#tenderqueer

[americascomic]

I talked to a trans femme teen yesterday who told me to not use slurs (faggot, tranny) and I think people like to blame social media for these kids being so tenderqueer-y, but this kid also told me that of the 1,400 kids in her art school, there is lots of out gay, trans masc and non-binary AFAB kids but only 10 t-femmes, and I saw in her and this other trans femme teen I know this harsh assimilationist streak (they want to go stealth, strive for conventional beauty standards, jealous of the cis het white blonde girls) because they barely have a community and so it becomes a place to survive.

The internet is this boogieman that distorts what is the consensus. It has a selection bias of hyper isolated, neurodivergent, and anxious people who are just looking to survive

I look at queer kids with annoying conservative opinions I don't see the solution being "internet stop sucking" - the assimilationist woodworking "Cross Dressing Quarterly" trannies of the 90's didn't need TikTok to get this way, it was the violence of the closet.

I see the problem being them being scared kids - what bell hooks calls "the most oppressed class" and I see the solution being a more porous, safe community between kids and adults (outside of the nonprofit industrial complex that uses queer youth spaces to condescend, infantalize, and give resources in a nondemocratic way)

We always say "protect trans kids" and it's worth queer adults of all types toughing through bigotry and accusatory stares to find these kids, build relationships, give resources and love them. All we have is each other. We protect us. Us tranny faggots

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

Well, maybe, if some of you actually went out and tried connecting with actual people instead of giving so many fucks about fictional characters on the internet fucking each other enough to call shipping "erasure", you'd finally shut the fuck up and see our point about how annoying y'all are, for once.

Like, I guess no one can eroticize Barbie as a concept anymore in any capacity because Margot Robbie said she's aroace because she's plastic as if merely being plastic isn't a part of Barbie's eroticism for a lot of (already sexy hot queer) people... Oh NO!

Yeah, the only reason I didn't reblog directly and cropped out the username is because OP had no readable age visible in their bio and this post sounds like it was written by a minor....

And the turbo nerd who wrote this better not block evade me to try to clarify that ether.

[moonshinedyke]

It's eternally frustrating how white-focused the queer community is, and how queer POC, especially black queers, can't even get a word in. White queers make up reasons to hate us, like how calling out racism in the community is "mudflinging," "infighting," and "actually makes us transphobic reactionaries." They make up reasons to demonize our terminology, like how "tenderqueer" is problematic because it's too close to "genderqueer." But yet you don't have a problem when racist white queers use our own terminology to degrade and dehumanize us.

They constantly use their queer identities to try and deflect when called out for racism, and they constantly use their queer identities to claim that they don't have white privilege. They use the excuse that they've gone through hardships before. As if we haven't explained that white privilege doesn't mean you haven't gone through hardships- it just means your skintone isn't one of the things making it harder. But whenever we explain racism, whenever we hold white queers accountable for their racism or white privilege, they deflect, and/or we get ad hominem responses.

When white queers mean solidarity, they mean with other white queers. They'll let Nazis into the community before they let QPOC, especially black queers, in.

[wyrmwyrm]

Throwback to when someone I matched with on Tinder thought the bastard in acab was too problematic of a term 🥰🥰🥰🥰

[iisthepopeoffools]

Conservatives, radfems, wokescolds/tenderqueers, identitarians of the left and right, reactionaries, state socialists, utilitarians, pacifists, and centrists are all united in politics that seek safety and/or stability above all else. It is understandable that such politics appear in tumultuous and precarious times but they serve at best as an anaesthetic and at worst as a stumbling block. Only a politics that embraces life, danger, daring, that is Promethean and earthly at the same time, can lead us to a better future.

[cosmicanger]

what white LGBTQIA+ don't want to accept (but definitely understand, this is not a they don’t know issue) is that their whiteness and their queerness are inherently joined together in a way that makes them want to use their queerness to deflect on the fact that they're white and benefit DAILY from global anti-Blackness. this is the whole reason that the term "tenderqueer" exists. white LGBTQIA+ are always determined to make themselves out to be the victims of the "nasty Black LGBTQIA+" making fun of them and making mean jokes about them because they're white, and when they see a Black LGBTQIA+ making jokes about white LGBTQIA+, their first instinct is to tell the Black person to remove the "white" from their tweet, but never to remove the "queer" from their tweet. there's a reason for that. it's called a victim complex, weaponizing your whiteness or in this case, what a lot of people call "white tears," which is basically white people wanting to play victim because a Black person made fun of them or call them out for being anti-Black. white LGBTQIA+ oppress all Black people, regardless of whether you slap the word "queer" on or not. white LGBTQIA+ have erased and ostracized Black LGBTQIA+, and now you all play victim when we joke about you all. you all are not the victims of Black LGBTQIA+ and you all will never BE the victims of Black LGBTQIA+. it's not queer infighting to make fun of people who have perpetuated so much isolating antiblackness towards Black LGBTQIA+. stop trying to play victim, you're not one. All white people are oppressors, all white people are c*ps, all white people are settler colonialists regardless of gender or class.

[anoraktrend]

Tenderqueer

A HISTORY

The corruption of the Tenderqueer Community is exactly why well, "Tenderqueer", "People using mental illness to justify racism", which was due to the origins of Tenderqueer, and what newer, self described tenderqueers on Twitter used it as, "a means of mentally ill queers having a common symbol to rally towards".

Unfortunately, like previous tumblr communities and future communities on twitter, racist started using it and doing two separate things which get conflated into just the one corrupted meaning due to what the term was intended to be. The coiner called the fuckers who actually fit both the corrupted meaning and, importantly, those weaponizing their Whiteness and using their queerness as a sheild from criticism the fuck out and kicked them out of the community.

Meanwhile, many people didn't and still don't know about this, and occasionally that community got a bit of assholes who didn't know this history, they probably swapped their tag due to this and it died out as a term on twitter.

SNAP TO Early 2023. A community of whit trans women weaponizing their whiteness and using their transness as a shield from criticism are continually harassing a not-yet-out Jai and "Jorbiters", (will be defined and historied later), Enter me, aware of exactly what I just laid out. I explain to some folks using the word "Tenderqueer" what it means. Excluding the later bit, as I was blissfully unaware of that at the time. WELL, a bit after me explaining it and the original meaning of the word "Psy-op", Keffals, (the, at the time, figurehead of the white trans women weaponizing their whiteness and using their transness as a shield against criticism), started turning Tenderqueer into "Young Queer Person I Don't Like" and making Psyop and Wokescold another variant of Jorbiter which ascended to N word substitutes in that community as soon as Jorbiter did, which was as soon as, during keffals fall from her figurehead position, her mask slipped often, culminating in her making a "Kiwi Farms"-esque (the place she was known for attempting to destroy) request to her subreddit.

Now. I have to keep explaining this because people do not know the entirely too long history of this word as keeping history straight is one of my special interests.

Jorbiter originally just meant Jai's friends, then Jai's followers, then anyone who dared defend Jai, and now is clearly just being used in place of the n word against black people who speak up against this community of white trans women weaponizing their whiteness and using their transness as a shield against criticism. EVEN THE PEOPLE WHO WERE THEIR ALLIES BEFORE.

[hvntlowlvr]

the fact people (*cough* white queers *cough*) have co-opted tenderqueer to mean "queer teen that doesn't agree with me" makes me so angry like tenderqueer was originally meant to target white queers who believe their queerness absolves them of whiteness those who use progressive words and ideology to fight for their oppression as queers but also to ignore the underlying racism seen in both in the queer community and cishetallo society those who refuse to accept their experience as a white queers isnt the default and those who refuse to accept the role race played in queer movements both the fact white queers were embarrassed of black queers and queers of color and that it was non white queers (especially black queers) who created the foundation for what our community is today

[transsexualfiend]

On “theyfab”

I see a lot of people talking about how it isn’t okay to call someone a “theyfab” because its still referring to a non binary person’s AGAB. What they’re failing to understand is that “theyfab” actually doesn’t have to do with if a person is non binary, it’s about people who specifically WEAPONIZE their AGAB against transfem folks. That’s the key part. Is that they’re ALREADY BEING UPFRONT about their AGAB. They wear it like its a gold star, and something that makes them better than AMAB trans+non binary people. It’s not fucking okay. It’s terfism.

You guys are all correct, we shouldn’t be referring to anyone as their AGAB. But that’s not what this is doing. All of you saying “stop separating nonbinary people by their agab!!!” Is exactly what we’re trying to stop!!! We are in agreement!!!! The “theyfabs” we are referring to are the people who are creating that binary and separation!

Let transfems be angry. Let AMAB non binary folks be angry. This term doesn’t target a specific identity or set of pronouns. It targets those who hate transfem people.

If you are personally offended by the word “theyfab” it’s probably because you are one. It doesn’t mean “afab non binary person”--- it means “non binary person (usually white) who thinks they are exempt from being transmisogynistic because they’re non binary/trans. They weaponize their assigned sex at birth in order to “prove” that they “have it worse” than transfems, and say things like “trans women have male privilege” etc etc. It’s transphobia.

[americascomic]

Hello. I sat here for a good 30 minutes trying to think of best how to ask this question without giving the online version of an annoying exposition dump, so I hope this somewhat makes sense: I’ve found myself, increasingly, having conversations with the more tenderqueer-esque queers in my life surrounding slurs- specifically slurs like faggot and tranny. I’m a trans guy, and I was told by another trans guy of the genre of person i just mentioned that only gay men can reclaim the word faggot, and trans women can reclaim the word tranny. I thought this was a stupid and gatekeep-y idea, and told him so, but i have been genuinely wondering if this is just a manifestation of terminally online induced queer infighting or a form of ignorant transmisogyny on my part. Is tranny a slur directed at and only to be reclaimed by trans women? Or is it just another tick in the barrel of a long line of slur speciation discourse?

I think the short answer of who can say what slur is "this is terminally online bullshit"

And my second answer is "this is a conversation that mostly people under the age of 30 have, and people mostly online have." I think the age is important - it's feels like it's a developmental phase a lot of queers go through, where they negotiate their identity." So, like I'm patient (if a little irked) when I see it on my feed. Or hear some dipshit socially awkward t-femme at Bluestockings rudely chime in to a conversation I'm having with a friend.

and I sometimes put it as a hypothetical;

I'm telling you right now, as a trans woman, in my lived experience, people of your exact intersecting identities are only allowed to say the word "tranny" on a Tuesday and "faggot" on a Friday. If you forget, remember 'tranny' and 'Tuesday' starts with 'T' and 'faggot' and 'Friday' starts with 'F'

Like, that's absurd for me to ask. And so I think that kind of forces the thought that at the end of the day I'm the one asking it. There'll be no consensus on this issue.; you have to decide for yourself whatever or not to respect one point of view over the other.

We say "listen to black people" but I had this moment in my life where IRL I did a call-out of Nazis in my community and a Black friend told me that I was talking over people of color and another thanked me for speaking up in a way that they wouldn't be listened to. Who is right? Neither. Both. You have to decide for yourself and have a strong sense of race. Same with interacting with our own queer community.

Who can say what queer slur where and when is a thing that can never be litigated online. It's such an interpersonal person-to-person thing. There's no pundit square that can fit all slurs and all identities and all experiences.

in the case of the teen in the previous story who told me not to use the word "tranny," I immediately retorted that people say that word to me on the street and spit at me, which means they recognize it as a thing of power and so I will use that power. And I don't think she'd ever had copped to it, but I think changed her mind because she was saying "tranny" over the next months.

I think for some of this shit, us trans women policing who can say "tranny" is us just doing a proxy war for transmisogny. Like, we get transmisogny in our community, an AFAB person queer person of some type who could probably leverage their privilege against us says "tranny," I can see it irking some. But, have you met a trans woman? Everything irks us. We're reprehensible.

And, I think in terms of your conversation and your friend. I dunno, I think of who-gets-to-be-lesbian discourse. I see so many people online twist in the wind trying to justify to others that they're a trans masc lesbian, or a non-binary lesbian or a bisexual lesbian and I'm kinda sitting there on my ass wondering why they're trying so hard to get probably the dumbest people online to justify our identity. Like, we're hear, we're queer, get used to it. I sometimes feel of the matter that we're all a mass medium as one and just going about shit without apology as a way to force people to confront our humanity.

Iffen you want my personal feelings on the matter, you're just as impacted by the codified violence of the state that's imposed on us and so we're all faggots at the end of the day. But the t-girl sitting next to me might feel differently, and you have to negotiate with that. Sometimes times calls for moments of respect and sometimes it's a matter of saying "fuck it" and doing the thing you know how it is.

If you would like, I can draw you a card that says "Amber, a hot trans woman, says I can say 'faggot'"

Finally, I'll say I wrote a couple paragraphs for you so I'm going to force you to return the favor and just challenge you to sit on your ass and ask yourself in honest ways what the word means and what it means to you and what's beautiful and what's ugly about the word. That - an internal process - a lot more valuable thing worth to litigate then everybody in-community being cops to each other.

And then after that, I always like to challenge people to look beyond the debate. This post I made on the matter is about a dead trans teen. It's nice to debate words, but it's also nice to look out at our wonderful, annoying community, name problems we see that creates material struggle, and then imagine solutions.

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

Um, okay so some adult dipshit with a cartoon avatar with blue hair and a description implying they have an alter who's like a little kid or something (? I don't know) just posted that EXACT "u cant ship Al bc ASEXUAL!!!!!!!" video I was ragging on a couple days ago made by that turbovirgin brony with the brony dating profile DIRECTLY into main tags right now AND I'M REELING...

Don't let a DHMIS and Fnaf fan with a brony dating profile who sounds like Kate Micucci tell you anything about asexuality, fandoms or shipping especially if they label Al as a "Tumblr Sexyman" because they're so poisoned by their own bad taste I can't.

So much for keeping her anonymous.

The person who unironically posted that shit bronyscold video to the main tags too ... Like fandoms control your own cringe, self loathing and self flagellation and stop telling talented fanartists doing the most through fandom work and commissions what to do with their art for five minutes? Impossible!

[estrogenism]

"tenderqueer is just another word for people with weird genders" "tenderqueer is an uwu soft queer" "tenderqueer is a young queer that says no kink at pride" "tenderqueer is a word conservatives came up with to attack people" killing biting maiming snarling at the fact that NONE of you have taken the time to listen to qpoc (especially black queers) who have explained over and over what the actual meaning of the term is. i hate yt queers and i won't apologize for it

[mywitchcultblr]

I thought tenderqueer are queer/lgbt people who likes chicken tender but turn out I was wrong

[femmeferocity]

TERFs have the most un-sexy vibe about them. Imagine lacking basic human decency, possessing an inflated sense of self-importance, AND totally losing ur shit bc someone used a gender neutral term in front of you, AND literally believing it’s bc society is “erasing women”🤣

….I’m kinda embarrassed for them, to be that character deficient AND un-sexy?…omg it must be hard😬😢

[cosmicanger]

when is the appropriate time to discuss antiBlackness and why does it depend upon the convenience of white people & nonblack people of color?

⭐️ “within every group of which Black people are a part of, the nonblacks within it will fervently ignore us because they do not want to be reminded we exist.”

⭐️ “I state firmly that Black trans women/transfems are not only Captive Maternals, but are the Captive Maternals of Black feminism and queer theory. Further, Black feminism and queer theory are sustained through the airbrushing of transmisogynoir for the sake of academia.”

⭐️ “Say Her Name is trending because people are using it for Brianna Ghey, who is white, and i need y'all to understand that that phrase/hashtag was created for Black women who are victims of p*lice violence. i've seen white people say that they didn't even know this, and that's extremely troubling because that means y'all genuinely do not care about Black women, particularly Black trans women. i'm going to be very frank, one of the reasons why we aren't where we should be in terms of infrastructure fighting against transphobia is because ppl have accepted the systems that facilitate Black death because y'all have assumed it won't come for you.”

⭐️ “lol at people telling me "these white people didn't mean to be antiBlack", like wow, y'all turn into reactionaries the moment Black people stand up for ourselves.”

⭐️ “use like #HerNameIsBrianna #RememberBriannaGhey or #DignityForBrianna instead”

⭐️ “The reason SayHerName is exclusive is because without them *NO ONE* would listen to us. we say her name because no one else will. We say rest in power cause no one else lays us to rest *because of race*. These are black specific sayings for black specific violence 😵‍💫”

⭐️ “what's getting me is that these white trans ppl are getting told by transphobes "don't politicize her death" and correctly replying "her death is political". now they're crying that Black trans women are correctly politicizing their appropriation of a /political/ slogan. it is /political/ why Say Her Name took off in this instance rather than in the previous instances of Black trans women killed in the UK who were erased, deadnamed, and vilified in the media like Naomi Hersi in 2018.”

⭐️ “When it comes to white people & nonblack people of color co-opting terms from Black folks, especially terms that have been developed as part of collective struggle, the "we" matters. These folks are diluting a specific term with the same vague inclusiveness that you're using.“

⭐️ “nonblack people every day: be nice to the whites or we'll stop pretending to care about you negroes d-ing".”

⭐️ “a good chunk of the defensiveness over desiring the appropriation of slogans constructed to attack antiBlack violence / within the Black liberation struggle is bc of the expectation that Black ppl do this mvmt-building labour and nonblack ppl can just take these things 'readymade' after and apply them out of context. this both works to prevent shining a light on the specificity of antiBlack violence, and avoids the wider work of mvmt-building that does not depend on the embedded expectation of this kind of underclassed labour. on the contrary, a tight knit connectivity of struggles is more achievable when movements are able to acknowledge that the communities they represent are not 'topologically flat'. now is the time more than ever to build an ecosystem of counter-narrative against the bloody weight of these murderous hegemonic forces that don't have to clumsily take from each other while pretending everyone has an identical experience, but that which influence and converse with each other. so as to construct something multilateral with multiple roots and connectivities grounded in a critique of capitalist relations.” “it's because antiBlackness is ubiquitous within nation-states which makes the infrastructure our liberation struggle anti nation-state in practice, which runs counter to assimilationism. attempts to "reform" the system are attempts to restructure antiBlackness. like, things formed to address antiBlackness simply cannot be neatly mapped onto other forms of struggle on a one-to-one basis. it only appears that way because ppl know deep down that antiBlackness laces and informs struggle more broadly.”

⭐️ “one of the main reasons these white ppl are mad at me is because i reminded them that they could've been using Say Her Name for Black trans women this whole time but they haven't because they don't give a fuck about us. Black people have been noting for decades that whenever we do the work to create something with much less resources than white people, white people swoop in to capitalize off of that. if you're telling me you /need/ Say Her Name, you're admitting you /rely/ on our dispossession.”

⭐️ “not the first person to talk about or bring up the misappropriation of Say Her Name, and every time it's happened, the Black person who brought it up has been hounded and dogged for "division" and "it's not the right time". so when is the right time?”

⭐️ “white people & nonblack people of color are going so far as to claim that no Black trans women have been murdered in the UK and been deadnamed by the media like literally that very thing didn't happen to Naomi Hersi. here is an article about it and the silence about it: https://gal-dem.com/silence-failing-naomi-hersi/“ “here's Stonewall's reporting on it at the time: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/cy/node/65106”

⭐️ “Mind you, the #SayHerName Campaign was launched in 2014 by the African American Policy Forum and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies and, as it stands, is one of the primary record keepers of Black women murdered by police.”