#like let me explain what I mean here: trans men aren't seen as men by transphobes

[lord-radish]

imagine thinking that trans men are inherently bad or evil or predatory on the basis of gendered privilege and societal power structures. cringe

[ariestarfairy]

Gale Dekarios: A Mansplainer or a Wizardsplainer? And I am off on another Gale related topic yet again, this time it involves a small subset of individuals who believe that Gale Dekarios is a mansplainer. Yes you heard it, Gale Dekarios is a mansplainer! I know, I know I want to roll my eyes hard enough to see the back of my skull as well. Let me preface this by saying I am not here to undermine the harm that mansplaining does to the recipients, typically anyone presenting as a women or playing as a woman. Mansplaining is a real problem in the gaming, TTRPG, and LARP-ing world. As someone who identifies as a woman I know this. When you are maligned, treated like you don't understand, talked down to, objectified, or your character is side-lined as milady who is helpless or forced into certain roles with expectations, it is infuriating. I just want my female barbarian to feast on the flesh of her enemies and use their splintered bones as toothpicks without someone saying women aren't supposed to do that. Mostly it's because your woman presenting character is too masculine and dude-bro paladin needs a girlfriend to protect and do the dirt with (because that's all your character is good for, oh and maybe healing), but we are not here for it. I've seen this happen to men playing characters that are women as well, it's a disease. It sucks, you experience it enough and any time a man starts talking it can be a trigger. I get it! With that in mind I think mansplaining loses its meaning when we take it out of context and just apply it to any kind of trigger. Context matters, understanding the material matters, the lore matters. What does not matter in Baldur's Gate 3 is your character's gender. Let's be very clear, if you are playing the game through the lens of a woman and your character is also a woman and you think Gale is mansplaining to you then you need to reset your game and play it as a man. I tend to spice up my gender variety for funsies and if you are constantly playing as the gender that matches your gender identity you might just view the game through that lens. I'm also going to be real I'm a M/M slasher, I go back and play Gale and Astarion as the origin protags because Bloodweave for life baby! But I do mix it up with genders. So what happens when you are playing entirely through a singular lens, when you are a woman playing as a character that is a woman? You might look at Gale as a mansplainer, but the reality is he's running on a script and he is going to say the same thing to you if you are speaking to him as a cis-man/woman, trans-man/woman, non-binary, or if you are Astarion (okay you might get a bit of variation because it's Astarion and not Tav), but the script is still the script. Your Tav is going to get the script. Now the second part of this is that Gale is a Wizard, you know when someone is a wizz they are very good and successful at the thing they do. Okay so if you are playing as a Sorcerer or some other magically tangent class, you might think Gale is a magic snob, that you are a Sorcerer or you are also playing a character that knows magic as well and him explaining magic to you is him being condescending and talking down to you. No. Gale is a Wizard, Wizards are magically superior, their knowledge is magically superior, this is the rule not the exception. Pick up your D&D handbook, flip to the part where it talks about Wizards and it will tell you they are supreme magic users, they are scholars of the arcane, they are the mathematicians and programmers of magic. They understand it. They have the Ph.D., Sorcerers at best have their A.S., and any other class that uses magic has their H.S. Diploma or G.E.D. Sorcerers are talented magic users, but their knowledge is limited, they rely on raw potential and inherent ability. They don't have the same range because they did not go to graduate school, but they believe they are superior due to carrying a magical birthright through bloodline.

[queenofthearchipelago]

The good omens fandom has been disappointing lately, and I don't mean because of Neil. I mean because of the small pocket who lashed out at Neil not long ago.

For those reading my post out of context, let me explain quickly that Neil has always said, very specifically so, that Aziraphale and Crowley are not men, and therefore are not gay. That being gay is a human thing, and angels and demons generally don't even really understand it. (This is not a direct quote from him, but I've read this sentiment from him a few times.) And in response to that, I've seen popular members in this fandom respond in harsh anger because they feel that when Neil says these things, that it comes from a place of internalized homophobia that he's been holding onto like his life depends on it for the last 30 years.

If I may gently offer a different perspective... and please do not come for me, I really genuinely do not want to interact in debate or argument, I simply want to lay out how I see this, and lay it down as a kinder perspective for those it may help.

Neil (and Michael and David) have always used incredibly vague language to determine who and what exactly Aziraphale and Crowley are to each other. The only consistencies are that they are an angel and a demon and they love each other, they're in love with each other.

If it comes to answering any questions more specific than that, like if they're gay, then the answer is that Aziraphale and Crowley are not men, they're supernatural beings.

This is not coming from a place of bias, this is coming from a place of protecting the fandom.

This fandom is such a diverse and beautiful place. I see many people who headcanon them as being gay. I also have met people here who headcanon them as lesbians. As being trans. As being asexual. As gender fluid. As being every different type of orientation and identity possible. The theories and headcanons on who and what Aziraphale and Crowley are, is just as varied as every single person in the fandom.

And that's so important.

For a group of people who know what it feels like to not have representation on screen... for some since the book has come out more than 30 years ago and for some who have only come into this fandom with show 5 ish years ago, you guys know how important representation is.

I can't help but feel that some of this frustration and anger towards Neil for not blatantly saying that it's a gay love story comes from a place of wanting their version of Aziraphale and Crowley to be deemed superior to the others at the cost of erasure of the orientations and identities possible in everyone else's headcanons.

It's a queer love story, whatever that means to you. Before the first season aired, Neil directly said that no one was trying to take your version of Aziraphale and Crowley away from you. And do we not all read the same blog? I see posts from this man celebrating how different members of his readership, young and old, find representation and comfort within this story he AND TERRY PRATCHETT made.

I do wonder if you would treat Terry this way. I sure hope not.

We're never going to get Neil Gaiman saying these characters are gay, because it would crack the very rare and delicate and beautiful thing that's been created here. A couple of characters in a deeply loving relationship where you the audience get to decide what their relationship is? Where you get to decide their gender, because they literally don't have one? A story where the characters could genuinely, canonically, be like you because there's nothing inside the story saying that aren't like you? Where that freedom to interpret is part of the very foundation of the characters?

What other story would you guys be getting that from? Because I don't see any others like that on any bookshelf I've scanned recently.

Neil isn't going to ruin that for you.

And even if he did, he's also directly said that his stories speak for themselves. He isn't Word of God. Neil doesn't pretend that extra information he brings on Tumblr dot com actually adds anything to the story we all watched. That stands on its own, anything extra he may say or not is up to us to decide if we think it's canon or not. Do you, yes you, very specifically YOU... do you care about Word of God? Do you care about Author's Intent?

These are choices you make as a reader, as a viewer of intelligent television.

Aziraphale and Crowley are whatever you want them to be. They're in love. They always have been. And whatever that means to you, is yours and you can have that and share that and no one (not even Neil Gaiman) is ever going to take that precious thing away from you.

So write your fanfics and draw your fanart and participate in roleplays and take your comfort and guard your peace.

It's supposed to be safe here.

[drbased]

Another go at taking something apart

Here I am, having fun again. Let's go over this, shall we:

What is being labelled here as 'radical feminism' is literally just feminism. The rhetoric that 'led to transphobia' is just... feminist rhetoric. There is absolutely zero difference in rhetoric I have seen between classic feminism and what is labelled 'radical feminism' today. Liberal feminism, as we know it, has opted to take a position that is antithetical to most feminist points. A keen-eyed reader may think 'hey, if what you're saying/doing is literally the opposite of what feminism recognises and suggests, then that sounds like anti-feminism'. Funny, that. But no, we have to present this image of radical feminism as the cursed form of feminism that is splintered off from the normal feminism.

Classical feminist understanding takes a typical leftist approach of recognising an oppressor class and an oppressed class. If you believe that there was zero recognition of interlocking factors, then you're just showing your ignorance of feminist history, and also you haven't even read a single damn book. There are lots of versions of feminist thought, some more intersectional than others, but none of them stray away from the base recognition of the male oppression from women. They do this successfully without needed to make women 'ontological' victims (once again, we have an example of unecessary words thrown in to make OP sound academic and complex, because if you remove the word 'ontological' you're left with the clause 'women as victims and men as abusers' - it cuts a bit too deep when you say it that way, and it makes it harder to make (radical) feminists sound unreasonable. Funny, that. (Also, they also use the phrase 'simple asab' to achieve the same affect - minimising the impact of 'assigned sex at birth' aka sex on our social conditioning - aka socialisation. Sounds a pretty cowardly way to engage with politics, if you ask me.)

No radical feminist acts as if all women are the same. Feminism has achieved so much without needing to do this. But they have to keep asserting this. They have to take the blunt logic of feminism and mangle it, obfuscate and over-complicate it, then turn around and say that we're the ones who view things simply. It's this video in a nutshell - hey so want to pretend that they have the real complicated answer and that we have the conspiracy theory. It's projection, plain and simple.

They didn't really explain how what we say is 'fucking bioessentialism' but hey, it was asserted with confidence, so I guess it must be so. As for it leading to transphobia, well.... I guess it does, if you have a curiously broad definition of transphobia. There's no real reason why a feminist recognition of how men oppress women would automatically lead to the discrimination of trans people; women aren't the ones firing employees for being trans, or denying trans people housing or whatever. It's akin to the right-wing rhetoric of 'the immigrants are stealing your jobs': women are being blamed for the male neurotic need to keep bioessentialist ideas alive so they can justify why men deserve to oppress women. Any allowance of gender non-conformity or homosexuality means that men's little patriarchal house of cards falls down (in theory) - so they have to preserve this concept that men are from mars and women are from venus, and that that's a neutral fact. Feminist recognition of this bioessentialism and how it's used to naturalise the oppression of our sex is the same as how any oppressed group recognises their status. It does not require a leap into believing that trans people deserve to be harassed, or anything of the sort. But the TRAs have to keep up the narrative that it must be a guaranteed pipeline, because that's all they've got.

And there isn't a guaranteed pipeline. Not really. Sure, conservative hate groups can co-opt feminist rhetoric, just as any right-wing group can and does co-opt leftist rhetoric. I believe I know what they're referring to 'in the 80s' but I don't remember enough about it to comment (was it involving Gail Dines working for the CIA or something like that?). The thing is, I've seen them make these little leaps in logic over and over again; they never really can seem to explain why feminist recognition of biological sex actually leads to hatred and discrimination of trans people in any sort of material sense that would mark trans people as a specific, coherent oppressed class. Now, I do believe that trans people are part of an oppressed class of sorts - homosexual men with dysphoria are used as the seedy underbelly of patriarchy: a way for male homosexuality to function in secret so that the house of cards stays upright; meanwhile, dysphoric women have been discovered to be useful muddiers of the feminist/gay rights activist water, fracturing the movements from within. Also the transgender movement has resulted in the mass sterilisation of many people who would have considered themselves gay/lesbian in a previous era - now they're considering themselves straight and trans. Is that really fighting some sort of bioessentialism, or is it conforming to it?

There is a real issue with radical feminists allying with right-wing groups (I talk about that quite a lot), but I see it as a fracturing of the feminist consciousness and a lack of political awareness caused by the general political climate - including a poisoning of the leftist well by identity-driven anti-politics, such as choice feminism and genderism. I could be wrong, but with every feminist text I read all I can see is that 'transphobic' feminism is just regular feminism, and regular feminism as well know it survived pretty well as a broadly leftist movement for over a century. What I have also seen is that feminism has always been labelled as something bourgeois. Given that men have demonstrably oppressed women since the dawn of time, I'm always willing to give feminism - and LGB activism - the benefit of the doubt. Lord knows, men have so so much to gain from the demonisation of feminism and LGB activism, and it doesn't seem all-too-unlikely to me that men would use whatever angle they can to try to destroy them. Leftist men are still men, and men are still the oppressor class - no need to be ontological about it. So tell me, TRAs, are you intersecting feminism with all the other issues you care about? Why do you think liberal feminism has failed, or is radical feminism the only feminism successfully poisoned by right-wing politics designed to support the oppressor class?

[cruelsister-moved2]

i'm talking to a beloved friend about how upsetting the whole "bi lesbian" business is to me as a lesbian, but he believes that labels aren't important, that it isn't really hurting anyone, that people should live and let live, that this stuff divides the community, etc., and i don't know what to say to that or how to convince him that it matters and i'm wondering if he's right. you're one of the most well-articulated blogs i know, so i wanted to ask what you think (unless it's too upsetting/controversial of a topic). what would you say?

sorry I took a while to answer this I just never feel like i have the head space to give a decent answer!

i mmean first of all assuming your friend isn't a lesbian that's pretty rich of him to assume its his place to decide. one thing I run into a lot is people who aren't lesbians and don't understand the relationship between lesbians and men is not comparable to the relationship between gay men and women. there's complex dynamics of oppression and misogyny here but to put it very bluntly, basically every lesbian either has, or knows another lesbian who has, been sexually assaulted by a man specifically because they are a lesbian. the politics of sexual availability are just utterly incomparable between lesbians and gay men and it's frankly extremely heartless not to care about WHY lesbians can be more protective of keeping men out than gay men are with women.

secondly, ironically, it's kind of just essentialising labels to use terms like this. the words lesbian and bisexual are both super clear about what they mean. when I hear the term bi lesbian im honestly just confused because some of them mean a bi girl who prefers women, some of them mean a bi girl who somehow identifies with lesbianism politically(?), or a perjorative against lesbians who are dating trans women, and more often than that it doesn't seem to mean anything in particular and is just a useless and confusing term stuck on in front of the word "bisexual" which was already explaining the situation fine on its own. I have literally seen people using the term who were gay trans men so I mean who the fuck knows 😭😭😭 there just isn't a question being asked to which "bi lesbian" is the answer.

thirdly, there's literally only one word to describe a woman who is never attracted to men. there are so many words for sexual fluidity or whatever that it's just capricious to decide you also need the ONE which applies to us. and people claiming words don't have meaning or whatever like yes and we apply meaning to them it's how we communicate. people calling themselves bi lesbians KNOW what the word colloquially means and that's exactly why they want to use it, it literally has that appeal to them because of us 😭😭😭 but you can't be a lesbian at your core based on vibe or something. it, like every other label, is something you pick to fit to what you're already doing. like you can call yourself a lesbian all you want but if you're not Doing Lesbianism then you're just essentialising some inherent meaning to the term that doesn't exist. any meaning it has is imparted by us, lesbians, doing lesbianism, regardless of how non-lesbians feel about that!!

finally, in an appeal to emotion, I don't think people who aren't lesbians realise how cruel this shit is. being a lesbian in this patriarchal society is so deeply exhausting and traumatic and isolating and I don't think people realise how much it seeps into every interaction. people don't recognise how vulnerable we are, how small a group of the lgbt community we are, and how little we are made to feel welcome when we really need a community that accepts us for who we are & lets us be us. the fact our boundaries are afforded less concern than like someone's right to feel edgy by cosplaying as us is a case in point!! lesbians deserve some fucking peace of mind!!!

final point but it's important to say that this isn't gatekeeping because no one is stopping you from BEING a lesbian. if you want to be a woman and only date women you can ;I find it kind of funny because if you want to be a lesbian that bad then be my guest <333 we are just asking for the word to be applied accurately. like if we're all in agreement that a word doesn't define who you are then you can't like change who you are by applying an inaccurate word to it

[xueyuverse]

hi, saw your post about lesbian label and there's something as a lesbian myself I've been wondering about for a while, if you don't mind asking

why does it also include non-men or simply being explained as 'attraction to non-men'? wouldn't it make more sense to create another sexuality label for people who don't view themselves in binary terms, since there are so many labels explaining attraction in details?

Hi. So other non-binary labels actually already exist, like neptunic and venusic. However, every queer label needs to encompass non-binarity, after all, one of the community's struggles is to accept all types of people who are not in the chap standard, which is proven when we realize that binary genders such as “man and woman” are, in fact, , white settler views on gender. In indigenous cultures, for example, non-binarity has always been present.

This is why the “female sex” is the “weaker sex”, because the term “woman” was created with the purpose of submission. This is also why many lesbian women, even though they claim to be women, are seen as if they “want to be men”, as “predators”, because in the end, labels such as lesbian and gay deviate from stereotypical gender rules: you can only be a woman if you perform femininity and are attracted to the opposite cis binary gender, if you do not fit into this pattern your gender (and your sexuality, if you are a straight woman in a relationship with a trans man) will be questioned and you will be ridiculed.

Understand that me saying this doesn't mean that I'm denying the feminine and masculine identities, these identities exist, heterosexuality exists, but these identities are part of an oppressive-controlling system that assigns gender roles to people before they are even born. Sexuality is linked to these roles, which is why it's so common to see gay men being called “women”, especially if they are feminine but still men, and yet their gender is questioned both because of their sexuality and because of their performance.

And more than that: feminine gay men are called women in a pejorative way, but if it's in fact a trans woman, people will soon see the man they don't see in feminine gay men.

This is why non-binaryism is included in strongly binary labels: because cis straight binary doesn't include queer people. Lesbian women, whether performing masculinity or not, aren't women enough for the cis straight binary, so much so that in many feminist movements they're expelled because they're seen as predators. The same goes for gay men in their given reality.

I will go further here and also say that transphobia, racism and misogyny are also interconnected. If you’ve ever seen the news about black (cis) women being beaten by men for being “mistaken for trans women,” then you know where I’m going.

So, if every person who deviates even slightly from the binary gender stereotype isn't their gender enough, then why exclude non-binary people from labels if what they represent is part of the counterpoint of the cis straight system? In the end, no matter how binary a queer label is, it will never be binary like chap labels, and that will always cause us violence. And that's why non-binarity is on every label.

That's also why we've reached the point where we realize that no one is born with a certain gender. As Simone de Beauvoir said: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”.

In my case and that of many others, I didn't become a woman, but I discovered myself as a lesbian thanks to all my experiences in a heterosexual system. Therefore, excluding non-binary people, who don't identify with any gender, makes no sense: because binary (which we know) is, in the end, a chap model that queer and racialized people aren't covered by it.

Another example of how the West is influenced by the European binary, just look at how Western people react to Asian beauty standards.

This is also why the label pansexual, for example, currently has the same "meaning" (let's say this for simplicity's sake) as bisexual, because pansexual at the time the label was created with the intention of including trans people, and nowadays we know that all sexuality includes trans people, and bisexuality, like pansexuality, is about attraction to either gender (pansexual is still used and is super valid, just like any other label, because of its context and historical value).

Finally, non-binarity isn't a "third gender", something mystical that doesn't exist or that should be treated as something separate, which is why its inclusion in both transgenderity and strongly binary labels is also important, after all "what is it like to be a man?", "what is it to be a woman?", "how does this directly affect my sexuality? If at all."

I strongly suggest reading the texts of Leslie Feinberg, who was a butch lesbian activist who lived as a lesbian trans person in the 70s, so you can understand much more how the trans, non-binary and lesbian struggles go hand in hand, and get to know both more of the non-binary movement and how the chap system works.

Making it very clear that none of this is to say that “binarity doesn't exist”, but rather that queer binary isn't the same as chap binary, and it's a counterpoint to chap binary that goes hand in hand with non-binarity, just as the binary we know also does not include racialized people.

Seeing the world from a binary, white and European perspective is limiting and excluding. What isn't accepted is transformed until you understand that it's not about acceptance.

[transmasc-wizard]

Hi! Sorry to bother but could you explain what transandrophobia is please? /g

deeeeeeeeeeeep sigh (not at you. simply at what I may be inviting to my inbox). it's not a bother! I just hope i don't get death threats now!

Also: I am in math class so this may take awhile to answer lol

Anyway! so, first of all, there is controversy around this word's creator (idk who he even is? but there is). I have not looked into it, because it's about NSFW things, which as a sex-repulsed ace minor, I do not want to look at. But I do believe that regardless of a creator, a word can be good--look at comphet. It's a very important word for a lot of lesbians, including trans lesbians, but the creator was a TERF.

From what I have seen, transandrophobia is very basic: it's literally just specific oppression faced by transmascs, for being transmasc. It can also be our specific oppression intersection of misogyny and transphobia that we face, which is often very different from transfems'.

It's also been called transmisandry, transandromisia, transmascphobia, and virilmisia. Basically all of them work; I use transandrophobia and transandromisia for the very basic reason that they're the easiest for me to pronounce & remember how to spell (so is virilmisia, but that is a very unknown word).

I don't like transmisandry as a word, because it very much mirrors transmisogyny, which implies transandrophobia and transmisogyny are opposites; they aren't. In fact, transfems can be affected by transandrophobia too! See: the UK's HRT restriction laws, which were largely (though not wholly) put into place to stop Poor Little Girls(TM) from Ruining Their Bodies, but also hurts transfems & transneutral people who need HRT.

A lot of people seem to think that systemic transandrophobia existing means systemic misandry/androphobia exists, but it doesn't! Words mean things, that's why the trans on the front of the word is crucial to it's existence. (/nm at anyone who thought the implication tho.)

Some examples of transandrophobia are:

the whole "confused little girls" infantilization thing (see also: "confused lost lesbians")

the "traitor to womanhood" idea and "choosing to become an oppressor" idea of what transmascs are

the attempt to "save" transmascs by radfems (save = force through conversion therapy)

the extreme invisibility faced by transmascs & especially trans men (which is fed into by the hypervisibility of transfems. neither hypervisibility or invisibility are privileges)

cis MLM spaces' conversations about "fujoshis" can be very transandrophobic (acting like trans mlm are just girls with fetishes)

treating trans men as "men lite"/less men

the whole fetish-y "i would date a trans man because they're Men Who Understand" thing

the demonization of very masculine trans men/mascs and of trans men of colour (the latter especially often get ignored in conversations about demonization)

the fetishization and infantilization of femme/androgynous trans men & transmascs

treating butches as bad! This is an example of transandrophobia that can hurt transfems and cis women, too--the idea that being a masculine woman is bad can oft be born from transandrophobic ideals (and transmisogynistic ones, this crosses over a bit)

"kill all men including trans men", as if trans men have anything close to the systemic power that cis men do

in general, assuming that just because a white straight thin binary fully transitioned trans man can sometimes access male privilege, all transmascs can

also, see: "transmascs are transitioning to gain male privilege" (which doesn't work for a variety of reasons???)

the extremely feminine language across the abortion debate, "if men could get abortions they'd be free", the refusal to stop gendering quote-unquote "women's healthcare".

this is just all off the top of my head, but I hope that's a comprehensive enough list to let people know what I'm talking about.

Additionally: If anyone tries to play Oppression Olympics here (in any direction), they get blocked. We gain nothing from splitting hairs over Who Has It The Most Bad, and as an ace it reminds me of "aphobia isn't bad enough so you don't matter".

Additionally additionally: I'd love to hear other trans people's experiences of transandrophobia, to better explain. (This includes transfems and transneutrals who have been targeted by transandrophobia.)

Additionally additionally additionally: @transmascissues and @stopcannibalizingourown are two blogs that post a lot of good stuff about transandrophobia! (stopcannibalizingourown in particular has a lot of good transphobia discussions in general, about all it's forms.)

TLDR: Transandrophobia is just a word to describe specific oppression of transmascs, just like ceterophobia (discrimination against nonbinary people) and transmisogyny (discrimination against trans women/transfems).

[echidna-auxiliatrix]

Bleh. Here's my onion on the lesbian flag discourse. Feel free to ignore.

I hope this blows over soon. I really do. I've seen at least 20 proposed new flags and most of them aren't even from lesbians. I can't see any of these new flags taking off. None of them have memorable color schemes which is the strength of a good pride flag imo. You have the infamous rainbow, the neon pan trifecta, the pastel trans flag, and the complementary color scheme of the NB flag just to name a few. And the current lesbian flag thats being used is monochromatic pink. It's a flag that's been here for me ever since I realized I liked girls over 2 years ago now. I have no connection to these new flags and I don't have any real reason to embrace them. I love the pink flag so much in part because of my synesthesia- the shades of pink have this awesome aroma and taste (btw for anyone who doesn't have synesthesia in my case the tastes and smells arent literal like I dont taste and sniff colors like terezi or anything. I might make a post explaining more later.) and a lot of these new flags just look...dull. I also think its very telling that lesbians after all these years STILL don't have a widely used pride flag for ourselves. Even on #woke tumblr a lot of ppl leave us out of pride posts. Lesbians have a rich complec history separate from gay men due to the differing ways we were persecuted throughout history which is why we deserve a separate flag (no shade to lesbians who use the rainbow flag, you do you!) But like. I havr the pink flag in my room at my mom's house! She bought it for me for my 18th birthday this year and it was probably the best gift I received. Yes, I have heard the 2 main reasons for this new discourse:

1.) The stripes have no meaning

We can apply meanings to the stripes! It's that simple.

2.) The creator of the flag was very racist.

Yes I have read the evidence for that claim and let me say that racism in that blog post was absolutely disgusting. I'm getting flashbacks now to how terfs co-opted the purple labrys flag to where that flag is now seen as synonymous with terf. I've seen non terf lesbians try and reclaim that flag recently and I think that's awesome! But I won't use that flag for myself personally. The difference between the pink flag and the labrys flag is that unlike the labrys flag, there isnt a subgroup of violently racist lesbians who have claimed that flag for themselves specifically like terfs have done with the labrys flag. The pink flag wasn't made specifically to promote racism. I bet you could dig up all sorts of problematic shit about the creators of all the popular flags and we could all go on a frenzy of trying to redesign and make less problematic flags BUT. What is the point of a pride flag in the first place? Some would say its more personal and ithers would say it ties oneself to a community- in the latter. If youre using an obscure redesign flag nobody knows about how does that tie you into the broader community? I get you could make this argument with the pink flag too since its still a bit obscure but it's on the Google images search for lesbian pride flag so its gained some traction. Idk I mean the pink flag is just recently getting traction like within the past year or so and its so far gone from its original creator too. Nobody knew about this until someone dug up an old blog post from like 2010 or 2009 I think? And yes let me say again that I think the blatant racism in that blog post is indeed revolting. Ugh. Idek where I'm going with this anymore but I will say that I won't adopt any of these redesigns unless they gain serious traction.