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cipheramnesia · 2 years

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I thought misgendering was violence

Yes

2. Yes, sort of but not exactly. The phrase "misgendering is violence" is a shorthand way to refer back to the complicated way systemic oppression and authoritarian hierarchies affect disenfranchised groups.

To a degree, as a society grows in size and complexity, it's almost impossible to prevent the biases of people in power becoming ingrained as forms of control, sometimes as laws, or sometimes as cultural norms, or both. The social system itself is built with the fundamental flaws which humans tend to have difficulty understanding are biases for any variety of reason, but eventually it becomes an ingrained part of society. In a good world, there's easy mechanisms to correct this kind of systemic oppression; but in our world (or at least the part of it I know, the USA), the systemic oppression remains a titanic struggle to correct at the top level of the hierarchy where things like mores and laws direct consequences like social ostracization or legal penalties.

So, something like the gender binary is entrenched at high levels of both the social and legal system of many Western countries. The consequences of this play out in ways which indirectly can lead to harm for anyone who isn't a cis binary male/female (said this way to understand it includes not only trans people but intersex people and people who have a form of gender which was either oppressed, eliminated, or remains unrecognized by Western culture). For example, it's very easy through social or legal or both means to deny or remove anyone violating gender norms from employment. In the USA this can have consequences such as losing health, losing housing, and subsequent further consequences to physical and mental health, or even to death.

On a smaller level, many small acts also accumulate either as reinforcement of these systems, or generated by the normalization of gender bias in these systems. A large number of individual people misgendering someone does not make each and every one of those misgenderings the same thing as say each one physically punching a trans person. However, these individual acts can both collectively wear down the mental health of a trans person leading to employment housing etc consequences above, or even normalize a much smaller number of people deciding it is OK to physically punch trans people.

However, where the "violence" equivalent of the majority of these tiny individual acts really happens is maintaining the systemic oppression which accepts that any disenfranchised person (people outside gender norms here but also happens to race, religion, sexuality, etc) does not require any recognition within the system - that it's fine to continue on with socially and legally allowing these people to be harmed, ostracized, killed, etc for failing to conform to the Western formulation of gender.

However, no it does not mean misgendering is violence in the sense of "it's okay to call anyone misgendering any other person a violent transphobe" in the sense of very online discourse, which likes to kind of remove the systemic context of demonstrating bigotry purely for the sake of being able to generate anger and mislead a target audience. Aka, the online callout, which constantly and deliberately obfuscates systemic effects to imply more literal effects - ie, violent transphobe meaning uses constantly transphobic language, certainly someone who could inspire violence (such as various right wing pundits) but presented as violent transphobe meaning someone who physically assaults other trans people.

Misgendering is violence, but I don't trust that an anon ask with zero context is coming from a full understanding of what that phrase means. This is an incomplete approximate summary of that sort of way systemic violence works, so you're certainly encouraged to learn more, but I hope this helps.

3. Misgendering is hilarious when I do it to myself for comedy purposes only, both because I know where my hard limits are and also because it means I can take some radfem hate for the team due to higher than average gender confidence.

#transphobia #systemic violence #long post

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commiepinkofag · 1 year

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AC-a-a-a-a-B, screamed the goat

again, we see the police PR machine & a complicit press present the innocuous, bumbling barney fife ‘we’re here to protect’ trope.

the ubiquitous coverage of the screaming goat has reached an international audience [if the BBC counts in that regard].

it reminds me of the ‘ah, look! cops dance with ice cream’ which should have been ‘two scoops of fuck you.’

one of the more recent and disgusting examples of police PR/media collaboration has been the ‘viral’ PR: ‘Police dog in Wyandotte accused of stealing fellow officer's lunch.’

this ‘story’ originated from a facebook post by the Wyandotte PD, with an accompanying image edited to appear as a mugshot of a black police dog – named ‘Officer ICE.’

however, i found this posted on a ABC affiliate news website, on the same page as an article about Tyre Nichols’ family pleading for justice and calls for the bodycam footage to be released.

the timing and content of these press releases is no coincidence.

on august 1 2016, within weeks after the series of murders by police of Delrawn Small, Alton Sterling and Philando Castille, the cop PR machine rolled out #copsgiveouticecream.

one particular headline — ‘these cops pranked drivers by giving them ice cream instead of tickets’ — fell under the ‘feel good’ category, much like ‘officer ice’ and case of the screaming goat.

text beneath the image reads: "You can see the sense of relief when the officers explain this ‘violation’ to the anxious drivers who all got a big laugh out of it."

i can see intimidation, fear, injustice…

‘no cameras!’ — nor accountability

social media has changed the playing field in the propaganda war for policing. like in the instances of feel good news, cops only like social media when it works in their favor.

the fbi has warned about ‘cop baiting,’ ‘viral attack’ and potential liability. [Social Media and Law Enforcement: Potential Risks; leb.fbi.gov]

unsurprisingly, this particular article expresses an overarching sense of fear and need for control:

Empowered by social media, cop baiting presents a crisis for law enforcement. Questionable videos of police officers are popular on sites, such as YouTube, and can be financially rewarding to malefactors who file claims or lawsuits. For some individuals, a citation or jail time is worthwhile if a cash payoff results. Cop baiting could become so common that officers may not know whether they are facing a situation that is legitimate, staged, or exaggerated for someone else’s benefit. This puts officers’ personal and professional well-being at stake.

so strange, their fave defense for surveillance [search, et al] isn’t mentioned: ‘if you’re not doing anything wrong, why worry…’

copspeak + providing those good feels

i posted the link back in 2016, but i find it’s still relevant:

Copspeak: 7 Ways Journalists Use Police Jargon to Obscure the Truth [fair.org]

FAIR’s CopSpeak series is good for examining the media-PR symbiosis:

“The linguistic gymnastics needed to report on police violence without calling up images of police violence is a thing of semantic wonder."

privatization of public policy has helped drive much of this. [Meet the Company That Writes the Policies That Protect Cops; motherjones.com], [Police Policy For Sale; theappeal.org/].

the lexipol rabbithole can take you through an insular cop-cult[-ure] & convenient shopping for all of your militarized force needs.

‘Police Chief Magazine’ run by a 503c lobbying group, International Association of Chiefs of Police [IACP], reveals some PR tactics in ‘Media Coverage: When It Doesn’t Work Well… and When It Does’ [policechiefmagazine.org]

The Secrets to Success “It is the role of the public information office to push the positive stories to the media,” says Sergeant John Roth, Glendale Police Department’s public information officer (PIO). His office publicizes the department’s Coffee with a Cop events, as well as other newsworthy items, such as when major cases are solved. …

it is imperative to develop a rapport with media representatives. He makes a point of meeting with them and establishing relationships built on trust.

‘trust us,’ said at gunpoint…

[btw, national police week 2023 has begun]

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juvenalesque · 11 months

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Why the world is *gestures around at everything* opinion

No TL;DR here.

Pride month has me dwelling on what i've been thinking about a lot in the last few years, as I'm sure many have, the way the world is heading. Many of us feel out of control and helplessly riding along with an apocalyptic and terrifying demise of the world we know. As we individually fight for just causes, we should seek intersectionality in every facet of our lives. I'd like to share my thoughts on why this is true and more. The cure to the world's problems is as basic as what we tell children: "share." I mean this in more than a literal sense of sharing objects. These problems that I dwell on, we all know about stem from something else. I am speaking of the concept of divide and conquer as it applies to our society and the negative consequences of this. It all begins with organization. I am not going to claim I am an expert on everything on Earth, but these are my thoughts as an educated individual who keeps up to date with credible sources such as academic journals and primary sources. Definitions I list here are both verbatim and paraphrased.

A group exists that most of us are aware of in some capacity, which coordinates together to promote propaganda separating everything that makes humans people. Organizations like the United Nations have a Human Rights Council and a Declaration of Human Rights, but this declaration, and ONLY if properly utilized, plucks only a feather on the bird of prey that divides the Human Earthlings: preventing peace, advancement, and unity; I will not elaborate on the topic of other Earthlings here.

This may sound like digression, but try to humor me here.

There are "hard sciences" such as S.T.E.M. fields. These are held in high regard. People dismiss the social sciences, sometimes called "soft sciences": history, anthropology, archaeology, philosophy, sociology, psychology… This is done systematically through the use of pervasive propaganda even in academia. This reduces interdisciplinary study, which has numerous benefits. Imagine if all of this knowledge could be combined to be utilized for its full potential. We could have advances beyond our dreams. As the old saying goes, "a jack of all trades and master of none, is often better than a master of one." Sharing information is invaluable. Communication of information is invaluable. It is why we have agriculture, medicine, metalwork, machines, and the internet. These are only some extraordinarily vital bits of knowledge that are not utilized to their full potential. Let us peel back another layer of this concept or turn back a page, as they say.

Even literacy is minimized in its importance purposefully. This is a large part of communication. There are different levels of literacy. What is most common in our American society is a gray area between nominal and functional literacy in scientific terms. "Nominal literacy" refers to one who can recognise scientific terms but does not have a clear understanding of the meaning. "Functional literacy" refers to the capacity of a person to engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective function of his or her group and community and also for enabling him or her to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his or her own and the community's development. In a scientific sense, functional literacy is when the person can use scientific and technological vocabulary but usually this is only out of context as is the case for example in a school test of examination or basic correspondence. "Structural: conceptual and procedural literacy" means that the individual demonstrates understanding and a relationship between concepts and can use processes with meaning. "Multidimensional literacy" is when the individual not only has understanding, but has developed perspectives of science and technology that include the nature of science, the role of science and technology in personal life and society. Multidimensional literacy is what it is called when someone is "fully literate," "entirely literate," or "completely literate." They can comprehend entirely. We should, as a society, be trying to assist all persons to reach the highest level of literacy possible for them to understand in the most efficient way. Instead, literacy is kept minimal at best for each individual use by design, even per subject in an academic setting. This is why interdisciplinary study isn't utilized nearly as often as it should be for a more complete understanding of the world as science can inform us and assist in advancement of the scientific pursuit of knowledge and cultural development.

People who are completely literate are perceived as intelligent purely due to their ability to learn and communicate more efficiently than someone who is less literate. People who have the skill of multidimensional literacy are called "advanced" when truly they are the baseline of true understanding. Even those who have not yet reached multidimensional literacy are considered advanced or above average. Literacy is so underrated and avoided in our educational system that a person with an extensive vocabulary is considered more intelligent than someone with a more limited vocabulary, which is blatantly incorrect. The most intelligent people may never have an opportunity to become literate even nominally, but that does not make them less intelligent. It creates a communication barrier just as strong as any language barrier. It prevents a mind from communication. This is a tragic loss, the inability to communicate.

>Side note, that is why accessibility for communication is vital and should be prioritized. Accessibility in all parts of life, a world built for all, not just the "typical."<

Communication barriers in our society have examples such as levels of literacy or understanding of different subjects and perspectives. Communication barriers are also intensified when people are divided by cultural conflicts. These culture clashes are the most well-known form of division of people. People who are united under certain principles or agreements can accomplish radically more than people divided by disagreement, bias, or any other thing that stands in the way of cooperation. The more division, the more discord. That means more distraction and less cooperation. Cooperation and knowledge are what allow a common goal to succeed. The knowledge and how to learn from as many prior mistakes and successes as possible is vital.

This is why, repeatedly, throughout known human history, it has been shown that a ruling class cooperates to design a system that all people follow to maintain some form of basic organization for how the society operates. While some have started altruistically and with the reciprocity that allowed our species to survive near extinction many times, most become or begin as a means of hoarding power through resources.

This is where we get the Malthusian myth of scarcity and horrific events such as poverty and war. If people can be convinced that resources are truly limited rather than just improperly managed, they will all follow the rules they are told will allow them the share of these resources they need to thrive or even survive.

Again, it is somewhat common knowledge that these organized people create a class of people that utilize an attempted control of information with the tool of propaganda to maintain their positions of power. It was discovered that using informational controls to prevent other people from organization was an effective tool against losing their power. This is why when the non-powerful or "common" people eventually tire of a system's injustices and inequities and revolt in anger, society often collapses all together. This is why "education" has traditionally been conducted for a limited number of people and why those people are often the ones next in power should one leader fall. There is no coordinated allegiance or cooperation among those who pursue justice because they have been trained from birth to be driven from everything that could help unite large masses of people that are vastly different from one another. Fundamentally, it is because of an inability to communicate information, from academic knowledge to simple concepts, that we can not cooperate as humanity to solve painful problems.

So, this would mean that at the core of what I am saying is this: we all want equity and the best lives for ourselves, our loved ones, and often all people. However, we do not take the individual responsibility to attempt to communicate, teach communication, and teach utilization of this communication for cooperation. If a large enough group of people took this individual responsibility to promote this TRUE education, which you might call "well rounded," we could improve upon it every generation and interaction to create real change. We need to apply the principles we use selectively universally in our lives without hypocrisy. We need to encourage every human to learn as much as they can about as much as they can and, most importantly, how to communicate this information to others in every way possible.

So, give the most of your time to what you do or enjoy best, but share it. Share everything in your mind and abilities freely and with peace and the pursuit of spreading true and valuable information.

Every skill, every tool, share. It might just save us.

Next, maybe i'll tell you why I think AI could be the savior we need to accelerate this process & that is why there is so much fear mongering in attempts to slow its development and why I love the character "Data" from Star trek so intensely.

-Laura Renee West

06/14/2023

If you like what I have to say and would like to share it elsewhere or in a different format (or think that they might take this down), here's a link these drafted ponderings as a google document.

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