#intracommunity

[0w0tsuki]

God damn "dude/man/guy is gender neutral actually" discourse is really a sign y'all are fucking hopeless. Because the bar is quite literally on the FUCKING FLOOR.

You know the stereotypical "performative cis liberal ally"? The one who upon acknowledging they've been corrected about an accidental misgendering, turns it into an entire god damn show of apologizing and telling you how HARD they're working to gender you correctly. Yeah if you're someone who defends the use of dude and man as gender neutral terms guess what? Even with making every apology a grand display at least they're fucking apologizing and putting forth an effort to show you that they're putting your interests in mind.

Which is more than can be said of you.

Imagine if they were told they accidentally deadnamed you. And instead of the usual acting like they just accidentally hit their own fucking child they went "Actually I think [DEADNAME] is pretty androgynous and could be used for anyone of any gender! I'm not going to use it now that you have corrected me! But I just wanted you to know I didn't see myself as explicitly misgendering you when I used [DEADNAME]"

We are asking for the BARE MINIMUM amount of effort! Literally all you have to do is if your going to insist that "Using gender neutral terms when referring to somebody even when their actual gender is readily available information is actually the correct way to gender somebody online" that at the VERY LEAST use actual gender neutral terms instead of dude/guy/man. You don't even give up your use of it in your everyday life. You're only being asked to think about this in spaces where trans women are common such as online queer spaces.

That is how little trans women not being misgendered left and right in places that sell themself as safe for her matters to you. It matters so little that you can't even be asked to not do the barest minimum to not contribute to an environment where anyone who wants to misgender a trans woman with no repercussions can just Dude her knowing full well that she will view it as misgendering and fall back on "oh I was just being gender neutral. YoU sHoUdN't AuToMaTiClY aSsUmInG pEoPlE's GeNdErS!!" Which is a common enough occurrence that we have to have this fucking discourse.

The bar is on the floor and y'all are digging holes just to not have to face the smallest of inconveniences. Performative allies are fucking lapping you. You should be embarrassed.

Do better

[arotechno]

the way the aro community talks about attraction is inadequate

Disclaimer: The following is in no way intended to invalidate, shame, or "call out" anyone for using whatever language or terminology they see fit to describe their own experiences. This is about community-wide trends and pressures, rather than individual choices.

As an aroace, I've never felt a particular desire to label other types of attraction I may or may not feel. Identifying as aroace is a way for me to express my disconnect with what society at large views as healthy, normal, valuable, and aspirational; that is, a committed, monogamous, sexual and romantic relationship. I don't want those things. I'm not able to even understand them. But by and large, beyond that, I don't find the framework of different types of attraction very useful at all.

This is the fatal flaw of the split-attraction model in its most advanced form: it's predicated on the idea that there are distinct types of attraction that can be qualified and quantified in neat and tidy boxes. Just as there are people for whom romantic and sexual attraction cannot be separated, there are many (like myself) for whom the very concept of attraction breaks down more and more the more you try to categorize it.

Here's the thing: relationships (of any kind) aren't inherently predicated on attraction, just as they aren't necessarily predicated on love. We can understand, as a community, why an aro person might have a successful romantic relationship despite not feeling romantic attraction, or why an ace person might enjoy engaging in sex even if they are not sexually attracted to their partner. Attraction does not equal action. So why, then, must we make the assumption that everyone must categorize their feelings in terms of attraction at all? This is how we end up with terms like queerplatonic attraction, which warps the original definition of queerplatonic such that a QPR becomes something predicated on a separate kind of attraction that is more unique and special than "regular" platonic feelings, rather than being a broad type of non-romantic relationship that is deliberately built and developed by the people in it based on their own personal needs and desires, and not necessarily based on some ephemeral type of attraction.

This sort of trend towards hyper-categorization is extremely frustrating to someone like me, who doesn't view their relationships or their feelings for others in terms of attraction at all. I'm not platonically "attracted" to my friends, I don't think. I love them platonically (deeply, unconditionally, almost like family), but naming it as attraction makes me almost uncomfortable. Others may not feel that way and that's fine. It's no skin off my nose how people choose to talk about their own feelings. But the implicit expectation in a lot of aro spaces is that you will label your attraction, your feelings, your experiences, your desires, your orientations according to such-and-such paradigms, as if we can wordsmith our way out of simply understanding one another. As if the diversity of aromantic experiences were something we need to break down and quantify.

All of these things are socially constructed. Sex, romance, love, relationships, attraction. That doesn't make them not real, but they are not divinely granted concepts with their own inherent, easy-to-understand taxonomy. We make up the language necessary to describe complex and diverse human experiences as best we can, because it's the only way. But what is absolutely crucial to remember, as a crucial tenet of aro activism and beyond, is that none of these models work for every single person, and needn't be prescriptive.

[arugula2048]

ik you prob wrote abt this ages ago but I wanted to say I appreciate your additions abt the 'almond mom' discussion. I saw it came from a child model almost fainting and the mother advising her to eat a couple of almonds chewed very slowly. So literally from eating disoreded mom harming and abusing child by purposefully malnourishing them. Ofc over time ppl posted more ambiguous things but what if the er mom was asked to comfort the child and 'did her steps' imstead? Or the mom eating salad (1/2

2/2 and the family eating heavier meals. Oftentimes the mom is visibly upset with the children so maybe they are 'breaking the cycle' by eating satisfying food after being told not to for many years? Like I agree we must not forget ppl acting 'strange' w food incl moms are victims of society which promotes disordered eating. But to actively push that on your child is cruel. And many ppl are not mentioning how strange their mom is but rather how it results in treating them, shamimg, policing them

I feel you, I could understand if the 'pacing bc she's worried and not ED' interpretation if it was one of many used in the analyses, but it irked me when so many bloggers just ran with that alone. Not very empathetic to the child, gyns, who in the post example was in the fucking ER, implying she wanted comfort but her mother prioritized her own body image instead... It's so funny (not funny) how they breezed past that part and was like "this bitter ungrateful child!! of course she's definitely lying about her mom to mock her"

It's an interesting analysis to focus fully and only on the 'almond mothers' in that post. But then to say that's the only way to see it and say that children are responsible for their mothers' healing is repulsive. I can't tell if that conclusion came from temporary tunnel vision, or if they never had a bad relationship with their mother, or if they no longer see themselves in the child now that they're adults, or if they're partly speaking from unresolved issues and believe that fixing their mothers will fix them too. They would've betrayed their younger selves just like their mothers did lol.

Not to mention, like you said, mothers are grown women and had decades to reflect on their experiences and illnesses to decide how they'd raise their daughters. As an adult and as a parent, they had that responsibility to step up for their children lol. The audacity of the ~approach your mother with a feminist mindset to break entire generational cycles of misogyny and EDs~ statement is unbelievable. To put that work on children? So the mothers shouldn't need to do anything? Why don't we start smaller with something kids can do?

I think that post got like that because of the whole "mother discourse" that had people acting as if someone said 'mothers should be officially recognized as a subhuman class' instead of 'I prioritize girls because they're the common denominator demographic of all women'. Cue the overcompensation and almost victim-blaming kids who were coached to get EDs. They seriously looked at a kid in the ER and blame her for her mom being fucked up, no one in that post contested that first reply. Yikes, but that's the internet, I guess.

Thank you for the message, I'm glad we felt seen by each other. Have a good day, anon!

[the-tipsy-tailor]

reasons i don't belong at synagogue:

too old for the young people and too young for the old people.

too autistic.

too crazy.

childless on purpose.

not going to marry a nice jewish person.

too quiet.

too anxious.

too shy.

messy jewish ancestry.

i love my synagogue, i really do. there's a reason i'm a member and am pursuing affirmation through them. they're queer and leftist and do social justice work. but man do i feel unwanted.

[queerical]

all this fucking talk of "stealing" with the queer community. "gays are stealing from lesbians" "aces are stealing from gays" "transes are stealing from everyone" absolutely convinced white queers learned about cultural appropriation and decided it could be applied to sexuality and gender and it became entrenched becuz ppl are fucking obsessed with gatekeeping and exclusionism

besties, we are all in the alphabet soup together. the lines between us are blurred as hell. we are not stealing, we are inspired. our culture is bright and beautiful and a street fair that everyone trades at. quit being so goddamn individualistic and embrace the community. it's the only way we have solidarity

[terminated-baeddel9]

gave up on the blog now that she's back or frustrated with the discourse or both?

hi feb 11th anon

yeah i did get kinda disillusioned with this blog but also jez came back to tumblr so i was like, what ever x2. but she's been terminated again. she wasnt stiring shit so i dont know why. i worry that people hold grudges against people for when they behave poorly while under immense levels of mental distress and then go out of their way to try fuck that person over, even if they've expressed remorse or apologised etc for their shitty behavior and haven't been repeating it

out community is so overzelous with punishment for any perceived transgressions or rudeness. we cannibalise eachother and its a fucking miserable state of affairs.

[trans-androgyne]

It’s not “misgendering myself” to point out that people often see me as a woman, that I have experienced and do experience misogyny, and that growing up as a girl affects how I act today. That is just my life. That’s how it is being trans sometimes. People can have different experiences than that but I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I’ve always been treated like a guy to alleviate other people’s dysphoria. And saying transmascs can experience misogyny sure as hell doesn’t mean transfems don’t.

[throesofincreasingwonder]

You know what? I want a whole post for this:

Sex Repulsion is not the same thing as, or an excuse for, Sex Negativity

non-negotiable!

I am a sex-repulsed asexual. This means that I am uncomfortable and repulsed by the idea of engaging in sexual acts. This does not mean that I have an excuse to be repulsed by other people's sexual attraction or the right to police how other people engage in or express sexual acts or attraction.

Young queer people need to learn the difference between sex repulsion and sex negativity, and actively work to unlearn sex-negative attitudes. Asexuality, even sex-repulsed asexuality, is and should be fully compatible with sex positivity.

If you are uncomfortable with the idea of other people feeling sexual attraction or engaging in sexual acts that do not involve you in any way, that is not sex repulsion it is the cultural Christianity and you need to seriously work on that.

[cybertranny]

today i was helping out a friend at school and heard one kid (who i know is trans + out) just like. openly making fun of gay men?????? joking abt how there *is* a netball team but it's filled with gay men and is the least masculine group of men hes ever seen. and making fun of their mannerisms n doing the limp wrist thing. i was straight up shocked into silence otherwise i would've said something like man that's not. an acceptable thing to do At All

[caffeineandsociety]

All the bullshit queer infighting about queer subgroup a refusing to be normal about queer subgroup b, or no it's b that can't be normal about a, or no it's both of them refusing to be normal about subgroup c-

And I feel it's time to recognize that the problem has less to do with specific identities and more to do with people refusing to be normal about queer people other than themselves

Yes someone who's like this will usually be slightly more normal about someone whose queer identity is more similar to their own than not, but I have never seen, for example, an explicitly transmisogynistic trans man who wouldn't jump to throw another trans man under the bus for "making us all look bad" at the first viable excuse, and we all know how big overt exclusionist movements like terfism end up just aggressively policing the ingroup to make sure they never, ever, ever deviate from a perfect True Scotsman

It's self-centered bullshit is what it all is and I think it deserves to be seen for that

[sociallyanxiousdragon]

I hate posts like "support and love trans people especially trans women/fems" or "don't out trans people especially not trans women/fems"

Trans mascs and unaligned nonbinary people are not secondary in deserving of love and support and safety

I understand if you focus your activism on one group over another because there's only so much energy

And I understand if someone is talking about a very specific situation that *does* vastly affect one group more than another

But one group of trans people should not inherently be a lower priority, and if you're bringing both up, you need to not act like one is more deserving of help than another

(I'm not saying trans women are responsible for these posts -- I primarily see them from cis allies though trans people do also make them)

[vaspider]

Hi! I’m in my early 20’s and a baby gay and i was wondering if you could help me understand the nuances of a particular issue (or point me towards recourses to find some answers). I’ve heard that as an afab enby i shouldn’t be using the f slur because historically it has been used to attack/demean gay men, but i’ve also seen (mostly on tumblr) a push by the queer community to reclaim the word by any queer identity. I want to be inclusive and intersectional and not insult people to the best of my ability so my question is: can i participate in the reclamation of the f slur or should i leave this word to queer men? (I’m also not clear on wether it’s just cis men, includes trans men/amab folks, etc). You don’t have to answer but thanks for your time regardless!

You can do whatever you want forever.

Seriously, though - whoever is telling you that you can't reclaim a particular slur because that doesn't get used against people like you should come review my history sometime. I've had faggot yelled at me (often out of moving cars or in connection with physical abuse) more times than I can count. They need to talk to Hannah Gadsby, who talks in Nanette about a man who pushed her, thinking she was a faggot and then found out she was a woman, realized she was a "lady faggot" and thus outside his definition of woman and able to be beaten up... so he did.

That kind of "I have decided that people like you haven't been hurt by this so you can't touch this word" cop nonsense is genuinely harmful. We need to bring back the 90s energy of "it takes all of us to take the sting out of a word" where gay men showed up to lesbian marches with "fags for dykes" signs.

This infighting over terms is fucking cop garbage meant to divide us. It's bullshit. If you find strength in calling yourself a fag, a dykefag, a fagdyke, a ladyfag, a girl homo, a lesbo, whatever the fuck, it doesn't fucking matter.

This "no one uses that against people like you" bullshit is just that. Ignore it freely, because it's utter nonsense on many many levels.

[butchmartyr]

few things make me tune people out as virtue signaling dipshits like hearing “CAGAB language is just for intersex people don’t steal”, everyone’s birth assignment was coercive dumbass it came free with patriarchy’s (bio)essentialistic & paternalistic conception of gender

[starryjoy]

The absolute worst shit of any discourse over an identity being inherently worse than another is when someone from that identity agrees and closes themselves inside an echo chamber dedicated to shitting on people like them and they just keep repeating how it's real that they are awful.

Lately it's happening so much with transmascs. so many young transmascs are seeing words from radical feminists saying how men are inherently evil and how only women can ever be oppressed and somehow they eat this information right up, going to great lengths to protect people who want them dead.

And as a trans woman this is absolutely dreadful.

You are not helping anyone by saying how you do not matter. You are not helping anyone by saying you do not suffer. You are not helping anyone by denying yourself.

I will mark you as unsafe for me for now. But I wish you good luck.

[magnetothemagnificent]

I hate the social taboo that exists for people who don't fast. Yes, according to Jewish law you cannot fast if you physically cannot, but that doesn't mean there still isn't the social stigma and lack of education.

I had a guy ask me last night during Kol Nidrei if he's allowed to drink water. He has pancreatitis. It should have been made obvious to him immediately that of course he doesn't have to fast. He shouldn't have had to nervously search for someone who could answer his question after the fast had already started. When hosting the pre-fast meal, the Rabbi should have included in his announcements that if you have a medical condition that makes fasting dangerous, you should not fast.

It should be made clear before any fast starts that you shouldn't fast if you can't. But instead, in many communities, people with medical conditions feel ashamed for not fasting and sometimes even force themselves to fast when they shouldn't. It shouldn't be assumed that everyone in the congregation is fasting, yes, even if almost everyone in the congregation is below the age of 40 (this is another compounding issue- people thinking young people can't have certain medical conditions). And this stigma is dangerous.

[goyim this post is not for you]

[trans-androgyne]

“Women and non-binary people” stop. Do you mean people with marginalized genders? Do you mean gender-oppressed people? Then say that. Stop refusing to recognize the very much gendered oppression of other trans people. There’s not some chasm of difference between how our oppressors treat a very masc non-binary person and a more binary trans man. I’m also non-binary and very much oppressed for my gender but because I’m transmasculine I could never feel comfortable in a space that marketed itself like that. Tell me what the real harm is of letting gender-oppressed mascs into spaces discussing gender oppression is. Because the consequence of not doing so is denying them space for their experiences just because of their gender identity. Do better.