#i don't think she knows it's terfy shit i know her

[bisonaari]

Something that I really love in this fandom is that I never have to bother checking if yall are trans friendly, I know you are 💚💚💚

[thetwistedrope]

Maybe I should have posted your ask too? I'll remember that for next time you have a problem with something. You reblogged that post, you didn't write it, you didn't add anything. There was no need to take it so personally, not that it matters, or you bothered to ask, but I wasn't writing to YOU directly, but to those people writing death threats. Because I assure you, there were comments from people that do not educate themselves.

To start:

I actually expected you to post my ask publicly, wherein i would have responded and told you that you don't know what you're talking about.

i don't care if you post my asks publicly because i don't hide in ask boxes lol. i don't post anything online with any expectation of privacy, this is the internet.

There is need to take it personally: you're promoting a terf. terfs get people like me killed. if you actually thoroughly read my response, you'd know that this effects me personally.

idc that you weren't responding to me. you were promoting a terf, you deserve to be called out for it, and people are allowed to hold you accountable for supporting a terf

i have been abused by men my entire life. i've experienced CSA by multiple males multiple times. i'm not a terf because i'm not a bigot that thinks trans women aren't actually women. trans women don't go through years of medical BS just to gain access to women's spaces so that they can assault people. people have tried to educate her and she doesn't give a shit. there is no excuse for being a terf. abuse is not an excuse to be a terf.

and if you go "but this one example of a trans woman being shit" no demographic is a monolith. on the by and large, data prove that trans women are more likely to be assaulted than the other way around.

i brought up the game because it's the most recent thing in a long trail of the way that goblins appear in her books. you completely ignored 90% of my post (and links that go to materials that talk about antisemitism in the books) because you want to support a terf. instead of lying about who JKR is, just admit you don't care about trans people lol.

i quit following you years ago because you started backing JKR like the terf apologist you are. i don't like people like you because i don't like people who support terfs :)

i don't give a shit what your opinion is of me.

terf

terf

(x)

terf

(there's literally a ton of her posts about this situation, referring to trans women as men identifying as trans, which is terfy)

terf

terf

terf

terf

just admit that you like the shitty antisemitic wizard story more than trans ppl lol

[gefdreamsofthesea]

The Andersons Do Not Get Enough Shit For Their Bullshit: My Thoughts on Feri.

First of all in case this post breaches containment, a little about myself. I'm Gef, I'm a thirty-something white cis disabled Canadian lesbian. I have a BA in Religion and Culture from Wilfrid Laurier University and an MLIS from the University of Western Ontario (I think it changed its name since I graduated). I also have minors in Medieval Studies and Women's Studies but they don't give you pieces of paper for those. My spiritual journey looks something like Catholic - New Ager - eclectic Wiccan-ish - Dianic-ish (the TERFy kind) - Heathen - Vanatru - now I kind of just read about witchy stuff, goddess-y stuff, and I collect divination decks. This isn't the first I've heard of Feri, but this is the first time I've sat down and read up on it.

I would just like to take a moment to recap what I've read so that everyone is on the same page:

Heart of the Initiate: Feri Lessons

Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition

Evolutionary Witchcraft by T. Thorn Coyle

The Wikipedia pages for Feri and Victor Anderson

A couple articles on feritradition.com

I read The Spiral Dance ages ago and am currently rereading it but am not including it here.

I think that's all the basics covered, let's get to the meat of the discussion.

I'll start with what I found appealing about the tradition. Both the founders and initiates stress that Feri is an ecstatic tradition, not a "fertility religion" like Wicca. It is a tradition of the poet, of being in your body, of dancing with the gods. It's also pretty explicitly queer (but see below): God Herself catches Her own reflection in a mirror and makes love to Herself, creating all the other deities in the pantheon. Coyle in particular talks about the Gods and Guardians (think like the Guardians of the Watchtowers in Wicca) as being genderfluid. The tradition practices ritual possession where the genders of the deity and their host don't matter.

Regarding Evolutionary Witchcraft specifically. I found the exercises (which involve a lot of breathing and awareness) to be useful and I think they would be of use to any witch. I also love the way she speaks of the Earth element in particular, as I think a lot of Pagan books are like "Oh Earth is money and other boring mundane stuff" whereas she talks about Earth as money but also as safety, security, the place where you incubate things (like in a cave), and the tomb. Despite my issues, I think I would recommend it.

Having said all that, I feel like the Andersons do not get enough shit for their bullshit.

Based on his students accounts, Victor sounds like a bit of an asshole at best. He's described as "a taskmaster" and that "One could ask for clarification, but to even hint that one disagreed with him, or worse yet, to contradict him, would result in an immediate and permanent order to leave," which is maybe just me but I wouldn't want to study under a teacher who didn't allow for disagreements or questioning, that's a cult leader thing. His wife Cora comes across as a yes (wo)man "my husband is a great shaman and an expert on x, y, and z." Now honestly I feel like people should hype up their spouses, but this is a constant throughout their writings.

Honestly though, I didn't get the chance to know them personally. Maybe they were awesome people irl. I'm just going off what I've read, but even if they were both very nice people, I still have some major issues.

One of these issues are the Andersons' claims about their own religion. Feri dates back to the Stone Age (uh huh), Feri's origins are in Africa (sure). Victor claimed to be a kahuna and an expert on Vodou. Apparently, once Victor read something he thought was true, he decided it had always been true. I should note here that near as I can tell, his source for info on Hawaiian religion is that Huna book by that white guy writing about what he thought Native Hawaiians believed. I've heard people justify this by being like "oh well Victor was being poetic and not literal" but that doesn't change the fact that it's straight up bullshit. Poetic lies are still lies. So yeah you'll often hear "Feri draws from a variety of traditions" but I'd say in some cases it's less "influenced by" and more "appropriated from" (I do feel the need to mention that some initiates have moved away from, say, using Hawaiian terms for their concepts).

I mentioned the deities in passing but Feri has its own pantheon. Most of the deity names are Welsh and many deities go by several names or are seen as similar to named deities in many cultures (the Blue God, for instance, being compared to Krishna) and they also have secret names that only initiates know. One important aspect of the Blue God is the Peacock God, at first I was going to include him under the section on appropriation, but Feri practitioners have apparently been in contact with actual Yazidis who have given their blessing re: Feri worship of Melek Taus but I'd prefer to hear it directly from the Yazidi that they are cool with it.

Okay so way back at the beginning I mentioned Feri was very queer but I really should amend that to say "unless you're asexual" because oh boy sex is inescapable in this tradition. It's implied that sexual activity between initiator and initiate is a thing that happens but there's an alternative ritual called the Intentions of the Heart where you do (non-sexual) ritual things and then "your first act of sexual intercourse" post-ritual is your initiation. The foundation of Feri practice is the Iron pentacle, where "sex" is at the top. There is also the Pearl pentacle, seen as the "higher energy" version of Iron, where sex becomes love. In Evolutionary Witchcraft, Coyle makes a few unfortunate statements about the relationship of sex to love that imply you cannot have love without sex. I don't really see a lot of room for asexual practitioners in this system, which is a shame because I know of some wonderful queer initiates of this tradition. I would be interested in an initiate's view on this because I know queer practitioners have talked about using an amethyst pentacle, for instance. I should note however, that Coyle states that not everyone needs or wants initiation as it involves marriage to the deities and responsibilities to the tradition, but as I said the tools and techniques she talks about are fine to use.

I did actually like Evolutionary Witchcraft so even if the tradition is not for me, I do what I usually do: take the bits I find useful and leave the rest.

[lockwie]

I just hate that people keep taking things Taika has said out of context to get people mad at him. No one's beyond criticism but people are mad at him breathing at this point.

Women still get it worst imo, and Taika does have privileges but he has vulnerability as a man of colour

Right??

I don't think it's a case of people turning on him, I think it's people who always disliked him for some reason trying to make a point and make other people hate him. People are mad because he is successful right now, and so they're finding anything he does irritating and making it everyone's problem. Probably some tall poppy syndrome shit going on, with some racism sprinkled on top.

I am honestly so shocked at the violence of what people say?? Wishing death upon him? And for what? He's literally done nothing wrong, like yeah he is a bit clumsy in the way he says certain things (and yes I mean clumsy. I don't mean naive and confused. He's a grown adult and he know what he is talking about), and I'm sure he's made mistakes, he's human, but he is genuinely doing his best to try and make the world better?

People are just trying to find justifications for why they hate him, and to try and make other people hate him too. When they could just go "yeah I just don't like that guy, to each their own I guess" and move on.

Also the discourse coming out of this is absolutely rancid. It's terfy, it's exclusionist, it's colonialist, it's making me want to throw up.

And don't get me started on people demanding a "proper" coming out, or "proofs" of his queerness. This is disgusting. And it's like no one learns. A few years ago a few artists including Rita Ora (who's coincidentally his girlfriend) was forced to come out as bi, because people accused her of queerbaiting for writing a song about wanting to kiss girls sometimes... Like??? What the fuck is wrong with people??? Let people be??? So what if she was mostly straight and wanted to kiss girls once in a while and write a song about it??? What kind of bullshit is this that now people can't embrace a bit of queerness in their life without being accused of random stuff???

Seriously... Taika's right, why are we even having these conversations? Why can't we accept that this is normal? Like literally it's fine. It's good. Let people try things out and get it wrong and have fun and just live? Why do some people want to put other people in neat little boxes? That's not how it works. Each is free to pick a box or not pick a box for themselves and they don't have to tell anyone about it if they don't want to.

[eilooxara]

https://at.tumblr.com/ruthbaeddelginsburg/698643025153458176/1ff6rweijvln Isn’t this kinda terfy :/ they only know they were male by looking at DNA (Xy chromosomes present) and/or body structure like pelvis shape being narrow

Wait. are you calling me a terf? My friend who reblogged that post from me? The people who classify bog bodies? Unclear.

As for me, I literally just scrolled through a Wikipedia article and noticed a trend and decided it would be funny to joke about how we need more women bog bodies

Like. What the fuck are you even doing? What is your goal here? If you think I'm a terf (I'm a trans woman btw) then what do you gain by bringing this to me? A terf would just be like "lol yup" or something to that effect. If you think that I'm being "terfy" by implicitly accepting the gender categorizations of bog bodies by the people who research them then uhhh that's not what a terf is

Also! Bog bodies often have lots of remaining flesh! Like, look up the Tollund man. He's got a face still. It's been a bit since he shaved. Is it possible that's a trans woman? Sure I guess. But they had proto-Premarin around the time the Tollund Man died, so idk. Maybe there'd be titties. They definitely had shaving, and the Tollund Man had access to shaving equipment, but he hadn't in a little while. If I were a trans woman in 300ish CE I'd shave. Now, he was definitely in a pickle--probably being ritually executed--so maybe he (or she?) totally would have shaved more recently given the chance.

But we don't know that, and adding caveats about it would have spoiled my joke. Not only that but it would not make the world any safer or better for me and all the other trans women. And neither does your message.

Like. You or I could not know what signals, if any, would survive on even the most well preserved bog body of a trans woman that could indicate her gender. Maybe his leather cap is a very girly leather cap by iron age Danish standards. Maybe it's the manliest cap ever. We don't fucking know.

And anon, I want to live in the world where I can make a goddamn joke implying that we need more women bog bodies Because Feminism without someone like you cropping up to spoil it

I want you to think about what world you are creating by sending messages like this. You are the one harassing trans women, the time-honored tradition of terfs everywhere

Perhaps they should take more care in applying gender descriptions to bog bodies--that's an opinion you can have--but take that up with archeologists, not me

All you're achieving here is pissing off a trans woman who made a joke that actually, if you think about it for 10 seconds, includes the baked-in assumption that I and other trans women would be gendered correctly by future archeologists if we became bog bodies

In fact my joke works just as well in a world where all bog bodies are gendered correctly (assuming there still isn't gender parity)

So you're not even slightly right! You're just shit-stirring, I guess, trying to get a rise out of me? I've written several paragraphs here, are you satisfied, anon?

Is this what you wanted to achieve?

Who are you and what are you building?

Think about it

Think about it while walking into an acidic wetland to your doom. I want the next bog body to be you, specifically. Pack a bag of typical supplies for this time period and maybe a clay tablet or something, with some text written in multiple languages. Just to help out, you know?

If researchers in 1000 years misgender your preserved corpse you can bitch about it to me then and I'll listen

[griffsursparker]

if I'm gonna go on a rant about how much good YA is out there I figure I should also probably give some examples, so here is a non-comprehensive list of YA I love and think are really well written

Ophelia After All by Racquel Marie - really heartfelt coming of age story about a girl realizing she likes girls but also coming to terms with the fact that she doesn't need a romance to complete her

Fireborne by Rosaria Munda - y'all this book. this fucking book. alongside character dynamics that make me go completely feral, Fireborne also has some of the best political and philosophical and thematic shit in any fantasy book I have ever read. it's so fucking thought provoking and cool and I almost analyzed it for communications class except I didn't have the braincells. also dragons

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf - about a girl with ocd during the race riots in Malaysia in 1969. literally made me bawl

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown - okay first of all the world building in this is so fucking good. second of all the family dynamics are so fucking good and !! third of all it subverts a lot of cheesy YA romance tropes. fourth of all the way it portrays anxiety makes me so fucking happy and emotional it's very good

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman - this is one of the older ones on this list but like y'all it's so fucking good. the characters are incredible, and it's a really intense portrayal of like mental health and shit but also friendships and gahh it's so good I need to reread it

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender - I'm not going to lie I forget most of this except that there was blackmail and art and trans rep but. it was phenomenal lmao

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow - look some people think this one is too weird but personally I'm obsessed with how it's such a quiet book despite the impossibly large stakes and . . . ahh I just love how she writes!!

Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales - the common complaints about YA are mostly about the cheesy romance-y ones but you know what YA has some cheesy romcoms that are goddamn good so 10/10 recommend this one if you want a fun romcom with great family dynamics and a super fun premise

The One True Me and You by M.K. England - again on my "YA actually has good romcoms" agenda, this one is so fucking fun. yes it reads like a fanfic but in a good way. it's so nerdy and lovely. if you don't wanna read about teens falling in love obviously don't read these ones but they're fun as hell if you like romcoms

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine - y'all these are some of the best dystopians I've ever read and the found family and hijinks in them are so fucking good <33

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao - this is such a fun fast-pasted fantasy and it's delightful. it's feminist in a way that manages not to be weird and terfy, and the character dynamics are great, and it's just so unhinged and I love it

The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum - weird book about lesbians and outer space. literally no other way I can describe it but it's very good

I could go on and on and on but anyways actually read YA books before you diss YA <33

[hadeantaiga]

Can you please stop filling that poor woman's tag with your bullsh*t? Give it a f*cking rest, she's just been attacked by some vile people and you're having a narcissistic tantrum in her notes. Tumblr is a homophobic, sexist platform. There are so many safe spaces for you to talk about how much you hate feminists. The notes of this very vulnerable woman's post is not it.

First off, I tag my posts for organization on MY blog, and it's pretty narcissistic of you to think you have any control over what I do on my blog.

Secondly, I decided to check out the tag. I assumed there'd be a lot in there.

But you know, it is funny that the most recent post in the tag is TWO DAYS OLD. And yeah, it's mine. It's an anon ask I'm replying to, where I was being thanked for defending the girl. It's definitely weird no one else has said anything for the past two days, but that's not my fault.

Next, I AM a feminist - an intersectional feminist. If a transphobe has labeled herself a feminist, that's not my problem, and I'm still gonna call out her transphobia.

As an afab trans person, I'm allowed to be angry when I see misogyny, and I'm allowed to call it out. I'm also allowed to call out my fellow trans people for doing nothing when a girl is being attacked, which is the subject of most of my posts on the topic. That's what I've been doing. Not sure how any of that makes me a narcissist.

Thirdly, as I said, my responses to anons are the latest posts in the tag, it's true - but again, these responses are two days old. Is it my fault no one else has talked about this horrific shit in the past two days? Nope. Maybe that's on you. Buck wild it's a trans person who is most vocal about defending a cis girl against violence caused by a trans woman though. You'd think terfy cis women would be just as loud as me. It's almost like they just perform feminism for show and don't actually care about women, they only care about being transphobic.

Wild, that.

So it looks like I made a total of 2 original posts about this topic, which were both awareness posts. Another 2 were just anon replies. That's not narcissism.

This was a situation where a trans person was causing harm. I'm trans. Would it not serve my image and protect my "narcissism" more to NOT talk about trans violence? To brush it under the rug? To pretend it didn't happen, or to say shit like "well that person probably wasn't a real trans person anyway"?

[jellogram]

Since I just watched the movie and reblogged a gif I'm thinking about the Love Witch and like apparently the director has had some terf accusations against her and idk her but I wouldn't be surprised if she had some reductive ideas about gender because thematically that shit was all over the place. Like sometimes it felt tradwifey and sometimes it was terfy or progressive or like it had 60s ideals or like it was making fun of 60s ideals and I just don't know man I kept waiting for the shoe to drop and for all of this to get resolved and pick a side and it just didn't. Maybe I'm just stupid but I felt like it was trying to condemn Elaine's lifestyle and then just didn't go all the way or something? I'm not sure. Like who does this movie want me to root for? How am I supposed to feel about the ending?

That said, the artistic direction of this movie was absolutely stunning I was so impressed that all the music and effects and costuming felt so consistent to the 60s and I was dying over all of Elaine's outfits and hairstyles. So in conclusion, I would recommend pirating this movie if you are okay with ignoring a shitty incoherent plot/message and just want to see something pretty and retro. I would not recommend it if questionable (at best) opinions on gender are something you find particularly upsetting in a movie. Maybe read some other discussions about it first or just look at the gifs because some of those scenes were pure art

[kyliafanfiction]

Just saw (and reblogged) a post where @quasi-normalcy pointed out that saying something like "i'm glad my favorite author lived before social media because I'd hate to know what they *really* thought" was not actually a good way of thinking about JKR's hard turn into TERFiness and awfulness via twitter, because as she rightly says, you can't seperate someone from the medium, and twitter does turn everyone into the worst version of themselves.

But what's also true is that... a lot of authors don't actually go on social media and share their every thoughts and get into twitter fights or respond or read or internalize every yell tweet screaming at them over their writing?

Like, maybe it's because some of my more favorite authors were more obscure (I mean, obviously, everyone is compared to JKR) but even ones I don't much care for - only a tiny handful of authors ever seem to actually make news for their shitty social media behavior?

Because a lot of them know to not say shit, even if they are on twitter.

Rowling is the one who felt like we all desperately needed to hear her opine about things. Rowling chose to actually pay close attention to all the noxious attacks on her and her books. She did make that choice, whereas other writers on twitter or other forms of creators on twitter have proven to be perfectly capable of... not doing that?

Like, yes, every now and then there's some scandal about some writer having a social media management disaster, but there's tons that are quietly just chugging along, curating their twitter or tumblr or facebook if they even have one, and not engaging with everything or opining on everything?

I suspect that even if some of the long-dead authors I like were on twitter, they wouldn't have quite made the same choices as JKR.

(Though some absolutely would have, granted)

[vaspider]

Hey Vas, I've been following you for ages now and I have a question. I didn't see anything against it in your faq and I'm honestly unsure if it's rude to ask, so please DM me if this is totally off base! If it is, then I apologize in advance because I don't mean to be rude, discriminatory or come of as a TERF(blegh)!

So I'm a cis bisexual woman and I've noticed more recently that people (including yourself) identifying as she/her gay, or he/him lesbian or all sorts of other combos that don't seem intuitive (to me). I'm wondering about the logistics of identifying as he/him and being a lesbian? I'm from a small town and I don't have a ton of experience with different types of identifiers and as I understood it if you are sexually attracted to the same gender, that makes you gay/lesbian. And I'm kind of struggling to understand people (like youself) who identify as he/him lesbian and how that works?

I have no idea how to phrase this question, and this isn't about not accepting sexualities and genders that people tell me they are! That's not something I have an issue with, it's just that I feel like I'm drowning in misunderstanding and maybe disinformation on sexuality and gender and how the two mesh?

Again, if this is too personal or if it's rude or TERFY, I am so sorry and its not my intention, I'm just really confused and bad at phrasing!

I love your tiktoks and I love how you present info and queer history and I love that you take so much time to explain to those of us who don't know as much as you!

Okay, I was going to write a whole long thing about history and how Leslie Feinberg (z''l) used he/him pronouns decades ago and there's a whole long documentable history of he/him lesbians going back at least a hundred years but really it comes down to this:

It's not your business.

It's not your business whether someone's pronouns "match" your expectation for their stated sexual orientation. It's their business, and the faster people get through their heads that auditing people's orientations (as opposed to their behavior) with regards to community is wrong and fucked up, the faster we can actually get back to establishing some sort of meaningful solidarity in this community rather than squabbling amongst ourselves over shit like this which is -- frankly -- fucking meaningless while our ability to be ourselves, our rights, and our literal lives are constantly screwed over by TERFs and right-wingers (but I repeat myself).

This may sound blunt and rude, but this is just factual: whether someone's pronouns "match" what you think they should be for their stated sexual orientation just isn't your business, and you don't need to understand it.

You just need to respect it.

But that said:

If we understand that pronouns don't equal gender, understanding that he/they or he/she/they or he/him lesbians exist is easy, because that may be a cis woman using those pronouns, or it may be a genderfluid person or a non-binary person.

If we understand that labels are mostly about community, in the end, and markers of what community we belong to, we'll stop nitpicking everyone's identities.

But most of all, if we understand that queer community is about how someone behaves, maybe we'll stop accepting shitty behavior and saying 'ah yes, I have to accept that this person is in community with me' from TERFs, and stop fretting so much about whether a he/him lesbian might be 'harming us' somehow by merely existing. If someone's behavior is predatory or creepy, or they associate with TERFs or are a TERF themselves, if they sell out their identity to right-wingers like, say, Bl*ir Wh*te, we can then say 'you may be X, but you are not in community with me, and I don't owe you solidarity.'

The idea that we traded one set of shitty allocisheteroperimonogamous rules for another set of shitty, constricting rules is just exhausting and wrong. Like, the older generations of queers did not spend years and years trying to break down barriers just so another stifling set of rules could be put back up -- and lest you think that this is like, new to the queer community, this frustration, it absolutely isn't; this song came out in 1992. This one came out in 1998.

So yeah.

It's not your business. What's your business is if those people are TERFs or predators and should be ejected from your community based on those facts; what you get to decide is if you want to be in community with those people or associate with them, and what you need to understand is that nothing that queer people do is why the allocishets "don't respect us," or whatever. We won't ever be respected as long as we're queer, only potentially used as tokens to prove that people aren't really homophobic or transphobic because they like that one, so they must be okay.

We don't need to not be confusing, even to each other. We don't owe each other explanations for our identities. For that matter, we don't even owe ourselves explanations for who and what we are, and it isn't necessary that those things remain stable or unchanging. It's okay if we're confused about who we are for our entire lives. What we owe to each other is respect for each other and for the process of living that we're going through. To paraphrase a late friend of mine, I don't need you to understand me, I just need you to get that I'm having a very human experience in trying to figure myself out, and I'm doing the best that I can with it, and I need you to respect that. And I need to respect that you're having a very human experience trying to figure out who you are and how you're learning to respect other people's identities, and set boundaries for myself while you're going through that.

[olderthannetfic]

Harry Potter is just too much of a staple of children's lit and culture in general. Chances are if someone is stocking a shelf for kids, Harry Potter is going to be there. If you're talking about the fantasy genre in general, you're probably going to be bringing up Harry Potter. JKR is a household name at this point. It's reached critical mass of popularity so in either fame or infamy, JKR is going to be relevant, and when it comes to getting money or spreading rhetoric infamy is hardly worse. I think we'd best deal with it by facing JKR head on. Point out where she's wrong and her inaccuracies. Really educate people on how TERF rhetoric works (rather than just "TERFs bad" which... they are, but that makes people vulnerable to being converted when their knowledge is basically "TERFs bad" and then those TERFs start appealing to their internal biases and start making sense because you don't know how to call out their BS). Start going after people not for publishing her new HP property but for when they publish transphobic trash because then you can really nail them for being transphobic bitches (seriously BBC, WTF!) (also the fact that JKR's transphobic stuff specifically is popular is very revealing about how much transphobia there already was). Even if every trans person and ally stopped buying her shit or talking about her, she'd still have so much fucking influence and it would then go unchecked. The relevance is going to stay regardless of what we do, I think it's best if we do what we can to make sure that relevance features not one lady being transphobic but one lady being transphobic and a bunch of other people explaining why she's wrong. And that includes fandom. Harry Potter fandom is here to stay so I think it'd be better if we utilized that community in ways that challenged JKR's transphobia (and let's be honest, other issues like racism and anti-semitism) so that the audience for Harry Potter is exposed to people who know JKR is spewing shit rather than withdrawing from those communities where JKR and each other is going to be their primary influence

--

See...

At 40, I am shocked at how many "staples" of my youth have already dropped out of sight while other things endure. 40 is just not that old, not for this kind of thing.

People still like The Hunger Games, but not to the same degree, and much of the rest of the YA boom sank without a trace in a matter of a few years.

Things do not endure how you think they do.

Even with HP's massive clout, I've already seen a massive change in its perceived ubiquity between people who are in their 30s now vs. their early 20s.

LOTR was not ubiquitous right before the movies came out. It has gone back to not being ubiquitous. Yet if I were discussing certain kinds of fantasy, of course I would bring it up.

I think we absolutely can change what is ubiquitous, both in wider society and especially within little nerd circles of our nearest and dearest.

Why shouldn't my tumblr be entirely my thoughts about Kingdom? Or E.J. Russell?

But I agree with your overall point: fandom and society at large need more clear explanations of what's wrong with TERF rhetoric, especially the parts that are in all radfem shit and that aren't as overtly anti-trans.

I routinely encounter people on tumblr going "TERFs DNI" while spouting obviously TERFy talking points. That's a problem.

[female-malice]

I've been thinking about my sigma lesbian idol Taurasi.

She's at the top of her industry in an extreme way. She's the GOAT. She doesn't give two shits about the trans movement. And at 39, she doesn't use social media because "they don't want to know what I really think."

She put women's basketball first her whole life. She helped turn women's basketball into a viable career option. And now she has everything. The beautiful house, beautiful wife, and beautiful family. She and her wife get to raise their kids in their terfy vegan basketball bubble.

Taurasi rarely steps foot outside that bubble. She rarely crosses over into big media. But last weekend, she hosted 6 hours of ESPN coverage for the women's basketball Final Four.

As someone entering the media industry, I was very interested in her media experience. She's the GOAT. She flew across the country to host this show. She deserves nothing but the best, right?

But there were a pile of little things that weren't quite right. The ESPN makeup artists tried in vain to get her to wear false eyelashes. Already off to a weird start.

But I was more struck by the contrasting experiences of Taurasi and her best friend/cohost Bird. They're both ~40 year old gay women. They're both icons of superhuman success in basketball. While they're similar in many ways, they have opposite relationships with media.

Bird is the media expert. Taurasi is the media outsider. Bird is a fashion and lifestyle icon who enthusiastically promotes credit card companies and trans rights side-by-side. Taurasi is a divisive recluse and behind-the-scenes agitator for labor rights in her industry.

Lebron James, the biggest sports star in the world, happens to be an old friend of theirs. When he made a guest appearance on their show, Bird's media expertise took priority. Bird introduced Lebron with the trendiest topic possible – trans rights. Lebron, who was expecting a chat with old friends, immediately tightened up and went into media mode. Taurasi changed the topic as soon as she could and made Lebron feel comfortable. She saved the segment.

Bird is engaged to Rapinoe, a soccer superstar, social media sensation, and trans rights activist. After the first show went viral, Rapinoe made her way onto the second show's guest list. Her guest appearance lasted the entire halftime show and then some. She was on the show longer than any other guest. But she's never played or coached basketball in her life. So she didn't have much insight to contribute.

Taurasi is married to Penny, a retired basketball star with an unsung career. US media often ignores foreign stars like Penny who play in American leagues. As Rapinoe's guest appearance wore on, Taurasi enthusiastically shared how much she loves Penny's unique perspective on basketball. But Taurasi is the media outsider and Bird is the media expert. So Penny wasn't featured on the show but Rapinoe was.

While Bird promoted Capital One and trans rights fashion brands, Taurasi's fresh outrageous humor carried the show. Her one-liners made the show go viral. Her name went trending on twitter. She juggled 15 different guests with ease. She made veterans feel like they were catching up with an old friend. She lovingly tormented young guests like a big sister. With innate confidence, she proudly shared the authentic social culture of women's basketball live on national TV.

But Bird is the media expert, not Taurasi. Bird's media projects are consistent, successful, and profitable. Taurasi's media engagements are few and far between. She won't wear false eyelashes or eyeliner or lipstick. She won't wear anything but black. And she won't use social media. So our modern media culture will always devalue her. Taurasi's legendary confidence, humor, and interpersonal skills will never make up for her unwavering criticism of social media.

But the biggest reason her mainstream media career has been limited is that she's a dangerously charismatic figure.

Taurasi is the gender-nonconforming lesbian daughter of Argentine immigrants. She's a vegan socialist pro-choice atheist. She has a DUI on her record. And she has the charisma of a cult leader. Women have been naming their sons "Taurasi" after her for decades.

Her charisma is so powerful, she's universally beloved by the entire political and social spectrum of Arizona. You will not find a single Arizonan who doesn't worship the ground she walks on. Black, white, latino, and native. Far right and far left. Latin Catholics, Megachurch Christians, and UFO occultists. Anti-immigrant nationalists and migrant workers. Everyone in the most divided state in America agrees on one thing and one thing only: Taurasi. They can watch her shove a referee and they'll say it was the referee's fault for standing in her way. This is the result of her constant 18 year presence on local Arizona news and media.

Even a pinch of Taurasi exposure on mainstream media is lethal to the status quo.

[sclfmastery]

13: unpopular opinion about the gremlin, Simm edition plz ❤️

SALT! (Accepting!) 🧂

Oh my GOD sahruh I could spend years UHMMMM.....

I guess the thing that still bugs me the most about fandom reception of Simm!Master (and the fuckening OFFICIAL WRITING about him) is this shoehorned-in misogyny and transphobia???? This coming from a famously nonbinary/genderqueer villain since the sixties seems like a really harmful way to rob fans who love and identify with him/her/them, a really strange ideology for an alien from a society that doesn't comprehend gender in the same way as humans do, and finally just a really uncreative way to make an evil character evil.

Of course, a character being queer doesn't make that character immune to homophobic and transphobic beliefs, but....WHY? Why do it? And why with just ONE Master? Why make him a symbol of sexism? Like if I see one more thing that uses that inexplicable stupid "is the future gonna be all girl?" line, I will strangle someone lmao.

I just feel like he shouldn't have been this strange stark exception to all the other Missys and Masters???? The way he looks and behaves is wonderfully queer and I don't KNOW! Why they have to make him make stupid comments!!! About women!!!!

I also think that a lot of the Missy stanning that I see, that seems to lash back against the shitty Simm writing by saying Missy is the best SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE she is "female," is kinda weird and TERFy and really strangely hostile (not the same, btw, as Missy being proud of and presenting as a woman because that's what makes her feel the most herself: that shit is awesome!), but I've never fully been able to articulate how and why so I won't Go There™.

[swingingliveaway]

Okay weird post probably, but I think I talked about the situation on here when it initially happened 3 years ago and tumblr is probabl the only place I can safely talk about it now: Remember 3 years ago when my then best friend suddenly started drifting towards decidedly right wing stances and I had no idea what the hell was going on? It was a super bad time for me because she suddenly was like an entirely different person and after about9 months of trying to talk to her and getting through to her I just ended all contact because my mental health was basically going down the drain even more than usual because of the energy I had to spend on this. To this day I'm still sad about how things went down and I wish it could have been handled differently, but at some point I just had to accept that she was in with the right wind / red pill crowd now. At some point I barely thought about her anymore until about 10 days ago when I watched a documentary about how the movement of covid deniers here in Germany was basically self-destructing. And I - admittedly this was not my brightest moment probably - thought 'hey I wonder if J jumped on that as well or if she has maybe come to her senses' so I logged out of twitter to check her account since she blocked me at some point (because of course. and I have blocked her as well because she wouldn't stop contacting me there at one point) And I have to backtrack a little for this, but: when everything happened and I told her not to contact me anymore J was very ... uh ... miffed? Which is probably a normal reaction even after I tried to expain to her why I couldn't keep this up anymore. I blocker her on Twitter and Line, deleted ehr number, all that. But THEN I get a text from a mutual friend (C) of ours telling me that J asked her to tell me that one things about the statistic of crimes against trans people was wrong and I should delete it from my account and I promptly went like WHAT THE FUCK. Because, you know, I thought the blocking would make the fact that I didn't want her on my account obvious. But nooooooo. I hated to do this, but I asked C (who just had a 3 months old baby at home at this point) to tell J to please just leave me alone. The answer was: Well, I can't stop her from reading my tweets because she can just log out of her account and read them anyways even though I have her blocked. And also she still wants me to delete that tweet because aparently that's a normal thing to say. So I guess the message got a little lost there. Anyways. Fast forward to last week and I very quickly see that absolutely nothing has changed, in contrary, J is currently very openly islamophobic, even more right wing than before, still supports the Idenditarian Movement, also supports the LBG Alliance and other TERFy shit like that and tells people that their opression is generally theirown fault and that they could solve it with a more positive attitude. It's like a best of awful takes. The cherry on top of this bullshit sunday, however, is the fact that she is apparently stalking my account and regularly screenshots my posts to post them on her account, accompanied by before-mentioned shit takes. And I am just absolutely dumbfounded by this because WHAT? I've known this for over a week now and I still don't know what to think about that. After I found out I postet something about how it's sometimes better to leave things/people behind to take care of yourself because I knew, if she was still checking my account she would definitely jump on this - didn't even take a day. I checked again today and she took a screenshot of my tweet and turned it onto like a 5 part thread about how she had tried so hard to safe this friendship with a person 3 years ago (yeah, lol), but that person just didn't have any self-reflection skills (honey, I am in therapy, I can't get out of practicing self-reflection even if I want to) and that apparently it was never a real friendship because those are supposed to endure despite differences - and I'm just thinking that probably means things like pineapple on pizza

yay or nay if you prefer pbjs or nutella or smth, but no 'yeah I as a queer person am fine with my best friend being a fucking neo nazi'. This is all so wild. But anways she ended the thread with saying that she won't spend any more time or energy on someone like me and I'm just sitting here like ... okay, but you are very obviously constantly checking my account what the FUCK is up with that. My initial reaction was wanting to leave my account because I can get pretty paranoid about stuff like that or setting it to private, but honestly, who the fuck does she thing she is. I am not going to give her power like that and in a way I'm also kind of sad for her because she clearly didn't take anything from the situation and is still in a bad place in other ways. But holy shit am I glad I got out of that.

[nothorses]

heyy! first of all i hope you're doing well. thank you for taking the time out to read and respond to this (if you choose to). this has been bothering me for a while and i'd like your opinion on it.

i read these two articles recently - the first one is about a lesbian professor of gender studies + sexuality arguing why women should be allowed to "hate men"; the second is an interview with her about the article in which she addresses some of the negative responses she got to that article.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-cant-we-hate-men/2018/06/08/f1a3a8e0-6451-11e8-a69c-b944de66d9e7_story.html

https://outline.com/ttKscw

i have a lot of questions about this.

firstly, i cannot tell whether this is the sort of reductionist, radfemmy, "fuck all men" feminist you've been talking about. i understand her sentiments but i disagree with her statement, and i want to get better at identifying shallow feminism. i don't think my personal opinion is credible enough (yet) to draw any conclusions right off the bat. are there any 'tells' or signs that indicate what sort of feminism someone is speaking about (in the same way that there are certain idenitifiers of TERF ideology even when it is not explicitly mentioned)? for example, in the interview, she explicitly says "Where is discrimination? Where are men being excluded? Where are men being abused? Oh, come on." as well as her implied praise of kamala harris as 'the feminist we need in office'. are those things indicators of whether her position on feminism is credible/an appropriate portrayal of how Feminism™ should function? in short, do i take this woman entirely seriously about all this?

secondly, how do you feel about gender being a social construct, as she states? does that not contradict the very real physical dysphoria that a lot of us experience? doesn't it invalidate almost all the experiences of struggle against transphobia and cissexism, as well as our identities, by painting gender identity as 'not a big deal' or 'fake' by virtue of being a social construct? also, is gender identity not influenced by biology to some extent?

thirdly, along a similar vein, how do you feel about gender abolitionism? i don't exactly have a v specific question about this one, i just want another trans person's opinion on how that sort of society would affect them. i do not wish to be stripped of my identity, and i am opposed to gender abolitionism because of that. is this sentiment a product of some misunderstanding i have?

if you have any other thoughts at all about the articles, i'd love to hear those. thank you!

Oooh, anon, these are such good questions.

Why Can’t We Hate Men? by Suzanna Walters

Follow-Up Interview with Walters

Walters does a weird sort of dance in both articles: her argument is that “hating men” is okay and even good, but she has to completely misrepresent what “hating men” is, does, and means in order to make her point align with what she actually believes is defensible.

“Hating men” is not actually about hating men, she says; she doesn’t hate men at all, in fact. She knows they’re not the problem, but rather the systems of patriarchy in place. She knows racism and other intersections make “hating men” complicated at best, and harmful at worst. She just wants men to “lean back” and understand the power they hold; to be feminists. She thinks it’s a good thing to welcome men into feminism.

So then what the hell does “hating men” actually mean, to her? Why make that the hill to die on, if nothing in her argument has anything to do with that hill?

I don’t think she really believes any of the arguments she’s making in the first place. Walters pays lipservice to racism and intersectionality in a brief comment, then never brings it up again. Her view of feminist issues is narrow and shallow, dealing mostly with “the safety of women” and the representation of women in positions of power; both of which fail to address the structural issues of the patriarchy and how it functions, and prioritize Making Women Powerful over dismantling the systems of oppression giving people power over each other in the first place. She believes that all men are universally and inherently benefiting from the patriarchy, and that men in fact are the system to be fought.

Some of this pings as TERFy, too. Walters never really argues against radical feminism. Her argument against gender-essentialism is, as you said, that gender shouldn’t exist at all- but she claims the patriarchy discriminates based on genitalia.

You caught that as well; “where are men being oppressed/abused?” she says, after her performative gesture toward intersectionality. Walters also compares the oppression of women to racism at the same time, which... holy shit.

I’d personally peg her as a mainstream liberal feminist. She’s a successful white professor who sincerely believes that her experiences as a woman are universal. Her takes are surface-level and shallow at best, and edging dangerously close to radical feminism and quiet TERFism at worst.

TL;DR: The Author

She’s a mainstream liberal feminist who makes a string of confused, contradicting arguments because she chose to die on a hill she doesn’t really understand. Her arguments stray TERFy and racist on multiple occasions.

RE: Gender questions

What gender is and where it comes from is a complicated question, and I don’t think there’s a simple answer to it. The major arguments are that it’s social, biological, or psychological; either it comes from how you’re socialized, what your genitals look like, or it’s something built into your brain chemistry (think “wrong body” trans theory).

I personally think it’s a bit of a mix, leaning toward the social and psychological, and that where gender “comes from” is a little different for each individual. Biology has a bit to do with it; we’ve had somewhat consistent ideas "man” and “woman” across various cultures.

But what gender means in each society is different, and how people conceptualize it has been different. What gender someone feels they are may be influences by their culture’s gender expectations. Some indigenous cultures even have anywhere from two to five distinct “genders”, and I can say personally that my conceptualization of my own gender relies pretty heavily on how other people perceive and treat me.

Not to mention that trans people have existed for as long as people in general have, even in societies that lack any formal gender concept for trans folks. So psychology must play a role, too.

So if we strip away all social expectations of gender, we’re still left with psychological and biological influences on gender. Which is part of why I don’t think we can abolish gender to begin with; people will always have internal understandings of gender to some extent, and they’ll always express them, and therefore there will always be a social element to gender. We can, however, work toward abolishing restrictive, binaristic, oppressive gender structures that limit and punish expressions of gender.

And as a sidenote, the whole “gender is just a social construct, but genitals are real” and “we should abolish all concept of gender” thing is extremely TERFy. There are thoughtful and trans-inclusive ways of approaching the question, but usually we’re talking about gender as part of a system of power and oppression. Walters is using the TERF framework that their “gender critical” comes from: gender isn’t real, therefore trans people aren’t real. Patriarchy is just based on biological realities and sex, and we should abolish the idea of gender (as code for abolishing trans rights and theory).

TL;DR: Gender

I personally believe that gender is a synthesis of biological, psychological, and social influences that is highly unique to every individual. There’s no real way to “abolish” it, only systems of power and oppression that rely on and enforce it. Walters’ way of discussing it is extremely TERFy, and her arguments should be heavily scrutinized.