#fuck julia serano so much

[icaruskeyartist]

"Talking about trans men "playing up the F in AFAB" to access women spaces. Please someone send me an ask about this specifically so I have an excuse to go off tomorrow after work."

Fourth time's the charm right?

And I gotta disclaim that I'm one of them transes who sees his past self as the gender he thought he was. Little 11 year old me? Girl. I was a girl up to the point I wasn't and I don't really know where that line is. Somewhere between 19 and 25. But I do call myself AFAB and I do see a lot of my experiences as a child and teen as being both through the lenses of womanhood and closeted/subconscious transness.

So needless to say I'm a little biased and get a little angry when this argument that trans masculine people are trying to play up the F in their AGAB up.

First and foremost, the biggest push away from AGAB language I've seen is from nonbinary and trans masculine folks. So let's jot that down (again though, I have consciously put myself into spaces that allow me to hear these voices over trans feminine voices after nearly a decade of the reverse).

And there's the fact that trans people who present with traditionally "female" reproductive and secondary sex characteristics are typically more vulnerable in men only spaces... we gotta be realistic here. People who look like women are going to be treated like women by strangers and while I'm a firm advocate for not treating all men like dirt... well. We have statistics.

And that's even if there are men spaces... shit like shelters for domestic violence victims oh so rarely allow men in the first place.

Plus, let's not forget a lot of this "playing up the F in AFAB" talk is coming around during the repeal of Roe v Wade in the US, which brought up the discussion of reproductive healthcare and abortion access back into international center stage. We're supposedly leaning on our AGAB by pointing out that We! Need! Healthcare! And our healthcare needs generally line up with those seen as women's only.

A totally stealth trans man who is being denied reproductive healthcare because he's legally a man is going to have to lean on his AGAB to get a checkup with the ObGyn. Otherwise they're not going to see him... because he doesn't look like a woman to him. Sometimes, using your AGAB is necessary, if only because the largely cishet world doesn't get that sometimes women have dicks and men have vaginas, and there are some people who want both or neither.

Finally, and I guess this just irritates me the most because of the above mentioned bias... saying trans masculine and nonbinary folks are playing up their AGAB is outright denying the way so many of us grew up. I was raised as a girl. I was seen as a girl. I had expectations put on me that only women in my small part of Southern Baptist culture would have. I had a promise ring. I memorized the Proverbs 31 wife list. I had nightmares of my wedding night, and I was made fun of and belittled by my own mother for not liking makeup and not taking care of my appearance. My lack of sexual harassment, despite it being a super common thing for girls and women, still has me mentally fucked up despite now identifying mostly male.

I'm not playing up my AGAB by talking about these experiences and saying that I've experienced misogyny because of how I am seen. Claiming the trauma and benefits of womanhood when I saw myself as a girl and when the world sees me as a woman (as it oh so overwhelmingly does currently) is not me trying to play up my AGAB for victimhood points or to access women's only spaces.

Yes, there are trans men, masculine folks, and nonbinary people who were AFAB and currently enter women's spaces where AMAB folks aren't allowed. If I wasn't aware of them before, I certainly am after getting through the first few chapters of Whipping Girl because Julia Serano does not shut up about it. She's clearly salty despite pretending not to be.

But guess what! There's shitty trans women and trans feminine people out there too! Baeddels! TIRFs! The fact that there's shitty trans people like Buck Angel or Caitlyn Jenner is just because they're people! Who happen to be trans! And people will absolutely use whatever they can as leverage to be shitty! That's why there are gay and black Republicans. They leveraged their minority status to become figures in a group that hates them. Shocking.

But for fuck's sake, saying trans men, masculine, and nonbinary folks who happened to be AFAB are trying to express their victimhood through the F in their AGAB both reeks of ROGD as well as a clear yellow flag that maybe

just maybe

these people are trying to find the language to talk about the problems they're facing but people like Serano aren't letting them.

[hiiragi7]

I really wanted to like Whipping Girl (Julia Serano) but I just... really didn't. I read it some months ago, and I was quite excited because I had seen it recommended so often. I read the entire book and very quickly grew to hate it.

How do you write a book meant to capture what transmisogyny is without getting into race? Without getting into disability? Without getting into class? A disclaimer at the start of the book that you're white, middle class, and able-bodied and so your book isn't intersectional doesn't cut it.

If this book was framed more as only her own experiences, I wouldn't mind so much, but Serano writes such massive generalizations and assumptions based in her own privileges and writes it like it's fact. That is a big part of my issue.

I also felt deeply uncomfortable with how she talked about transmasculine individuals as well as genderqueer individuals, and how she talks about passing. I also found her ideas about how gender-nonconforming people supposedly want to be on top of the hierarchy and oppress everyone else really fucking odd.

I don't regret reading it, I always appreciate knowing where concepts come from and I feel like it's given me some context for why current ideas of transmisogyny are what they are, but I don't like the book. I don't like how she generalizes things and makes all of these incredibly unnuanced takes as facts. I don't like how she speaks about my trans siblings and the assumptions she makes of them and what they experience.

These thoughts have been bouncing around my head for a little while, needed to get them out somewhere. If you have other book recommendations, please give them to me. I really enjoy reading, just didn't like this one much.

[faggypuppywhore]

genuinely I need to know if Julia Serano ever spoke to a trans man before writing Whipping Girl because what in the fuck is this

"But what was most frustrating about the way that many of these women dismissed me was the fact that they seemed to have no problems at all with female-bodied folks expressing masculinity and with trans people on the FTM spectrum attending their events. In other words, they didn’t have much of a problem with transgender people per se, just so long as they were male- or masculine-identified rather than female- or feminine-identified. This privileging of trans men over trans women is not merely a bias held by certain individuals, but rather one that is often institutionalized within queer women’s culture and organizations"

Like you seriously believe these people are being nice to other trans people because they sometimes are as explicitly mean to them

[goosemixtapes]

max's favorite short stories & articles!

to be updated as i read new things! "articles" could be anything from political points to philosophical musings to fascinating stories. obligatory statement that i don't necessarily agree with everything in every one of these stories/articles, but i think about them a lot and want to share :)

short stories

Avi Cantor Has Six Months To Live by Sacha Lamb (@kuttithevangu) (novella) (so says the writing on the bathroom mirror. of gender & judaism & magic and t4t trans guys. cw for suicidal ideation and bullying)

Epistolary by Sascha Lamb ("The [stuffed] frog you are selling on your blog is MINE and he is NOT HAUNTED and his name is MOSHE not BILLY HOPPER.")

Chokechain by Andrew Joseph White (a trans man discovers his parents have replaced him with a robot version of his pretransition self. cw for transphobia and violence)

Sandrine by Alexandra Munck (the tagline for this one is "I dated a sun god in college" but that doesn't do justice to the sheer concept here please read this)

You Wouldn't Have Known About Me by Calvin Gimpelevich (set in a hospital ward where patients are recovering from gender-confirming surgery)

No Flight Without the Shatter by Brooke Bolander (novella) ("After the world’s end, the last young human learns a final lesson from Earth’s remaining animals." cw for climate change/extinction)

And You Shall Know Her By The Trail Of Dead by Brooke Bolander (what if you had to death-match-fight a virtual version of yourself at your meanest made by your boyfriend whose life you're trying to save would that be fucked up or what. cws for guns and violence)

Hell is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang (stories that clock you in the fucking teeth in the religious trauma.)

A Serpent for Each Year by Tamara Jerée (microfiction) ("Our relationship is almost a year old when I ask Nal why she is covered in snakes." cw for animal death)

The Front Line by W.C. Dunlap (microfiction) (cited as one of the world's finest attention-grabber openings. cws for police brutality, racism, and SA)

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience by Rebecca Roanhorse (step into the simulation and gain an authentic experience! cws for anti-Native racism and alcohol)

The Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria Machado (one of the best stories ever written. once there was a girl with a green ribbon around her neck...)

City of Red Midnight by Usman T. Malik (a chronicle of nested stories-within-stories, set in old fantasy pakistan, inverting a myth from the one hundred and one nights)

We Work In Miraculous Cages by Brenda Peynado (following a college grad drowning in loans through the nightmare of neverending work)

Other Worlds and This One by Cadwell Turnbull (a brotherly relationship collides with a theory about atomic particles, space, and time)

And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker (a convention of alternate-universe selves--all Sarah Pinskers--becomes a murder mystery)

Fandom For Witches by Ruoxi Chen (fuck every other thing ever written about fandom)

Haunted Home by Conrad Loyer ("The ship features a recreation of a slave ship’s hold. The cruise prides itself on it. It is not a good recreation, if the metric is realism.")

articles & essays

Lockhart's Lament (on how math is taught in schools. that is, badly. one of the most cathartic essays i've ever read on education)

Against Cop Shit by Jeffrey Moro (on adversarial education)

Debunking "Trans Women Are Not Women" Arguments by Julia Serano (comprehensive, well-written, good to have as a reference point)

On Liking Women by Andrea Long Chu (and on the politics of desire)

Turning a Unicorn Into a Bat by Josh and Lolly Weed (on Mormonism, love, and whether a gay man and a straight woman can marry happily. cw for homophobia)

Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price (musings on motivation from a social psychologist and professor)

How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Peterson (how come everything happens so much?)

White Women Drive Me Crazy by Aisha Mirza (on the harm caused by white women. cw for racism)

Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong by Michael Hobbes (should be required reading for everyone at this point. cw for fatphobia and eating disorders)

Becoming Anne Frank by Dara Horn (on the cultural fascination with Anne Frank. cw for antisemitism)

The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem ([on/a] plagiarism)

On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People by Patricia Taxxon (video essay) (ostensibly what the title says, but actually a detailed musing on the essential properties of furry media and the freedom of dehumanization; changed my life a bit)

[dukeofankh]

I ran across Ann Cahill when Julia Serano mentioned her in "Sexed Up", and the concept of Derivatization was honestly fascinating to me. I think Kant was a fucking loser and basing a feminist sexual ethic off of his work was probably one of the biggest mistakes feminism could have made. Like, he literally felt that any and all sex was de facto unethical. Why would you use that as a starting point. Jesus. (Both a swear and an explanation for why Kant was such a dipshit)

And like, Overcoming Objectification has a lot of really interesting ideas, but it's fascinating to see someone like...intentionally avoid developing them to their full explanatory potential? In essence, Cahill is anti-sex work. She thinks objectification is a shitty tool to attack sex work with, because she feels that the distinction between mind and body is artificial and fake. Everyone is a body who thinks, not a mind piloting a meat suit, and acting as though porn is bad because it values the meat suit over the disembodied soul who's the real you saddles your argument with the philosophical equivalent of a big glowing Zelda boss weak point. It also means that any time that someone is...you know, physically attracted to anyone else, then they're treating them like an animal or an object instead of what they should be treated like, which is a chaste 18th century disembodied mind.

And Cahill likes physical attraction! She likes sex! She doesn't want to give up her own sex life just so that she can tell other people what to do with theirs! But she does still want to tell other people what to do with theirs. And so she comes up with Derivatization.

And it's honestly a pretty solid concept. Like, in essence it's the idea that what's unethical and dehumanizing about situations we'd normally call "objectifying" isn't that you're being treated like a soulless sex doll, it's that you're being treated as derivative of someone else's fantasy as opposed to a separate, unique person. Like, she points out that in plenty of situations, people who are being "objectified" are expected to express quite a bit of agency, actually. She uses the example of a pornstar being expected to exclaim just how much she's enjoying what's going on, or a dominatrix having to fulfil a very specific fantasy for a male sub that is all, in his fantasy, an extension of her desires, even her absolute power over him, despite the fact that the specificity of his fantasy doesn't really actually leave her any actual choices of her own to make. Serano uses this concept to talk about the difference between attraction and fetishization, a use of it that is very solid, and frankly, her using the concept in a better way than Cahill does.

Because like, the thing about this is that Cahill doesn't actually want to work through the implications of this. Her chapter discussing whether men can be derivatized short-circuits hard, forgetting her own insight that someone can be derivatized for their agency, and uses the subjectivity running through most portrayals of masculine sexuality as evidence that derivatization can't be happening. She also seems to think that groups of women discussing and building a shared sense of ideal masculine sexuality is a fundamental impossibility in a patriarchal society, meaning that derivatization is kind of inherently and eternally one-sided. The book was written in 2011, so booktok wasn't a thing yet, but AO3 sure the fuck was so she's just straightforwardly not correct, even at publishing.

And like...it doesn't even do the thing it was supposed to do. It doesn't make a solid argument against sex work. Like, she basically just says, "Well, ethical sex involves both parties encountering an Other and adjusting to their uniqueness, and in porn, it's women just doing whatever men think is hot. AND THAT'S THE ONLY WAY IT CAN HAPPEN." Putting aside whether that's true--which it isn't--she's clearly aware that casual sex for fun and a job for money are different. So she comes up with these truly baffling metaphors.

She basically says that obviously, if she hires a lawyer to write a will for her, it's not happening because one person's whole self is based on just giving people money for legal documents and the other person's self only and exclusively enjoys writing legal documents for money. The fact that she's reductively engaging with the lawyer exclusively to fulfil her specific fantasy--of having a will that makes sense--isn't unethical...because the lawyer has skills that she doesn't have. She has money, the lawyer has expertise, so it's an interaction of equals! So in her mind, if there was a kind of sex work where the person was like "well, I'm horny but I don't know why or what I would do about it, I'll go and see a sex worker because they're the experts and I'll grow as a human being because of it." then it'd be fine.

Which, sure, that sounds like a fun little concept, if it wasn't the sole example of ethical sex work you were willing to accept. Then it sounds like a pretty impassibly high barrier, on purpose. And it's a ridiculous double standard, because that is not, actually, the only form of business transaction we consider ethical in our current society. If I had a lawn and I hired someone to mow it for me, I would not need to be sitting there staring at my overgrown lawn, flummoxed and frustrated, before calling the local lawn care experts, if I wanted the transaction to be ethical. Maybe I'm just fucking busy. Maybe I have too much money and also too much lawn. If I pay someone a fair wage to do something for me, and we both think "nice, good deal." Then hey. Ethics. Found 'em.

Like, I could rant about this book for hours, honestly, but this is already a staggeringly long post. And I do wanna say, I will still use derivatization as a term, I think it's got legs. Especially with the lens used by Serano, a much less sex-negative feminist. Like I've said before, everyone usually has a little bit of a point. Even if it's a good point made as part of a larger, pretty bad argument against something I think is fine.

[gatheringbones]

[“If there is one thing that all of us femmes have in common, it is that we all have had to learn to embrace our own feminine expression while simultaneously rejecting other people’s expectations of us. What makes femininity “femme” is not the fact that it is queer, or transgressive, or ironic, or performative, or the complement of butch. No. What makes our femininity “femme” is the fact that we do it for ourselves. It is for that reason that it is so empowering. And that is what makes us so powerful.

As femmes, we can do one of two things with our power: We can celebrate it in secret within our own insular queer communities, pat ourselves on the back for being so much smarter and more subversive than our straight feminine sisters. Or we can share that power with them. We can teach them that there is more than one way to be feminine, and that no style or expression of femininity is necessarily any better than anyone else’s. We can teach them that the only thing fucked up about femininity is the dismissive connotations that other people project onto it. But in order to that, we have to give up the self-comfort of believing that our rendition of femme is more righteous, or more cool, or more subversive than anyone else’s.

I don’t think that my femme expression, or anyone else’s femme expressions, are in and of themselves subversive. But I do believe that the ideas that femmes have been forwarding for decades—about reclaiming femininity, about each person taking the parts of femininity that resonate with them and leaving behind the rest, about being femme for ourselves rather than for other people, about the ways in which feminine expression can be tough and active and bad-ass and so on—these ideas are powerful and transformative.

I think that it’s great to celebrate femme within our own queer communities, but we shouldn’t merely stop there. We need to share with the rest of the world the idea of self-determined and self-empowered feminine expression, and the idea that feminine expression is just as legitimate and powerful as masculine expression. The idea that femininity is inferior and subservient to masculinity intersects with all forms of oppression, and is (I feel) the single most overlooked issue in feminism. We need to change that, not only for those of us who are queer femmes, but for our straight cis sisters who have been disempowered by society’s unrealistic feminine ideals, for our gender-variant and gender-non-conforming siblings who face disdain for defying feminine expectations and/or who are victims of trans-misogyny, and also for our straight cis brothers, who’ve been socialized to avoid femininity like the plague, and whose misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and so on, are driven primarily by their fear of being seen as feminine. While I don’t think that my femme expression is subversive, I do believe that we together as femmes have the power to truly change the world.”]

julia serano, from excluded: making feminist and queer movements more inclusive, 2013

[cistematicchaos]

Can you explain more about your post that you don't like transunity? I really don't understand what the person in the screenshot is trying to argue…they don't seem to make sense? I'm confused what the post is saying...what is serano-esque mean?

Sure! I don't mind that at all, though this will be a bit longer, if you don't mind. (And if any of this doesn't make sense, ask me to explain further, I really don't mind.)

Firstly, I will name OP in the tags if you wanna find the post yourself, no they/them pronouns though bc I don't think it uses those.

So, the reason you're confused is probably because the post itself doesn't make sense! It's got a bunch of progressive language smashed together to make the most wild-ass claim that is based on a complete misunderstanding of transmisogyny.

The post starts with the question of how we can discuss the violence of misgendering without discussing the violence that comes with being viewed as our agab, which is a good question! (ironically lol, i was thinking about that reading a Serano essay discussing misgendering the other day)

But then it degrades into this rant about how "Serano-esque" people "misunderstand" transunity and, apparently, transphobia overall (which somehow ties into the discussion of misgendering) but it's just kind of. complete nonsense tbh, i'd go over it in depth but it's just so much NONSENSE anon that i can't fr. It's just fucking nonsense.

Serano-esque is where the transmisogyny comes in. Julia Serano is the original person who named transmisogyny and defined it in length in numerous essays and books based on her personal experience with it. I've read some of her work and despite its shortcomings, I'd definitely recommend some of it! Its very enlightening and well-written.

By Serano-esque people, OP means people speaking up against transmisogyny and, in the case of the transunity groups in particular, people speaking up about the fact these groups generally blatantly oppose something else that Serano also talks about being important for trans liberation, which is transfeminism.

So, OP is just ranting about people who complain about transmisogyny and prioritize fighting it in their trans activitism, all mostly without naming transmisogyny at all, which is a wildass thing to do but somehow it managed. :/

[mogai-sunflowers]

okay i will never NOT believe that trans men and transmascs face specific oppression. i believe in the existence of transandrophobia/whatever name you use for it. and i DON’T think it’s transmisogynistic to acknowledge that, like, at all.

but i literally can’t stand the community that talks about it on here because time and time again i’ve seen so many of them say the most insensitive, blatantly misogynistic stuff without getting called out. like these are things i’ve seen some of the major people say on here without any repercussions (many of them include criticisms of white women, which im not saying is bad, but a lot of it isn’t genuine criticism, it’s just misogyny hidden behind criticizing white womens racism)

- “i’m tired of hearing about cis women’s trauma with men” (i understand that many transphobic cis women use their trauma to shit on transmascs, but this is NOT an acceptable way to say that without any consideration to its implications)

- soooo much stuff from white transmascs about how Black and brown men get policed, but ALWAYS implying that the same thing doesn’t happen to Black and brown women (I will always acknowledge Black and brown mens’ unique issues, but the erasure of police violence against Black and brown women is such a huge issue that it bothers the fuck out of me to see them only ever bring up police violence when it’s about Black and brown men)

- “if cis white women just wanted to vent about sexism, they’d just text their best friend, not make “womens only spaces”, that’s just because they want to have the most power in the room” (cis white women, and in fact all cis women and white women, should be held accountable for the racism and transphobia they can perpetuate, but to imply that they’re all power-hungry and just want to oppress others, that they can’t also experience misogyny and want safe spaces to discuss that, is DISGUSTING. also, you’re right, the point of those spaces IS to have power, because we largely don’t have that in a context with cis men, having power to be yourself for once isn’t a bad thing to want like huh???)

- “white women shouldn’t fear sex trafficking, they don’t want you” (which is a very insensitive way to acknowledge how sex trafficking affects largely girls and women of color. being terrified of being sex trafficked doesn’t make you stupid and isn’t a fear that should be mocked, whether the girl is white or not, but also, if you’re going to center girls of color in that discussion, just say that, instead of hiding misogyny behind criticizing white womens tears)

- literally outright saying that white women are the ones who continue the white race, and then pretty blatantly implying that therefore, if white women get raped by their partners, they’re still the carriers of the white race and therefore it’s a PRIVILEGE for them to get assaulted (i wish i was kidding. when i saw this post i was sick for hours afterwards. again: for the love of god, when you criticize white women and our capacity for harm, do it without blatant misogyny)

- lots of talk about how the mere existence of womens-only shelters/spaces is the problem, and not their common issues with intersectionality and transphobia. (sure, many of them have issues but that doesn’t mean their premise is bad and if you’re gonna shit on ANY woman for wanting a safe space after experiencing traumatic misogyny, then you need to shut the fuck up)

- making fun of the woman who coined the term ‘transmisogyny’ just because she has some flawed views about trans men. (she is a flawed person but julia serano is still integral to the discussion of transmisogyny and to mock anyone who aligns with her is just....... so blatantly transmisogynistic)

i’ve seen a lot more but those are the worst. i used to look up to a lot of these people but i’ve truly seen so much misogyny and especially misogynoir from them dressed thinly as criticism of white women and cis women that it’s not even funny. this is not me saying “won’t someone please think of the poor white cis women” it’s me saying that if you can’t criticize them in good faith without blatant bigotry against their gender, then you need to rethink your fucking criticisms and think before you open your damn mouth.

so yeah. just to reiterate- i literally firmly believe in the existence of transandrophobia but i can’t stand that community that talks about it in that way and though i sometimes reblog various posts from people like that, please don’t connect me to that shit because it’s quite triggering for me, i’ve had so many anxiety attacks and panic sessions from the misogyny and shit i’ve seen from them. i believe in transandrophobia but i also believe in showing basic fucking human decency to women.

[muskmelon-enjoyer-199x]

Im still mad at my fucking endo

"Medication seeking"

bro it's prog, not perc. I asked you about adding progesterone because there's some studies and a lot of anecdotes that said it can help trans women with a number of things (mood, libido, fat distribution, etc.).

Motherfucker had the nerve to admit he didn't know much about the topic, but swore that it would definitely give me blood clots so bad that he would have to "take away the estrogen." Okay, i see that Julia Serano was right. Am I a spoiled child being extended a privilege that you can threaten to revoke over a hypothetical?

He also told me if I did my own research, I would see he was right. ONLY ONE OF US DID ANY RESEARCH. YOU TOLD ME YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT AND THEN INVOKED YOUR DOCTORATE TO WAVE ME OUT THE DOOR AFTER 5 MINUTES.

80 bucks for 5 minutes of shit talk. Then it was "see you back in 1 month, you'll understand then if you read about it." He said it wasn't like anything would change between then and now and even smiled about it. That's the problem.

I'm sorry im not a diabetic or a man with ED. I'm sure you prefer treating normal people, but you might actually be worse than the lady that was visibly uncomfortable just talking to me on telehealth and then lied about retiring to make me go away.

[rjalker]

Oh I just fucjubg r3alized that Julia Serano's whole fucking thing about feminine people being more oppressed is an attempt yo just completely separate sex based oppression from misogyny because acknowledging that "traditional misogyny" as she calls it is in fact sex based and not just about being feminine or not doesn't fit her narrative of trans men and butch women being privileged over trans women and feminine women so instead of just saying "yeah most misogyny is based on sex but that's not its full scope because it also impacts MTF people" she just goes "masculine people are always privileged over feminine people no matter what all the time every time" even though this makes literally zero fucking sense when you look at the way Literally Any nonfeminine woman or person assumed to be a woman is treated.

Like she explicitly includes butch women in her "priveleged over feminine people" category as though women who aren't properly feminine aren't punished for it every step of the way.

I couldn't figure out why the absolute fuck she was choosing to make this fucking absurd argument instead of literally any other argument that actually makes sense, but no I just realized it's literally because she is trying to separate the sex part from misogyny completely and just pretend like that doesn't exist.

Because if she acknowledges the sex-based part of ""traditional misogyny"" then that means her argument that trans men are nothing but privileged immediately falls apart because they literally still suffer from systemic misogyny no matter what their gender identity or how well they pass or don't, and they suffer in ways that perisex trans women explicitly do not and never will. And that does not fit her narrative that trans women are the most oppressed people ever to exist. The conclusion that she can literally only arrive at by literally lying about what other trans people face and saying that non-binary people aren't actually non-binary we just want to feel superior to trans women in particular.

So that was a mystery that wasn't actually all that much of a fucking mystery. Wow.

Have i mentioned I regret every second I wasted reading that fucking book.

[soundwave-tiddy]

There is so much I wanna say. I'm tired and disappointed, and as much as I want to rage and scream Please listen to us for fuck's sake please listen to us the spoons aren't there.

I made some comments in Brogle's discord about the Julia Serano situation. They some up my thoughts pretty nicely, as did the comments of those I was talking to, though obviously I will not post them without their permission.

"I'm not denying she has points, she does. But she also ignores everything about Irreversible Damage, how the narrative of 'delusional little autistic girls becoming men' got shit banned in the UK, JKR, all that in favour of saying this one thing about trans women. Which is true, yes! But not the full picture. If you're gonna go and make a thread that's eons long anyway, why not include that? Why talk about 'afabs who focus on the 'f'', like we aren't forced to in our day to day lives to get healthcare? It's an ignorant and onesided viewpoint of the situation."

"She also dismisses WHY people don't like TME/TMA and the usage of it - the terms, as they are used, are just another binary, particularly in intracommunity conversations (i would like to use the word discourse here but. yknow) and ignore how say, cis gnc men can be TMA, how trans men can be TMA, because people DO NOT CARE about the identity of the person they're throwing slurs and rocks at, just their perception of that identity"

"I just can't think of a good faith reason for her singling out 'AFABs' or what she could even mean. Is she talking about terfs and transmeds grooming young trans boys? Thats not them leaning into their agab!"

[euphoriaboner]

i don't like the idea of transmisandry/transandrophobia whatever. to me it's a distraction from the reality which is misogyny will continue to effect you after you transition. having said that though i fucking hate it when these """transfem""" men talk about it and make fun of the concept. like oh so you hate it when women talk about what happens to us??? you think we should just shut up about our lives??? you think you have it worse than us??? you think anything we say or do is an attack on you??? wow should i call julia serano. should i call andrea long chu. should i call fucking elliot rodger while i'm at it. fucking hell. i hate these men so much

sure but you could have made your own post

[alivehouse]

hey u don’t have to answer but. whats ur favorite book(s) rn. trying to get some new reading material for the old noggin wheel u kno.

hmm well for books i read recently there was The Art of Forgery by Noah Charney that i think i posted an excerpt or two from i know a lot of people get turned off by art history but it was very much written more like a gossip book about ways museums and auction houses have fucked up more than a super dense text so not hard to get thru imo lol. finished whipping girl by julia serano a week or two ago bc i got it for a gender studies class and figured might as well read it cover to cover some of the language is a little dated just by virtue of it being a book about gender published in 2007 but its still a good read. and for fiction i just started reading freshwater by akwaeke emezi but im only three chapters in rn so i cant say too much about it sadly ive heard good things though

[kittyit]

when i read adam i had just finished a really sad book & was extremely hungry & stuck waiting in a hotel room & felt like shit & it was recommended to me on my library app so i just. read it in one sitting. no idea why i did that. anyway it is so much worse than any summary could communicate, everyone whining about how transphobic it was (honestly there’s one asshole trans characters & several who are not) when the main vein is lesbian-hating, literally written about bay area dyke culture from the perspective of a misogynistic, pornsick teenage boy, written by a woman who identifies herself as a lesbian, lesbian-hating as only a woman in the know of lesbian culture/life can be. it was so fucking damaging to read, nauseatingly sexually explicit. the climax of it is the main character finally deciding to put his dick inside the adult lesbian he’s been rape-by-deceptioning after getting totally pumped up by julia serano reading cocky at camp trans, and of course she’s into it. anyway. hated it.

[selfdeprecating-narcissist]

This is late, but i answered these questions at the end of 2018 so wanted to do it again for 2019

what did you learn about yourself this year? How i am destined for a life of depression and disappointment bcos my morals and mindset will never align with our capitalist, racist, sexist, homophobic society and don't see how i will ever feel fulfilled in a job but we have to make money to survive so... and how crucial it is to be a feminist fucking killjoy and spread the feminist queer agenda, but how I'm way too shy to actually speak up on the spot almost always lol best moment of the year? Idk.. like time spent in nature?? I feel like looking back all my happiest moment this year were when i was surrounded by plants. Also my birthday was really nice but i was too drunk to really remember a lot of the evening worst moment of the year? Moving to Mark's, finishing my masters, shit with ex what was the biggest change you experienced this year? moving out of my house i lived in for like 10 years (still not really processed that that isn't my home anymore?), spending some time living at my dad's again for the first time in 10 years (not exactly desirable) best song of the year? I really loved gone by charli xcx & Christine & the queens best album of the year? It didn't come out in 2019, but BY FAR my most listened to were camp cope's 2 albums, I'm OBSESSED what’s one thing that happened this year that you want to change? Not move, not have my ex be a suicidal low key alcoholic, not finish my masters bcos i miss it so much, not have stayed in my shitty retail job for so long bcos it was honestly so shit best book/book series of the year? Against Memoir by michelle tea was amaaziiinggg. I still haven't read a fiction book in THE LONGEST time, I've read some nice poetry? And read so so so much increbidle feminist theory, favs are probz an archive of feelings, and depression a public feeling both by ann cvetcovich, the cultural politics of emotion by sara ahmed, whipping girl and excluded both by julia serano, gut feminism by elizabeth wilson, sister outsider by audre lorde and any essay i read by ulrika dahl best television series? accidentally got hooked on love island in the summer oops. Tuca and bertie was good, last series of broad city wasn't as good as the others but great way to end it, THAT SERIES OF OITNB WAS AMAZE, idk i haven't had much time for tv or got really into anything how was your love life this year? um, so i was with jay all year until he moved back to america in the middle of September... it was um.. interesting? eventful, stressful, but had its nice parts too?? there wasn't much sex, and when there was he was mostly drunk and forceful which wasn't nice, but he also had a lot of dysphoria and a lot of reliance on and problems with alcohol, ummm he got on with all my friends and family, that always felt very easy and natural, but there were so many communication issues, he wouldn't be open with me about his mental health, i felt obliged to stay with him bcos he didn't really have anyone else in the whole bloody country, i felt a lot more like i was responsible for him and looking after him. Since he moved back i guess I've just spent time reflecting and healing? what made you cry the most this year? I probably cried maybe like 5 times? Idk i don't cry bcos i don't go to therapy anymore ha biggest regret of the year? Maybe not being confrontational enough with jay about issues but also i always knew he was gonna move back to america so i thought it was more hassle than it was worth bcos like it always had an expiry date? And i guess i regret not making better friends with other people on my course bcos out of people on my course, i only really saw jay outside of uni best movie of the year? It chapter 2 maybe? Or frozen 2 😂 favourite place you travelled this year? Idk that i went anywhere new...but best trip was Edinburgh did you make any new friends? Linden & Dean from the theatre i work(ed) at, i actually love them, they're fab did you learn anything about your sexuality this year? maybe i could be with a cis guy??? Idk. I don't think i want to be. And i felt and still feel really uncomfortable calling jay my (ex) boyfriend bcos it's read as a straight relationship and I'm often read as straight but i just want to be like I'M SUPER QUEER BTW but then is that invalidating his gender maybe idk???? Against memoir had a good but kind of problematic essay in it on dating trans men as a queer woman bcos like your relationship inherently is not straight and is inherently queer but you're read as straight and it's uncomfortable and confusing and not something you ever really have the space to talk about and not something people really understand. And a few of the people I've dated or had a thing for have since come out as trans men or non binary and like why am i never attracted to binary 'normal' people, and am i fetishising othered genders? It's complicated init. what are some hobbies that you developed? I sort of learnt how to crochet but I'm not very good what surprised you the most this year? how unhappy people can be who appear so fine from the outside, how well i can tolerate people having a breakdown and trying to hurt/maybe wanting to kill themselves... nice. do you look different from the beginning of the year? more prominent frown lines. Worse hair bcos the fucking shower broke so I've spent 3 months only washing it with a jug how did this year treat you in general? Ups and downs. Mostly happy to absorb myself in knowledge and learning. Now stuck in another boring arse job bcos how does one make any money out of non commerical art and feminist academia!? what message would you give yourself at the beginning of the year? watch out, look after yourself, love your support system has your fashion style changed this year? I bought the best 2 cat jumpers and i love them dearly and wear them a lot one of the best meals you’ve had this year? A trip to blacks burgers with massive flip pot milkshakes i went to with joe stands out who has made the biggest impact in your life this year? Jay what’s one thing that you hope will continue next year? I need to stay in academic feminist circles, I've been out of uni for nearly 5 months now (oh fuck) and feel so deflated again bcos it's just so irrelevant to the real world... but it's not bcos it's all this theory about how much the real world sucks, but what i mean is like it's impossible to change anything and it's really disheartening. Like someone wrote into work complaining about the lack of diversity in the collection, and someone else wrote about how the talk on fanny eaton wasn't marketed towards the afro carribean community at all, and part of my job is to respond to emails and i wanted to be like YAAASS LET ME GUSH ALL OVER HOW RIGHT U ARE AND HOW SHIT INSTITUTIONS ARE but like, I'm speaking on behalf of these institutions and have to make this basic formulaic bullshit response and it's HORRENDOUS

[peachy-keen-glam-queen]

2017 Reading Roundup

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer

Dawn by Octavia Butler

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket

The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket

Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler

The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket

The Austere Academy by Lemony Snicket

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

The Sex Myth by Rachel Hills

The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

The Witches by Roald Dahl

The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket

The Carnivorous Carnival by Lemony Snicket

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

The Dark Half by Stephen King

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon

The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket

The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket

The End by Lemony Snicket

Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight by Travis Langley

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Holes by Louis Sachar

The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman

Shockaholic by Carrie Fisher

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? by various, edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hadju

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

The Waste Lands by Stephen King

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano

The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

Skeleton Crew by Stephen King

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Running with Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Matilda by Roald Dahl

“Who Could That Be at This Hour?” by Lemony Snicket

“When Did You See Her Last?” by Lemony Snicket

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

Four Past Midnight by Stephen King

The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis

The Collected Short Stories of H.G. Wells by H.G. Wells

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Believing is Seeing by Diana Wynne Jones

The Field Guide by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

The Seeing Stone by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

Lucinda's Secret by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

The Ironwood Tree by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

The Wrath of Mulgarath  by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian by Kurt Vonnegut

Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black (Thanks for the recommendation, @batmanisagatewaydrug​!)

Dracula by Bram Stoker

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison

Time of the Twins by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

I didn’t quite make it to my goal of one hundred books, but that just gives me something to strive for this year. Now, the top five books I read this year, in no particular order (not counting books that I’ve read before): 

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

Hands down one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. In addition to being a roller-coaster of emotion that will leave your heart in pieces and then gently glue them back together, this book also managed to hit the majority of my interests in one go. Gay shit? Check. Victorian-era theatre? Check. Socialist revolution? Check. This book truly has it all.

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

Speaking of books that will break your heart, here’s a doozy. If you’ve read any of Roxane Gay’s work before, then you know that she writes with a raw passion that makes you feel alongside her. One of the most honest books I’ve ever read, Gay captures a broad range of emotion with grace, humor, and humanity. 

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

What do you get when you combine stage magic, comic books, Yiddish folklore, and a helluva lot of heart? You get this fucking book. Though it veers dangerously close to tragedy porn at points, Chabon keeps things grounded enough that it never feels like drama is being drummed up for drama’s sake. A beautiful tale of love, loss, and friendship set against a vibrant historical backdrop. Along with Tipping the Velvet, this managed to not only become one of my favorite books of this year, but of all time. 

The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer

Amanda Palmer is, to say the least, a polarizing figure. People either love her or can’t stand her, and she knows it. Like Hunger, this is a book written from a profoundly humanist perspective. Here we’re privy to the insecure cracks in a woman who has built a career out of being bold, brash, and boisterous. Not only does she hold a mirror up to herself, but also to the reader. This book forced me to confront hard truths about myself, and I know that when I need a kick in the ass of inspiration, I’ll be returning to it again and again. 

The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon 

There’s not much to say about this one other than this: if you care at all about Batman, you need to read this book. Weldon does a phenomenal job not only of telling the history of the Dark Knight, but contextualizing each phase of his existence, revealing what the many versions of Batman over the years say about the prevailing culture of the time. 

Well, that’s it for this year’s reading roundup, folks. Here’s to a New Year full of good stories and good nights spent curled up with a good book!