-the-go Lees are spending a weekend on a remote Australian island. Then a volcano erupts and they’re forced to confront themselves. Dramedy.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 main characters (lesbian, bi, gender-questioning), fat main character, Chinese-American secondary characters, Indigenous Australian secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author, #ownvoices

Backpacking Through Bedlam - Seanan McGuire

Alice and Thomas have reunited but they’ve got a few more adventures to get through before their happy ending.

6/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (lesbian, sapphic), Korean-American secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author

A House With Good Bones - T. Kingfisher

Sam’s back home for a bit and Something Is Up with her mom. The surprise racist painting is just the beginning….

6.5/10

fat protagonist

warning: racism, some fat-shaming by bad people, bugs

A Man and His Cat, Vol. 2 - Umi Sakurai

The further adorable adventures of Kanda and Fukumaru.

6/10

Japanese cast, Japanese author, #ownvoices

The Keeper's Six - Kate Elliott

Esther’s son has been kidnapped. He’s also the local Keeper, important in the interdimensional network. Getting him back is going to be more complicated than expected.

7/10

Jewish main character, Jewish secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (phallic, non-human genderfluidity), Japanese and other East Asian secondary characters

warning: discussion of slavery and the trafficking of people

Tauhou - Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall

A genre-blending look at Indigenous female resilience across continents and time.

5/10

Maori and Coast Salish cast, 🏳️‍🌈 characters (sapphic), Maori-Coast Salish author, #ownvoices, 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: residential schools, racist systems, internalised fatphobia

British Columbiana - Josie Teed

An awkward millennial gets a winter internship in a gold rush ghost town.

5/10

🇨🇦

warning: racists, gaslighting, social anxiety

Picture Books

Quackers - Liz Wong

Quackers lives by a pond and all his friends are ducks, so he must be a duck too. Meow?

DNF

Shanghai Immortal - A.Y. Chao

Work for the King of Hell? Check. Thwart a jewel heist? Check. Babysit a mortal? Check. Or … not, if Lady Jing’s impulsiveness gets in the way. Out in October.

Chinese cast, Chinese-Canadian author, #ownvoices, 🇨🇦

Currently reading

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen - KJ Charles

The day after Gareth ruins his chances with a charming stranger, he finds himself elevated to an estate in the country. Unfortunately (or not), there’s a very familiar smuggler in the area.

🏳️‍🌈 protagonists (phallic)

Episode Thirteen - Craig DiLouie

A ghost hunting show gets to be the first to investigate the most haunted house in America.

🇨🇦

Stats

Monthly total: 12+1 Yearly total: 37/140 Queer books: 4 Authors of colour: 2 Books by women: 11 Authors outside the binary: 1 Canadian authors: 2 Off the TBR shelves: 4 Books hauled: 1 ARCs acquired: 5 ARCs unhauled: 7 DNFs: 1

January February

[myyouthtragedy]

so I have a theory on dylan manvainy or whatshischops. he fully admitted gay guys didn't want him anymore after 'transitioning' (obvsly, they have high standards) and ofc straight men don't want a man in a dress either so the only option was to claim he's into 'women' now, which I'm almost certain means other male tr@nnies - the only guys who could date him. because according to homophobic gendie brainrot rhetoric that would make him not gay nor 'straight' and therefore bi or even a lesbian 💀.. he's always been a femme gay man and unless the cancerous hormone cocktails have done some homophobic conversion 'therapy' on him (which they often do to gay people if you read the harrowing statistics) I don't think he likes actual female people, previously known as women. he's not giving AGP as much as a mentally deranged attention wh*re HT with autop3dophilic tendencies. he seems genuinely troubled as much as he is larping as a 'little girl' for easy undeserved money & fame. tbh it's even more likely that he's faked this 'revelation' about his sexuality for clout and outrage to flog his upcoming book. I would be sorry for him cause clearly he's totally off his head but then I remember he's already earned more than I ever will as an actual feminist lesbian woman who's a university lecturer while all he's done is prance around in expensive pink dresses, claim he's a 'little girl', act like that's 'womanhood' and I'm like, nah

dylan seems like a little kid in middle/high school exploring his sexuality and gender stereotypes that he's put onto, i can excuse teenagers identifying as nonbinary but that's a grown man. first gay then queer then nonbinary then trans woman then lesbian?? is he trying to be the lady gaga of lgbtq? i hate to say this but is he just confused??😭😭

i think those are just coping mechanisms. being a gay guy was because he liked the way femme gay guys act not just males and certainly a femme male won't attract women. being a trans woman is coping for being just feminine but he's just a pedophilic misogynist I can't stand him i mean look at this

ahh yes,, classic old womanhood.

being a lesbian is coping for the fact that no one actually wants him except femme trans lesbian women. everything is anything nowdays :) how is someone whole personality being gay just changes their sexuality to be "loving non men" as in tra logic? dude i only liked a girl once 5 years ago and i still identify as bisexual it's not like that attraction was fake or smth.

sooner or later women will wake up and realize gender ideology is just BS,,