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#its always hate terfs but not love trans women
odysseys-blood · 4 months
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im not gonna hijack that post but theres such an odd fixation i feel in general on the idea that you HAVE to argue and clap back and debate with every single person you see online (even knowing most of them do this in bad faith) and its so. are you not tired. do you know that when ur arguing out in the open like thst ESPECIALLY if you're not part of the group being targeted ur likely just exposing the people you know who ARE part of these minority groups to more vitrol that theyre likely already experiencing more than enough of and would like to avoid as much as possible. please block and move on more often.
edit: idk why this is getting attention all of a sudden but please dont be a clown in my tags or replies.
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chrissy-kaos · 1 year
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If we're too masculine then we're disgusting freaks. They collect the most masculine of us - innocent women minding their own business trying to live a life that was denied to them - and mock us, openly discussing how nobody could ever love us, how nobody could be fooled that we're women.
If we're too feminine then we're stupid men. They find the most tone deaf quotes from trans girls, usually those who have been out for only months if they're out at all. They find these quotes of girls still learning how to be women, post them everywhere as proof that we are just pantomime caricatures of women.
If we are too strong then we are violent and dangerous. We are an unfair factor in sport, evil men just trying to steal victories from real women. We could lose our temper at any moment. We are a risk that cannot be tolerated. If we're too weak then we are to be mocked. They call us failed men who ran to womanhood because we couldn't take it. We're victims of our own masculinity. Poor feminine men to be saved... In the same way that Republicans want to save those 'poor unborn babies.'
If we lose our temper we're back to dangerous men. But if we cry, if our shoulders buckle under the weight of endless, endless, ENDLESS, ENDLESS, ABUSE. Then they mock us again. They share pictures of trans women crying and laugh over it. Of course they make sure to find the pictures where our stubble is showing, our makeup has already run. It's not the way that women are mocked for weakness; it's the way men are. They find videos where are lips are trembling. Where our voice has gone deep because we don't have the energy to keep it at its heightened octave.
If we find ourselves ugly they mock us. But if we're happy with ourselves then we're disgusting degenerates. "Autogynephilic." Medicalized. They find the tweets of newly out girls who said something improper in their tiny moment of not guarding themselves. An awkward, amateurish attempt at roleplay or dirty talk becomes a meme. A woman who likely spent years growing the courage to begin sexual exploration, probably for the first time in her life, sees herself come up every so often in their replies, their threads, their gifs. What happens to these people? Is it even possible for them to ever resume that exploration?
We're trying to trick everyone into dating us. We should be required to show visible identification on us at all times; to be trans without the people around you knowing is deceit. But also, nobody would ever date us, everyone can tell, immediately, always. Everyone knows, the terfs say GLEEFULLY. Reveling in the idea that our subconscious is constantly telling us this. Basking in the thought of our depression and anxiety eating our minds until there's nothing left.
Even the terfs never stay the same for long. One moment it's a wall of 'concerned mothers' with all the passive-aggressive venom of a white woman calling the police because she doesn't want to put a leash on her dog; make ABSOLUTELY NO MISTAKE that these are the same people. The next it's anime-avatar alt righters. The next it's puritanical Christians claiming we are the natural result of the "rainbow agenda." It's lesbians saying that we're destroying lesbianism, following right on the heels of a pastor saying that anything that isn't a man and a woman is unnatural.
Half the URLs are Mumsnet and half are Kiwifarms. How many are bots? Sock puppets? How many really are just transphobic housewives accessing Kiwifarms from their phones? How many took the full plunge? The answer to all of the above is, we don't know, but it's a whole lot more than zero.
Every time we go into a bathroom, there's a chance we'll be the next screen shot pasted over reddit. It doesn't matter whether it's the men's or women's. They are equally unsafe.
If we need a women's shelter, we flip a coin on whether the person running it has already decided she hates us, because of these people.
We cannot upload a picture to facebook without this risk.
We cannot post about our lives without this risk.
We cannot appear at our work without this risk.
We cannot exist without this risk.
Every possible action we could take will be judged. There is no outcome that isn't negative. There is nothing we can do that isn't negative. Masculinine, feminine, pretty, ugly, angry, sad, sexual, frigid, proud, ashamed, strong, weak. Pre-op, post-op, non-op. Vagina, ovaries, chromosomes, fertility: womanhood is defined as whatever we aren't in that particular context.
I don't want to think about how many people this has killed. To call it a moving goal-post is inept, it is a void, an endless mass of hatred that follows us no matter what we do. Nothing is good enough. Everything, every single thing, is just waiting to be weaponized against us.
It has killed so, so many.
It won't kill any more.
If you're trans and you're reading this you already know everything I said. We've lived through it. You already know that I've spent time as all of the above because you have too. That when I get SIX HUNDRED COMMENTS calling me a man I want to swing my fists and I want to cry and I want to curl into a ball and I want to scream and I want to end my own miserable existence. The ugly beautiful girl in the mirror is so angry and sad and prideful and ashamed and violent and passive and this constant stream of abuse has torn me apart and created so many ugly things in this mind but if there is ONE. FUCKING. THING. THAT. THEY. WILL. NOT. MAKE. ME.
It is dead.
I will live. I will survive. And I don't even care about justice anymore. These people will get away with all this. Somewhere in that mix of the trans population and the infamous 40% number is a figure of how many people they've killed, but they'd never care. I'll live because all of their jeering and mocking and gaslighting and those goddamn fucking insufferable legions of laugh reacts, they don't do a fucking thing.
That's all it comes down to in the end. It's hard and it's painful and it hurts, it just ENDLESSLY hurts to weather their blows. But my name is Alexia. I am a woman.
You can hurt me all you like, but that won't change, and you can die mad about it.
- Lindwyrm Weisseritter
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trans-androgyne · 26 days
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hey, thank you for having and running this blog. you're doing the equivalent of gods work.
first, i'm sorry for the amounts of jerk anons you have to deal with. you literally articulate yourself very well and clearly, and still, people will find a way to twist it or not take it seriously. it reminds me of me "arguing" with terfs back in 2022 on twitter. (shudders.)
and second, how do you deal with the constant negativity? i have found myself doomscrolling the transandrophobia tag, and, well, to no ones surprise, my mental health is down the gutter. do you have any tips to deal with it? mainly with the transandrophobia in general? it is more than exhausting existing as a (gnc & enby) trans guy atm, and it's really getting to me. the thing is, I wouldn't mind it if it were non-queer bigots, but the fact it's coming from inside the community is devastating. i am more than hurt. this intense hatred for men and masculinity, queer, trans, or not, is incomprehensible to me. it never does anything good. anyone who says "i hate all men and anything masculine" is definitely going in the "yep that's either a radfem or a radfem hatchling" box. i partially understand as to why- i had a fear of men myself when i still identified as a girl, and slipped into the "all men bad. kill" side of the internet for a short while but ONLY because of this rhetoric ("you need to be afraid because there are men outside." , "men and masculinity are inherently predatory or dangerous")- but i got out of it because i saw how fucked it was eventually (thank goodness)- but nothing should ever be an excuse to excessively hate a gender or masculinity this badly. and its mostly gender essentialist bs anyways imo, so i do not understand it at all...it reminds me of people saying men/mascs cant be asexual because it's "in their nature to be sexual"- because testosterone. its hard. i just wish we all could respect each other. you're either "one of the bad bad evil men" or "noooooo not YOU. you're AFAB!! never!! youre a girl/woman in spirit!!" from my personal experience with terfs/radfems/idiots.
anyways, sorry for invading your anon space with this long rant, but i just wanted to leave this and the question. i hope you have a nice day/night, and thank you for reporting on transandrophobia as much as you do. it's sadly very much needed right now.
Thank you so much, this is such a kind ask to receive. To be honest with you: I don’t handle my mental health very well around it </3 It’s weighed on me pretty heavily these last few months especially. The things keeping me running this blog anyway are my passion for the transmasc community and lovely anons like yourself cheering me up. When it comes to trying to manage it, the most important thing for me has been finding people I can vent to about it who will understand. I’m lucky enough to have a wonderful discord server full of awesome trans people who will talk it through with me, and that’s been a life-saver. Staying offline for a bit and trying to engage in person with people who are unlikely to be transandrophobic towards you can be a nice relief. I catch myself doomscrolling constantly too, and it doesn’t feel great. If you need to set some sort of time limit on your phone even just to remind yourself not to do it, that’s helped me before and might help you too.
Having this much hatred levied at me for my identity from my own community lately has been devastating. I completely understand you. I’ve always been vocal about supporting transfems in particular, so it really hurts to see so many turn against me for speaking up. I understand how the queer community got this way, though. Antimasculinism has been an issue in queer and feminist spaces for ages. I think people are starting to notice it more and understand why it sucks and how much it negatively affects trans men and mascs. It feels like a losing battle sometimes with how much cultural feminism — the Men Bad Women Good flavor of pop feminism — has pervaded our communities and often led to very overt radical feminism that people still can’t always recognize because they don’t know anything about TERFs outside of them hating trans women. I believe the culture will start to shift soon such that people are able to recognize sexism and gender essentialism that harms all genders, and I will be doing my part to help that happen.
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velvetvexations · 6 days
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I feel like the "trans men are privileged over trans women" discourse is such a Tumblr-specific phenomenon (and I guess Twitter and TikTok but I don't use them lol). I used to be a moderator of a very large trans subreddit (RIP 3rd party apps) and, if you've used Reddit, you probably know the Reddit trans community skews really heavily transfem.
And the Reddit discourse used to be, for the most part, "stop speaking over trans men/mascs, please make room for trans men/mascs in the community, please remember that trans men/mascs are underrepresented and deserve love too" etc. None of this shit about calling trans men MRAs for talking about issues that affected them! Like people who would say shit like that were mostly downvoted into oblivion and the mod team (not just me but the transfem mods too) would actively remove comments to that effect. It was great!
Most transfem users didn't have this weird persecution complex where they believed they were the most oppressed queer identity of all time either, not a lot of people were really seriously claiming that trans men had any kind of meaningful institutional power over trans women except maybe your occasional stale-ass passing privilege thread (which plenty of transfems in the comments usually shot down because passing discourse is mostly very stupid and people knew it).
It's so obvious Tumblr is so shitty about this because of the deeply entrenched radfem culture on this site tbh. I hate it here. Trans Reddit used to do mass-report campaigns against r/GenderCritical and their ilk and it fucking worked! They got site admins to fucking ban TERF subreddits!! For all its copious flaws, I really miss how the Reddit trans community knew exactly who the enemy was and that it wasn't each other.
Yeah, Tumblr has always skewed towards the most overly dramatic expressions of praxis, as shown by the hysteria equating a few brigading-induced bans to Tumblr staff perpetuating a genocide. Reddit was much more a space for adults to have adult conversations and not just descend into constant finger-pointing.
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smalltestaccount · 21 days
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okay i think ive come to the conclusion that i dont really fit in with most other trans women, like personality wise, and thats okay. Like i think recently a lot of trans women, not just on tumblr, have been making me think i have to be kinky and bizarre or something, be blasé about transitioning or gender roles, or even just like be okay with some borderline harassing behavior. Its okay if that is you (except the harassing behavior some of yall need to work on that), but like thats not really me. Acting this way just makes me feel bad. Just ignoring that Im a total straightedge, that im like a 1 on the Kinsey scale now. Ever since i was like 11 my biggest desire is just like being a normal cis girl. I always am happiest embracing basic American femininity, and i only just re-realized this after after it helped me get out of a depressive episode (along with antidepressants and an increased estrogen dose). I don't care if im "enforcing gender roles", because i fucking love female gender roles (in modern American culture) cause they make me feel like not-a-piece-of-shit. Also i don't strictly adhere to many anyways. And i just don't think terfs would have any issues with cis girls who love the color pink, flowers, being boy crazy, and dreaming about being a mother. So like why should I feel like its wrong to like that stuff? I don't think there is anything wrong with it. And you know if you don't have that relationship with gender that is fine, you need to do what makes you happy, that's why feminism exists. I'm just saying I don't want to pretend like my personality is something that really just makes me uncomfortable.
I dont like when people here imply being a trans woman entails being sexual cause like i just want to be normal and that stereotype is harmful, especially to transgender children who are really likley to be targeted for some kind of sexual abuse because theyre trans and being trans is already sexualized more than it needs to be. Adults can navigate that to some extent, but not kids; I couldnt really navigate that when i started transitioning in middle school and im lucky it only stayed online. Trying to even somewhat fit in with tumblrs idea of trans women has made me encounter tranny porn on my dash and whenever i post images of myself I'm followed by gross accounts that just reblog that stuff . A lot of trans women don't hate it, because sex work is very much as part of the trans community. But honestly, seeing trans women be treated in those ways just makes me feel bad for the actresses and sick about myself and very dysphoric.
Im not saying that you cant express kinkiness and hyper-sexuality, because I dont want to dictate how you act any more than i want you to be dictated on how I act. But I also want to encourage thoughfulness in what you say. Saying you, yourself, is kinky and weird, is not that same as saying trans *girls* are kinky and weird. In the same way I'm not going to reblog tradwife content, I don't think its productive to make an "all tgirls be kinky" post. You shouldn't try to paint that image of other trans women.
As its the first day of june I'll just tie it up by saying that not all trans people fit into one personality and if you want to show support its best not to suggest trans women all act a certain way, and please don't think talking about "gock" is a good way to show support. This isn't a "kink at pride" discourse post in the very slightest cause I don't, and never have, given any shits about that, cause I've never been to pride. This is just me talking about how I fit into the trans community.
Im Alexa and I'm going to reblog and post shit i like, not what other people like or expect. That Includes not doing tummy tuesday cause i really only briefly did it out of fomo and peer pressure. And please don't say things about me that you wouldnt say about other women
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manstrans · 11 months
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i find it kinda funny that every time i see someone talking shit about transmascs who talk about transandrophobia and i go to their blog its ALWAYS some ragingly bitter person who loves making fun of randos to feel superior. also ive been browsing this "discourse" (hate that word so much) for a couple years now, and seriously, where are all the transmascs blaming transfems for our oppression? cause like im sure they exist but i havent seen even one (1) instance of a guy doing that in the context of transandrophobia talk. but maybe im just decent at curating my online experience idk. i only know ive seen people asking to be heard about what we all go through as men who are trans and pushing for transunity and then some people complaining about that bc 'transfems have it worse' and being just rude for no reason. idk man!
I think a lot of it comes from a "trans men and trans women are complete opposites!" standpoint and radical feminism. "saying trans men don't have male privilege implies trans women do!" or all of us only have highly conditional access that is very easily taken away the moment we are found to not conform to cis masculinity
a lot of it is just assumptions in an echo chamber I think
one time though there was a terf trying to convince us "trans women are oppressing you, you should cut yourself off from them :)" but a lot of people immediately pointed out that 1. this was a terf being an asshole and 2. their goal was to eventually get us to either detransition or die lol
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beanghostprincess · 4 months
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TW for chronic illnesses and body image issues/disphoria and infertility for some headcanons.
Lamikkaku anon here, I wanted to share some headcanons and thoughts about modern AU Lamikkaku because I think I've just come up with the most precious thing ever.
So, I think modern AU Lami would be cronically ill/have some health problems. (I was thinking about her being a survivor to childhood lung cancer that was caused by long term exposure to asbestos, since the Amber Lead Deasease seemed like it was referencing that. And therefore having long term health problems due to treatment)
It would affect her breathing and heart (cue Law deciding to become a cardiosurgeon to help people with similar problems) but also her body and personality as well. The steroids based treatments made her gain weight that she hardly lost, she has scars from various surgeries, and she became an introvert that struggles to meet new people. She feels guilty that she always made her parents worry and made Law miss out on many childhood experiences too, as he hardly saw his parents who were caretaking his sister and was mostly looked after by their godfather Corasan.
Cue my transfemm Ikkaku headcanon. She also struggles with acceptance and body immage issues, worrying about her appearence and not being "feminine enough", as well as some anger issues she develoeped due to tauning from others. I think she may also have issues with her family due to this. It contribuited in her being somewhat "hostile" when trying to meet new people and trusting them.
They met because of Law. Lami doesn't have many friends of her own so she hangs out in his friend group and meets Ikkaku. Its sorta of a love at first sight. Lami looks at Ikkaku and views her basically has a goddess: one with a flawless body, untouched by medical horrors, a sassy and sarcastic personality that sports a level of confidence that she can never have. And Ikkaku sees Lami as an angel: a kind, gentle person with such soft, and a heart of gold thats completely pure, cute ligneaments and a caring and amazing family that loves and supports her.
They start talking and getting close, opening up more to eachother, about their insecurities and fears. The topic of dating eventually comes up and both are very catious about it: Lami isn't sure about what she can give, her health problems are something she always saw as a burden, and she doesn't want to give this burden to anyone else. And Ikkaku thinks she would be awful for Lami, after all Lami is such a nice and kind person, Ikkaku considers herself far too brute to be good for her.
There is also another added thing... Lami can't have children. The treatment made her sterile, and its something she always knew but only really started grieving now. Part of her thinks this makes her an inadequate partner, a not good enough girlfriend (Bullshit, Lami is perfect and you know it) and Ikkaku also had mixed feelings about her own body functions, with transphobes harrassing her and saying shit like "ReAl WoMeN CaN GiVe BiRtH!!!" (Bullshit, I fucking hate this terf behaviour).
The two of them understand eachother deeply due to these things about themselves. Ikkaku never saw Lami's health as an obstacke, it just something that is part of her and makes her unique, and Lami doesn't give a shit about Ikkaku being trans, she loves her because of her personality and the way she is treated by her.
Eventually they do manage to start dating. Its a gradual process, but it doesn't matter because they have their love. They also protest and advocate for themselves, weather its trans/queer rights or better funding and medical treatments (insurance is a SCAM) and marriage equality in both cases.
Law couldn't be happier for her (he doesn't show it at all but he cries of happyness in a corner at least 5 times a day. Bepo calms him down) he also goes on double dates with them and [insert character you ship Law with].
And occasionally there are double dates with Penguin and Shachi as well (Penshachi and transmasc Penguin my beloved) but they have to be very carefull because if they mess something up Law will come after them with a weapon of mass destruction.
And Cora is so proud of them!!! His little girl finally finding confidence, loving her own skin, advocating for herself and all with the love of her life by her side. This man is so goddam happy you wont believe it!!! He gives Ikkaku his full blessing and some older transfolk advice (transmasc Corasan my beloved) he is already picturing their wedding, and he's crying about it. Someone get this man a tissue, or a blanket.
This is all so beautiful!! I've always loved Modern AUs but this one is especially soft. I love how they both have their own issues feeling loved but end up overcoming them together,,, Also, Cora would be the best father-in-law ever in the world. He's so. So happy. He loves Ikkaku so damn much-- And I think Law is concerned at first because he loves and trusts his friends a lot but whenever Lami and Ikkaku go on dates. Together. Alone. Law worries a lot in case something might happen. But Ikkaku is a sweetie with Lami and when Law realizes that everything is okay and the world isn't ending and nobody is dying he cries because he's just so so so relieved.
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rfdiscoursethrowaway · 3 months
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alr fucker ill bite
im trying 2 understand the absolute fuckin brainrot that is terf ideology solely so i can explain to people who actually want to make an effort to not be bigoted not fall into your pipelines. i do this already. but i wanna be more thorough and get screenshots and examples for specific questions. ill do a lil back and forth, but you wont be convincing me that all trans women are pedos n rapists and that we need to detransition people en mass and that trans people are delusional. i have a series of questions, if you consider yourself a terf please try and actually answer them, in a way that actually explains your thought process and isnt just calling me slurs because thats most of the discourse on this site. -------
how do you mentally justify the contridiction in "male and female brains have no difference and women are just as capable as men" (true and real) and "men are fundimentally more violent/ women less violent" besides just blatently liking sexism so long as it hurts men and not women (blatently harmful and bigoted just with a #girlpower coat of paint)
if its a socialization issue, how does female seperatism nessisarily help that? shouldnt the goal then to not treat women as an other, and to not define people based on biological characteristics? while biological differences exist they dont affect your mental or phisical capabilities in anything (in regards to biological sex atleast). wouldnt it be more helpful to treat it as simply a medical thing? like a blood type or something? and treat genital preference as just the same as any other random aesthetic preference in partners like, idk, liking fat people or likeing brown hair what is it about gender based oppression that makes you think that its the men that are the problem and not the whole gender thing, because its men thinking that women are fundimentally different alien creatures because we literally define people by their genitals and constantly talk about how your genitals make you fundimentally different then the "opposite". an ACTUALLY HELPFUL soution should be talking about how like, yeah! some of us look different, but thats like? fine? we are people. who cares whats in that person pants. and if your answer is that thats unrealistic and will require hundreds of years of societal change (true) why is your approach to double down on men and women being fundimentally different and not to like? work? twards something objectively better and less discriminatory? most of what terfs are known for is bigotry and thats not some crazy coincidence, its because your sexism (though you love to label it otherwise) naturally leads to transphobia. its because the core of your ideology is bigotry. women shouldnt be discriminated against cuz you are? fucking people? with the exact same capabilities, you do not deserve more/less praise more/less accountablitity more/less agency. infact id argue that this bending over backwords to try and exclude people you deem as men is why radfems are so much more of a pushover to conservatives. your willingness to go on and on about how biological differences make you a fundimentally different person just so you can rant about how men are all ugly evil penis havers just lets you be suseptible to violent reactionary shit by conservatives. regardless of where you come from politically, this applies to BOTH of us, if you refuse to really think deeply and critically about why you hate the things you do and why you like the things you do, and instead operate on gut reactions and absorbing politics from people on tumblr SOMEONE from SOME IDEOLOGY is always trying to take advantage of that. and transphobia IS violent reactionary shit, most the time i see transphobia especially against trans women its based entirely on appearance, people jumping all over themselves to body shame her for not being enough of a woman, talking about how gross and disgusting she is for wearing a dress or for having a deeper voice. why is this body shaming ok so long as you deem someone a man? attatching morality to appearance is just a blatently bad idea and its frankly gross how little so many of you are willing to critique that.
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whats your explaination for the tonal dissonance between "i dont want trans people dead and im not violent" and painting trans women as "always being men with terrible intentions who cosplay as women to have an excuse to rape and assault people"
because while you may not directly say "i think all trans people should be murdered" and you do it in a roundabout way with "all trans people are rapists and all rapists should be murdered" that does still say "i think all trans people should be murdered", just with extra steps. and are you aware that this is the exact retoric used by colonizers to justify genocide and slavery? painting black people as "savages and rapists"? whats your justification for painting a large group of people as fundimentally evil and violent, and how nessasarily is it somehow different then the retoric used to oppress any other marginalized group? + if its a "but im right!" consider this is also what a rapist or an antisemite or a mysogenist would say, and why you are parroting the exact same thing. like do you genuinely actually think that having a boy brain, or more testosterone, or a penis, makes you a rapist and a pedofile? really? and again if you agree with me that its a socialization issue why! dont you! treat it that way!! if you mean one thing, SAY THAT! and FIGURE OUT WITCH ONE OF THOSE YOU BELIEVE. because you cant fuckin have it both ways! if you wanna say that we shouldnt be treating women as stupid vile little vagina having worms (real and true) then like, you cant ALSO be like oh i also think we should be treating men as stupid vile little penis having worms >:) hehe i am so progressive and counter culture ignore all the horrific damage that catagorizing people like that has had i think it will be funny when we do it with men you see.
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what is with this insistance that people define themselves based on whats in their pants, like if having a pussy is just having a pussy thats fuckin fine alr but if you start insisting that people make that their ENTIRE PERSONALITY and that if you have one you HAVVVEEEE to have only a specific subsection of names and you HAVEEEE to be called a woman and use she/her and shit
like girl it is just words, who gives a fuck, if a guy says hey i wanna change my name to this girl name cuz it sounds cool as fuck its like! yea! hell yeah brother! and if hes like actually i prefer more feminine words to refer to me :) its like! hell yeah sister! how does that hurt fuckin anyone. is using words so hard 4 u. and before you be like ooOOuuyhghhg IM NOT DEFINING PEOPLE BASED ON THEY ARE PUSSY how is catagorizing people based on their chromosomes / genitals / appearance (and lets be honest here. its mostly appearance but you use chromosomes and genitals so you can pretend theres some kind of science proving that youre right, there is no chromosome detector 3000 for real life) not flattening them? like genuinely how the fuck do you justify that. you have to go to a different bathroom you have to go to a different doctors office you have to go to a different sports team all because i assume that your chromosomes and your genitals make you eaither unsafe or violent or constantly in need of protection and fundimentally less capable. terfs love to constantly insist that gender is whatever and then constantly try to force people to define themselves by their biological sex? why is whats in MY pants any of your fucking buisness? unless im at a gynocology appointment you dont need to know shit. all of this girlsgirlsgirlsgirls stuff what if you dont wanna be called a fuckin girl? what if i find it weird that you profile people and assume things about them because of their body? if gender is whatever why do you HAVE to be a male or a female. why do i have to fucking put my biology out on display for people to assume things about me based on? because i KNOW you assume things based on peoples biological sex and i KNOW you think more or less of people based on their biological sex thats half the ideology! why do you think every trans women is a sexist mysogenist who woke up one day at 24 and decided she was gonna be a girllll and wear dresses so she could opress woemennn moreeeee, why do you assume all trans men were groomed and exploited and brainwashed into thinking that theyre boys because of mysogeny and not cuz sometimes? being called a dude feels good? having a dick feels good? having a flat chest feels good? using he him or whatever the fuck feels good??? rad fem shit is just, sexism repackadged, do you never see the similarities? do you never see the fine print? that the core ideology is the same? this is just mysogeny again! like women are always the victim and men are always the perpetraitor. is just women have fundimentally less agency and men more agency women do bad things because theyre dumb and men do bad things because they had a good reason to. is just women have fundimentally less agency and men more agency please explain how that ISNT just the same mysogenist veiwpoints with a hashtag girlboss coat of paint. and this isnt me projecting mysogenistic right wing ideas onto you, i wrote all this stuff while looking through "radfem101" "terf reference guide" "things TRA's need to get thru their heads" posts. theres a reason people get them confused, ive been told these exact same things time and time again by alt rights and conservatives and mysogenists. so witch are you? why do you agree on so much?
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how do you deal with the whole, not wanting womens genitals to be constantly policed and have that be all that defines them (true and real) and the very real fact that there is no chromosome detector 3000 and if you want to create "female only spaces" you realistically are eaither going to have to subject billions of women on a daily basis to sexual harrassment to see if they are "real women" or do it just based on appearance. witch is enevitibly going to cause a disproportionate ammount of hate and violence twards black, gnc, and intersex women for not being "women" enough. something that is already happening, because trying to give rigid requirements for what looks like a woman and what looks like a man is always going to impact these groups disproportionately, you know its gonna be based off of like a white skinny cis girl! and uh! not all women are that!
and assuming there is a chromosome dectector 3000 in the future, a) intersex people b) trans men exist, and while im sure you can argue day and night about how they arent real men and phallo dicks are just a mutilated skin tube or whatever half of what you guys talk about is how you feel unsafe being in the same bathroom as someone who "looks like a dude" and who has a penis. considering the strictness in needing 100% gender conformity in trans women im sure the exact same people wouldnt be comfortable with a trans guy eaither, if youd feel ok just so long as they had the right reading on the chromosome dectector 3000 then all this talk about trans women being violent cuz penis and body hair and testosterone is just bullshit. and sense terfs love to play hypotheticals with 100% cis dudes just telling people theyre girls so they can get through the female bathroom security (a thing that totally exists believe me guys) (and also yeah telling a police officer that youre "just a trans girl" would totally actually help you in a legal case dont google trans panic defence shhhhhh its ok its ok, statistics you dont read from "xxvaginawomxngirlfucker" arent real its ok,,) couldnt a cis dude just lieeee about being a trans man? whos saying nobody can lie about my chromosome detector 3000 score! are you gonna put a bouncer in the female bathroom security gates? and like, where do trans people even pee then. we just rename the mens bathroom to the trannies and mysogenists room? the biologically more violent room? yeah lets shove a bunch of little intersex girls into the violent mysogenists room, she had body hair and a harsher jawline and that scared me so im lumping her into the room with all the people i think are pedos and rapists, she will feel totally ok about this and this wont effect her perception of herself, this wont enforce gender roles and make women having a complex about being feminine enough worse. women can be anything! except anything i think looks like a guy. so women can be feminine and nothing else :) but women can be anything i put in this super limiting box! i genuinely cannot imagine a world where this doesnt dramatically worsten sexual phisical and emotional violence against literally everyone.
and to say again. im not looking for quirky rebloggable snapbacks to each of my points i want you 2 put an equal ammount of effort as i did scrolling terflandia and writing all this up. so dont just call me a delusional tr-nny i want you to give me like. atleast a little substance here. something to chew and bite and pick apart
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bilesproblems · 3 months
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so, here are the next funny statements of exclusionists..))0)
problem 2, 3, 4: lesbophobia, mspecphobia, homophobia historical note: until the 1970s, the word “lesbian” had the same meaning as the current word “sapphic” - the attraction of any non-men to any non-men. without any restrictions. Over time, for political reasons, bisexuality began to be separated from lesbianism. going “back” would, in fact, do great harm to bisexual people and lesbians, whose identities are already quite established.
Moreover, lesbians often experience forced heterosexuality, a phenomenon where a lesbian thinks she is attracted to men when in fact she is not. “mspec lesbianism” is an erasure of the compget experience and the political history of queerness and lesbianism that these labels have lived through.
It is also important to note that lesbianism since the 1970s does not and will never include men for reasons that lesbianism and feminism are historically strongly intertwined. at the time when the term "lesbian" took on its current meaning, it was a political act of refusing male approval. the same is true for mspec identities - they were not separated from the general blurred “lesbian” and “gay” so that the unique experience of mspec people would be erased
/ quote
Okay that's just straight up radfem/TERF shit.
1. "Lesbian" is an orientation, not a fucking political stance. Irreparable harm has been done to the lesbian community when the love of women was decentralized in favor of hating men and refusing men. Even me, a person who isn't attracted to men romantically or sexually, it is not about hating guys! It's about loving girls and loving enbies! My orientation should not be made all about men, even if the way they do it is by centralizing how much I don't like them. My lack of attraction to guys does matter to me as well and I use labels like nomaromantic, demetic, nominromantic, etc. to describe that aspect but being a lesbian is about my love and not the lack of it
Also I fucking love men platonically. I have great male friends, trans and cis. I don't think I could in good faith make my identity about how much I hate men and rejecting them as a political stance when some of the guys in my life are wonderful people.
2. We are not going back. Lesbian separatism, despite all its flaws, would be difficult to reverse, and not worth it. Most mspecs don't identify with lesbian or gay. All we want now is for people to recognize that these are historical identities, that they shouldn't have been erased, and that people who are comfortable using lesbian or gay in a non-exclusive way have a right to.
3. No, mspec lesbians don't erase comphet. Someone who feels comphet enough could label as such because of their comphet, and that would be perfectly valid - using mspec to acknowledge that they are attracted to men and women, and using lesbian to acknowledge that the attraction to men is not quite "real" - but also, mspec lesbians who are genuinely attracted to men have nothing to do with comphet! I have experienced it before and it's... It's not real attraction. It's your brain tricking you into thinking you like someone of the opposite gender because that's what you're "supposed" to do. Mspec lesbians who like dudes? They're probably not experiencing comphet, they actually like men genuinely.
4. You don't get to exclude men from the most well known women-loving-women label when some men are women. Multigender and genderfluid people will always exist.
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w98pops · 10 months
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Still cant believe a fucking terf is in fallout fandom intecacting with trans creators and drawing her ugly stereotypical twink transmasc character. You should be ashamed
What is even happening to my inbox anymore. Idk if it's the same person that asked about Sharky or not, but it really makes me uncomfortable.
I don't know where the TERF stuff even come from, but I'm very open with my political views and yeah, I was a radfem in 2019 or something. I also was a very vulnerable sad russian teenager. I know not a lot of people on tumblr aware of all the intricacies of russian internet scene, but I assume you, anon, have some knowledge, because you called me a TERF in the first place.
There's an internet phenomenon called "alt-right pipeline" and I fell in the simular thing called "TERF pipeline". This shit is inevitable for every single afab person that speaks russian. It's a really big thing. I don't say it's an excuse to be a bigot, but I was 12 when i first touched the internet. I was insecure, very fucking poor and spiteful. Also I had and (still have) some hormone problems and was generally a pretty ugly girl so coped with it by drawing ponies and hating on elusive and mysterious "men in skirts" these smart twitter girlies always talked about.
To be perfectly honest, I genuinely don't understand what russian TERFs are fighting for or against, I was in this shit for solid few years and still have no idea. I mean, now it's illegal to be transgender in Russia (a real law), but it wasn't a win for these angry teenage girls, it was a win for genocidal bigoted russian government, the same one that legalized domestic violence (also a law. its officially not a real crime in this country). I went off the topic and started ranting about my frustrations with the government again FUCK 😭
I tried to say that russian internet is genuinely a fucked up place, but I lived in the middle of Siberia in a village, ideologically only had my orthodox grandma, racist older brother and TERFs on the internet. I only started to learn english a few years ago, so i didn't have enough options before that. Or, to better words, didn't have enough knowledge to be a better person.
I'm really really and sincerely fucking sorry for that. Like, truly. It was really fucked up and I'm ashamed of stuff I said and supported blindly. I now have resources and have some media literacy in my disposal and basic understanding of english to educate myself about the topics I'm talking about. I'm trying my hardest to show support and love to all my queer friends and mutuals, and as an artist I do all I can to be inclusive, not because I feel the need to, but because I want to.
I have no right to speak about trans people and their issues and I won't. I don't know if Sharky is as bad as anon described, because I'm biased (this is my character after all) and not educated enough to acknowledge all the stereotypes associated with transmasculinity. I would really enjoy to hear opinions of my fellow transmen. To address some of my choices regarding his design and writing:
- He wears pink, because it's a quirky color that doesn't show up much in Fallout. Never meant to de-masculate him or to ridicule him. It's my favorite color, after red and brown, which are the primary colors of Wendy.
- He has a silly personality and a carefree attitude because 1) I'm projecting and 2) Wendy needed a character to balance out her awkward and moody autism
- He's a girl's boy and has wives. I didn't have the reason to make him not like girls. I wanted him to be an example of positive masculinity and solidarity. He is a straight dude who loves women. Not just sexually attracted to them or sees them as pets. They are his partners. With their own personalities and lives. Also I wanted to make a full circle 😭😭😭 I'm asexual and bi-romantic. I like boys, girls, all between and beyond boys and girls and don't really think sex is a big thing for me. Aletus likes boys, Sharky likes girls and Wendy likes when there's no sex. Pretty simple, I think.
Hope this explains why Sharky is the way he is. Would still really appreciate an opinion from a trans person. Or any kind of feedback really, because I've been feeling really fucking bad lately and can't objectively reflect on my choices. Also more questions about my OCs are very much welcome. There's a lot of stuff that made me feel like I've been misiforming people, including this anonymous message, and I will specify anything you want to know. Thank you all a lot.
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redheadbigshoes · 1 year
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its very clear that alot of people within the community have unresolved internalised transphobia. the way they read a post saying "lesbians arent attracted to men" and they immediately respond with "thats terf rhetoric you terf !!!"
im like... Becky, listen to what you're saying !!! im not the one excluding trans women from my lesbian attraction, you are gjjsmfkdjxjdms
im a lesbian and i hate having to make posts where im like "i love women, and yes of course that includes trans women" because in my head, when i say women i mean all women, but i have to make that clarification for people who dont have any understanding or care to read anything on my blog which clearly states that i have always and will always love and cherish and be attracted to trans women.
its not my job to fix their internalised transphobia, but its getting really frustrating having to spell it out for evrry uneducated child and teenager whose just chomping at the bit to accuse anything, even basic fact, as terf rhetoric when not explicitly stated otherwise
A lot of times they attack lesbians saying we’re terf/transphobic based on internalized transphobia and assumptions that we’re either including trans men in our attraction or that we’re excluding trans women.
Exactly, I don’t need to make sure in every post I make that I’m including trans women, because someone else’s assumption is not my responsibility.
And not only that but the post that person responded to literally mentions CIS people, a terf would NEVER refer to a cis person as cis 💀
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the-owl-house-takes · 10 months
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“How is Belos a colonizer??” Bro needs a basic history 💀 How do you think Belos got to Connecticut in the first place? Also he genuinely colonized the Boiling Isles with how he took over don’t overlook that.
He can hate multiple things?? LMFAO the puritans hated tons of minorities witches included, even if we take the puritan shit out Belos is still bigoted I don’t understand why people are trying to defend him? 💀 He’s literally Belos
“He was not racist where the hell did that come from” bro do you hear what you’re saying - think about what time period he came from.
“There’s quite literally no homophobia or transphobia in toh” that’s only limited to the Boiling Isles 💀 and Belos definitely not from there
“I think it came from Luz being a POC” “it’s not a race thing” “idk where that idea that witches are a race came from but it’s definitely odd” literally just look at where Belos came from. All bigotry ties together mind you. For example you can’t advocating for women’s rights while being transphobic (TERFS) cause then you’re putting not only trans people down - but yourself and other minorities as well. It all connects. Also nobody is saying witches are a race 💀I don’t understand how Belos fans in all the time brainrot ting over Belos don’t realize what time period he came from and how’d it effect him?? (I am a Belos fan myself)
“It’s a fictional character guys!”
Yeah and people love thinking realistically abt him lmao. The fictional character arguments are always so lazy + ignore the real-world messages - yes he’s a fictional character. People like him because he’s so realistic. There are real, yes real people out there, who if they had the chance - would do the exact same things he did just to get rid of a minority. Thats not an exaggeration that’s simple how deep bigotry can run and I love how Belos’ can be portrayed in multiple ways.
Also saying that Belos only hates magic purely because Caleb got ‘corrupted’ by a witch is not correct at all. That bigotry was there longgg long ago 💀 if anything that only amplified it. Belos doesn’t have a justifiable reason to hate witches/magic (Caleb falling in love with a witch is not justified hatred.) he simply does it because he holds those bias & allegories for 400+ years. Note this can extend to how differing witches are to humans in Belos’ eyes. How LGBTQ+ is acceptable for witches while in humans it’s sinful, unnatural, etc. How witches don’t have racism (I swear to god if one more person tells me that there’s no people of color on the Boiling Isles, HAVE YOU SEEN GUS?? 💀) whereas Belos came from an era where racism (to put in its simplest terms) was very much thriving!
The Boiling Isles represents literally everything a bigot like Belos would be against, witches included. Witches can be gay, witches can be people of color, etc. “Belos hates witches only” doesn’t really work for him and what his character is written for. He’s an allegory of bigotry and with the way he acts & speaks you can definitely see it. Fiction affects reality and reality affects fiction.
“He wanted control over the magic and to limit it to what he wanted.” That’s true! I’m unsure where you were going with this? He actually didn’t want this, he only used the coven system as a way to kill everybody easily in one take. He simply needed to gain control over magic first - that was never apart of his original plan. He was out here to kill because the boiling isles represents everything he is against.
“But Caleb came from the same time period and he’s not bad!”
I love comparing Caleb & Belos together sm. Further cementing into the ground that Belos being a bigot is all his doing is because Caleb unlearned the bigotry. Caleb was also a colonizer, he was also a witch hunter! He also likely held those other harmful beliefs for most of his life! But Caleb changed, whereas Belos clung to those beliefs. That’s why I love these two they’re a great example of why bigotry is taught and can be unlearned! Acknowledging this can add to their stories more, give them more depth, add more realism to an already scary villain! The reason Belos is so scary as a villain is because of how real he is - there genuinely are people out there who’d do the same as him if given the chance.
As a POC who studies a lot about how bigotry develops - I love studying Belos, he’s very well written in this regard imo! I feel like people who don’t want to acknowledge the rest of Belos’ bigotry miss the point of his entire character arc 😭 he’s somebody who fell into the deep extremes of bias & hate - let him be hateful.
I hope this helped the original person to have a better understanding of this topic? They seemed ill informed/uneducated so I hope my rant helped 😭(not saying that as an insult btw)
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trans-androgyne · 1 month
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I'm trans FTM and im under eighteen and it hurts to feel so ignored and scorned and insulted by other trans people. I'm trying really really hard not to gain any grudges or anger towards fellow trans people but its getting harder the more I see the shitty attitudes towards trans mascs especially when its from transfems, other trans people who should be incredibly supportive too!!! while simultaneously seeing people say transfems deserve the world and never ever saying it about us because how dare we be men how dare we be masculine how dare we take up space or talk about our own oppression we should all shut our mouths and praise trans women and jk rowling hates trans WOMEN and terfs hate trans WOMEN because even though we're all trans people WE magically have it easy because we're privileged for being "female" as if "females" have EVER been treated well and we're privileged for being MEN as if transphobes ever see our masculinity as valid. Its getting harder to feel united when this is the attitude we get from people who are supposed to be our allies
I completely get you, when I found the word transandrophobia but quickly realized using it would get me branded a transmisogynist, I felt so incredibly hurt and alone. I had put transfems in particular on an unfair pedestal and feeling like they all hated me was crushing. I’ve had to learn that transfems and the trans community at large don’t have to always be right for me to still love and fight for it. But the most important thing is recognizing that not nearly all transfems or other trans people feel this way towards us. There are plenty of non-transmascs on our side, I’ve spoken to a number of women who believe us about our oppression myself. I truly think the conversation is starting to shift and the way transmasculine people experience transphobia will eventually be understood on a wider scale and integrated into transfeminism. Please take time to step away and surround yourself with people who care about you if you get sucked into feeling like everything is awful. In the meantime there are plenty of people working to make the world a better place for transmascs, myself included, and I hope to see that movement continue and grow.
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euniexenoblade · 35 minutes
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ignore this ask if you've addressed it somewhere or plain dont feel like responding, but i would really like to hear your thoughts on tma/tme as labels. specifically, i've been hearings lots of intersex transfem voices on the issue and their critiques of its usage in intersexist contexts on this site and how it actually weakens certain aspects of transfeminist theory
Calling them intersexist is silly because tma/tme include intersex people. It's a combo people are assuming what each term means (the anti-tma/tme are always assuming identities and genitals when the terms don't work that way) and it's people who tend to be out of touch with current politics, under read in transphobia/transmisogyny and have incredibly wrong ideas about oppression and privilege.
Tma/tme are useful terms for discussing transmisogyny. Outside of convos about transmisogyny they have no use. They do not assume genitals, they don't dictate gender or "assigned sex," they don't dictate intersex status or any of that. One is just "is a primary target of transmisogyny" and the other is "isnt a primary target of transmisogyny," because oppressions have people they target, ie. Straight people get splash damage of homophobia but they are not gay so they are not the targets of homophobia.
And that's it. It's a useful term. I genuinely think 75% of the hate for them is outright transmisogyny (everyone acted exactly like this when trans women founded cafab/camab to talk about transmisogyny, but now they seem to love them since we developed better terms, curious), and the other 25% are just ignorant and just parrot what their favorite blogger says.
A handful of people who push the anti tma/tme stuff are straight up crypto terfs and transphobes though. So like, just watch who you get the info from.
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pretty-demiboy · 9 days
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TW: Sort-Of Transphobia
this is a lot less light-hearted than my usual posts but i needa vent somewhere and my other blog is more bleh sooo...
idk, i was jst thinking bout terfs, transphobes and my mother today as well as jst a lot in general cause my mum and i have been having... well, not rlly conversations, more like her saying 'oh ur my daughter, always have been' and me being too scared of conflict to disagree with her. she knows what i am and all, like im out, but yk how it is with parents. they are passive-aggressive, love the old u too much and can think of rlly gaslight-y/guilt-trippy arguments. today she sent me a ss of an article explaining the origin of my deadname and sorta hyped it up with a caption along the lines of 'love u my little shapeshifter' (for context my deadname is a goddess who shapeshifts which like BADASS but also yk) and ik its like i shouldnt even be complaining about it cause she's not abusive and loves me and all but like... idk. it felt bad. she's more accepting than my dad but still yk having a transgender child is hard. she doesnt want her baby girl to rlly be a boy, and she's a non-aggressive terf and shit. idek if ill be demi for the rest of my life, its prolly jst a phase and shit cause i dont get much dysphoria but its still pretty upsetting in a way. i mean, i got into an argument w/ my sis abt micro-aggressions and whether or not they're harmful and i didnt explain it vry well (my sis is also openly transphobic despite being bi) and like it started when i tried to tell my lil bro not to say smt abt women, idk it was like stereo-typing or smt like that but he's only seven and i wanna help him grow up to be accepting unlike the kids in my school, but my sis... well. yk. and it sucked that i couldnt put into words how harmful micro-aggressions are without her making me feel fking sensitive or smt, and it sucked when my mam and stepdad acted like i was making a fuss over nothing, when its not nothing, its my whole fucking life. but my sis acts like im being a child cause yk, transphobic, like our dad, so. idk, its jst rlly fking shitty. i thought i was accepting of my identity but ppl keep making me second guess myself and my beliefs concerning basic human rights. it sucks so much. i shouldnt feel afraid of even expressing my opinion that trans women arent predators, or feel scared to tell my mam that atm i am a boy (technically i am, i think she'd have a stroke if i tried to explain what demi is xD) despite her being prolly the most supportive person in my close family. ppl shouldnt have to feel this way abt literally the most basic part of their identity. its jst not fair, and it sucks. idw feel like idw be queer, cause being queer is beautiful and the community is amazing, but sometimes i jst get so fking tired, and thats w/ me being in a lot more accepting family and community than most ppl. if i wasnt demi & biromantic i wouldnt be me, and i know that for sure, but sometimes i cant help but think of how easy it would b to jst be cishet, at least for shit like this. its pride month and i cant even b proud of who i am rn. its easy when im w/ my friends or watching an ot/click/jamie vid, but when im alone or w/ my family i jst... i hate it sm. if i wasnt queer, maybe a lot of my problems wld go away. if i wasnt queer, maybe id feel accepted at school and w/ family. if i wasnt queer, maybe id love myself a little bit more.
idk, its jst fking hard, especially when ppl say the lgbtqia+ community is like being unreasonable or dramatic or some bullshit like that, when they dont have to feel everything that we feel on a daily fucking basis. ive been so lucky with me being bi (practically everyone in my family is accepting of lgb) its jst my gender and asexuality thats causing problems, and if i cant even handle a little bit of discrimination that isnt even real discrimination, i cant imagine what its like for ppl in aggresively homophobic and transphobic environments. it makes me want to kms and hms when i think of all the ppl getting treated less than human or sinners or anything like that jst cause they arent smt that they are supposedly born to be... god, fking terfs and bigots make me sick, man. even the gaslighting and micro-aggressions are jst so disgusting. im so sorry to everyone dealing with discrimination. i wish i could help u somehow. i wld do anything to make this shit stop. jst know that i and others in our community love you so much even if atm it seems like no one else does.
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coochiequeens · 2 months
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An old article but relevant with some moid musician turned activist attacking women on the basis that sometimes their views line up with conservatives
https://unherd.com/2023/10/does-billy-bragg-have-a-woman-problem/
Julie Bindel OCTOBER 3, 2023   
Louise Distras was once a darling of the anti-establishment Left. An underground punk singer whose hits include “Dreams From the Factory Floor”, this working-class woman is unafraid to speak her mind. Five years ago, she was being invited onstage by Billy Bragg, the folk singer and progressive activist — but since then, a lot has changed. Recently, Bragg has publicly and repeatedly condemned Distras, because she had done what she has always done: speak out against misogyny. This time, though, she was criticising the backlash against women who refuse to recite the “trans women are women” mantra.
Distras has been expressing concern about gender ideology in private since late 2021, but the first time she went public with her opinions was in May of this year. “I’m a woman, and a woman is an adult human female,” she said in an interview with Louder than War, a music website. “I’m a woman that’s experienced domestic abuse.” She later made comments, on Twitter, about how women are silenced for questioning gender ideology: “No amount of rainbows and ‘kindness’ can hide the authoritarianism and misogyny and homophobia that’s on display here, especially in the arts.”
Born in Wakefield in 1987, Distras ran away from home in her teens and, she told me, “stayed with a lot of dangerous people who took advantage of me”. She turned to song writing as a form of escape. Her bravery is remarkable. But as soon as her straightforward resistance to gender ideology became known, she was met with horrendous abuse. Distras has been called every name under the sun, including anti-trans, Nazi, scum, prostitute, grifter, child serial killer, and witch. She soon realised that she had been “marked for life” as a “disgusting terf” — that no redemption would ever be possible. She was told she deserves to be chucked out of the music industry. Her booking agency has said that her attitude towards transwomen could “have detrimental effects on [her] musical career”. Radio stations have stopped playing her songs and venues cancelled her gigs. “If I go back to the industry as it stands,” she says, “if someone had the balls to book me for a gig, I would likely be physically attacked. It’s not safe.”
Having been rejected by the majority of her contacts in the music industry, Distras decided she might as well use her voice to speak out. Alongside five other women, her testimony featured in the Daily Mail about the experience of being ostracised for daring to question gender ideology. One of the first derogatory reactions was from Bragg. “What??”, he tweeted, linking to the feature, which included a photograph of Distras — who usually wears black and leather on stage — wearing a formal dress. “Louise Distras hates trans people so much that she’s willing to dress in a style acceptable to Daily Mail readers in order to have a go at them. What does this have to do with feminism Louise? Or punk rock?”
Bragg fancies himself a bit of a trans ally. And prides himself on being an all-round anti-sexist bloke. In 2014, he posed with a sign, “I pledge never to commit, condone, or remain silent about men’s violence against women in all its forms,” as part of the White Ribbon campaign.
Back in the early days of her career, Bragg championed Distras as one of a “new breed” of singers, tweeting in 2013 that her song Love Me The Way I Am should be our next Eurovision entry. Another of her songs, The Hand You Hold, is about how what women say and do should matter more than how we look, and she tells me that “Billy for some reason loved that song and that’s why he invited me to go play on his stage” — which she did that year, at Glastonbury, and again in 2017. “So for him to now take a pop at me and start criticising what I look like instead of actually listening to what I have to say means he is the biggest hypocrite.”
But it is not only men who have gone after Distras. In a recent interview with Kerrang!, Phoebe Lunny of the Lambrini Girls reacted to Distras speaking out against trans ideology and the silencing of women: “I will scrap any Terf, any day, in person, with my fists.” In a tweet, Distras pointed to the hypocrisy of claiming to be progressive while “inciting violence against women”. She also condemned Kerrang! for publishing the remarks, saying she is “ashamed my face was printed on its pages. Vile!”
Spoken word poet Amelia Vandergast also responded angrily to Distras’s public statements about being cancelled by trans activists. In a feature entitled, “Wipe away the terf tears: freedom of expression was never permission to perpetuate hate in the music industry”, published in A&R Factory website, she wrote:
“In the recent Daily Mail article, which attempted to portray women as the victims of their transphobic hate, Louise Distras bemoaned the journalists, radio stations, and her booking agency who rightly refuse to have anything to do with her for the self-piteous bile spewed across her social media platforms (anyone got a tiny little violin I can borrow?)”
For Distras, the hypocrisy within the so-called radical music scene is appalling. While the misogyny of trans activists is ignored, women are viciously attacked for daring to defend their sex-based rights. She is one of a growing list of female artists criticising cancel culture — a phenomenon of which Bragg denies the existence.
But Bragg has form. He has dismissed feminist concerns about self-identification and argued that, owing to our incompatible “hardware”, lesbians are biologically ill-equipped for sex with other women and should therefore understand the plight of men claiming to be female. When Maya Forstater was harassed by trans activists in the street, Bragg suggested that she could not possibly have been scared or upset, because she appeared to be smiling. This is a classic sexist trope. Too often, women are told by men to “Give us a smile” when we complain about being sexually harassed by them, and yet women are informed we must have enjoyed the harassment if we attempt to laugh it off.
“I think he’s a misogynist,” Distras says, of Bragg. “I think it’s just plain to see for everybody and the way he is — the way that so many men are in the music industry.” She talks about how uncomfortable she has felt with him, describing him as “creepy”. “He’s everything he says he’s not. His words and his actions just don’t match up for me… The way he goes after women over the trans issue has made it really clear to me that he’s just a misogynist, and that he just doesn’t care about women”. She says what many feminists have said of many men in recent years: “The trans thing is just an excuse for him to bully women with impunity and do it publicly and get applauded for it.”
Bragg also showed no sympathy for Róisín Murphy, another female singer-songwriter who has faced the wrath of trans activists. After a private Facebook conversation in which she criticised the policy of giving children puberty blockers was leaked, she was admonished by Bragg for holding the wrong opinion. “Them’s the breaks,” Bragg tweeted when it was suggested that Murphy was being punished by having BBC coverage and concerts cancelled. “Think before you post is my advice, especially on issues that are contentious.” This is cowardice.
Distras strongly feels that the music industry used to be about “freedom of expression and freedom of speech”, but is currently in thrall to gender ideology and “totally monotheistic”. “There’s an urgent need to build a new one, with a proper counterculture that isn’t dominated by misogynists like Billy Bragg, where women have actually got a proper say,” she says, telling me she has had numerous messages from female musicians who are too scared to speak out — especially after seeing what happened to Murphy. “It’s well established that violence towards women is a massive problem in the music industry,” says Distras, “and here they are inciting more violence, and the rest of the music industry just applauds them for it and tells them they are stunning and brave.”
“We need more musicians to come forward courageously and without apology. There’s been so much support for me, and there will be for the other women. And the more of us that stand up, the more these men like Billy Bragg will not be so dominant.”
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