#i can understand that lesbians can be transphobic and terfs or otherwise exclude nonbinary people | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nothorses · 3 years

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Interview With An Ex-Radfem

exradfem is an anonymous Tumblr user who identifies as transmasculine, and previously spent time in radical feminist communities. They have offered their insight into those communities using their own experiences and memories as a firsthand resource.

Background

I was raised in an incredibly fundamentalist religion, and so was predisposed to falling for cult rhetoric. Naturally, I was kicked out for being a lesbian. I was taken in by the queer community, particularly the trans community, and I got back on my feet- somehow. I had a large group of queer friends, and loved it. I fully went in on being the Best Trans Ally Possible, and constantly tried to be a part of activism and discourse.

Unfortunately, I was undersocialized, undereducated, and overenthusiastic. I didn't fully understand queer or gender theory. In my world, when my parents told me my sexuality was a choice and I wasn't born that way, they were absolutely being homophobic. I understood that no one should care if it's a choice or not, but it was still incredibly, vitally important to me that I was born that way.

On top of that, I already had an intense distrust of men bred by a lot of trauma. That distrust bred a lot of gender essentialism that I couldn't pull out of the gender binary. I felt like it was fundamentally true that men were the problem, and that women were inherently more trustworthy. And I really didn't know where nonbinary people fit in.

Then I got sucked down the ace exclusionist pipeline; the way the arguments were framed made sense to my really surface-level, liberal view of politics. This had me primed to exclude people –– to feel like only those that had been oppressed exactly like me were my community.

Then I realized I was attracted to my nonbinary friend. I immediately felt super guilty that I was seeing them as a woman. I started doing some googling (helped along by ace exclusionists on Tumblr) and found the lesfem community, which is basically radfem “lite”: lesbians who are "only same sex attracted". This made sense to me, and it made me feel so much less guilty for being attracted to my friend; it was packaged as "this is just our inherent, biological desire that is completely uncontrollable". It didn't challenge my status quo, it made me feel less guilty about being a lesbian, and it allowed me to have a "biological" reason for rejecting men.

I don't know how much dysphoria was playing into this, and it's something I will probably never know; all of this is just piecing together jumbled memories and trying to connect dots. I know at the time I couldn't connect to this trans narrative of "feeling like a woman". I couldn't understand what trans women were feeling. This briefly made me question whether I was nonbinary, but radfem ideas had already started seeping into my head and I'm sure I was using them to repress that dysphoria. That's all I can remember.

The lesfem community seeded gender critical ideas and larger radfem princples, including gender socialization, gender as completely meaningless, oppression as based on sex, and lesbian separatism. It made so much innate sense to me, and I didn't realize that was because I was conditioned by the far right from the moment of my birth. Of course women were just a biological class obligated to raise children: that is how I always saw myself, and I always wanted to escape it.

I tried to stay in the realms of TIRF (Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist) and "gender critical" spaces, because I couldn't take the vitriol on so many TERF blogs. It took so long for me to get to the point where I began seeing open and unveiled transphobia, and I had already read so much and bought into so much of it that I thought that I could just ignore those parts.

In that sense, it was absolutely a pipeline for me. I thought I could find a "middle ground", where I could "center women" without being transphobic.

Slowly, I realized that the transphobia was just more and more disgustingly pervasive. Some of the trans men and butch women I looked up to left the groups, and it was mostly just a bunch of nasty people left. So I left.

After two years offline, I started to recognize I was never going to be a healthy person without dealing with my dysphoria, and I made my way back onto Tumblr over the pandemic. I have realized I'm trans, and so much of this makes so much more sense now. I now see how I was basically using gender essentialism to repress my identity and keep myself in the closet, how it was genuinely weaponized by TERFs to keep me there, and how the ace exclusionist movement primed me into accepting lesbian separatism- and, finally, radical feminism.

The Interview

You mentioned the lesfem community, gender criticals, and TIRFs, which I haven't heard about before- would you mind elaborating on what those are, and what kinds of beliefs they hold?

I think the lesfem community is recruitment for lesbians into the TERF community. Everything is very sanitized and "reasonable", and there's an effort not to say anything bad about trans women. The main focus was that lesbian = homosexual female, and you can't be attracted to gender, because you can't know someone's gender before knowing them; only their sex.

It seemed logical at the time, thinking about sex as something impermeable and gender as internal identity. The most talk about trans women I saw initially was just in reference to the cotton ceiling, how sexual orientation is a permanent and unchangeable reality. Otherwise, the focus was homophobia. This appealed to me, as I was really clinging to the "born this way" narrative.

This ended up being a gateway to two split camps - TIRFs and gender crits.

I definitely liked to read TIRF stuff, mostly because I didn't like the idea of radical feminism having to be transphobic. But TIRFs think that misogyny is all down to hatred of femininity, and they use that as a basis to be able to say trans women are "just as" oppressed.

Gender criticals really fought out against this, and pushed the idea that gender is fake, and misogyny is just sex-based oppression based on reproductive issues. They believe that the source of misogyny is the "male need to control the source of reproduction"- which is what finally made me think I had found the "source" of my confusion. That's why I ended up in gender critical circles instead of TIRF circles.

I'm glad, honestly, because the mask-off transphobia is what made me finally see the light. I wouldn't have seen that in TIRF communities.

I believed this in-between idea, that misogyny was "sex-based oppression" and that transphobia was also real and horrible, but only based on transition, and therefore a completely different thing. I felt that this was the "nuanced" position to take.

The lesfem community also used the fact that a lot of lesbians have partners who transition, still stay with their lesbian partners, and see themselves as lesbian- and that a lot of trans men still see themselves as lesbians. That idea is very taboo and talked down in liberal queer spaces, and I had some vague feelings about it that made me angry, too. I really appreciated the frank talk of what I felt were my own taboo experiences.

I think gender critical ideology also really exploited my own dysphoria. There was a lot of talk about how "almost all butches have dysphoria and just don't talk about it", and that made me feel so much less alone and was, genuinely, a big relief to me that I "didn't have to be trans".

Lesfeminism is essentially lesbian separatism dressed up as sex education. Lesfems believe that genitals exist in two separate categories, and that not being attracted to penises is what defines lesbians. This is used to tell cis lesbians, "dont feel bad as a lesbian if you're attracted to trans men", and that they shouldn’t feel "guilty" for not being attracted to trans women. They believe that lesbianism is not defined as being attracted to women, it is defined as not being attracted to men; which is a root idea in lesbian separatism as well.

Lesfems also believe that attraction to anything other than explicit genitals is a fetish: if you're attracted to flat chests, facial hair, low voices, etc., but don't care if that person has a penis or not, you're bisexual with a fetish for masculine attributes. Essentially, they believe the “-sexual” suffix refers to the “sex” that you are assigned at birth, rather than your attraction: “homosexual” refers to two people of the same sex, etc. This was part of their pushback to the ace community, too.

I think they exploited the issues of trans men and actively ignored trans women intentionally, as a way of avoiding the “TERF” label. Pronouns were respected, and they espoused a constant stream of "trans women are women, trans men are men (but biology still exists and dictates sexual orientation)" to maintain face.

They would only be openly transmisogynistic in more private, radfem-only spaces.

For a while, I didn’t think that TERFs were real. I had read and agreed with the ideology of these "reasonable" people who others labeled as TERFs, so I felt like maybe it really was a strawman that didn't exist. I think that really helped suck me in.

It sounds from what you said like radical feminism works as a kind of funnel system, with "lesfem" being one gateway leading in, and "TIRF" and "gender crit" being branches that lesfem specifically funnels into- with TERFs at the end of the funnel. Does that sound accurate?

I think that's a great description actually!

When I was growing up, I had to go to meetings to learn how to "best spread the word of god". It was brainwashing 101: start off by building a relationship, find a common ground. Do not tell them what you really believe. Use confusing language and cute innuendos to "draw them in". Prey on their emotions by having long exhausting sermons, using music and peer pressure to manipulate them into making a commitment to the church, then BAM- hit them with the weird shit.

Obviously I am paraphrasing, but this was framed as a necessary evil to not "freak out" the outsiders.

I started to see that same talk in gender critical circles: I remember seeing something to the effect of, "lesfem and gender crit spaces exist to cleanse you of the gender ideology so you can later understand the 'real' danger of it", which really freaked me out; I realized I was in a cult again.

I definitely think it's intentional. I think they got these ideas from evangelical Christianity, and they actively use it to spread it online and target young lesbians and transmascs. And I think gender critical butch spaces are there to draw in young transmascs who hate everything about femininity and womanhood, and lesfem spaces are there to spread the idea that trans women exist as a threat to lesbianism.

Do you know if they view TIRFs a similar way- as essentially prepping people for TERF indoctrination?

Yes and no.

I've seen lots of in-fighting about TIRFs; most TERFs see them as a detriment, worse than the "TRAs" themselves. I've also definitely seen it posed as "baby's first radfeminism". A lot of TIRFs are trans women, at least from what I've seen on Tumblr, and therefore are not accepted or liked by radfems. To be completely honest, I don't think they're liked by anyone. They just hate men.

TIRFs are almost another breed altogether; I don't know if they have ties to lesfems at all, but I do think they might've spearheaded the online ace exclusionist discourse. I think a lot of them also swallowed radfem ideology without knowing what it was, and parrot it without thinking too hard about how it contradicts with other ideas they have.

The difference is TIRFs exist. They're real people with a bizarre, contradictory ideology. The lesfem community, on the other hand, is a completely manufactured "community" of crypto-terfs designed specifically to indoctrinate people into TERF ideology.

Part of my interest in TIRFs here is that they seem to have a heavy hand in the way transmascs are treated by the trans community, and if you're right that they were a big part of ace exclusionism too they've had a huge impact on queer discourse as a whole for some time. It seems likely that Baeddels came out of that movement too.

Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. The more digging I did, the more I found that it's a smaller circle running the show than it seems. TIRFs really do a lot of legwork in peddling the ideology to outer queer community, who tend to see it as generic feminism.

TERFs joke a lot about how non-radfems will repost or reblog from TERFs, adding "op is a TERF”. They're very gleeful when people accept their ideology with the mask on. They think it means these people are close to fully learning the "truth", and they see it as further evidence they have the truth the world is hiding. I think it's important to speak out against radical feminism in general, because they’re right; their ideology does seep out into the queer community.

Do you think there's any "good" radical feminism?

No. It sees women as the ultimate victim, rather than seeing gender as a tool to oppress different people differently. Radical feminism will always see men as the problem, and it is always going to do harm to men of color, gay men, trans men, disabled men, etc.

Women aren't a coherent class, and radfems are very panicked about that fact; they think it's going to be the end of us all. But what's wrong with that? That's like freaking out that white isn't a coherent group. It reveals more about you.

It's kind of the root of all exclusionism, the more I think about it, isn't it? Just freaking out that some group isn't going to be exclusive anymore.

Radical feminists believe that women are inherently better than men.

For TIRFs, it's gender essentialism. For TERFs, its bio essentialism. Both systems are fundamentally broken, and will always hurt the groups most at risk. Centering women and misogyny above all else erases the root causes of bigotry and oppression, and it erases the intersections of race and class. The idea that women are always fundamentally less threatening is very white and privileged.

It also ignores how cis women benefit from gender norms just as cis men do, and how cis men suffer from gender roles as well. It’s a system of control where gender non-conformity is a punishable offense.

#transgender #transphobia #trans #transmisogyny #radical feminism #radfem #feminism #transandrophobia #terfs #tirfs #gender critical #nothorses #cult mention #long post

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apollos-favourite-bastard · 3 years

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I’m going to say this once, and honestly probably several more times while defending my stance, but here goes- Gate keepers are bad people, and almost everyone agrees on that. We all hate the people who gatekeep different bits of culture, as is right. They’re selfish people, and arrogant, too, believing that they get to dictate who does and doesn’t get to participate in something. The act of gatekeeping is, in and of itself, hostile and bigoted. It depends on one placing their own self higher than those around them and passing judgement, trying to push someone out of a space because they find that they are more rightfully entitled to that space than someone else.

There are two very bad fronts of this in the LGBTQIA+ community in particular. The first, which is very well known and acknowledged, but not what this post is about, are TERFs and other groups that are transphobic in nature. Fuck TERFs is an extremely common sentiment on tumblr, as it should be, because fuck TERFs. TERFs are bigots, and their stance comes from a place of bigotry. We mostly all agree on this, except for the TERFs who think that they’re rightful and justified in their bigotry, and nothing that I say, think, feel or do is going to change that. Until they recognize their own bigotry and realize that they don’t want to be hate filled sacks of pus shaped like a human, they’re going to continue to be hate filled sacks of pus shaped like a human. However, most of the LGBTQIA+ community agrees that TERFs are bigots and wants nothing to do with them.

So, why do we give aro/ace exclusionists a pass? Why do we, as a community, not band together to fight it the same way that we do with TERFs? Why do we look at this gatekeeping of our community and not feel disgust in the same way that we do with TERFs? Why do some people in our community think that they have the right to exclude others?

Well, I have a theory about that, although I’m going to say up front that it’s just my opinion. Ace/aro people have, for quite a long time, been partially invisible. Up until the advent and popularization of social media, and even to this day in a way, the LGBTQIA+ community has been pretty heavily segregated. At first, this was out of necessity. People opened gay and lesbian bars and clubs decades ago, out of necessity. We built specific spaces for ourselves because that was literally crucial to our survival. While our communities banded together when necessary, there was always a sort of rivalry or distaste for other members of the community if they fell under a different letter. This was heavily present all the way up until the early 2010s. As a teenager in the aughties, I saw so many examples of queer people who didn’t like other letters on principle, because they had nothing in common with one another, and that hasn’t exactly vanished. I knew gay men who hated lesbians, lesbians who hated gay men, both who hated bisexual people- The list goes on.

Then Myspace and Facebook happened, and people began finding solidarity with one another without having to be in a shared space. People began sharing their experiences, and became more comfortable expressing themselves. While pride has existed for decades, it wasn’t nearly as accepted or widespread as it became AFTER social media exposed people to the realization that these communities encompass more people than they realized, and also encompassed people that they knew and cared about. It eased the way for a second wave of the LGBTQIA+ rights movement that helped the community gain several rights, including marriage rights, adoption rights and legal protections. It eased tensions, particularly in the gay and lesbian communities, and paved the way for the more solidarity focused community that we have today.

HOWEVER

After gaining these things, many members of the community decided that that was enough. Discrimination against gays and lesbians had lessened, and acceptance had become more mainstream, so they stopped giving a shit. Trans issues didn’t affect them, so they didn’t care. Ace issues didn’t affect them, so they didn’t care, and they stopped fighting for the other members of the community. That doesn’t apply to everyone, but it applies to more people than anyone should be comfortable with.

Like I said before, the communities were pretty segregated, and we continue to be. What so many people don’t realize is that our community only has strength together. People under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella represent a sizeable chunk of the population, but each individual group doesn’t represent that much on their own. We don’t have power on our own. Unlike religious or racial minorities, the LGBTQIA+ community is completely random. Anyone could fit into it. The people in our community don’t necessarily have the same experiences. And while shared experience was a founding principle of our community out of necessity, it cannot continue to be so.

Let me explain that point, because I feel like people are not going to realize that it’s the entire point of this post unless I highlight it. Defining our community based on trauma and discrimination was, at the time, necessary. In order to increase our safety, we clumped together, because there’s strength in numbers. There’s also the completely human desire for community because as a species we are not designed to go at it completely alone. Shared experience is a good foundation for that, and if that shared experience is negative, it can make those bonds all the stronger. But that also creates a system wherein the validity of people’s experiences is judged on a sliding scale, which creates the even more unpleasant sliding scale of validity applied to a person’s existence and position in our community.

In particular, this is applied to aro/ace people, bisexual people, and transgender and nonbinary people. There are so many arguments that I could write a book on the subject, but there are more talented and knowledgeable people than I am who have written on the subject, and I implore people to seek out literature and media that can help them understand these things. But I made this post, and I’m going to talk about the main argument that I have seen applied, which is privilege.

Privilege is something I know all too well about having, as a cis white man. It has kept me safe where other people would not have been, and given me more power than I have deserved at times. I do my best to amplify voices that are shouted over, without speaking over them myself, and while I hope I have done a good job of that, I know and openly acknowledge that I am not perfect and have probably messed up too many times to count. I know that when I was younger, I certainly was not as supportive as I could or should have been to people who needed that support, because I saw someone different than I am reaching out for help, and decided it wasn’t my problem. That made me part of the problem. Over time, I have been humbled, sometimes painfully, and forced to recognize that privilege. I am not proud of things that I have done and said. I am embarrassed by who I used to be, and strive every day to be better than I was the day before. I don’t always get it right, but I am trying.

The point of that isn’t to pat myself on the back, or say ‘look how much I’ve grown!’. It’s to tell you that I have been in that place. I have seen someone different than I am and decided to keep quiet and turn a blind eye to their suffering. I have thought to myself ‘they haven’t had to struggle with the things that I have had to struggle with, so it’s not my business’. It’s also to say that privilege is a WILDLY inappropriate way to gauge someone’s position in a community.

Our community cannot and must not continue to use the meter-stick of privilege to judge the validity of someone’s worth and place in our community. It promotes its own kind of bigotry. That’s not to say that cis or white people in the community shouldn’t examine their own experiences and privilege, because we should. What I mean is that it shouldn’t be used to JUDGE someone else. Aro/Ace people and bisexual people have somehow gotten the reputation as having privilege because they are’ more easily able to blend with cishet society’, and are therefore safer and less oppressed, but that’s a bullshit argument. Trauma and oppression cannot continue to be the way we determine someone’s worth. What we should be fighting for is for discrimination to end, not for people who are more oppressed to be the only valid voices in our community. It is tearing our community apart when we need to stand together.

Otherwise we aren’t a community, we’re just a bunch of different people only standing with those who are like us, and nobody else, which is exactly how systems of oppression have been maintained throughout all of human history. People point to the most different group from themselves and say ‘they’re different, and different is bad, so they’re bad’. That’s the insidious nature of bigotry at work, and I refuse to allow myself to fall into that trap. I refuse to be a part of the problem anymore, and that means that I’m not going to keep quiet on subjects like discrimination against people just because their experiences are different than my own.

People who gatekeep communities are coming from a place of bigotry, and it has to stop. People have to speak up about it, and I hope that they do it better and less rambling than I have. TERFs and exclusionists and racists are too prevalent in this community, and we have let their bigotry form the insidious cracks that will tear this community apart if they aren’t spoken out against.

#ace positivity #aro positivity #ace and aro people are ALWAYS welcome #I will always stand with you

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mlm-only-support · 4 years

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I'm sending this bc hoping to offer perspective? I just discovered the "mlm only discourse," but legit the first 5 blogs I found were truscum and/or transmed before I found yours. I'm a nb lesbian, and even with staying pretty quiet and tailoring my online experience, up until the past few months I've seen much more nb exclusionary stuff than support. Fact of the matter is, a lot of people who tout this use the cover of "I just want an exclusive space!" Which sucks bc they're (1/?)

continued: turning the totally reasonable request of wanting a space JUST for people like them (which I totally get), into a dogwhistle, similar to how terfs post stuff that *seems* reasonable but is actually filled with transphobic ideology. This doesn't excuse people sending hate or dead bodies (jfc) by ANY means. But also as somebody who's been mocked a lot over gender and felt for years I couldn't ever identify as I am, seeing an outcropping of nb exclusionary blogs oft headed by truscum/transmed (2/?)

is.... certainly a HUGE red flag, you understand? And it's really unfair to mlm who legit just want a place on the internet to just themselves. I get that I'm not the exact same, but the experience sort of parallels so I was hoping I could offer perspective from the "other side" as it were. Maybe spreading the use of "transphobes/enbyphobes(forget the word)/truscum/transmed/etc. DNI" in banners would help? Because as it is I think that's what's causing a lot of frustration for even (3/?)

innocent nb people because we're so used to hostility, and is a breeding ground for people who can use this as an excuse to promote their harmful ideology regarding nb people. I understand now that "mlm only" is an innocent claim, but it seems to have been quickly co-opted, and it would help if there was a seen effort that showed excluding nb people on a more "fundamental" level isn't okay. Not that I'd want to be in the space of a truscum "nblx dni" person anyway, but this kind of (4/?)

breeds an environment where nb people are expected to sit down an shut up and accept growing numbers of anti-nb spaces because if we do say anything we're called out on being invasive and can't respect people's boundaries, when in actuality that's a cover intentionally being used by hateful people to simultaneously prove how bad we are and successfully lock us out of our communities. And these feelings could be avoided and hateful people quickly shut down if suggested DNI became common. (5/?)

Sorry this was so long but I felt I couldn't message because even though you seem kind, I'm afraid of not being anon because historically I've gotten hate and belittled and told to change my identity etc. whenever I try to speak up. This isn't entirely my place, but I'm hoping that suggestion could help before "mlm only" becomes common shorthand for being hateful and exclusionary like similar sentiments in nblw and wlw spaces have- that screws everyone over, including people who are (6/?)

earnest and welcoming but simply want some mlm spaces for themselves. (Also will help slow spread of indoctrination hopefully, because like how terfs prey on young lesbians, most of the nblm dni people I saw were under 20, and a lot of truscum/transmeds I see are generally young trans men who were absolutely predated on by older exclusionists). Thank you for your time, and I sincerely hope I didn't intrude. I just want these communities to be safe for all who need them. ❤ -Avery (7/7)

(also separate but sorry if that last one sent a bunch of times, I kept getting errors. extra sorry i know i can be long winded but that was like, impossible to condense, yknow? thank you for your time even if you don't feel comfortable posting that, and have a great day and hope you are doing well in these times!

alright so first i wanted to say thank you for taking the time to write your ask, im always open to answering things like this. as well, if you ever do want to dm me, i am completely open to dms and would never do anything like try to change your identity or convince you otherwise because thats just not how i roll

so getting to the content of the ask, i do agree theres a... disturbing growing trend of enbyphobia in the mlm-only community.

our specific community is small, only about 30-40 people. ive noticed about... 3 or 4 blogs that are incredibly aggressive to nonbinary people. ive been thinking of calling one out in particular that constantly posts stuff like "fuck nb people you guys cant fucking read and i dont want you on my fucking blog" (like yikes dawg). i think people like that are using the guise of mlm-only in order to treat nb people like shit, and thats not what i want our community to be about.

ive also noticed the trend of people saying things like "you cant be an nb man" and "you cant be nblm and mlm". this one has existed for a while, before all of the aggression cropped up. i think these people are pretty confused and id honestly want to have a discussion with them to see if i can educate them, or to see if they just... dont want to change their view. i dont see how invalidation of peoples personal identities belongs on a blog about liking men (newsflash, guys: you dont have to want to date them to respect them! its really easy, haha), so god knows why posts like that are made!

i think the banners would be a good idea for mlm-only blogs that are truly nb supportive, to try and weed out parts of the community that post shit like that.

tldr; anon said it was a good idea to make dni banners for mlm-only blogs that say "enbyphobes dni" and things like that, and i agreed because ive been seeing really aggressive enbyphobia in the community for a bit.

#ask #anon #long post #text heavy #not receipts

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greed-the-dorkalicious · 5 years

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We’re halfway through pride month, so I would like to give my fellow cis people a GENTLE FUCKING REMINDER: being a trans ally isn’t just about doing what’s convenient or fun for you.

Reblogging lots of “Donkey Kong said trans rights!” or “Fuck terfs!” or whatever the fuck posts don’t mean shit if you’re not making an active effort to be inclusive of trans people. Great, cool, you posted a funny meme, or you mindlessly repeated something about Stonewall or whatever, but are you perpetuating transphobic rhetoric in your other posts? Are you listening to trans people? Does your support of trans people mean actual support, or just passively not hating them? I’m fucking sick and tired of seeing cis people not give a shit about trans people, and then pat themselves on the back for taking .5 seconds to reblog a picture of Lily Hoshikawa or whatever the fuck. You need to Make. An. Effort. Allyship that’s only skin deep is not allyship at all, it’s just trying to make yourself look good because hashtag diversity or whatever the fuck.

You’re not being a good trans ally if you:

Say things like “Straight people don’t belong at pride!”, or otherwise equate the entire LGBTQ+ community with “””sga”””, erasing and actively excluding straight trans people in the process

Use “terfs” as a buzzword without actually understanding what terfs are, what kind of rhetoric they’re spreading, why it’s bad, the difference between terfs and regular old transphobes (guess what! transphobia is bad no matter who it’s coming from or who it’s directed at! Not everyone is a terf! Words Mean Things, Guys!), and also making sure you don’t fall victim to their brainwashing

Hold trans people to impossibly high standards that you wouldn’t hold a cis person to (especially gnc trans folks, because when a cis guy wears a dress it’s A Win For Gender Equality Omg King Yesss So Woke or something but when a trans guy wears a dress suddenly that means he’s actually secretly a cis girl, apparently)

Try to judge whether or not someone is “really” trans or “trans enough” (hint: you don’t know their life, regardless of what you think of them it’s None Of Your Fucking Business so shut the fuck up) or accuse people of being trans because it’s “trendy”

Expect people to disclose their agab for any reason, or assume everyone to be cis until proven otherwise

Use terminology that, even if unintended, equates gender with biological sex (looking at you, abortion debate people)

Think trans people aren’t really lesbians/gay/etc. or think it’s ok to be like “Yeah I’m gay but I’d never have sex with a trans dude” or shit like that. (Literally who the fuck asked, Dave?? I’m bi but I don’t go around announcing that I, idk wouldn’t have sex with guys with small dicks or whatever, because that’d be a weird, mean, and gross thing to do. Why the fuck is everyone so preoccupied with yelling about trans people’s genitals. Get a life)

Shit on men as a whole, because frankly it’s horrifying how many transmasc friends and family I have who have struggled with their gender even more than is necessary or felt pressured not to identify as male because of the concept that All Men Are Bad Evil And Mean, or thought that they couldn’t be men because Men Don’t Uhhhhh Have Emotions Because They’re All Evil And Mea-

Treat “nonbinary” as just a third gender, or shit on nonbinary folks in general, especially when it comes to judging them because you don’t like the way they present or their pronouns or their microlabels or whatever the fuck. Their gender is their business, not yours. Shut up.

Excuse transphobia from media or people that you like- No, this isn’t saying that you can’t like anything ever that’s slightly Problematique™, it’s saying that if someone says “Hey this is transphobic” you, as a cis person, should not immediately go “Um well ACTUALLY no it isn’t because xyz” or “Yeah maybe but blahblahblah so actually it’s ok! uwu”

Shut down trans headcanons (unless you see like, A Known Cis™ making “headcanons” that are blatantly nasty and fetishy, then by all means tell them the fuck off for it. But again, don’t assume people are cis by default)

Refuse to accept criticism on your treatment of trans people, try to make up sob stories about how respecting trans people is haaaard :(((( or pull the “I’m not transphobic, I have A Trans Friend” card

It’s 2019, it’s time to start making bigger changes. Yes, it’s great that we’re at a point where it’s seen as cool to post pro-trans memes and such, it’s great that parts of society are now past the “it’s fine to outright blatantly say you hate trans people” phsase, but we can’t stop there. It’s time for all of us to start actively working to uplift and protect our trans siblings, even if that means- gasp, oh the horror- having to, like, think critically and reflect on our own flaws.

(And yes, this does include myself- I need to continue making an effort as well, because being a good ally isn’t a one-time thing where you can go “Well, I’ve been deemed a Good Ally Now so I don’t have to actually do anything anymore”. I do need to have an active awareness of myself and keep myself in check, as all cis people should fucking be doing.)

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fandomshatelgbtqpeople · 5 years

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There’s a post that’s been bothering me for literally four years. It managed to somehow be both homophobic and transphobic and the (very popular) social justice blogger who made it never got any serious blowback. I’m going to post a screencap of it here, but I won’t say who it’s from because it was four years ago. What I will say is that as far as I know, they have never addressed it or apologized despite having been asked more than once, never did anything about all the people in the notes using it as a reason to be homophobic, and that they are still a pretty popular, well regarded blog.

This post was made in response to part of an old conversation that got dragged up. It was one of those things that’s like, maybe this was okay, maybe it wasn’t, depending on the context, which I’ve never been able to find. The person who originally pulled it up was a transphobe who was talking about “biological sex,” so I don’t trust their judgment or intentions, but a broken clock is right twice a day, so it’s possible that something actually homophobic was said. I haven’t posted it here because that would just be taking it out of context again and as OP has pointed out, that isn’t helpful. Here’s the part of their response that deals with monosexuals and making assumptions about people’s gender. The rest of the post talked about why taking the comment out of context didn’t accurately represent their feelings and how the conversation had also been about biphobia and bi erasure, and that’s all fine.

It starts out fine (making assumptions about someone’s gender and anatomy based on their appearance is cissexist and we should all try not to do it), but it turns into “and I don’t do that because I’m bisexual.” Which like, you’re a cis woman so yes you fucking do. I’m nonbinary and I still do it sometimes. And then there’s that line at the end about how gay and straight people’s orientations are based on assumptions about people’s gender and anatomy.

I’ll note that they were talking about monosexuals, which includes lesbians, gay men, and all straight people and was also read like it was directed at people who were doing it out of ignorance rather than malice, so this post was not specifically about terfs and isn’t really applicable to them at all because they know exactly what they’re doing. Terfs were also considered just as bad in 2015 as they are now, so if that comment had been about terfs, they could have said that and it would have gotten them off the hook with the people who were calling them out in good faith.

They then wrote out a longer explanation about what their current feelings were on the subject. This is broken up into two images just because it was too long to screencap at once. I haven’t removed anything. The first post and second reblog are the OP:

They later edited the post twice--once to specify that they were only talking about cis monosexuals and once to add “and sometimes also bi and pan people do this too,” which did little to address the fact that this post was literally claiming that being gay or straight was inherently problematic and that bi and pan people were automatically less transphobic by virtue of their sexual orientation and just ended up implying that it’s only okay to be gay if you’re trans (because I guess that means you’re woke enough to stop yourself from being attracted to people on sight?). Here’s

Four years ago, I wasn’t really able to articulate a response that cut to the root of why this post bothered me so much more than any other homophobic or transphobic bullshit and to navigate around the fact that there are parts of it that I genuinely agree with (most of the stuff about anatomy), but I’m older and more practiced now, so here we go.

This post is based on a number of incorrect assumptions:

That gay people can’t find someone they’re not attracted to aesthetically pleasing to look at

That gay people are, across the board, only attracted to certain genitalia and base their sexual orientations off that

That gay people’s thoughts immediately jump to sex the first time they’re attracted to someone

That the only way to be bi is to be attracted to every gender

That gay people base their assumptions about people’s gender on whether they’re attracted to them

That still being willing to have sex with someone after finding out you were wrong about their gender makes your assumption less transphobic

They were not willing to listen to any of the gay people in their notes trying to explain to them that this isn’t actually how being gay works at all or any of the bi, pan, or trans people who called them out for being way out of their lane. The only person they responded to at all was a trans lesbian who pointed out that they hadn’t ever specified that they were only talking about cis gay people (that person also pointed out several ways in which the post was homophobic, none of which were addressed beyond “that’s not what I meant”).

Basically, the thesis statement here is, “Gay people’s attraction is based solely around sex and genitals and none of them are attracted to trans people, but bi and pan people are attracted to everyone so we don’t make as many assumptions about people’s gender, and when we do it’s less problematic.” Which is obviously very false for multiple reasons.

I’m going to go through all of these assumptions and talk about the underlying thought processes underpinning them and how they’re even more insidious than they seem on the surface.

1. Gay people can’t find someone they’re not attracted to aesthetically pleasing to look at

This is actually one of the more benign assumptions and what it really comes down to is not understanding that thinking, “That person is hot” isn’t the same thing as thinking, “I would be interested in pursuing a sexual relationship with that person” (which also isn’t necessarily the same thing as thinking “I would be interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with that person” but this post completely ignores that romance might be part of being gay--we’ll get to that later). It’s really just a fundamental misunderstanding about what sexual attraction is and how it works.

2. Gay people are, across the board, only attracted to certain genitalia

The obvious thought process underlying this attitude is that you have to be attracted to women in some capacity to want to date and trans man and vice versa for trans women. There are two possible assumptions that could be causing this. The first is that all gay people (and all straight people) are transphobic and only care about genitalia. The second is that a trans man who hasn’t had bottom surgery isn’t really enough of a man for someone who’s only attracted to men to want to have sex with him, and the same for trans women. You’re either being homophobic or transphobic here.

In fact, what it really reveals about OP is that, regardless of their self-righteousness on this topic, they are the one equating being attracted to women with being attracted to vaginas and being attracted to men with being attracted to penises. That’s not to say that there isn’t a transphobia problem in gay communities, but the implication here is that these are the objective definitions of being a lesbian and a gay man respectively. There are definitely cis lesbians who date trans women and cis gay men who date trans men.

OP assigned a transphobic, incorrect definition to gay people and then based a lot of their argument on that. We see this a lot in ace discourse (”it means not wanting to fuck”) and in bi vs pan discourse (”it excludes nonbinary people”). It would be a problem if it was true, but it’s not, and while there are people who ascribe to that definition, those people wrong. There are lots cissexist bi and pan people who equate gender and genitalia until told otherwise, and it’s not less transphobic when they do it. It’s a transphobia problem, not a being gay problem.

3. Gay people’s thoughts immediately jump to sex as soon as they’re attracted to someone

So this is just blatant sexualization of gay people, and it really explains a lot of about the first two assumptions. Being gay is all about sex, so if you’re gay, you can’t possibly think someone is hot without immediately thinking about what they look like naked and how you want to have sex with them. And of course because being gay is all about what kind of sex you want to have, your attraction must be defined by the genitalia of your partners.

It should go without saying that this is really homophobic. Even for gay aros, this isn’t how it works. I guess I can understand how if you’re equally attracted to everyone, you might not understand how gender plays a roll in attraction outside of thinking about sex, but it does, and that you don’t get it doesn’t excuse this. It just means you shouldn’t have been talking about it.

4. The only way to be bi is to be attracted to every gender

There are a couple of assumptions that could be underlying this. The possibility that’s most charitable to OP is that they are attracted to every gender and assume that that’s the only way to be bi. This is the only option that avoids exorsexism, but it is biphobic.

The second possibility is an assumption that nonbinary people don’t exist. Therefore, the only way to be bi is to be attracted to both men and women. This is extremely exorsexist for obvious reasons.

The third is a little more complicated, but it’s basically an assumption that being attracted to nonbinary people doesn’t, on it’s own, make someone bi. So, a person acknowledges that nonbinary people exist but basically thinks that either, because nonbinary people span so many identities, it’s impossible to be attracted to them if you’re not attracted to everyone. So a bi woman who’s attracted to nonbinary people and women shouldn’t exist because some nonbinary people identify so close to being a man that you couldn’t be attracted to them if you weren’t attracted to men. This is where the fetishization argument that a lot of exlusionists use comes from (I’m not saying that OP is an exclusionist, this is just the underlying ideology they use), and it ignore the fact that identifying as being attracted to women and nonbinary people doesn’t mean you’re attracted to ALL women and nonbinary people. It just means you can be attracted to women and nonbinary people.

Another possible mindset underlying that assumption is that if you aren’t attracted to everyone, the nonbinary people you’re attracted to must be so close as to be indistinguishable from whatever binary gender you’re attracted to, and therefore don’t count as being a different gender. That mindset stems from not thinking aboit nonbinary genders as being as legitimate or meaningful as binary genders and from seeing nonbinary people as basically whatever binary gender you think they’re closest to (”If you’re a bi woman who is attracted to men and nonbinary people, you’re really straight because your nonbinary partner looks like/acts like/is basically a man”). This is again exorsexist for reasons that should be obvious.

5. Gay people base their assumptions about people’s gender on whether they’re attracted to them

This is the assumption that gay people go:

I’m attracted to this person -> They must be a man/woman

rather than

I think this person is a man/woman -> I’m attracted to them

This frames gay people’s attraction as the reason the assumption about someone else’s gender is being made, and not the fact that we were all raised in a cissexist society. It’s also lets cis bi and pan people completely off the hook cissexism. If gay people’s assumptions about other people’s gender is caused by or is somehow made worse being attracted to them, then bi and pan people should be basically immune because they’re attracted to everyone (according to OP).

The mindset underlying this assumption is that there are people that you are innately attracted to and gay people are just attempting to shape their sexual orientation around their best guess at who those people are. Therefore, everyone is... I don’t know, varying degrees of bi I guess?... and gay people (and straight people) are just the transphobes who assume they know what everyone’s gender is, while bi and pan people are enlightened enough to realize they don’t. OP claimed in the notes that they weren’t saying monosexual orientations don’t exist, but if the point your making is that monosexual orientations are based solely around an assumption that’s probably wrong, then that is what you’re saying. And they definitely didn’t correct the first reblogger, who was unequivocally saying that.

It completely ignores the probability that a person’s attraction would disappear after finding out the person’s gender was actually not compatible with their sexual orientation, or the possibility that a gay person might know someone at least well enough to have some idea of what their gender is before becoming sexual attracted to them (because, as we’ve covered, just thinking someone is hot isn’t the same as attraction, and many gay people aren’t fantasizing about sex with complete strangers). Unless we’re talking about a closeted trans person, you usually don’t have to know someone that well to know what their gender is.

Shocker: most assumptions about people’s gender are made because they “look like” one of the binary genders, have certain secondary sex characteristics, have a traditionally masculine or feminine name, use he/him or she/her pronouns, or have a certain gender marker on their driver’s license. These are all things that bi and pan people are equally susceptible to.

6. Still being willing to have sex with someone after finding out you were wrong about their gender makes your assumption less transphobic

It super doesn’t. You still made the assumption. Framing it this way implies that transphobia is all about whether you would be willing to have sex with a trans person. I shouldn’t need to explain why that’s bad.

In conclusion

I want to mention that OP clarified that they weren’t try to say that everyone is bi in a reblog, but if that’s genuinely true then... I honestly don’t know how this post made sense to them. The point is either “people only think they’re gay or straight because they’re making assumptions about other people’s genders” OR “gay people want to have sex with strangers and that’s problematic (but it’s fine if a bi or pan person does it).” Which is a great example of someone setting a standard that requires huge changes from others but none from them and then getting self-righteous because other people don’t meet it (surprise surprise, the post I was referencing when I brought this up yesterday was from the same OP).

Anyway, regardless of which is true, it’s wrong. This post is homophobic, transphobic, and also erases a lot of bi experiences, and I still can’t believe that so many people just let this go unchecked when it happened.

mod k

Note: I better not catch a single one of you using this post as an excuse to be biphobic.

#modk #homophobia #transphobia #exorsexism #genital mention #long post

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fatphobiabusters · 6 years

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Mod bella is on kiwifarms

That’s the gross TERF site, right? If they are, I have a message:

Trans women are women.

Trans men are men.

Gender and sex are both social constructs.

Gender =/= gender roles. Eliminating gender roles won’t get rid of gender.

Patriarchy isn’t the only tool of oppression out there and not addressing other forms of oppression means not freeing women entirely from oppression, because women will still be oppressed for race and other factors.

Trans people are oppressed on the basis of being trans.

Oppression exists on multiple axes. Gender is one axis. Being transgender is a different axis. That means cisgender people can oppress transgender people, even if they are oppressed on the axis of gender. Just like white women can oppress people of color or straight women can oppress gay people.

There is a T in the acronym for a reason. Trans people matter.

Transgender people are super important to the history of the LGBTQIA+ community. You can’t erase their importance or our history.

People don’t identify as trans or nonbinary to escape gender roles, to escape oppression, or to become oppressed. We identify that way because that’s who we are.

Being trans and nonbinary aren’t about presentation or not fitting in gender roles. I don’t identify as nonbinary because I think I’m too masculine to be a woman. I am super feminine, I wear makeup and dresses and heels and revealing clothing when I can, but I am nonbinary because I feel like I am not a woman and I know I am not a man. It’s not misogyny or a dislike of womanhood that makes me feel this way. I am a feminist and I love and support the women around me and fight for women’s rights. I just know I don’t belong to that category, and I don’t have to to believe women should not be oppressed for being women.

Trans men can be feminine and trans women can be masculine. This doesn’t disprove their gender. Men are still men even if feminine and women are still women even if masculine. Trans women don’t owe you femininity and trans men don’t owe you masculinity.

Any feminism that doesn’t support the most marginalized women there are is shit feminism. Trans women are much more likely to be murdered than you are. They are marginalized in ways you don’t understand. Not including them in your feminism is wrong.

Trans women are not rapists or abusers just because they are trans women. Cis women can be rapists and abusers too. It’s not one’s identity that makes someone abusive or a rapist. Assuming all trans women are bad people is transphobic and makes you a bigot.

Men are not inherently evil because they are men.

People are allowed to be angry at their oppressors. That means trans people have a right to be angry at cis people.

“Cis” is not a slur. It just means “cisgender.” “Cisgender” means that you agree with your assigned gender at birth. Have a vagina and identify as a woman? Congrats, you’re cis. That’s not an insult. That’s just how things are. No one is attacking you by calling you “cis.”

“TERF” is also not a slur, it does not mean “lesbian,” and the reason you are being called a TERF is because you’re a transgender exclusionary radical feminist. You identify as a radical feminist, and you exclude trans people from your activism. That is what “TERF” means. That’s it. It’s not an attack. It just means you’re a radfem who is transphobic.

You wouldn’t call the word “misogynist” an attack on men, so why is “TERF” supposedly an attack on you? Hm?

Transmisogyny is still misogyny. Trans women face misogyny. They need feminism because they are women.

Men get called out for transphobia too. It’s just that men can’t be TERFS because radical feminists don’t allow men to identify as radical feminists. But radical feminists can be any orientation, which means TERFS can be any orientation. So again, “TERF” does not mean “lesbian.”

All cis people are capable of being transphobic. That includes men. We call out men for transphobia all the time. The fact you ignore this happening and never listen to trans people doesn’t prove otherwise.

If you’re willing to compromise with or work with conservatives, misogynists, and other people who harm women just so you can harm trans women, you’re not a feminist. You don’t care about women. You’re just a bigot.

No one is asking you to like dick by telling you that trans women are women. You’re not required to date or sleep with trans women. We just want you to call them women and recognize that people who do date or sleep with trans women are, in fact, attracted to women.

Stop telling lesbians that dating trans women makes them bi. It’s offensive to tell someone that their orientation is wrong and that they aren’t really that orientation.

Thanks for talking about me. I’m always happy to please a fan.

Bye, ladies. Have a nice day.

- Mod Bella

#Kiwifarms #TERFS Stay Away #Anti Radfem #Anti TERF #Murder TW #Genitalia Mention TW #Sex TW #Rape TW #Submission #submission #Formerly Mod Bella #Formerly Mod V #Aria Announces

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nerdgasrnz · 8 years

Text

tumblr/internet vocab

Cut the drama on your dashboard by understanding the words used! I feel like a lot of “discourse” on tumblr has come about because there are many young and/or impressionable new people who have joined the site, and may not know or understand what every one of these words means, or the purpose of certain words/acronyms and their context.

PLEASE NOTE: I am a cisgender woman, and still lacking a lot of understanding with many complex issues myself, so pls let me know if anything below is incorrect so that I can fix it, or if I need to add terms to this list!

Cis = Short for “cisgender,” meaning preferring the gender given at birth.

Het = short for “heterosexual” meaning that someone is attracted to genders other than their own.

Cishet = Mashup of “Cisgender” & “heterosexual” which is usually meant to distinguish non-LGBT+ people. Not a slur.

LGBT+ = An acronym that means “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender,” and additional terms. Most people leave off the +, or add more letters to represent others, like P, Q, I, or A for “Pansexual, Polysexual, Polyamory” “Questioning, Queer,” “Intersex” and “Asexual, Aromantic” The acronym denotes non-cisgender, and non-heterosexual/romantic people.

Queer = An umbrella term for “not cisgender” and/or “not heterosexual.” Some people prefer this term so that they don’t have to use or find labels that may not fit them, or may not be easy to explain. Formerly a homo/transphobic slur, but has since been reclaimed by LGBT+ people, and now used as an academic term. Some people still prefer for it to not be used when referencing them, so respect individual peoples’ boundaries as needed, or blacklist the term.

Continued under the “Read More”

Gender Neutral = Something inclusive of all genders (ie: “sibling” is the gender neutral version of “brother” or “sister”, “parent” vs “mom” or “dad”, “spouse” vs “husband” or “wife”)

Cissexist: When a concept excludes/ignores the existence of trans/nonbinary genders, or intersex people. (ie: “every woman has a menstrual cycle” when not all people who menstruate are women, and not all women menstruate)

Heteronormative: When a concept excludes LGBT+ experiences. (ie: “Every girl has had a crush on a guy at least once” when such is not the case)

-Phobia/-phobic = A suffix meaning “repulsed” or “fear.” If you see this added to the end of a word, it means to hold prejudice towards that thing/group. (ie: transphobic/transphobia = repulsed by trans/nonbinary people)

Feminism = The opposite of sexism. A movement that emphasizes working towards gender equality, and allowing people of all genders the ability to express themselves, make decisions, and live without being torn down for their decisions based on the “expectations” of their gender.

White Feminism = Specifically refers to “superficial” feminism that ignores or contradicts the needs and rights of other/additional demographics, defeating the purpose of the movement. This is why it’s specifically called “white feminism” and is usually considered a joke by non-white women, because it only wants to bring white women equality with white men. (example: “women make 70 cents for every dollar that a man makes” but that statistic usually references white women, and they will only fight to close that gap in particular. However, people of color, LGBT+ people and disabled people, make far less compared to every dollar an able-bodied white man makes.)

TERF - transgender-exclusionary radical feminist: A person who believes that transgender people should not be considered their gender in discussions of feminism and gender equality (hence, defeating the purpose of the movement) and is the reason why they are repeatedly made fun of and have warning posts against them, because they are all transphobic, and threaten the safety and respect of trans people.

SWERF - Sex Worker-exclusionary radical feminist: A person who believes that people who perform sexual acts to make a living should not be included in discussions or activism for gender equality. (Again, defeating the purpose of the feminist movement)

Misogyny = “Mis” is a prefix that means “hatred.” Misogyny is the hatred of women. Other words are combined with this one to mean hate for different kinds of women. (examples: “Transmisogyny” means “hatred of transgender women” and “misogynoir” means “hatred of black women”) The person who hates women is called a “misogynist.”

Internalized Prejudice = When a person who belongs to a group/groups believes the prejudices that society created towards their group. You may see/hear terms like “internalized misogyny” (women who believe in the hatred of women) or “internalized racism” (when non-white person believes in racist prejudices towards their demographic(s)) as well as other combinations.

Trigger: An event that may cause someone to remember an intensely negative or traumatic experience.

TW/CW = Trigger Warning/Content Warning: Tags that are used to warn viewers in advance of distressing content that may cause a strong negative reaction.

SJW = “Social Justice Warrior”: a term created by people who consider others to be “trying too hard” for equality. If you see people using this term completely seriously, they’re probably bigoted, or just ignorant. Otherwise, the term is used as a joke.

anti-SJW = “Anti-Social Justice Warrior” = a bigot, or someone who’s just ignorant, you never know. Proceed with caution when interacting with someone who describes themselves as such.

Egalitarian = A word derived from the french word for “equality”- someone who (supposedly) believes in equality. Is used by some on the internet as a replacement for “feminism” but using the word is usually a result of prejudice towards/misunderstanding feminists, believing that they or the movement is too “extreme.” An “Egalitarian” is usually an “anti-sjw” (bigot), ignorant, and/or otherwise distances themselves from the feminist movement. Proceed with caution.

MRA = “Men’s rights activists” - while technically there is nothing wrong with men’s rights, the term is usually in reference to someone trying to derail feminism, or discussions of gender equality, misunderstanding the point of those things. MRAs usually are actually very shallow, and don’t actually care about the rights of actual disadvantaged men, using them only for the sake of “debates.” Again, proceed with caution.

Meninist = A (satirical?) word created in response to “feminism.” Synonymous with “MRA.”

#tumblr terms

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