#supporting trans people and especially trans women comes before hating terfs

[p2iimon]

why does nobody on the internet know what being a fucking terf is. terf doesnt just mean transphobe or wed just call them transphobes. that alpha male on twitter isnt a fucking terf you arent going to argue effectively to your audience

[trans-androgyne]

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.

[phantomram-b00]

Why is Harry Potter trending (or was)? Can it not? Like deadass I’m being fr can it plz not. Especially that J.K Rowling is a massive TERF, a raging antisemite, and disgustingly try to deny that trans people were not affected by the Holocaust (which she was ratio’d by George Takei).

“Proof?”

Way ahead of you: (Tw: transphobia, racism, antisemitism, holocaust, Harry Potter)

Oh and don’t get me started how Hogwart Legacy, you know that game that was sworn Jk Rowling wasn’t apart of (yeah sure-) is blood libel story. Not to mention that trans people have told you not to especially since there is a canonical transgender character named Sirona. (People said Sirona is a Celtic goddess for healing. but- come on. You can’t bullshit out of this one. There are OTHER NAMES TO NAME A TRANSGENDER CHARACTER— it make those joke with how Jk Rowling naming not far off. Because it like naming a nonbinary character “NoGendora” or smth (before you say, I’m nonbinary myself—) so idc if it already have a meaning, it still is tone deaf to name a transgender women Sirona).

“But but- you can separate the art from the artist?”

Yes. You can separate art from the artist. HOWEVER before you celebrate thinking you had a gotcha moment. You can only separate if the art itself isn’t problematic or is bigotry itself. Harry Potter is as mention in the links. Not to mention, Harry Potter himself become a cop despite the cop in that world didn’t do jack shit. And don’t get me started on how they handle the whole elf slavery. Also there is heavy fatphobia in this story, proof, look at how they would talk about Harry’s abusive aunt and uncle from his mother’s side. Don’t get me started how she would describe Rita Skeeter. There even a black character who’s last names is Shacklebolt— do I need to say more (if I’m missing any other examples please tell me)

Not to mention she benefits off of it and uses her money to donate to transphobia and just don’t give a flying fuck if she offend people (which seem to usually be the case for trans/homophobia but moving on). like, this is who you wanna support? You still want to read this wizard book when there are other that don’t have transphobia, racist, antisemitic, or any problematic rhetoric and are objectively better than Harry Potter? Really? You wanna die on this hill?

Look. I used to like Harry Potter. but that was before I knew what a dirtbag of a fucking human she is (I didn’t really have social media at the time), and I cringe as I wish I learn sooner that she was a deplorable person who hates trans people like myself (nonbinary respectfully). But, I can happily say Fuck Harry Potter that series can burn in a trash for all I care and I hope the hbo series flops on its ass. And also fuck Jk Rowling, she can fuck off for all I care. That being said, If you support Harry Potter/Jk Rowling, unfollow me. Block me. Because I do not support Harry Potter/Jk Rowling. Because Trans rights/Gender Equality, Human rights are infinitely more important than a basic ass wizard book/movie with a even basic ass magic system when there are objectively better wizard/magic books that are respectful.

Anyway, that being said, Trans and basic human rights matter 🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵 🤭

Click here before liking the post

[wild-at-mind]

As of time of writing, Rishi Sunak is still refusing to apologise for the jibe at trans women in PMQ. (Apologise specifically to Brianna Ghey's parents, her mother at least being definetly present at the time.) What will the fallout for this be? This is only days after normally transphobic tabloids splashed the mugshots of Brianna's killers all over their front page with headlines like 'PURE EVIL'. It seemed the spectacle of 16 year old murderers overrode the fact that they normally don't care about trans people. Rishi's remark streamrolled one of the most important optics rules on most parts of the political spectrum- don't say things that upset the grieving family. On the other hand, Sunak was making a jibe that revealed the fact that most people currently in UK politics seem convinced that if they say 'trans women are women' it will not only prove catastrophic for their chance of being elected, it will also cause mobs of people to thrust stats at them supposedly proving that cis women will be in mortal danger. And that may happen! The statistical evidence isn't there at all, though, so I believe it would come to nothing if he rode it out. Anyway, it's the right thing to do. I believe that after a certain point, continually insisting trans women are not women makes you look deranged. I have a trans woman friend who told me she once asked a transphobic/gender critical aquaintance of ours during calm conversation 'how do you see me? What am I, if not a woman?' The aquaintance said 'you're a man dressed up.' Now, these gender critical people claim to be super duper pro GNC cis men (they aren't, because they are worried the GNC cis men might start IDing as trans, and they hate men anyway especially weird queer ones, so it's a non-starter.) But this person was essentially telling my friend 'you aren't what you have clearly demonstrated yourself to be'. It's often said that 'trans women are women' is an opinion, but in my eyes saying that trans women are not women is an opinion. This aquaintance was saying what she had been indocterinated to believe by her TERF online circles, and I don't think she's reachable (my friend is no longer trying, it was a one off conversation as far as I can tell). I've said this before but I maintain that politicians should stop dignifying the question of 'what is a woman? Define what a woman is!' because it's a question that is never asked in good faith. It's a gotcha, and you don't need to answer it and fall into whatever trap they are setting. You just need to put forth policies that support both cis women and trans women- showing support with your deeds and words. And Starmer should have a fucking backbone- Sunak isn't wrong there. If anything what Sunak did was very revealing because it shows he's used to being surrounded only by people who guffaw at the very idea that 'trans women are women' is something true in both theory and practice. Meanwhile trans people are becoming more visible and I truly believe within 20 years, both Sunak and Starmer will look like dinosaurs in much the same way as the homophobic politicians of yore were following a public zeitgeist that was quickly becoming outdated. It's a shame we never seem to learn from the past.

[genderisareligion]

~10 years ago, I was trans. Back then we knew we had a mental illness. We felt our bodies didn’t match our minds. We hoped changing our bodies would give us as much peace as possible, but we knew we couldn’t actually become the sex we wanted. I wished gay men and straight women would want me bc I wished I had a male body, but I knew I didn’t, and wouldn’t have imagined holding it against them. We all felt that way. Now instead of dysphorics, our movement has become overrun w/ antiscience rapists

I've been looking into this long enough to see this shift happen with my own two. It is disappointing that the transsexual/"transmed" community got demonized. Even while I hate gender and think it's a harmful placebo that benefits way less people than it harms, I still have sympathy for some people who believe in it the same way I feel about religious women as I used to be one. I've been struggling with anorexia most of my life and that has come with bouts of dysmorphia which I understand is distinct from dysphoria but similar enough that I know it's not always something that can just be "unbelieved in." It feels very real even if it's not and since the solution is impossible it can take a long time to heal from.

Before 2020 I considered myself a transmed ally and was especially reading/sharing content from FTMs because the only trans person I knew IRL was a transmed FTM (although he didn't call himself that and didn't even know what a TERF was when I asked lol fucking bless I love normies). Then the white supremacist shit happened (pinned post, some other shit a few weeks after that) as well as January 6th 2021 and I became officially disillusioned with all of gender. I still support him from over here because he's normal about his shit and is actually one of these people whose dysphoria and life quality did improve from going stealth but I'm also a staunch believer in "If there were no gender there'd be no dysphoria." (I'm not saying the fact that butch lesbians sometimes have easier lives as passing men is like fucking right or anything, just pointing out the objective fact I witnessed + he told me, that people left him alone more often and he was happier for that at least).

Does wanting gender abolished mean I think physical intervention is always unnecessary? For HRT and even some* reduction surgeries, not necessarily, I think it can depend on the severity (*SRS below the belt is pretty inhumane as it stands now but ethics in the plastic surgery world aren't what they are in the non elective world). I think it should be an absolute last resort and that a lot of people with dysphoria could go without and get some extensive form of therapy instead if our society wasn't so violently capitalistic via medicine, wasn't putting suffering people through an automated surgical assembly line to avoid doing the real work of trauma recovery. Trauma these people received from just like being born into violent capitalism and its sexism which of course the capitalists don't want to acknowledge so they tell you it's about your "gender identity"

Unfortunate trans is becoming synonymous with anti science and rape apologism because there used to be more to it than that

[minlex]

you are like.. literally just regurgitating 'all men bad' terfism. anti-men queer spaces are incredibly harmful to transmascs, amab nonbinaries, and non-passing (or butch) transfemmes, all of which are often bullied and harrassed out of spaces for 'being men' or 'man-like'. and it often puts transmascs in a position of 'admit you're not a REAL man and we'll offer you support, otherwise you're evil for being a man', which is once again, terfism. not to mention the way transmascs are often told we dont experience misogyny, or any other form of bigotry. it also reinforces the notion that queer men are vile, evil monsters that are not safe to be around. I've seen many amab trans people (nonbinary or binary) speak about how unwelcome (and even hated) they feel in those spaces, and as a transmasc who VERY MUCH gets harrassed by cishet men and deals with misogyny daily, i myself feel very uncomfortable around said people. idk. i just dont think that it's a bad take, but you do you. i don't mean to be invalidating or like. aggressive or whatever, so i am genuinely sorry if that's how i come across in this.

You raise a lot of genuine concerns, and I don't see anyone try to talk about this particularly in depth on here. So I'll try to give you as good of an answer as I can, and in turn I hope you'll interpret me in good faith (also feel free to DM me if you'd like). This is going to be fairly long, but I hope you'll read it.

To start of, I'm not a terf, however I do come from a place of understanding radical feminism and reading a lot of it. I wouldn't strictly place me in that box, but that is the main feminist theoretical stream I follow. That is with the understanding that trans women suffer under the same oppression as cis women, and with full understanding of trans women being women, and trans men being men, as well as non binary identities existing (I'll get more into that later).

When you mention "anti-men" spaces I'm a bit confused about exactly what you mean. What I am talking about is organisations with an understanding of patriarchy (not a perfect word, in Swedish we call it könsmaktsordningen which translates to "gender power structure" but you get what I mean). And use that understanding in practice with women-separatists spaces. These spaces can be permanent (with completely separatist groups), or they can be short term (having a separatist meeting before or after the big meeting, or certain separatist courses etc).

If this is done with a good understanding of gender and trans issues, it is good. And the separatism it self can look a lot different. The org I'm part of uses women's separatism for everyone who IDs as a woman. Including trans women. We also in some cases have separatism for people who IDs as women and/or are positioned as women. This includes non-binary people or transmascs who haven't started transition yet, or present more feminine. It's a practice that's taken a while to work out, and it's still developing to make sure it fits everyone.

However, as I stated before. Not everyone has that understanding. And in those cases it can unfortunately lead to trans people being disrespected or mistrusted, as well as a bastardisation of feminism itself.

It's deeply important to understand that men ARE NOT inherently evil. However. They are all raised in patriarchy, and all of them gain something from that. That leads to learning that women should cater to men from a young age. Often it's not consciously, most men don't actively think they're suppressing anyone. But they are, unless they unlearn that behaviour. Therefore, in our org during those separatist events, there's usually a meeting for the men to talk about how to unlearn the behaviours they've been brought up with.

This is an uncomfortable truth. It's uncomfortable for the cis men who have to unlearn their behaviour and come to terms with being raised as an oppressive class. It's uncomfortable for women who deal with the consequences. And it is especially uncomfortable for trans women, who often are made to feel inherently evil, or predatory due to this. But several things can be true at once.

Trans women are one of the groups absolutely most oppressed by men, they're more likely to be assaulted, murdered, sexually harassed than cis women. And they ARE women. Therefore, it's also equally as important for trans women to be able to have a room without men, to be able to talk about their experiences together with other girls, and make strategies to deal with that.

When it comes to transmascs, I share a lot of your experiences, and am well aware that a lot of feminist spaces have not come to very good conclusions when it comes to transmascs. To state that we don't suffer from misogyny is wrong, because we do. And my personal opinion is that trans men are very much not as big of a threat as cis men.

What makes it difficult is walking the line of both respecting trans mens identities as men (as they are), while also recognizing the very real experiences of misogyny they face or have faced. Most trans men I know would not want to participate in a women's separatist event, and I think it would be wrong to allow them into women's spaces, as well, they're men. But they still need a space to talk about their own experiences.

This has gotten super long already, and I don't want to make it unnecessarily long. But to be clear of my position, I think separatist rooms for women, and a good understanding of patriarchy are EXTREMELY important for any form om feminist organizing. And that does not stand in opposition to having similar spaces for, and respecting trans people. In fact it needs to, or it sucks.

Feminism and queer liberation goes hand in hand, but for us to be able to do that we both need a better understanding of each others theory and practice.

[that-disabled-radfem]

Happy back-to-school y’all

I’ve attended and worked at a couple of super liberal universities. I avoid the gender studies departments for obvious reasons and I still had a lecture in which the female prof gave a brief overview of TERFs and proclaimed her hatred of JKR. Being openly critical of gender ideology, the porn industry, kinks, and ‘sex work’ are the kind of things that can ruin your future in academia. Not to mention the fact that any speech or actions that could be labelled transphobic (ie. defining woman as adult human female) can get you a suspension according to many universities anti-hate-speech policies. 

So, here’s a list of small and smallish (small in terms of overt TERFery, some may require more effort than others) radical feminist actions you can take as a university student:

(this is a liberal arts perspective so if you’re a stem gal this may not apply. but also if you’re in stem maybe you can actually acknowledge that women are oppressed as a sex class without getting kicked out of school. idk)

(Note for TRAs hate reading this: One of the core actions of radical feminism is creating female networks. This is not so that we can brainwash people into being anti-trans. This is because female solidarity is necessary for creating class consciousness and overturning patriarchy. It is harder to subjugate the female sex when we stand together.)

Take classes with female profs. Multiple sections of a class? Pick the one taught by a woman. Have to chose an elective? Only look at electives offered by women. When classes have low numbers they get cancelled. When classes are super popular, universities are forced to consider promoting the faculty that teach them

Make relationships with these female profs. Go to office hours. Chat after class. Ask them about their research. Building female networks is sooooo important!

Actually fill in your end of year course feedback forms. Profs often need these when applying for tenure or applying for a job at another university so it is very important (especially with young and/or new profs) that you fill out these forms and give specific examples of how great these women are. Go off about what you love about them! Give her a brilliant review because you know the idiot boy in that class who won’t shut up even though he knows nothing is going to give her only negative feedback because he thinks any woman who leaves the house is a feminazi b*tch. 

(note: obviously don’t go praising any prof - female or male - who is blatantly racist, homophobic, etc.)

(Also if you have shitty male profs write down all the horrible things they have done and said and put it in these forms because once a shitty man gets tenure they are virtually untouchable)

(also also, leave a good review on rate my profs or whatever other thing students use to figure out if they want to take classes. idc if you copy paste your feedback from the formal review. rave about the class to your friends. do what you can to get good enrolment for that prof for reasons above.)

Participate in class. Talk over the male students. Say what you mean and mean it. Call out the boys when they say dumb shit

Write about women. If you have the option to make a text written by a woman your primary text in an essay, do it. Pick the female-centred option if you’re writing an exam-essay with multiple prompts. (Profs often look at what works on their syllabus are being written about/engaged with as a marker of whether to keep those texts the next time they teach the class. If there are badass women on your syllabus, write about them to keep them on the syllabus) Use female-written secondary sources whenever possible. 

(pro tip: many women in academia are more than happy to talk to you about their papers. expand your female networks by reaching out to article authors through email and asking them about their cool shit)

Get your essays published! Many departments have undergrad journals you can publish in. This will ensure more people read about the women you write about and will demonstrate to the department that people like learning about women

Consider trying to publish your undergrad essay with a legit peer-reviewed journal. If you can do it, your use of female-written secondary sources boosts the reputations of the women who wrote those secondary sources. Also this helps generally to increase scholarship about women’s writing!

Present your papers at conferences! Many schools have their own undergraduate/departmental conferences that you can present at. Push yourself by submitting to outside conferences. Bring attention to women’s works by presenting your papers. Take a space at a conference that would otherwise be reserved for mediocre men

Talk to your profs and/or your department and/or your university about mandating the inclusion of female works in classes if this isn’t something they do already

Sit next to other women in your classes. Talk to them. Make friends. Form study groups. Proofread each other’s essays. Give each other knowing looks when the boys are being dumb. Just interact with other women! Build those female networks!

Be generous with your compliments. A female classmate and I were talking to a prof after class and the classmate told me (out of the blue) that I always have such interesting things to say. I think about that whenever I’m lacking confidence about my academic skills. Compliment the women in your classes for speaking up, for sharing their opinions, for challenging your classmates/profs, for doing cool presentations, etc.

Talk to other women about sexist things going on on campus. Make everyone aware of the sexist profs. Complain about how there are many more tenured men than tenured women. Go on rate my professor and be explicit about how the sexist profs are sexist

Be active on campus and in societies. If a society has an all male executive or is male-dominated, any women who join that society make it less intimidating for more women to join. Run for executive positions! Bring in more women! 

(Pro tip: Many societies’ elections are super gameable. You can be eligible to vote in a society election sometimes just by being a student at that university — even without having done anything with the society before. Other societies might just require that you’ve taken a class in a particular department or attended a society event. (Check the society’s governing documents.) Use those female networks you’ve been building. If you can bring three or four random people to vote for you, that might be enough for you to win. Societies have trouble meeting quorum (the minimum number of people in attendance to do votes) so it is really super achievable to rig an election with a few friends. And don’t feel bad about this. The system is rigged against women so you have every right to exploit loopholes!)

(Also feel free to go vote “non-confidence”/“re-open election” if only shitty men are running. Too often people see that only candidates they don’t like are running and so they give up. But you can actually stop them getting elected)

Your campus may have a LGBTQIA+alphabetsoup society. That society definitely needs more L and B women representation. It may be tedious to argue with the nb straight dudes who insist that it’s fine to use “q***r” in the society’s posters and that attraction has nothing to do with genitals, but just imagine what could happen if we could make these sorts of societies actually safe spaces for same-sex attracted women and advocated for our concerns

Attend random societies’ election meetings. Get women elected and peace out. (or actually get involved but I’m trying to emphasize the lowest commitment option with this one)

Write for the campus newspaper. Write about what women are doing - women’s sports, cool society activities, whatever. Review female movies, books, tv shows, local theatre productions. Write about sexism on campus. We need more female by-lines and more stories about women

Get involved with your campus’s sexual assault & r*pe hotline/sexual assault survivor’s centre/whatever similar organization your campus has if you can. This is hard work and definitely not for everyone (pls take care of yourself first, especially if you are a survivor)

(If your campus doesn’t have an organization for supporting survivor’s of sexualized violence, start one! This is probably going to be a lot of hard work though, so don’t do it alone)

Talk to your student council about providing free menstrual hygiene products on campus if your campus doesn’t already do this. If your campus provides free condoms (which they probs do), use that as leverage (ie. ‘sex is optional, menstruation is not. so why do we have free condoms and no free pads?’)

If you’re an older student, get involved with younger students (orientation week and such activities are good for this). Show the freshman that you can be a successful and well-liked woman without shaving your legs, wearing heels, wearing make-up, etc. Mentor these young women. Offer to go for coffee or proofread essays. 

Come to class looking like a human being. Be visibly make-up less, unshaven, unfeminine, etc. to show off the many different ways of being a woman

Talk to the custodial staff and learn their names. (I know there are men who work in this profession, but it is dominated by low-income women) Say hi in the hallways, ask them about their lives, show them they’re appreciated

Be explicit with your language. When you are talking about sex-based oppression, say it. Don’t say ‘sex worker’ when you mean survivor of human trafficking. This tip is obviously a bit tricky in terms of overt TERFyness, so use your best judgement

That’s all from me for now! Feel free to add your suggestions and remember that feminism is about action

[empresscaress]

So someone I won't name has been reblogging posts from me and tagging them as "Why I hate trans people" and commenting things like "I will die before I support trans people" and while I'm uninterested in having an unproductive argument with her, I wanted to address this on its own because it's important.

I do not hate trans people.

I really truly mean that. I'm not trying to bend for the TRAs or whatever, that is my genuine real belief as a moral person. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the energy. I hate trans ideology. I hate the perpetrators of trans homophobia and misogyny. What I don't hate is the average trans person though.

I don't hate butches who were pressured into he/they. I don't hate gnc girls who see transition as the only acceptable way to be themselves. I don't hate girls with body dysmorphia who got swept up into this movement without a care for their own well being. And I don't hate gay men who work as transgender sex workers to survive after being kicked out. I use the word terf sarcastically since it's flung at me so much but I am not actually trans exclusionary. Trans people are included in my feminism. And even in the case of males who are not included, they're still included in activism I care about outside feminism. I still care. I want them to have safety and rights and to be free from violence and homophobia. I am not a one issue gyn. Due to echo chambers and brainwashing most trans people have no idea about most of the terrible stuff trans ideology leads to and don't realize they're wrong or hurting anyone. When we're online, constantly exposed to this horrible stuff that's usually hidden over and over again, it's easy to forget that most people who call themselves trans are just people with mental health issues who don't know any better, especially TIFs. So I will not die before supporting a trans person because TIFs are a part of my feminism too, and I genuinely believe most would not support this if they knew it was happening and were not so thoroughly brainwashed. Not most as in most you see yelling at us on tumblr or twitter. Most as in most in the real world offline.

So if you're genuinely here because you just hate trans people, and not because you love women and love liberation and freedom and human rights? I'm not with you. We are not on the same team. I am anti-trans ideology because I am pro-woman, because I am pro-LGB. It comes from a place of love and anger for injustice. If your main concern is that you think literally all trans people are gross dirty perverts obsessed with raping and killing, and that none of them deserve help or understanding or even human decency, you found the wrong blog. I was once one of those people before I learned, and it took a long time and a lot of work to overcome the conditioning. This is a hill I can and will die on.

[formulatrash]

hi! It’s totally fair if you don’t want to answer this question for whatever reason but, do you think there are any drivers in F1 that are part of the LGBTQ+ community? I don’t want to speculate on anyone’s sexuality, but it is a bit disheartening at times to see no representation whatsoever in the sport that I love so dearly... at the same time, it’s nobody’s duty to become a symbol for the community just because they’re a part of it, so I’d understand if they wanted to keep that low key, especially considering the amount of fans that would hate them for that only. It just makes me sad sometimes, not gonna lie.

I'm not gonna speculate publicly in any specific way, obviously. But statistically, it is impossible that there have never been LGBTQ+ F1 drivers - and actually there were two out ones, in Mike Beuttler (who sadly died of AIDS) and Lella Lombardi.

In other series, there are openly out drivers - in fact W Series seem to be basically incapable of stopping the drivers getting together, which is awesome and they should do it. And also kinda gives a lie to the idea rivals wouldn't.

There is a split between women's and men's sports in that basically sporting ladies seem to be like "wow, fit women time to openly drool over each other" and men being more pressured to keep it strictly no homo. It's nice that F1 drivers lately have been definitely more comfortable with being affectionate to each other and with deviating from very restrictive ideas of masculinity, although obviously that does not in any way imply their sexualities or gender status.

I think there are many reasons to be optimistic that an F1 driver could come out. Motorsport's landscape has changed - and the world, too - but of course, as you say, being the first is a sucky job and not, heh, one of the good kind.

Would they face some challenges? For sure. Some locations would be difficult - the UK, for instance, if a driver came out as trans. God, just imagining the thinkpieces from TERFs has made me nearly pass out.

I am sure there are LGBTQ+ people in the paddock beyond, whether that's in the media cohort (I mean, lmao, I am typing this why do I always exclude myself lol) or in the garages. And of course, the fans. As much as F1 talks about (even pre-pandemic) existing in its own bubble, of course it does not and while demographics are often skewed towards wealth and white western europeans, that doesn't affect the distribution of LGBTQ+ people.

Will it be godawful for the person who takes the first step? Yeah. You can't get away from the fact casual homophobia is pretty rife in F1, I'm regularly appalled by the sort of shitty jokes members of the media - who you'd think might be a bit less stuck in the jurassic period - will default to. Lots of people in F1 think they're a bit hardcore, that that's part of the image of the sport and it comes with both a strict conservatism and edgelord tendencies.

I think, with the right support, though, they'd be ok. Drivers generally have much better support systems now than ever before and god knows, it's cus they need 'em. From social media to the immediacy of reaction, everything from onboards to team radio to their Insta likes is under scrutiny and of course, that's gonna feel pretty oppressive in some ways.

(I know I hate it, as someone who gets a low-level version of it on Twitter)

But would their team or sponsors or the sport at large lose faith? No. And there would be, in the torrent of horrible stuff that's inevitable with any of these things, such support and inspiration.

It's a bit of a burden, being a figurehead and it's very easy to see why, for example, Lewis shrugged it off for a lot of his career because fuck knows, everyone's got enough to be getting on with with just the basic challenges of the career let alone having to be a representative. And it's why, with aspects you're not able to hide, people struggle - whether that's race, gender or whatever.

Living in the closet isn't a very satisfying option, though; which is the most convincing argument for how there might not have been any LGBTQ+ drivers other than the ones we know about. But it's more likely they grinned and bore it, of course. History's littered with people who never got to truly live as themselves.

It's very good having someone like Matt Bishop in a prominent role in F1. Because he can speak beyond the theoretical; that a team can welcome a gay head of communications and the paddock will have to and can work with them. That he's in a relative position of power is great because it means people can't chat shit and that means for someone without that relative power, they're protected by extension.

Who knows when more LGBTQ+ people will come along to the sport - but I think there's reason to be hopeful that they can be there.

[butchbarbieagainstterfs]

Rant incoming:

From what I’ve seen from FITs, they do call out racism in their community. But that’s it. That’s as far as they are willing to go. They won’t say names, they’ll just write a vague little post saying something like: “hey so uhhhmmmm I noticed some of you have been racist, can you stop that please thnx.” If anything, they only speak out to actual racists when WE call the racist out, aka virtue signalling. There have been a handful who have actually called out racists in their community, thanks for doing the bare minimum I guess… but for the most part, as a whole, they haven’t been speaking out against each other in a way that actually matters. If that’s the best they can do about handling racists, I’m sorry but I do not want them trying to protect me from antiblack people. And you can’t call out the trans community for not calling out bigots when you can’t even do that yourself. It’s not anyone’s “job” to point out racists, but part of being a good person involves protecting others. If you see someone being discriminatory, call them out, let others know. But if you can’t bother to do something so simple as pointing out an asshole, maybe you’re not as radical or nice of a person as you think you are!!! It’s plain and simple!

TL;DR: FITs/TERFs are hypocrites. A part of being a good person is considering the feelings of others, especially marginalized people. Call out racism and bigotry whenever you see it.

I mean they think they call out racism but ignore when WOC talk about how TERFs negatively impact them. Many WOC will tell you being a TERF is inherently racist and explain why, and TERFs don’t listen. They ignore them.

They might call out outright hateful behaviour towards POC, but they’re still part of a community that’s enforcing white western standards of femininity.

(And before any of you try to come at me with “but we support gnc women!!!”, you only support us until we look just a little too masculine for your taste. If we don’t have stereotypically white feminine features, you call us men and we become a threat to you. Just because you don’t think we need to be pinned down and forced into a dress doesn’t mean you aren’t enforcing some level of femininity on to us.)

[politalysis]

# What has happened to JK Rowling?

Growing up in the early 2000s immediately made Harry Potter a huge part of your childhood. Even if you never read the books or watched the films, you can probably name the three main characters. Even if you weren’t interested in Harry Potter in the slightest, you probably know your Hogwarts house. It’s incredible what Harry Potter did for our generation all over the world. Children would stay up on their eleventh birthdays anxiously awaiting a Hogwarts acceptance letter, knowing full well that owl was never going to come. Our imagination kept the dream of going to Hogwarts and learning magic alive anyway. Even now at the age of 23, I can for the most part keep a conversation flowing with anyone who has read the books or even just watched the films. You could even go as far as to say it was our generation’s Lord of the Rings.

JK Rowling came from very humble beginnings. She suffered with depression in her childhood and early teens, and lost her mother to multiple sclerosis in 1990. These struggles inspired her a lot when writing Harry Potter. She channeled her grief and pain into her writing. In 1992, she married a man she had met whilst living in Portugal, but Rowling suffered domestic abuse at his hands and the couple separated a year later. She lost her job and moved to Edinburgh in Scotland, where she had to sign up for welfare benefits, which left her a poor and depressed single mother spending her time writing in coffee shops. When she finished writing Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, twelve publishers rejected the opportunity to publish the book. Once someone finally agreed to publish the book, it became the best selling children’s book of the year.

We all know how the story goes from there. Rowling wrote six more Harry Potter books, eight films were made, and Rowling went from a poor vulnerable single mother to a multi millionaire in the space of a few short years. Harry Potter is now a global brand estimated to be worth about $15 billion. The last four books have each consecutively set the record for the fastest selling book in history. Rowling is now the richest author in the world, with a net worth of $92 million. But as well as money, JK Rowling has over 14 million followers on Twitter. This gives her massive influence as well as money. Rowling seemed to initially use this influence for good, spreading mental health awareness, LGBT inclusivity, interacting with fans and creating a website for all us Harry Potter fans to determine our houses and let our wands choose us.

I remember being 8 years old when Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was released, and I was attending a religious school where some parents complained and called to ban Harry Potter over the controversial decision JK Rowling made regarding Dumbledore’s sexuality. Rowling had made the claim that Dumbledore was gay. Looking back, the controversy was ridiculous and I can only imagine how embarrassed some of those parents must be. I also remember as I got older, re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I noticed more that the emotion behind Dumbledore’s relationship with Grindelwald was one he held with a romantic love. So years later, when several members of the LGBT community attacked Rowling for only deciding Dumbledore’s sexuality after the books were written, I publicly defended her with my knowledge that that simply wasn’t true. I had this image of Rowling in my mind, that she had always been on the right side of this debate. She had always been inclusive and supportive of LGBT people as far as I could see, and I just didn’t understand the issue. Rowling had always expressed a centre-left political perspective, and although I didn’t agree with all her views, they seemed relatively uncontroversial.

When Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was released, I hated it. It was a literary disaster, completely disrespectful of the original book series, the characters were a shell of the characters we had grown up with, the plot was almost deliberately ridiculous and overly elaborate and I immediately dismissed it as not canon. I have never forgiven JK Rowling for publicly stating the book was canon. She almost destroyed a whole two decades of her own hard work and the franchise that she’d built that had been like a home for a whole generation. All because she wanted to grab a few extra quid for a terrible book she didn’t even write. To this day I can’t help but wonder if she has even read the book. If I had written the masterpiece that is Harry Potter, I would view the Cursed Child as an insult. Perhaps I’ll even write a review one day, just for fun. Rowling also annoyed me by going back on her story, regretting pairing Ron and Hermione together and not pairing Hermione with Harry. Ron and Hermione are my favourite couple from the story, and their relationship had so much meaning. I couldn’t believe that the author who wrote such a clever and consistent relationship between two beloved characters could ever regret it. At this point in my life, I was beginning to wonder if perhaps Rowling was losing her mind. It was almost like she was trying to destroy her legacy.

As more years passed, the Fantastic Beasts films were released. The first film looked promising, but the second film was yet another disaster. Again, it was inconsistent with the franchise as we knew it, for some reason Hogwarts was full of people wearing 3 piece suits instead of the robes they wore in the Harry Potter series and Minerva McGonigall appeared as a teacher despite the fact that canonically there is no way she could have been old enough. The film was a disaster with both fans and critics hating it. Amongst this mess came controversy in December 2019. Rowling lost all respect she had once held amongst the transgender community when she made a public statement supporting Maya Forstater, a British woman who lost her employment tribunal case against her employer who fired her over transphobic comments. Six months later on June 6 2020, Rowling criticised the term “people who menstruate” and stated: "If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives." Rowling’s views on these issues were heavily criticised by GLAAD and even by the actors from the Harry Potter movies including lead actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson.

Rowling published a 3,600 word essay in response to the mass criticism of her views four days later. The essay did her no favours, as she wrote: “When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside.” She seemed to be suggesting that trans women are often just men disguised as women in order to trick or even harm other women. This obviously angered the transgender community even more, and women’s refuge shelters that allow trans women were reporting no rise in violence as a result, children’s charities that support gender non conforming children were criticising Rowling, she was being made to give back awards and ultimately Rowling was labelled a Trans exclusionary radical feminist, a term often abbreviated to TERF.

JK Rowling is the perfect example of how money and influence can make someone forget their roots so easily. For someone who survived poverty, domestic abuse and sexual assault, she is so lacking in self awareness and how the things she has said and done can be harmful to transgender people. It is widely reported that transgender women are at more risk of harm in female restrooms than cisgender women. With acceptance becoming the norm, transgender people are feeling more safe to come out now than ever before, and so the rise in numbers of the community is huge, especially amongst our generation who grew up with Harry Potter. For a young transgender teenager to grow up wondering how Hogwarts would accommodate them, only to hear the author who gave us Hogwarts in the first place disapprove of equal rights for transgender people, must be very disheartening. However, JK Rowling has proven that she has no idea how powerful the legacy her books created really is. She was tasked with following up the Harry Potter series, and what she gave us was inconsistent and very poorly written screenplays. I have read better sequels on tumblr. Lots of them. Hogwarts doesn’t belong to JK Rowling, it belongs to the fandom. And I’ll be willing to bet my last penny that if Professor McGonigall witnessed any bullying of transgender students in her classroom (or indeed the girls bathroom!) she’d absolutely defend the victim without a moment’s hesitation. Hermione would decorate the Gryffindor common room with little blue, pink and white flags in support of a transgender first year who’d just been sorted into Gryffindor. Luna Lovegood would sit and befriend any trans student who looked lonely, and Ginny would dish out a bat bogey hex to anyone who dared pick on them. No matter what JK Rowling thinks, Hogwarts is not hers to ruin. It is ours. Regardless of what makes us different, Hogwarts is our home.

[nothorses]

hey sorry if it comes off as weird, but i'm a bit desperate. i had a real bad time figuring out my identity growing up and for like, the past 4~5 years i've become really comfortable and happy whenever i referred and thought of myself as a gay nb trans man; i experience legit gender euphoria whenever ppl address or acknowledge me as such, and the most connection i feel is to gay/bi men/men-aligned ppl. that said, i've struggled with obsessive/intrusive thoughts since i'm like, 12~13 due to (1/?)

a phobia, and they often appeared when i was already feeling low/stressed/anxious over unrelated stuff. y'know when you're having a good time and suddenly your brain goes 'oh hey, remember that thing you have doubts about and makes you distressed? and you think it's not true? well, here it is again (: you're welcome!'. that's it.

so social isolation due to the pandemic has taken a toll on my mental health and recently i have been... struggling a lot not only with dysphoria (i was supposed to start hrt last year but it was postponed due to, well), but also with obtrusive/intrusive thoughts over 'how i'm faking it, i am actually a cis lesbian' (i never felt attracted truly to women, even tho i had kissed two before, and i am Positively attracted to men in a way i can only describe as 'gay').

it has gotten to a point where i cannot think about, y'know, woman characters from stuff i like that i feel like this is somehow a sign i'm actually a lesbian; i have been dreaming a lot of situations i'm either framed as a lesbian or a straight girl, i have been hyperaware of how cis ppl perceive me (pre-transition, as 'girl') and obsessing over little shit like, if women are looking at me in certain ways when i have to go out (sometimes even 'wishing' it, as if it wanting to 'prove' anything).

i feel...... exhausted, none of these make me feel good, all of this makes me feel distressed. i get dreadful when i take 'lol ur lesbian' results at stupid internet quizzes too. i feel like i cannot talk to anyone about it bc i feel like they're gonna try to feed me either 'internalized lesbophobia' or terf rhetoric, which is smth im v aware of, and part of the reason i've been obsessing over as well.

i had mild doubts about stuff before (like if i was rly a binary trans guy or nb, or if i was bisexual) but none was... like this, y'know.  i was also dumb and read a bbc article about detransitioning ppl which opened with 'studies say most trans ppl dont doubt' etc. featuring two cis lesbians that detransitioned after entering a relationship with one another. i feel rly rly rly dreadful i wish i could go back to feeling like myself (gay and guy) like i did before.

i'm sorry for the longest fucking ask btw, and also, tumblr hadnt let me send the rest for like, Hours, i'm deeply sorry

[Edited for formatting]

I think a lot of this is very normal, especially for transmascs.

We’re constantly fed this idea that we can’t really trust our own perception of reality, that we don’t know ourselves as well as others do, and that the things we believe about ourselves are temporary, silly, and “signs” of some deeper reality that someone else knows for us. It’s only natural that we’d internalize some of those feelings, and struggle to trust even the most irrefutable evidence of our own realities.

If it helps to have some tools in those moments, a couple of reminders:

Cis girls do not typically dread the idea of being girls. They might dread the social repercussions or expectations, they might hate girls who look/act in certain ways, but they do not typically hate that they are girls.

If you are feeling dread over the idea that you might be attracted to women, you probably aren’t! It’s good to work on feeling more at peace with the possibility, because orientation can be very fluid for some folks, and being ready to accept yourself if things change takes a lot of pressure off- but if you don’t want to be with women, you just literally do not have to be with women. For any reason. Even if you are “secretly” attracted to them, if you don’t want to be with them anyway, you simply do not have to be.

Trans people experience doubt. We experience it all the time. We experience it pretty much endlessly! Maybe there are trans folks who never, ever doubt their genders, and I’m very happy for them; but that’s the exception, not the rule, in my experience. This study talks about the steps toward trans self-acceptance, and finds each step is an ongoing process, and often a back-and-forth. It was very comforting for me to recognize the patterns & know I’m not alone.

The focus on AFAB detransitioners is driven by transandrophobia. Because saving the “poor little girls” is a compelling motivator in a misogynistic society. Most detransitioners are actually folks who were AMAB, and found the societal pressure and backlash was too overwhelming, or made things too unsafe, for them to carry on with their transitions. Most detransitioners, period, are people who had to stop because of safety issues, or lack of access to their transition needs.

It’s very normal to go through periods of high doubt, and periods of high self-assuredness. You may just have to ride this out; surround yourself with as much support and love as you can, remind yourself that those fears aren’t really based in reality, and be kind to yourself during this difficult time. Try to make choices that prioritize your mental and emotional health.

You will get through this period of doubt, and come back to finding love and joy in your identity again! It might just take a little time & patience.

(Also no worries over the sending confusion; Tumblr’s a lil broken sometimes, and it’s genuinely not even remotely an issue.)

[snarkesthour]

Happy St George's Day!

· In the midst of a pandemic when schools are all closed, the government votes to not allow free school meals to schoolchildren during school holidays, despite this being the only meal many of them have each day

· Marcus Rashford, a footballer, led the drive to feed the nation’s children, 49% of which live in poverty, and forced the government to provide food for them during the school holidays

· Instead of previous years when vouchers were given to parents that can only be spent on nutritious food, members of government give contracts to friends to provide a week’s work of food costing £5 to schoolchildren for a price of £30. Food is unhealthy and would not last a week

· Parcels also expect parents to cook two tablespoons of rice at a time in the oven and bake their own bread every day, ignoring poverty-stricken families possible lack of access to such equipment

· Wife of conservative MP attacks poor families for eating unhealthy food when healthy food is cheaper, ignoring the fact that not all families have access to equipment needed to store and cook it

· Nigel Farage, head of the Brexit party came out strongly against the government for their stance on starving schoolchildren. Not a good look.

· Another MP came out and said that poor families should not receive government assistance because the money would be going direct to brothels and crackhouses and the parents would spend it on drink and drugs instead of feeding their kids, a dangerous and persistent stereotype of working class people

· For the first time in its history, UNICEF is feeding kids in the UK – the 5th richest country in the world – and the head of the House of Commons accused them of “playing politics” and said they should “be ashamed of themselves”

· J.K. Rowling came out hard as a TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist), writing a book about a serial killer that dresses up as a Muslim woman, which isn’t subtle when you look at her history of transphobia and other “-isms”

She also publicly supported an author who wrote a book about the destruction of Europe by waves of Muslim immigration

· Speaking of J.K. Rowling, the government’s response to the Gender Recognition Act.

· It is now impossible for under 16s to receive reversible puberty blockers

· Wait times at NHS Gender Clinics, of which there are only 7 in the country, have doubled, with wait times now up to 60+ months (5+ years)

· Keir Starmer, head of the Labour (left wing) party says he doesn’t want to get involved in trans issues

· With the loss of Labour, no major party supports trans rights

· Self ID is no longer allowed, meaning every step of transition is medicalised and involves the trans person having to prove that they are “trans enough” at every stage to panels of cis people

· Government wants to invalidate non-enrolled deed polls, essentially making available a public list of every trans person in the UK

· Hate crimes have quadrupled

· Anti-trans campaigners are now setting their sights on trans adults’ access to hormones

· A petition was formed to counter this and was reviewed by the government, who determined that nothing was wrong with the GRA except that it might have been a bit lax.

· The Guardian newspaper ran child labour and child starvation supporting stories

· Internal border now along the border of Kent and lorry drivers must produce travel papers (Brexit Passport) to cross it, placing the county of Kent in a state of “no man’s land”

· Government fails to lockdown on time, every time

· Government refuses to ban conversion therapy in the UK

· Scotland adopts Human Rights of Children, which requires the government to better support children and families, especially those who are poor, disabled, minorities or young carers. England does not

· The government declared that sleeping rough is now grounds for deportation

· Schools reopened several times despite being warned not safe to do so

· The government banned NHS workers from speaking out about COVID

· Do Not Resuscitate orders proposed for those in care homes, with learning disabilities and who are autistic

· The government cut pensions as the COVID death toll rose

· The government learnt about new South-East COVID strain in September and didn’t come forwards until December

· New COVID strain targets kids, teens, and young adults, and yet none of those groups are allowed vaccination unless a serious pre-existing condition is had, even if they are key workers

· Downing Street says UK should be model of racial equality because government report says no institutional racism in the UK

· Report also says young people are young and foolish for thinking it exists and that minorities are superstitious and irrational and are sabotaging themselves out of success

· It came out that the government was given the independent report and rewrote it to the version that was released to the public – the version that says racism doesn’t exist in the UK

· The rewritten report also refers to the slave trade as the “Caribbean experience”, like those enslaved were on holiday

· Woman in London abducted, murdered and dismembered by off-duty cop and when socially distanced vigil goes ahead, police wait until dark before trapping women, arresting them, using excessive force on them, and also destroying memorial

· Bill passed in government that allows undercover officers to commit serious crimes such as murder, torture and rape

· Plainclothes police to now patrol nightclubs and bars due to aforementioned murder by police officer

· Bill passed that bans any protest at all, no matter how quiet, unobstructive or small it is, including single-person protests. Bill also includes a 10 year sentence for damaging a statue, which is a longer sentence than for rape

· TV programmes critical of the government have been cancelled

· Universities have been told what to platform and schools have been told what to teach, including banning material speaking about BLM and calling for “overthrow” of capitalism

· Voting has been supressed, mainly those who are working class or POC

· During protests in Bristol, press was assaulted and pepper sprayed by police and two legal observers were arrested

· Being Roma/Traveller and living the traditional Roma/Traveller lifestyle is now illegal under that same bill that bans protests. They also have to register as such and receive a licence or risk losing their vehicles

· Hours before Eid, lockdown across the UK with no warning whatsoever, meaning people woke up the next morning after visiting relatives to find themselves “criminals”. The country was opened up specifically for Christmas though

· Conservative (right wing) party blamed BAME (Black And Minority Ethnic) communities for dying of COVID more than white people

· Landlords have been protected extensively and renters blamed for living in close quarters or having to take public transport to work

· Conservatives have launched investigation into possible corruption in Liverpool Council. Liverpool is a Labour stronghold and if corruption is found then the Conservatives can seize control of the council. No evidence of corruption is present as of yet

· Military threatened to stage a coup if Corbyn (then head of the labour party) became Prime Minister

· Government orders all government buildings in England, Wales and Scotland to fly the Union Flag every day to boost patriotism

· MPs call for the curriculum to require teaching the history of the Union Flag rather than Britain’s many atrocities

· The first fortnight of April saw a mini heatwave with temperatures up to 20°C immediately followed by snow, and this is ignored in favour of debating “vaccine passports” in order to visit the pub

· UK allows for international summer holidays despite being warned it will cause a third wave, such as the situation in Germany

· Government placed asylum seekers arriving in the UK in army barracks where they were to sleep 24 to a room with no open windows or air circulation, and when COVID inevitably ran rampant, the Home Secretary accused the asylum seekers of not following COVID protocol, such as social distancing

· Several accounts of self-harm and suicide attempts were reported from the asylum barracks and were dismissed

· UK to deport unaccompanied minor asylum seekers

· UK refuses entry into the UK for radicalised teen failed by system who joined ISIS. Case is difficult and controversial because teen wishes to return to the UK temporarily to fight for her citizenship after the UK broke international law by stripping it from her, despite her not having dual citizenship. Argument given was that her parents were from Bangladesh and so she could apply for citizenship there. Bangladesh refused. Teen is now stateless and living in a refugee camp after losing several children, unable to fight for her citizenship to be reinstated.

· Rioting in Northern Ireland, which included the first use of water cannons in 6 years, a bus being hijacked and burnt, a press photographer attacked, and people throwing bricks, fireworks and petrol bombs at police, not to mention some of the clashes happening over a peace wall in west Belfast, completely ignored in British media and then later drowned out by non-stop news of Prince Phillip’s death, obscuring any important news from being heard. Riots were over Northern Ireland’s being a part of the UK

· MPs take vote on whether China’s treatment of Uighurs constitutes genocide. They decide it does, but that it isn’t their job to do anything further

· Home Office released their spending for the 2020 fiscal year. It’s a mess, including over £77,000 at an eyebrow salon in March alone, and £6,000+ in Pollyanna Restaurant which doesn't appear to exist.

· When people started questioning the spending, the Home Office sent a tweet fact checking themselves

· Country reopened over the summer for Eat Out To Help Out, a scheme to boost the economy. COVID cases rose sharply and the government then blamed people, but mostly working class people, for not following restrictions such as only leaving the house when absolutely necessary, after telling them it was safe

· Foreign NHS workers denied COVID vaccinations

· GCSEs and A-Levels were cancelled due to COVID-19 and expected exam grades were to be used instead. Private school students received grades much higher than they were expecting, and state school students received grades much lower, some grades falling as far as an A to an E. This was because the government couldn’t imagine state school students being smart enough to receive the high grades they were predicted to get; after much uproar the grades were scrapped, and a new method was introduced

· BBC offered staff grief counselling following Prince Philip’s death, but not after having to report on the ever-rising COVID death toll

· The COVID-19 Infection Survey closed in mourning for Prince Philip, with workers to contact participants to reschedule visits for “as soon as possible” when they return to work

· Census workers told to pack up and go home and were placed on immediate unpaid leave due to the death of Prince Philip, but told they must make up the hours later

· Conservative MPs lobbied for a new royal yacht after voting to keep schoolchildren hungry (see first points)

· The BBC’s complaint page crashed over the amount of complaints they got of their coverage of Prince Philip’s death. It was covered non-stop for over 24 hours and the page came in at over 100,000 complaints before going down

· BBC also fast becoming politically biased despite their requirement to be apolitical, after cutting out the audience laughing at Boris Johnson on Question Time, displaying Corbyn as a communist figure in front of a prominent piece of Russian architecture, and providing a platform for a Conservative MP to tell a stage 4 bowl cancer patient that her life wasn’t valuable on live television

· On the COVID-19 pandemic, the BMJ, (British Medical Journal) said about the government that “science was being suppressed for political and financial gain” by “some of history’s worst autocrats and dictators”

· Not only did Boris Johnson launch Eat Out To Help Out when he was warned it was dangerous, lifted lockdowns too early when he was warned it was too dangerous, reopened schools when he was warned it was too dangerous, but when scientists said the second COVID jab should be delivered within 3 weeks he decided that was too tall an order and it should be within 12 weeks – after a period of radio silence, suddenly the science fit his plan. No scientists came forwards to defend it

· The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, blamed protestors for protests that became violent from police attacking protestors, bullied staff members under her, bought members of staff in her department, said it was “disgraceful” to topple the statue of Edward Colson, a slave trader, in Brighton because it undermined anti-racism protests, held treasonous meetings with Israel with the plan to divert aid money, and threatened to starve Ireland in order to get them to agree to Brexit

· She also wants to set up Australian-style asylum processing centres on British islands, but the islands she wants are in the Atlantic ocean and over 4000 miles away from the UK. This is because she wants to help asylum seekers enter the UK legally, completed ignoring or oblivious to all the reasons that asylum seekers might not be able to do that, and for the fact that to seek asylum you must essentially walk up the border and ask for it

· The bungling of the Track and Trace system – the government spent £10bn on a system to track and trace the spread of COVID-19. All data was stored on an Excel spreadsheet which developed a technical glitch and many results were lost before the system was scrapped

· As Autism Acceptance month began, the BBC ran a story saying the autism causes fascism, and that an autistic person who had chosen to embrace the ideology was incapable of seeing that a neo-Nazi group he joined was morally bad because he was autistic

[the-scottish-costume-guy]

JK Rowling, transphobia and a hopefully helpful post.

A few days ago I posted on my Facebook (yes I have one sue me) debunking some of the things Rowling has been saying on twitter. Since she made a statement I felt the need to make another one... but this time Im sharing it here. Please note this is long, it is fairly opinionated in places but her statements have felt so insidious I want to share something in depth. If you are cis I implore you to read, but I understand this is long and a lot of people wont want to. No judgement. 

Jk Rowling’s latest statement is a mess of valid concerns and fear mongering. At this point there can be no claim she doesn’t know what shes talking about - she herself has said shes been researching this for years. She throws in token acknowledgements to “real” trans people while framing the rest of her statements as concern for confused teens.So first things first - and something that might not be popular with some of my trans friends. I agree that teenagers should not be able to medically transition. It is a choice that should be made when the brain is fully mature. Hormone blockers are something I trust - and that are reversible. I have seen enough detransitioned people hurting to feel like we do need to be careful - especially with children who are trying to find themselves. I dont know about other people but during my teens I was coming to the crushing realisation that I wasn’t special. I was learning that no matter how well I painted someone else did it better, no matter how badly I hurt someone had it worse - I was learning about the wonderful mediocrity of life, and having anything that made me stand out gave a brief reprieve from learning to be okay with all these things. For me to be fair it was dying my hair outrageous colours and dressing in black leather during 30 degree summer heat - but its still something we cant forget. I KNOW a lot of kids claiming to be trans are - and I dont want to keep that from them, however I dont want to cause harm to the kids that are wrong. Continuing on, I’d like to address her comments about TERFS. Terfs are Self Described Trans-exclusionary-radical-feminists and the term does get thrown around a little too liberally at times. Terf is not and never will be a slur. No more than “White” is. It is about a group of people who have taken it open themselves to segregate another group - and calling that what it is, is not a crime. The reason Terf and transphobe have become synonomic is because the ‘radical feminists’ that subscribe to this have lost focus on nearly all other issues of feminism and sit squarely on “dropping the T” from the lgbt community and “keeping men out of womens bathrooms.” Terfs are overwhelmingly women - this is sadly simply a fact. Terfs are reviled because of how much it feels like a betrayal to the community. A group that fights for rights - except ours. A group that wants equality - except for us. Its different to the conservatives who hate us all equally - with Terfs we are singled out. Terfs are not, as Rowling claims, inclusionary to Trans-men. I’ve been met with a combination of pity, loathing, mockery and revulsion by people within this group. I’ve been told that I shouldn’t let homophobia push me into transitioning - only for all correspondence to abruptly drop when I mention Im marrying another man. I’ve been told my old body was beautiful - only for stunned silence when I agree. I was beautiful - I was curvy, I was a dancer and had a body to match - but I wasn’t Me. When their usual arguments against me fail - I’m met with hate. Im called anti-woman, traitor, homophobic. I even have some such comments saved on my blog. I have yet to meet a Terf who was pro-trans-man. Rowling claims that had she had the ability, as a confused teen, she may have sought to transition. I hate to tell her but she did have the ability and trans people didn’t pop into existence in the twenty-first century. I’m actually looking to do my dissertation topic in my final year on lgbt presentation throughout history - and in my overeager way I’ve already started researching. James Barry has been becoming a common name for years - a transgender surgeon who died in 1865. If Barry was able to at least socially transition from 1790 to 1860, I am fairly sure Rowling could have in 1980 - over a century later. Rowling also claims that groups of friends in schools all suddenly identify as trans at the same time. Speaking from my school experience - the queer kids group together. We seek out others like us, and we take strength from each others bravery to come out - often around the same time. We almost get a rush of resolve when one of our group musters the courage and strength, and some of us use that rush to bite the bullet ourselves. Its one of the beautiful ways the lgbt community is here for one another - and the influx of people identifying as trans is partially a factor of more people knowing the name of their feelings. Survivor bias will ignore the trans people through history without the knowledge or means to transition - and will claim they were never trans at all. Her initial statements about charities worry me in particular. As I said last time - we know sex is real, we just dont really like to be defined by it. She is worried that we’re going to “rebrand medicine” and ignores that medications for years have had warnings in their leaflets about “If you are or become pregnant” regardless of if the person receiving it has a dick or a vagina. We dont advocate for ignoring the differences in how people respond to heart attacks - and I for one would like research to be done on how hormones effect that. I dont actually know if I would respond more like a cis gender woman or a cis gender man if I were to have a heart attack or a stroke. But where possible we do want to change the language around some of these things. I have had a double mastectomy, but some Cis-men have these as well. This is not a gendered term. Why should a period be called anything else? Why call it a “womens problem.” I and Im sure many other trans people, support the research into how different medical and mental issues affect different sexes. I just think that should be extended further - and we know it should, as some medical issues affect people of different ethnicities in different ways and we don’t know how. I am truly sorry that Rowling has experienced abuse and assault of any nature. I am truly sorry that she has felt unsafe. But her feelings do not invalidate others experiences. Of the trans people I know, a saddening number have been assaulted, have been abused and in particular have experienced these things domestically. There is much work to be done on this in the UK. There are nearly no mens shelters for sufferers of violence to my knowledge. I, a trans man who have experienced some of these things in my teen years, would Not want to be around cisgender women even if I could be. A cis woman was responsible for much of the pain I personally suffered - and in fact one of the acts of violence she carried out against me was directly after I came out as trans to her. Trans women, even if they could go to male shelters, should not have to be surrounded by a group that put them in danger - in a place that is detrimental to them physically and mentally and is frankly degrading. The belief that allowing trans women into shelters for those escaping abuse is dangerous is sad. To be so afraid is deserving of pity. To let fear blind you to the suffering of others - to think its better that a trans woman face homelessness or a return to an abusive household because you personally would sleep better at night is the kind of passive evil we should be aware of in this day and age. It comes from choosing to see the word “trans” before “person.” Its from choosing to see a persons genitals before their humanity. Trans people are not dangerous - and cause no greater risk than any other demographic.  Her claims that she can empathise with this fear are empty. A gender recognition certificate is not a ticket into womens bathrooms. Funnily enough you dont actually require a piece of paper to go almost anywhere. I do not have a gender recognition certificate and use male bathrooms, can enter male spaces as I please. All a gender recognition certificate does is change the letter on your birth certificate. It doesn’t even affect other forms of identification - my passport, my student id, my drivers license all already say male. I am not sure why so many people have chosen this as their hill to die on because its the least relevant thing to them on the planet. How often have any of you seen another persons birth certificate? Rowling says she and other ‘gender critical’ (a terf dogwhistle) people are concerned for trans youth. Well… she can take her condescending concern and direct it to matters that are relevant to her. Trans people want to be left alone. Its a simple request, and yet people endlessly seem to trip over the dirt level bar.

[pinkchaosart]

On transphobia towards our Sisters (not just our cis-ters)

(TW: talk of transphobia, misogyny, gender and sex-based violence)

So I went and took a look at the post by @persistentlyfem that’s causing a major fuss, and I thought I’d address it as a lesbian femme myself. I see a lot of the common talking points that get thrown around and I’m seeing some truly toxic replies being thrown in her direction. Eight years ago I might have agreed with the replies, but I think it’s more useful to engage those talking points and maybe we can meet with some kind of understanding.

Now I want to get a few things out of the way first. Persistentlyfem says, if not in the main post then elsewhere on her blog, that she doesn’t identify as a radfem (radical feminist), so I won’t assume that she is one. I will however address the points she raises as being part of the trans-exclusionist radical feminist ideology, as that’s where the ideas seem to have come from.

One of the biggest misunderstanding between radical feminists and liberal feminists is the concept of gender vs. sex and their importance when speaking of identities. TERF ideology is rooted in second-wave feminism of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, which was a necessary step in the feminist school of thought and is the reason we have a lot of our modern rights. Most people who are trans-exclusionary would describe themselves as gender-critical, but in my opinion, I believe that being exclusionary towards trans women is rooted in the resistance to third-wave feminist ideas of individualism and diversity. But we’ll hold that thought for now.

The ideal of radical feminism is to liberate women by tearing down the concept of gender, abolishing it all together. The ideal of liberal feminism is to create equality by creating safe and inclusive spaces for everyone, regardless of gender, via social and legal reform. Basically the main difference between the two schools of thought is one seeks to destroy gender as a construct and the other seeks to expand it to be more inclusive. It’s important to note that being a radical feminist does not automatically mean that you must be trans-exclusionary.

So I’d like to talk about some specific talking points. I took a little stroll down Persistentlyfem’s blog to see what her experience has been and so that I can understand where she’s coming from. Normally I wouldn’t engage in this kind of conversation because I’m disabled so I have very little energy to spare, but as a fellow butch-attracted femme, I thought it might be useful to respond to her  thoughts. I won’t respond to all the points in her recent post, but I will try to talk about the core ideas.

I see that she’s concerned with misogyny in LGBTQ2S+ spaces. I agree it’s widespread, often in ways that are covert. I see it in how butches treat femmes, how gay men talk about women, and how we speak to fellow gay women who disagree with our opinions. And, If I understand correctly, it’s that internalized misogyny that she believes is responsible for trans women believing they should be included in women-only spaces. I argue that it’s quite the opposite, and that it’s actually misogyny that keeps trans-women from being fully accepted.

What I mean is that I find the argument for “female-only spaces” (assigned female at birth, cisgendered women) quite reductive. It implies that there is only one way to be a woman and it reduces us to our genitalia. I don’t think anyone would say they’re a woman because they have a vagina and mean it fully (maybe you would, I don’t really know you). They would also say that their experiences shape them as a woman as well. And I agree, what makes a woman involves quite a lot of factors, and no two women’s experiences are the same. Persistentlyfem has argued that trans women are raised and socialized as male, but I disagree. Setting aside that trans women aren’t a monolith and have completely different socializations between individuals, I would agree that most trans women are treated as male growing up, but for the most part, it doesn’t quite….fit them. More accurately I would say our culture attempts to socialize them as men.

When I think back to my own experience growing up, I, like a lot of girls, had a “not like other girls” period. Internalized misogyny, great right? Because the socialization of “girl” didn’t quite right, the definition being narrow and rigid. Based on stereotypes. So I found my femininity later in my teens. I argue that this is something that most women go through in some way or another. We find our socialization as women uncomfortable and constraining. Not quite right.

As I said, you can’t speak of trans women as a monolith, but from the stories and dialogue I’ve been involved in, countless stories sound exactly like that. Being socialized into a Gender Box that doesn’t suit you is like watching a video in a language you don’t speak. Internalized misogyny is a universal experience between girls growing up, cis and trans, and it is internalized misogyny that keeps trans women from accepting who they truly are. In fact, for them to run away from woman as their identity would inherently be internalized misogyny.

The idea that trans ideology is based in “regressive stereotypes about ‘boys and girls’” isn’t wholly incorrect. I think we all agree that gender is a social construct. But that doesn’t make my identity as a women more valid than someone who transitioned later in life. It doesn’t follow that a trans’ person’s gender is less real than a cis person’s gender. And while we live in our culture and our current society, gender is something that we interact with on a daily basis, which makes it real in a very real sense. We could argue whether it should be that way, but the situation is currently that gender is an important construct in our culture. Not to mention, the thought that all trans people fall in a strict “man” or “woman” binary is incorrect as there are plenty of people that embody other gender identities. Indeed, there are many wonderful trans people that we could argue are the radfem ideal of aegender and/or non binary.

Now the idea that “lesbians and straight men like vaginas. Gays and straight women like penises” is a bit of a stretch. Again, I think a statement like this is pretty oversimplified, but I don’t think that you’re inherently wrong. Generally speaking, sure. Although, again, I’ve met plenty of straight women dating trans men, and there are plenty of straight men that date trans women. But the inherent flaw in this argument isn’t that you’re wrong, but that it implies that attraction equals validity. Am I a woman because a man is attracted to my vagina? No. Am I less of a woman if men aren’t attracted to me? Again, no. My gender isn’t contingent on other’s attraction to me, and that is the same for trans individuals. I think this kind of argument comes from the pressure that is sometimes felt within our community, that if you’re not open to dating trans people then you’re inherently transphobic. I am not going to get into that argument, as this is a whole other can of worms. But what I am going to say is that nobody is going to force you to date a trans person. You don’t have to date someone if you don’t want to. You don’t have to tell everyone why you don’t want to date them, you can just politely decline. 

I’m going to be blatantly honest: I am predominantly attract to butch women and afab non binary masculine people. I have never dated someone who was amab, and generally speaking I don’t find myself attracted to them. But that doesn’t mean I think that trans women aren’t women just because I generally don’t find myself attracted to them. 

On top of this I’m going to agree with you: sex based oppression does exist. So does gender-based oppression. I know I have experienced bullying in my own time based on my own gender, my ability, my weight, all that good stuff. Maybe some of it was based around embarrassing period episodes (which I would file under sex-based bullying). But misogyny is not just sex-based, it is also inherently gendered. And if we know anything about trans women, it’s that they are overly targeted with violence based on their gender. Especially if they’re BIPOC. And it’s because their gender is feminine that they’re perceived as being targets; is that not the epitome of misogyny? To hate a person because they’re not perceived as the patriarchal male ideal?

Something else I would like to talk about is the concept that trans women are inherently misogynistic. I would argue that every woman, regardless of what they were assigned at birth, carries internalized misogyny. Cis women, however, have years to grapple with it before becoming women. Trans women tend to not have as much time to unlearn internalized misogyny before they become women. That doesn’t invalidate them as women, it just means that we should be more supportive of them, not less. All of this trans-exclusionary rhetoric only serves to increase their self-hatred and I argue that that kind of talk is a contributing factor to the poor mental health we see in the trans community. Instead of supporting some of the people with the greatest insight into the patriarchy, trans-exclusionists push women away and inflict them with even more gendered violence and gender-based discrimination. 

The other thing I want to address is the idea that trans women transitioning is rooted in homophobia. Which seems to make sense if you think of trans women being only attracted to men. The idea that a man decides to be a woman because he can’t deal with being gay doesn’t make a lot of sense, though. Homophobia tends to be rooted in misogyny too, a fear of being less of a man. So it doesn’t follow that the solution would be to “become a woman” much like the solution to put out a fire isn’t to light more things on fire. Piggybacking off of this point, a lot of trans exclusionists will accuse trans women of being predators. In fact, often, they’ll hold these two ideas at the same time. But the reality is that, if a man wants to prey on women, he doesn’t need to become a woman. The sign on the bathroom door isn’t actually a deterrent if a man wants to follow a woman in. And again, it’s a counter-intuitive idea, that a man who wants to prey on women would go through all the legal hurdles, all the social stigma, even some medical treatments just to gain access to women’s only spaces. Besides the fact that this type of behaviour is a myth created by conservative right-wing christian groups to stir up fear, it doesn’t happen and assault is still illegal regardless of what your gender marker is. 

I am not going to address anything about surgery or hormones. Those points are only ever brought up as enforcing points, they’re not the main issues. Most of the rhetoric is based in fear-mongering conservative right-wing christian groups drum up and it is, again, a whole other topic that requires nuance that most people don’t acknowledge.

The main point I see Persistantlyfem talk about, and something we can agree on, is the misogyny in LGBTQ2S+ spaces. We all like to think that, somehow through our journeys of discovering our true selves, we shed the misogyny along the way, that our spaces are truly accepting of all genders and presentations. That’s not the case. Misogyny is still a problem in every letter of our community and it will be for a long time. We see it when butches treat femmes as “high maintenance” or like property, we see it in how gay men talk about female bodies. We see it the self-hatred trans people of all gender identities feel towards themselves. We see it when lesbians reject bisexual women. 

Throwing around “terf” helps nobody. Calling each other stupid and pretentious is not useful. I know this is a painful topic to many on both sides, but the infighting in the queer community is toxic and needs to come down from a boil if we’re going to make any progress. Most people that sling insults are younger and therefor are more hot-headed. I used to be too, and still can be sometimes but like I said, limited energy means that you tend to focus it more consciously and I hope that this time I’ve spent here can help.

@Persistantlyfem, I see that you were hurt, and I respect and honour your experiences. I suspect that some of those that hurt you were trans women. I understand, I’ve had trans partners hurt me as well. But those experiences don’t allow us to revoke someone else’s right to their own interpretation of themselves. And I’m sorry about all of the toxicity you’ve experienced in these last few weeks, you don’t deserve it. I hope that we can have a conversation in a respectable way, worthy of two adult gays who’ve been through a lot.

[5typesoftrash]

warning: this is going to be a long post. transphobia and bigotry under the cut

I am posting this rebuttal of a person who got (hilariously) angry at someone who Does Not Care (me) and wrote an entire-ass essay on this post because apparently this is how I spend my time. Defending my identity which does not need to be defended because it is immutable from transphobic trolls who won’t even see it cause they’re blocked from this account.

Anyway. Be careful looking under the cut.

TERFs, gender-crits, radical feminists, transmeds, nb-exclus, anti-mogai, and anyone else whose ideology promotes transphobia and/or trans erasure, please kindly do not fucking touch this post. I am not kidding when I say that I will report you all to tumblr for hate speech if it takes me all fucking night.

Image Description

Two screenshots of a reblog from tumblr user homosexual-means-gay. The post reads:

please tell me how literally every single gay man being repulsed by ppl with vaginas hurts you! tell us why it’s a problem gay ppl aren’t attracted to the opposite sex like straight and bi ppl are!

homosexuality isn’t a political movement it’s a regular natural innate sexuality. gay men aren’t attracted to biological females and it hurts gay ppl when you side with conversion therapists and it hurts bisexual ppl who actually are attracted to both sexes when you erase them for your homophobic agenda. you’re not a victim. you’re happy to eliminate homosexuality from existence as long as you’re able to reinforce heteronormative gender roles the gay community has always opposed. your bigotry harms trans homosexuals too, not that you transhets care about the gay trans ppl either.

erased from history? you want gay ppl correctively raped out of existence bc you love socially constructed gender roles more than human rights. you deserve all the hate you put out into the world. im sorry our innate orientation and culture prove how flimsy and useless the gender roles you define yourself by are, but homophobia will not improve your self esteem. you’re driving away ppl who would be happy to support your made up identity by attacking how we were born same sex attracted. sorry you can’t relate bc you’re straight. sorry you think you can use your privilege against us. but it’s not something we’re doing to you. it’s not something we can change and it’s not something we want to change. there’s never been a gay man in existence who likes pussy, not even the gay trans women like marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera. you’re a sad little straight girl alienating all potential allies.

hurting us doesn’t validate you. it doesn’t hurt you that no gay man will ever like pussy.

End ID

(If someone wants to do a better ID that’s fine, I just wanted to put everyone on an equal playing field when it comes to understanding the content of this post.)

I’m going to go line-by-line and refute every single bullshit thing this person said.

> please tell me how literally every single gay man being repulsed by ppl with vaginas hurts you!

factoid actually just statistical error. TERF Tommy, who has committed multiple transphobic hate crimes, is an outlier and should not have been counted. I know many cis gay men who are attracted to trans men because they are MEN, not because of the genitalia they have. And I know you want to say ‘that makes them bi’, but no, it doesn’t. You want to accuse me of homophobia? Telling another gay person that their identity is invalid just because they express it in a different way than you do is literal homophobia.

>  tell us why it’s a problem gay ppl aren’t attracted to the opposite sex like straight and bi ppl are!

because... some are? And you don’t speak for the entire gay community? Especially not the other side of it, for the opposite binary gender than yours.

>  homosexuality isn’t a political movement it’s a regular natural innate sexuality.

and transness isn’t a political movement either, it is a regular natural and innate gender identity. You know that gender identity is inherent, right? When people say ‘gender is a social construct’ all that means is that it is not a natural thing. Humans created the concept of gender and assigned value to it based on what we could perceive as a means of giving order to the world around us. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t important and it doesn’t mean that there aren’t parts of it that are inherent to individuals.

>  gay men aren’t attracted to biological females and it hurts gay ppl when you side with conversion therapists and it hurts bisexual ppl who actually are attracted to both sexes when you erase them for your homophobic agenda.

I’m sorry this is literally incoherent. To reiterate: some gay men ARE attracted to assigned females. Yes, siding with conversion therapists hurts gay people. No, I am not siding with conversion therapists. I have never once stated -- in fact, the entire point of my post was the opposite of this -- that anyone should EVER have sexual interactions with a person they don’t want to. Even if the reason for that is because they have a genital preference, which is NOT the same thing as a sexuality.

(I know I’ve been over this before but here it is again. A sexuality is a measure of what GENDER/S you want to have sex with. A genital preference is a measure of what genitalia you are willing to get all up close and personal with. Both are innate, one can be manipulated. They are not the same thing.)

Hurting bisexual people... hey, fellow bis, am I hurting you by *checks notes* existing in time and space?

>  you’re not a victim. you’re happy to eliminate homosexuality from existence as long as you’re able to reinforce heteronormative gender roles the gay community has always opposed.

I am literally A GAY PERSON. Even by YOUR MEASURE I am a victim. And I do NOT want to eliminate homosexuality, I just want people to acknowledge that language evolves and definitions can change as our society does. Also, have you ever met a trans person in real life? Because like 80% of all the trans people I’ve ever known have been gender non-conforming, so like. That invalidates that point. The trans community opposes gender roles as well.

>  your bigotry harms trans homosexuals too, not that you transhets care about the gay trans ppl either.

Please point to where it says I’m straight. Please. I want to see it.

>  erased from history? you want gay ppl correctively raped out of existence bc you love socially constructed gender roles more than human rights.

At this point I’m just repeating myself. Please see the above points for rebuttal.

>  you deserve all the hate you put out into the world. im sorry our innate orientation and culture prove how flimsy and useless the gender roles you define yourself by are, but homophobia will not improve your self esteem.

Says the person berating a minor for *flips notecard over* agreeing with them that people shouldn’t be forced into sex. I’m sorry that you’re so hurt and angry that you have to push your pain onto other people just to feel better. I genuinely am. It makes me so sad to see how much some people are hurting. But I won’t just sit and take this kind of verbal abuse. I don’t deserve it, quite frankly.

>  you’re driving away ppl who would be happy to support your made up identity by attacking how we were born same sex attracted.

I doubt anyone calling it a made-up identity wants to actually support me. Next.

>  sorry you can’t relate bc you’re straight. sorry you think you can use your privilege against us. but it’s not something we’re doing to you. it’s not something we can change and it’s not something we want to change.

Again. I am not straight. I do not have any straight privilege to use against anyone. Even if I was cis I still wouldn’t be straight because I’m aroace and attracted to anyone and everyone. My gender identity isn’t something that I can change, either. And even if I couldn’t, I wouldn’t want to. I love being a man, and I love being a trans man. 

>  there’s never been a gay man in existence who likes pussy, not even the gay trans women like marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera.

I’m sorry, WHAT. Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera can’t be both gay men and trans lesbians. Which one are they? You gotta pick, babe.

> you’re a sad little straight girl alienating all potential allies. hurting us doesn’t validate you. it doesn’t hurt you that no gay man will ever like pussy.

So am I a transhet or am I a straight girl? Also I’m not sad, I’m quite happy with where I’m at in my life. I do not feel validated by hurting anyone, because I don’t enjoy pain. I’m not masochistic or emotionless, I am in fact hyperempathetic due to my autism, and I don’t like it when anyone is hurt. This can be evidenced by this post here where I wish well upon a group of people who have directly hatecrimed me in the past. 

I will repeat that. I have literal trauma from physical violence as a result of the actions of this group of people, and I am still wishing them good things. 

Nor does it hurt me that ‘no gay man will ever like [AFAB genitalia]’ because this isn’t even a true statement. As I have mentioned previously, I know personally multiple gay men who are attracted to trans men. And reader, please note the fact that this person uses a slang term, a deliberately vulgar one, where in my original post I used the medical term ‘vagina’.

Hope this clears some things up.

TERFs, gender-crits, radical feminists, transmeds, nb-exclus, anti-mogai, and anyone else whose ideology promotes transphobia and/or trans erasure, please kindly STILL do not clown on this post. I am once again not kidding when I say that I will report you all to tumblr for hate speech if it takes me all fucking night.