#their aggression and violence against trans people

[area51-escapee]

Spraying my brain with a water bottle like it’s a rabid animal and reminding it to not take everything in the worst faith possible but also when I see Cis women bragging about just using men’s restrooms at taylor swift concerts because there’s less men than women there I can’t help but think about how a Cis man or any trans person ever or anybody who doesn’t look completely stereotypically feminine even looking at a women’s restroom is cause for violence against them

[renthony]

In which I'm angry about intersexism from trans people. Again.

"AFABs don't experience [thing experienced by intersex people of all assigned genders]!" is getting really fucking old. People re-inventing the sex and gender binary through their weird fucking fixation on "are you AMAB or AFAB? Are you TMA or TME?" is exhausting.

I'm tired of existing in trans spaces as a trans person, only to realize how actively hostile those spaces are to intersex people. I don't bother to go to the local trans support group, because my experiences there when I first tried to attend were fucking rancid. Trans people of all assigned sexes and all genders act like I don't belong there, and I hit my limit on that shit real fast. It's exhausting, it's alienating, and it's fucking miserable!

Trans people, you have got to fucking stop acting like intersex people don't exist. You have got to fucking stop acting like you own the concept of sex and gender based violence. You have got to fucking stop acting like transfem and transmasc are a set, incorruptible binary. You have got to fucking stop acting like your fucking bullshit in-fighting isn't affecting people who aren't you.

I'm tired of intersex people discussing our own experiences only to get shit all over by perisex trans people who want to put everyone in a binary.

I'm tired of watching intersex people get treated like shit by terfs and transphobes, only for perisex trans people to accuse us of "appropriating trans struggle" when we talk about it.

I'm tired of talking about my experiences as an intersex trans person only to get constantly hit with endless variations on "shut up, theyfab" or "um, you're TME."

I'm tired of talking to my transfem friends and partners, us relating to each other on our similar experience, and then having random other trans people on the internet decide that, actually, I'm a raging transmisogynist who doesn't value trans women and is trying to "appropriate" their struggle. Never mind how many of my own experiences I've been able to articulate thanks to the support of trans women in my life.

Perisex trans people, do better. Y'all fucking suck! Y'all fucking treat intersex people like total shit! Fuck you for using us as rhetorical devices against transphobes and then ignoring our actual needs and struggles!

I go outside and people call me a tranny with a freak ugly beard. I get targeted by all the same bathroom bills and public policy trying to force trans people out of the public. I get people asking me if I have a dick. I get people aggressively calling me "sir" in public. I started getting called a "he-she" when I was a child. When I started developing breasts, a family member told me they weren't "real titties, just extra fat." I have had total strangers tell me I "look like a fat man" when I got upset at being misgendered. I get "helpful advice" from strangers about how to shave "properly," even though I didn't fucking ask, nor do I intend to shave my beard. I've had people tell me I have "tranny feet" and tell me to "try the drag queen shoe store" when I talk about how hard it is to find women's shoes that fit me. I have been the subject of nasty rumors about what's between my legs and why I "try to look like a woman." I'm not a woman, mind you, but I still get treated as a "wrong woman" by society.

But when I talk about all these things? When I seek support? Trans people of all genders call me a TME theyfab who is appropriating transfem struggles.

I still don't understand how I'm the one "appropriating" when it's the outside world calling me a tranny he-she freak.

But whatever. I guess I just have to accept that intersex people are subhuman to perisex people, even the trans ones. 🤷‍♂️

[genderqueerdykes]

as an intersex trans wo/man, i've noticed that unfortunately it has become painfully obvious that not only do radfems and terfs try to abuse trans men into falling in line with their beliefs, but unfortunately, this happens to trans women and transfemmes as well. i've unfortunately seen several trans women fall down the the "men evil, women innocent, trans men have cis male privilege, trans men don't struggle, trans men aren't men or trans they're just confused butches," pipeline really quickly after transitioning or their eggs cracking, and it's not necessarily that transfem's fault, but rather an abusive person sweeping in to take advantage of someone who needs and wants validation in feeling like a woman. the person who put the terf ideals in their head during this crucial stage in development is to blame, it is not inherently the trans woman's fault.

vulnerable transfems and trans women become indoctrinated into these things. trans women and fems are not inherently bitter, shitty, hateful people. it's a select few who become groomed by radfems who push this belief, and push it hard, because that's what you do when youve been indoctrinated into a cult. it's not an issue inherent to trans women and transfeminism at all- it's vulnerable people being groomed. this is a serious issue of trans women and fems being groomed and brainwashed.

this is a huge deal and we have to stand up for each other, because the transfems getting groomed into this need support and help to get out of this cult. it is not okay for women who are just trying to find their footing to almost instantly get sucked up into a literal hate group. we have to help trans people who become indoctrinated into gender essentialism, antimasculism, and transandrophobia just as much as we help other trans people unlearn transmisogyny. these issues are both damaging our community on the whole.

radfems are aggressive and will try to indoctrinate anyone they can into antimasculism, transandrophobia, and gender essentialism. a lot of trans women in the early stages of transition really want to be validated as women and such, will become groomed by these groups of cis women who will gladly feed them toxic ideals like women can never be wrong, women are always innocent, men are always harmful and evil, it just benefits the radfems, not the trans woman. this behavior grooms yet another person into spreading radfeminism without realizing it. when one espouses these beliefs they become a spokesperson for radfeminism and terfism

i'm plain tired of seeing this argument, because it is nothing but gender essentialist binarist bullshit:

"transphobia is worse for trans women than trans men because of x, y, z."

its not worse. its different. but equal.

i understand that many folks have not lived the life a trans man leads, but whenever you try to speculate on what it's like, you will always be wrong, no matter what, because you weren't in that person's shoes. it's impossible to see the nitty gritty of how a specific group of people are treated unless you are that person or spend lots of time around large groups of those types of people. trans men face homelessness at a disproportionately high rate compared to other groups of queer folk. we also deal with forced detransition. we deal with being dehumanized by she/her pronouns. we deal with having lesbianism and butchness weaponized against us. we also deal with sexual violence. we also deal with physical, mental, and emotional abuse. we deal with gaslighting, lying, being robbed, abandoned, injured and killed. its virtually impossible to find support if you're a pregnant trans man.

trans men have a lot of unique struggles. this is not a comprehensive list, but rather to show you that ALL trans people struggle. we are united under the same banner of transphobic treatment. we are struggling, but we are struggling together, and we can uplift each other without tearing each other down. punching down on another trans person hurts us all.

belittling the trauma of other trans people is a form of queer infighting that terfs want you to do in order to fracture our community further. queer infighting doesn't help anyone whatsoever. trans men do not have it harder than trans women. trans women do not have it harder than trans men. amab and afab and intersex enbies don't have it worse than each other. these are all completely different and unique struggles that deserve to be acknowledged for what they are. you cannot use the same scale of severity for a totally different problem.

people love to completely gloss over the issues trans men face for the sake of believing that all men benefit from patriarchy. saying that trans men are not affected by specific kinds of transphobia is spreading the radfem belief that only women struggle under patriarchy. queer men, men of color, intersex men, gay men, bisexual men, trans men, polyamorous men, genderfluid men, bigender men, gender non conforming men, feminine men, men who crossdress, disabled men, neurodivergent men, mentally ill men, and other marginalized men suffer under patriarchy as well.

i'm not tolerating radfem gender essentialism being woven into queer ideals anymore. this behavior has to go. when you genuinely believe these things, we all lose.

[pumpumdemsugah]

I don't trust white queer or trans people

What this "woc have higher levels of T" and "Black women don't fit eurocentric hormone levels" ( said by left leaning people ) shows is what many of you take away is WOC, especially Black women are seen as masculine because you think there is a biological basis for this idea and don't see it the same way people see police calling Black men and boys bigger or holding a gun to justify police brutality

White queer people love the " how can you tell someone's hormone levels without a test" until they're presented with a Black woman then they know and they're happy to say whatever unscientific neo-race science shit about Black women they like to prove a point about not making assumptions about peoples bodies but Black women aren't people, we're points, tools and vehicles for credibility so we're whatever your argument needs to work. Tbh i think the only reason many of you even use that line wrt trans people is trans people can be white. If only Black people were trans, many of you would be comfortable pushing ideas you call fascist when conservatives do it. White people always find a way to present themselves as more evolved than the lowly existence Black women occupy because why are you talking about my body and why do i see people claiming stereotypes that DO NOT apply to Black women apply to us like being hairy. At this point many of you view us as an empty vessel to dump and pin any negative idea on. We're literally seen as balded headed. I'm not interchangable with other WOC or other stereotypes

All many of you have taken away is treating Black women like a modern day 3rd gender so OF COURSE we're treated differently, our bodies are problem others need to learn to stomach and taken the focus off the fact we're seen as aggressive because of the legacy of slavery. You can not own people as property and present them as people, you need a justification for enslaving an entire group of people. You lot genuinely think Black women are being targeted because we are different and brutishly made. The blame goes from the people doing this to casting Black women's bodies as a gender conundrum that has yet to be solved. Slave masters were never confused.

Its easier to justify slavery and colonialism when you pretend the people you're doing it to aren't people the way you are as white person, they aren't civilised and many of you have come to this conclusion about us again and don't see the issue of YOU finding a scapegoat to distract from your violent behaviour.

You lot hear " Black women don't fit white femininity" and you think yes, its because they're universally all big Black brutes and you think its leftism because buzzword buzzword and we're meant to see this as solidarity because you got some self loathing Black woman to agree. Black women are seen as masculine as an excuse to abuse and rape us, its not simply some issue of representation or accepting us, its used to justify harm and many of you have taken a discussion of violence against Black women and erased violence against Black women from it. And then have the gall to call it solidarity and not white entitlement when you've ignored our history and suffering

[fishhjuice]

[Also available on Twitter]

Disclaimer: Content warnings for Discussions of Xenophobia, Racism and Transmisogyny. This is not at all meant to be a hit piece for Finn or anyone who likes Finn. I love Finn, hence why i'm writing all about the said unfortunate implications of Finn's characterization, so we can acknowledge them and act accordingly.

Firstly, we have to talk about the said characterization.

Finn is the crown-tail betta fish violinist of Bottom Feeders, the celtic rock band of Splatoon 2, and has also been featured in Riot Act's "No Plan Survives". Finn, due to her stubborn personality, and how she does things in her own way, frequently clashes with the other members of her band, leading to the band nearly dissolving on several instances. [X] She has been portrayed as getting physical towards other members of her band (namely Tangle) as depicted in the art above, which has led the fandom to speculate this is Finn showing aggression due to being a betta, (a ""male"" betta to be specific, getting to that)

A thing to note about Finn is that although in canon she has been referenced in a feminine way (through Beika), in betta fish it is the males, not females that have the colorful, long fins, which has made her trans-coded.

So basically we have a possibly trans woman character who has darker skin and is implied to be celtic/Irish due to her genre. Let's unpack the implications of portraying her through her aggression.

Black-Coding and Finn

Black characters are at times portrayed as angry, overly hostile and aggressive in dominant media due to systematic racism and prejudice we exist in. These depictions have a long racist history, and been used to justify racist practices by portraying black people as more primitive, more susceptible to their base instincts, compared to the logical, calm white race. So you can see one of the big reasons to why it is so imporant to not portray Finn as always angry and ready to fight as a darker skinned character even if canon text doesn't per say treat her as a black person.

For the record, there is nothing wrong with Black people, or Finn for that matter, to be angry, or to have fights. It is through constant depiction of a black or black-coded character like that which is harmful and only contibutes to and reinforces marginalization of black people.

Trans-Coding and Finn

Another issue starts with portraying Finn as aggressive due to her nature as a "biologically male betta". For the uninitiated, bettas are known to be Siamese Fighting Fish for a reason, and male bettas are especially known for being more aggressive than their female counterparts, due to them not being able to live with other males. However, the fact they show less aggression doesn't mean that females show no aggression. Female betta will establish hierarchies and enforce them, and bite an chase each other as males do to do so. [X] I tell you all this to point out how it is no justification to portray Finn's aggression as a result of her being amab, because any narrative with Finn that portrays that aggression as innate to Finn's male nature is dangerously close to to transmisogynist/TERF rhetoric that it is men's biological innate nature to be aggressive, and trans women who are biologically male are inherently aggressive and a threat.

Irish-Coding and Finn

Then you might say, Finn is Irish, that might be it, the Angry Irish streotype (which is possibly what the devs were going for). Even if anti-Irish sentiment has died down considerably (especially compared to anti-black or anti-trans sentiment) and even if due to that this is the arguably most ""innocent"" portrayal of Finn's aggression, i still think it needs to be acknowledged that Irish prone to anger and violence is a colonial streotype perpetuated by Britain against the Irish who were resisting their colonization, portraying them as rude and barbarous to their expense. Although this streotype arguably lost it's bite (depends on who's arguing), it still persists to this day, and that alone makes it important to acknowledge.

Finn and Fandom

So what now? Splatoon has a very delicate to portray character that is often mishandled due to her "aggression"?

Well, Let's rip the bandaid off.

Even if Finn is portrayed as fighting her bandmates, the canon text never calls Finn aggressive. The Haikara Walker blurb never uses the word aggressive. The word they use to describe Finn is stubborn. According to canonical text, Finn gets into fights because she is stubborn, and wants things to be done in her way. That in itself does not at all imply she is aggressive. I emphasize this, because I want you to understand Finn as constantly aggressive and hostile and ready to start fights is a fandom invention. You can interpret the band fight to imply Finn is an aggressive person, sure, but it would be your interpretation of the White Day art at the end of the day (in which Tangle is also fighting back but you know, it's only Finn who is characterized in a certain way).

The fact charitable interpretations of Finn are rarer than they should be is a problem.

I think it is a thing in itself to be examined that "Finn is acting like a betta" is also fandom attribution to Finn. In Splatoon, although characters might have animal impulses (inklings and octolings) they are not defined by their animal traits. Another example to an "aggressive fish" in Splatoon canon is Kikura, whose species is a very aggressive cichlid, and yet Kikura is not portrayed with any aggression, making us see it is not canon but fanon that portrays Finn this way.

And even if it was concrete canon that Finn was influenced by her nature as a betta or male betta for that matter, or somewhat imply Finn is an inherently aggressive person, it would be fandom's responsibility to navigate that with utmost care as to not further marginalize marginalized people and not contribute to it.

The fact we are having this talk shows we've failed in this or that reality.

Why is Finn's passion for music making is not a driving force in her characterization? The fact she wants to share the music she loves? The fact she is described to be glamorous? Why has this one debatable aspect of Finn's characterization became all there is to Finn when it has such unfortunate implications no matter which angle you take? I leave that question up to you, and I ask you to be more mindful of all of things.

Thank you for reading.

[lafemmemacabre]

@ People who’re not lesbians and want a better understanding of lesbophobia in order to extend better solidarity towards us:

(Repost from my old blog)

The first thing you have to internalize, is that the most recurrent themes behind lesbophobia are patterns of humiliation, punishment and denying us vulnerability.

The “mean” (arrogant and cruel) lesbian, and why lesbians must be “humbled down” (humiliated):

We’re perceived as offensively arrogant because under the patriarchy, women are supposed to be inferior to men, men are supposed to be superior.

One of the key roles of patriarchal manhood is to desire women exclusively. By taking on that role that’s supposedly only reserved for men, we provoke people to think “Who do they think they are? Do they think they’re equal to men? Or BETTER than men?“

Us not “giving men a chance” is seen as a cruel act, too. Even though straight men not giving men a chance, and straight women not giving women a chance, is them just knowing what they do or don’t want.

Because of our perceived cruelty and arrogance, we need to be humiliated back down into our proper place within womanhood.

There’s a reason why men tell us they’re going to make us “real women”, when threatening us from a distance, as well as when correctively raping or beating us. When it reaches a point in which they see us as incorrigible through humiliation, they kill us.

Projecting aggression on us, which must be punished:

Even other people who’re not cishets see everything we do or don’t do as violent, abrasive or aggressive. We’re seen as raging beasts.

Expressing my unattraction to men in public in the most neutral terms possible has been treated as me shaming people who are attracted to men (an attack), or as an attempt to hurt all men. It has been deemed homophobic or biphobic, too, no matter how careful I’ve been to not hurt other people’s sensitivities.

Don’t get me started on me not liking men on itself earning me being called a TERF no matter how clear I make it that I’m inclusive of trans women. This happens even to transfem lesbians ALL the time too.

Our mere existence is seen as an act of violence, as a threat, and our violent crime must be met with punishment, which can fall anywhere between isolating us, up to meeting us with concrete violence.

The emotionless, yet hysterical lesbian:

Since we’re violent beasts, we’re seen as emotionless. Since we’re unemotional, we’re unbreakable, which means that no violence we face is punishment enough. In consequence, when we’re subjected to violence, it’s minimized. Since it’s minimized, if we complain about it, we’re exaggerating. We’re being hysterical.

We aren’t vulnerable human beings with emotions in other people’s eyes. The only emotion people allow us is anger, and only because they can use it against us. Lesbian anger at being constantly humiliated and vilified is used to demonize us further.

We don’t need protection, we don’t hurt, so it’s fine to stomp on us, and if we complain, we’re exaggerating. Actually, we’re the ones being mean to whoever hurt us, by making that person feel guilty for a non-issue.

We ESPECIALLY don’t need help, much less to be rescued!

By being lesbians, in other people’s eyes, we’re making the statement to the world that even IF we were to not be completely unbreakable or unfeeling, we still don’t want to be rescued, we don’t want help. We did this to ourselves, in other people’s eyes.

When you see a lesbian saying or doing anything and start to feel indignation, to feel attacked, to feel threatened, to perceive them as aggressive, cruel or hysterical, ask yourself:

Is this lesbian being genuinely offensive, aggressive, cruel or hysterical, or is it ME who has lesbophobic bias I haven’t unlearned yet?

Is this lesbian actually exaggerating, or is it me who sees lesbians as unfeeling and unbreakable, so they shouldn’t be so upset anyway? If you stab a lesbian they won’t bleed, so why are they making a fuss about it?

[joannechocolat]

On why women’s rage is a superpower

My mother hates my new book. I gave her a proof just a few days ago, and although she’s still only halfway through, she can’t wait to tell me all the ways in which she hates my novel.

“Is this science fiction?” she says. (She detests science fiction.) “Were you ill when you wrote this?” (I was.) And repeatedly, she says: “Why are the women so angry?”

I get it. She’s out of her comfort zone. At 83, with no internet, no interest in pop culture and a deep-rooted hatred of anything close to horror or the supernatural, she wasn’t my target audience. And yet it’s never easy to hear such criticism from a loved one. But in some ways, she isn’t wrong. Broken Light is an angry book. It came from a time of lockdown, when social media was my only window onto the world. It came from a place of trauma, when I was fighting cancer. It came from a place of corrupt hierarchies, self-serving politicians, anti-vaxxers, Covid deniers, victim-blamers, and those eager to blame all their woes on minorities. And of course, it arose against the background of the #MeToo campaign and the Sarah Everard murder – a murder that shocked the nation, not least because the murderer turned out to be a serving police officer with a reputation for sexual misconduct - which unleashed a collective howl of protest, as well as an ugly, misogynistic backlash. Even so, my story came as something of a surprise to me: the story of a woman’s rage, and, on reaching the age at which women often feel least valued, her coming into her power.

It surprised me, most of all because I wasn’t an angry person. At least, I didn’t think I was. Those who know me describe me as someone who tends to flee conflict, who generally tries to find common ground, who gets upset when people fight. And yet, writing this story, I found myself saying and feeling certain things on behalf of my heroine, Bernie Moon; things I might not have said for myself, but which felt right and urgent, and true, and strangely liberating.

Anger has a bad press. A woman’s anger, especially. While men are encouraged to express feelings of justified anger, women are often criticized when they try to do the same. Angry women are often portrayed as “harpies,” “banshees,” “Furies.” It suggests that a man’s rage is righteous, but that a woman’s is unnatural, making her into a monster. Male anger is powerful. The God of the Bible is one of wrath. Seldom is he ever portrayed as expressing any other emotion. In the same way, men and boys are often led to believe that expressing emotion is weak - except for anger, which is seen as acceptably masculine.

In comparison, women are often criticized when they show aggression. Angry women are hysterical, shrill, out of control, unreliable, unattractive, unfeminine. A perceived lack of “femininity” makes a woman less valuable, less worthy of respect and of protection. The Press coverage of women victims of violence is a case in point. A victim of violence needs to be attractive, white, gender conforming and virtuous in every way if she is not to be overlooked, or worse, portrayed as somehow having contributed to her misfortune. When trans teenager Brianna Ghey was stabbed, the Press were very quick to state that her murder was not thought to be a hate crime, whilst at the same time obsessing over – and questioning - her gender. When Nicola Bulley disappeared, police felt obliged to divulge details of her struggle with the menopause, as well as her alcohol issues, even though this was privileged information and of no public relevance. When Emma Pattison, the Head of Epsom College, was murdered alongside her daughter, the Press immediately assumed that her husband George must have felt “overshadowed” and “driven to distraction” by his wife’s prestigious job. In all three cases, the victim falls under the hostile scrutiny of the Press, while the perpetrator is given an excuse. In all three cases, the victim – one trans, one hormonal, one better-paid than her husband - is effectively portrayed as “unnatural”. Subtext: Unnatural women do not deserve the protection of the patriarchy. Unnatural women come to bad ends.    

Once you start to acknowledge it, rage grows at a surprising rate. Over the past three years, I have found myself growing increasingly angry. Angry at the injustices committed by our Government; t the greed of corporations; angry at the prejudice extended to those who are different.

Connecting with others on social media has made me more aware of the lives and experiences of those from different backgrounds to mine, and with different levels of privilege. For a long time I’d been resistant to calling myself a feminist. Feminists are angry, I thought. What right have you to be angry?

Growing older, I realize that this was my mother speaking. A woman of a certain generation, who although she was aware of the challenges of living in a patriarchy, still had a level of privilege that many women do not share. White, professional, cishet women can sometimes have the luxury of choosing not to be angry. White, professional, cishet women can sometimes have the illusion of equality. But feminism isn’t only for just one kind of woman. A feminist must look beyond the limits of their own experience. And that’s where the anger really starts: anger at injustice; anger at corruption and lies. Most of all, anger at the prejudice against certain people for just being themselves; for being transgender, or Black, or old, or simply not conforming to what a white, patriarchal society expects and values. And once you start seeing injustice, you start to see it everywhere. It’s like an eye, which, once opened, cannot unsee inequality.

My anger flourished in lockdown. A time of growing divisions. Masks are invaluable in a pandemic, and yet they inhibit connection. They serve as a kind of reminder of who can speak, and who is to be silenced. While Boris Johnson was urging the public to trust the police, a vigil for Sarah Everard was broken up, with violence, by officers citing lockdown laws. While elderly people were dying alone; while I drove for four hours just to go for a half-hour walk in the park with my son; while I sat alone in my chemo chair, politicians were partying. Billionaires were enriching themselves. Behind the mask, the eye opened wide. I caught myself making faces behind my disguise at strangers. There was something weirdly liberating about this; as if, behind the piece of cloth, I could express myself at last. Not unlike writing a book, in fact. On screen, the eye opened wider. Bernie Moon, my heroine, was unlike like me in many ways, and yet anger connected us. The anger that comes from helplessness; from seeing others mistreated. Anger at a society that propagates inequality. And the anger that comes from hormones – those mood-altering chemicals that everyone produces, and yet which allegedly make women erratic; unreliable; hormonal.

In his novel, Carrie, Stephen King tells the story of a girl, whose telekinetic powers are unleashed by her teenage hormones. Carrie is unpopular, bullied, isolated. Her rage finds an outlet in her power. Driven to breaking-point by the bullies, she becomes a monster. Of course she does: after all, the author of this tale is a man, writing from the perspective of a couple of thousand years’ worth of patriarchal inheritance. In literature, a woman’s anger is unnatural; monstrous. It leads to terrible, unnatural things: makes murderers and infanticides of Clytemnestra and Medea; monsters of Medusa and Scylla. Unnatural, monstrous women are always punished in literature, even while acknowledging that they are often the victims of men. And unnatural women are often seen as physically repulsive – a reminder that, to be valued and loved, women must be young, and pure, and conform to the standards of beauty set out by their society. In literature, just as in life, those women who do not conform tend to be less valued, less seen, and when they do appear, do so as wicked witches, evil stepmothers, ugly crones and hideous travesties of womanhood.

But what would happen if a woman took control of the narrative? In recent years, we have observed a number of retellings of Greek myths from the point of view of the monster. Stone Blind, by Nathalie Haynes; Medusa, by Jessie Burton; Circe, by Madeline Miller. In both cases, the monstrous woman is seen from a different perspective; her rage absorbed and justified; her narrative reclaimed from a patriarchy that seeks to tame and subdue a woman’s rage, even at the cost of her life.

My new novel, Broken Light, comes from the same process of reclamation. It owes a debt to Carrie, but I have avoided the explicitly paranormal theme of the original, as well as the girl-on-girl bullying and the psychopathic mother. In my version, Carrie lives; marries her childhood sweetheart; internalizes all her rage and suffocates her power. Until the menopause – a topic which until recently has been largely misunderstood and taboo – at which point her power returns, and with it, a new kind of freedom. Freedom from the male gaze; from the responsibilities of motherhood; from the largely impossible expectations of society. Unlike puberty, menopause is triggered by a lack of certain hormones; and yet the symptoms can be just as dramatic and isolating. Loss of libido, exhaustion, depression, emotional outbursts as well as unpredictable and alarming hot flashes – my version of Carrie’s pyrokinesis. Whether my heroine’s powers stem from any kind of paranormal source is very much up to the reader to decide – after all, paranormal is only a step away from unnatural. And what counts as unnatural is in the eye of the reader – an eye that has been opened, I hope, to a series of new possibilities.

One is that rage is natural. Living in a patriarchy, women have a right to their rage. In fact, it seems more unnatural to me when women are not angry, given how much misogyny remains in our society. And growing old is natural. Being hormonal is natural. Differences are natural; so are disabilities. All women matter; whatever their age, or colour, or sexual orientation, or marital or reproductive status. The value of a woman’s life should not be defined by her popularity, or her age, or her looks, or her kids, or her value to the patriarchy. And no-one else gets to decide what a woman ought to be. A woman is not what, but who - a person, not an object; an active participant in her world. Women have lived too long behind the mask. They deserve their own stories. Stories in which they are allowed the full range of human possibility. So, to answer my mother’s question: Why are the women so angry?

Because it’s a superpower.

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Who's Afraid of Gender by Judith Butler

goodreads

From a global icon, a bold, essential account of how a fear of gender is fueling reactionary politics around the world.

Judith Butler, the groundbreaking thinker whose iconic book Gender Trouble redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on “gender” that have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed “anti-gender ideology movements” that are dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous, perhaps diabolical, threat to families, local cultures, civilization―and even “man” himself. Inflamed by the rhetoric of public figures, this movement has sought to nullify reproductive justice, undermine protections against sexual and gender violence, and strip trans and queer people of their rights to pursue a life without fear of violence.

The aim of Who’s Afraid of Gender? is not to offer a new theory of gender but to examine how “gender” has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations, and transexclusionary feminists. In their vital, courageous new book, Butler illuminates the concrete ways that this phantasm of “gender” collects and displaces anxieties and fears of destruction. Operating in tandem with deceptive accounts of “critical race theory” and xenophobic panics about migration, the anti-gender movement demonizes struggles for equality, fuels aggressive nationalism, and leaves millions of people vulnerable to subjugation.

An essential intervention into one of the most fraught issues of our moment, Who’s Afraid of Gender? is a bold call to refuse the alliance with authoritarian movements and to make a broad coalition with all those whose struggle for equality is linked with fighting injustice. Imagining new possibilities for both freedom and solidarity, Butler offers us a hopeful work of social and political analysis that is both timely and timeless―a book whose verve and rigor only they could deliver.

Mod opinion: I haven't gotten around to reading this yet, but my girlfriend owns a copy and I am So excited for when I get around to it!

[mariacallous]

A well-known Georgian transgender model has been murdered, local officials said, a day after the government passed legislation that will impose sweeping curbs on LGBTQ+ rights in the country.

Georgia’s interior ministry said Kesaria Abramidze, 37, was believed to have been stabbed to death in her apartment in suburban Tbilisi on Wednesday.

Georgian media later reported that a man had been arrested in connection with the crime.

Abramidze was one of the country’s first openly trans public figures. Her death follows controversial legislation on “family values and the protection of minors” that will allow officials to outlaw Pride events and censor films and books.

The law, which was approved by the Georgian parliament on Tuesday in its third and final reading, includes bans on same-sex marriages and gender-affirming treatments. It is expected to be another point of contention between Georgia and the EU as the country seeks to join the bloc.

Critics argue that the bill, initially introduced by the ruling Georgian Dream party in the summer, mirrors laws enacted in neighbouring Russia, where authorities have implemented a series of repressive anti-LGBTQ+ measures over the past decade.

Although the motive behind Abramidze’s murder remains unclear, her death was swiftly cast by Georgian civil society as part of a state campaign against minorities in the country.

Under the Georgian Dream party, which has taken an increasingly anti-liberal stance, the country has seen a rise in violence against LGBTQ+ people.

Last year, hundreds of opponents of gay rights stormed an LGBTQ+ festival in Tbilisi, forcing the event to be cancelled. This year, tens of thousands of people marched in the capital to promote “traditional family values” at an event attended by the ruling party amd the deeply conservative and influential Orthodox church.

“There is a direct correlation between the use of hate speech in politics and hate crimes,” the Social Justice Center, a Tbilisi-based human rights group, said in its statement reacting to the murder.

“It has been almost a year that the Georgian Dream government has been aggressively using homo/bi/transphobic language and cultivating it with mass propaganda means,” it added.

On Wednesday, Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, called on the Georgian government to withdraw the “family values” law, warning it would harm Georgia’s chances of joining the bloc. The legislation would “increase discrimination & stigmatisation”, he said on X.

After Abramidze’s death, Michael Roth, the Social Democratic party chair of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee in Germany, echoed that call. “Those who sow hatred will reap violence. Kesaria Abramidze was killed just one day after the Georgian parliament passed the anti-LGBTI law,” Roth wrote on X.

The introduction of the law comes just five weeks before parliamentary elections that many see as a litmus test of whether Georgia, once one of the most pro-western former Soviet states, will now drift towards Russia.

The country’s pro-western president, Salome Zourabichvili, whose functions are mostly ceremonial, is expected to veto the law before it comes into effect. However, Georgian Dream and its allies have enough seats in parliament to override her veto.

Earlier this year, the Georgian Dream also pushed through the divisive “foreign influence” law, which western critics argue is authoritarian and Russian-inspired, and has derailed the country’s EU aspirations.

Meanwhile, tributes have started to pour in for Abramidze, who represented Georgia at Miss Trans Star International in 2018 and had more than 500,000 followers on Instagram.

“Kesaria was iconic! Provocative, wise, incredibly brave! A trailblazer for Georgia’s trans rights,” Maia Otarashvili, a Georgian political scientist, wrote on X.

Zourabichvili said the murder should be a “wake-up call” for Georgian society.

“A terrible murder! The death of this beautiful young woman … should not be in vain!” the president wrote on Facebook.

[cardentist]

I just wrote up a more, emotional? reactive? take on this whole thing here [Link], but I wanted to try to say this in a way that's easier to parse.

people insist that trans mascs don't have any unique experiences (as Opposed to trans fems).

people insist that trans mascs Do Not face misogyny.

people insist that trans mascs Do Not face physical violence.

people insist that trans mascs Do Not face medical violence.

or if they Do, it's lesser than/misdirected from trans fems, to the point that it's presented as Wrong (if not active bigotry) to focus on/acknowledge them in conversations about these topics.

(even when, as we've established, people have actively invoked trans mascs to deny them these experiences).

in other words, trans mascs have been facing Active Erasure from within (and sometimes from Outside Of) the community, specifically intended to deny them their experiences and then Also frame any attempt from them to counter those claims as aggressive rather than defensive.

and this all hinges on an Extremely binary and gender-essentialist premise. both in denying trans-mascs their experiences based on their gender (asserting that there are innate properties to Being A Man that trans mascs invoke by being trans masc), AND by presenting trans fems and trans mascs as Opposites.

there is a seesaw, and if trans fems experience one thing then it must be presumed that trans mascs Don't, and so if trans masc try to insist that they experience these things Too then it Must Be that they're trying to take that experience away from trans fems.

and what's important to understand is that this framing is wrong. not just because of the harm that it causes to trans mascs, but because of the harm it causes To Everyone.

and I mean that on two fronts:

1: this is not a case of trans fems vs trans mascs, the seesaw Is Not Real. it's not trans women putting trans mascs down, it's Gender-Essentialists enforcing a gender binary within the trans and genderqueer communities. this rhetoric comes from all sorts of people, cis people, trans neutral people, trans masc people, and (yes) sometimes trans fem people.

and just the same, it's people who are Against gender-essentialism who speak up about the harm that this causes, and often those people are trans fem! and that Both means that nobody is served by directing negativity at trans fems AND that it is not appropriate to assume that trans mascs defending themselves and speaking on their experiences is causing harm to trans fems inherently.

2: this entire framing leaves trans neutral, genderqueer, and intersex people out in the cold. being an Inherently gender-essentialist and binary argument, these people who do not fit neatly into the binary are Heavily negatively impacted by it while Also being erased.

I have read someone (another trans masc, even), completely unironically, write the words "trans men have privilege over trans women because cis women have privilege over trans women." completely boiling trans mascs down to their agab and stripping them of their transness.

people are using tme (transmisogyny exempt) to refer to afab trans people (separating them Out from cis women), to deny these trans people experiences that they have had.

and this Does Not only affect binary trans men. there are afab intersex people who very actively experience transmisogyny, there are nonbinary people who are being boiled down to their agab, forcibly rebinarized and stripped of their transness, there are gnc people (cis and trans) who are treated as if they don't exist and actively attacked and erased if they try to speak up.

but the conversations is Framed like it's men vs women, the argument is presented as inherently binary.

and that makes it Incredibly difficult and frustrating to dismantle. just Look at this post, I had to very specifically go on an entire preamble about men and women just to begin unpacking the situation (and to undercut the ways that people try to actively silence people when they speak about it).

and even while actively Trying to be inclusive, trans neutral and genderqueer and intersex and gnc people read as a Footnote in the entire first half of this post that I wrote Specifically To Acknowledge Them. the very conversation itself Erases them, which is a Major Problem that's Incredibly frustrating and difficult to unpack.

to Say "trans people who I interpret as men/masculine are lesser than, and are harming trans people who I interpret as women/feminine" you Have to decide what Man and Woman and Masculine and Feminine mean. there is no trans inclusive way to do this, there is no way to do this without throwing people who challenge gender/sex binaries and gender norms under the bus.

(this even Actively Harms trans fems, whether those trans fems are gnc, genderqueer, intersex, pre transition, aren't able to/don't want to transition, or are just perceived as Too Masculine by these people vilifying queer masculinity. gender essentialism Is Inherently transphobic and harms All trans people.)

and in this case, it's Incredibly frustrating to talk about, because many people can't get past the idea that deciding that a gender is Innately Bad (just, the very definition of gender-essentialism) is Wrong.

trying to voice the harm that this causes to people Outside of the binary is bogged down by the first step. you can't unpack it without unpacking the essentialism being pointed at trans mascs, because people are Going to keep acting like this as long as they're convinced that they not only can but Should treat trans mascs this way.

and it needs to be said, that for as frustrating as it is to be put in this position we Have to acknowledge that the problem is with the situation, not with trans mascs trying to defend themselves.

I Do absolutely think that Everyone needs to make an active effort to think about and include All trans and genderqueer people in these conversations, to point out how incredibly exorsexist the conversation is Without just being a footnote or an aside or a gotcha. genderqueer people can't just be a tool we use to advocate for binary trans people.

but At The Same Time, the timeline of events cannot be

trans mascs are denied having unique lived experiences.

trans mascs are presented as not only lesser than, but actively privileged on the basis of their gender.

trans mascs assert their lived experiences and address the gendered violence they're experiencing.

trans mascs are criticized for framing their defense around the gendered violence that they're experiencing.

to say that The Reason trans mascs are in the wrong for discussing transandrophobia (or Whichever term you prefer) because there are no experiences unique to any gender or identity, while Not holding that same standard to transmisogyny or exorsexism, is very obviously singling trans mascs out and making it more difficult for them to combat their own erasure.

what's necessary here is Solidarity. Everyone needs to be put on the same playing field, to have All of their experiences matter. trans people need to be Equal.

and this means trans mascs and binary trans men making an active effort to include intersex, genderqueer, trans neutral, and gnc people in these conversations that affect them, and as More than just an afterthought.

and it Also means people recognizing that the conversation is inherently gender-essentialist, and that trans mascs have to be able to effectively advocate for themselves in the face of their own erasure and demonization. to blame them for the gendered violence they're experiencing isn't any more fair than the erasure genderqueer people are experiencing.

[drdemonprince]

I read your newsletter about "transmisandry" today. I'm a trans man and I generally agree with what you said. However, I was wondering how you would classify a particular experience of mine and other trans men I know irl or have seen online.

In short, I find that in some queer spaces, masculine and/or "binary" (meaning, not non-binary) trans men are treated as outsiders and enemies. I imagine some straight-passing queer cis men experience similar.

This prejudice against masculinity has nothing to do with us being trans, and is in no way oppressive, but it seems to me that some people have a hatred/disgust/discomfort/etc. with masculine men, especially if we are proud of our manhood. I sometimes feel excluded in queer or progressive spaces, and like I have to change myself to fit into others' idea of "acceptable" manhood.

I think this tends to emotionally affect trans men in particular because being a man is generally hard-won and joyful for us. Have you experienced prejudice in queer spaces, especially trans spaces, for being transmasculine? And while I don't believe there exists systemic misandry, is this not a form of misandry, just interpersonal?

Thanks, I really appreciate your work.

Hi there, thank you for great question. What you are describing is certainly a very real and troubling dynamic within both queer and feminist spaces, and it's put me off for a very long time. I have sometimes referred to this as "playful 'misandry' feminism", always with "misandry" in quotes because, as we've already established, it's not a real locus of systemic oppression. I have also sometimes in the past likened it to "Men's Tears Coffee Mug" feminism in its performative, self-congratulatory, typically white feminist stance.*

*in the Koa Beck sense of the term. Someone who is not white can be a white feminist.

I was always put off by performative man-hating jokes and the exclusion of men within feminist spaces because, well, I was one, and because it nearly always played out in transmisogynistic ways that were transparent to me, and because I was a major ride-or-die for men who were victims of sexual violence yet were frequently excluded from survivors' spaces (again, because I was one, even before I realized that I was).

There are a lot of troubling effects that happen when feminist women make a big performance out of finding all men to be disgusting and evil and frequently express disinterest in men's feelings or suffering (which used to be way more common in my estimation, around the early 2010's or so it seemed to peak). I was driven away from feminist spaces as a young closeted trans man because I could see such spaces were not for me or for any of the other men that I cared about and needed support. On the inverse side of things, I have spoken to many trans men who said that "playful "misandry"" feminism actively made it harder for them to realize that they were guys. Men were seen as the enemy and inherently evil and destructive and so they felt absolutely disgusting about the possibility of being a man, or feared transitioning would get them seen as a betrayer of the feminist movement.

As you rightly note, it is not just trans guys who get excluded by such dynamics. Cis men who are genuinely avowed feminists can be driven away by such forces, which is especially upsetting in the case of sexual assault survivors and queer men. Trans women and TMA enbies are excluded from feminist and women's spaces because they supposedly "look like" men to these types, and their own feelings of superficial safety rank above the actual data on who is the most at risk structurally (which is trans women). Butches are regarded in some spaces as too aggressive or unacceptably masculine because of it. And people's analysis of gender oppression just overall sucks when they buy into "playful misandry" style feminism because they go around saying shit like "femme people are oppressed by masc folks." what the hell does that mean. Does a cis, gender conforming feminine woman have less structural power than a butch lesbian? I don't think so.

It seems to me that the big problem here is that "playful misandry" feminism is rooted in a deep deep misunderstanding of the structural nature of oppression. Sexism isn't caused by patriarchy and capitalism, it's caused by "men" and so hating men and excluding them is what will fix things. Men as individuals are responsible for sexism and so women should be as detached from them and unsupportive of them as possible. This logic leads to a TERFy place really quickly, and yes, it also really really damages trans men.

My opinion is that it's best to critique this problem as the political failure that it is: a misunderstanding of sexism as individualistic rather than systemic. That's the core issue from which all the problems flow -- from rampant transmisogyny to the exclusion of cis male sexual assault survivors to the feelings of alienation of trans men. Yes sometimes naming the performative nature of "man hating" jokes and the like is helpful because people recognize instantly what that dynamic is when they hear it. But the "misandry" itself is not the core problem -- it's the shitty gender politics and white feminism.

Does that make sense? To be clear, I think it's something trans men get to talk about. I talk about it from my positionality quite a lot really. I don't think "misandry" is ultimately the helpful or clarifying way to name it, but I will sometimes throw around that term with a TON of qualifiers if I'm discussing the specific interpersonal dynamic of women saying that men are evil rapists innately or whatever. But really discussing the broader gender politics failure that leads to those little shitty comments and looks is almost always more helpful. If trans guys and cis guys are feeling excluded from a space due to these dynamics it's almost always the case that trans women, TMA enbies, butch women, and lots of women of color are too.

[velvetvexations]

i think one of the things that bothers me so much about the comparison between theyfab and cracker is just the orders of magnitudes of difference between the two. even if we accept that nonbinary people who were AFAB have power over trans women and fems, they are not the ones who built the system of oppression that trans women and fems suffer under. cracker isn't just a word for someone in an oppressor class, it is a tiny, tiny punch up at white people, who built and benefit from white supremacy and the oppression of Black people. Its use by Black people is directly linked to Malcolm X and the civil rights movement. nonbinary people who were AFAB didn't build transmisogyny, they don't materially/systemically benefit from it (being able to weaponize transmisogyny interpersonally and harm trans women and fems doesn't equate to actual, material, systemic benefits [and certainly not to the level that white people who benefit from white supremacy do compared to Black people]; being a pick-me for TERFs and conservatives will only harm nonbinary people who were AFAB in the long run), there isn't a centuries long legacy of violence and dehumanization specifically perpetuated by nonbinary people who were AFAB against trans women and fems, and certainly not in such a way that it becomes a societal norm. these things WERE done by cis people, primarily cis, straight, white men, but i don't see half the energy directed at cis people as i do ""theyfabs"", i don't see "TMEs deserve to be genocided" meaningfully being directed at cis people, it's all somehow the evil "theyfabs" who are the root of all evils committed against trans women and fems. i just don't fucking get it.

sure, AFAB trans people didn't build transmisogyny so it may seem weird to toss so much aggression at them in perceived retaliation, but consider this: cis people are (gulp) s-s-scary!

[prairiedeath]

ON TRANSMISOGYNY AND GENDER COLONIALISM • 1/?

So many leftist spaces have long been gentrified and full of fake-ally cis people, whether it's chauvinistic, plain old misogynistic cis men, or crypto-terfs & trans-misogynistic cis women who may never publicly say "trans women aren't women" but will always treat us with less respect and trust than they would cis women, even many times like predatory men. More often than not, this micro-aggression goes completely unnoticed by cis allies, but the longer a trans woman is out, the more we notice it, the more we realize that in order for us to assimilate, we have to walk on eggshells and make more space for everyone else (despite being given the least space by anyone else) so that we aren't blacklisted and ostracized undeservingly.

Expanding on that, this phenomenon is pervasive in almost any space that claims to be feminist, whether that's explicitly a women's space (in which case the micro-aggressions from cis women are usually even worse), or any other kind of space. It's like a plague in DIY scenes, as an example. It's understandable why trans women want to assimilate and we should take no blame for that, all we usually want is to survive. We ask only for a ceasefire but we never get one. We want to love and to be loved by our communities the way any community should love one another. But our goal should have never been to assimilate. We should never have wanted to accept the bare minimum from cis society. We should all want the space for ourselves, as we all deserve, to live a long life, to have dreams, to want love, to want sex, to be angry, to make mistakes which we grow and learn from, cis people are given more space for all of these very human experiences than trans people and that is a definitive form of dehumanization. For trans women, and trans people in general, to assimilate into cis society, to demand nothing more than tolerance, is in the same vein as a cis woman being forced into submission by the patriarchy; weaponized promises. Transmisogynistic micro-aggressions, and the proceeding witch hunts against trans women, are the perpetuation of gendered violence, the violent enforcement of toxic gender roles, and even further, **𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑚**

cis women participating in this gendered violence is just another case of members of one marginalized group supporting the marginalization of another in order to alleviate their own misery- it's downright wicked. Cis women know what it's like to be the target of constant, ceaseless gendered violence, and yet many jump on the opportunity to dish it out against someone even more marginalized than them. This is why radfeminism is a toothless, watered down form of "feminism", this is why radfeminism is anything but radical. You will not solve the issue of gendered violence against women by dishing it out on people who are raped and murdered by men at a higher rate than anyone else in the world, even cis women.

trans and marxist feminism both demand that trans people, especially transfems, are given the same space to react with hostility to our oppressors as the left would give any other colonized group. And the sad fact is that even most left wing spaces in the west, even what should be spaces of our own, have failed to give trans women the room to react to gender colonizers or to even live our lives to the fullest. transphobia is so much more than bathroom bills and "don't say gay" (though those are absolutely battlegrounds for trans rights), it is also microaggressions, alienation, dehumanization and witch hunts.

These are all things I've had to learn on my own. Nobody ever warned me I would face these specific cryptic forms of discrimination and violence; because so many of us are stuck in a cycle of catering to cis society, while cis society gaslights us about it, that none of the trans women I knew back when I came out 7-8 years ago quite had the language to describe these experiences to me. Every day that passes the urge grows for me to find the words myself. I learn the hard way every day that trans liberation will never come from toothless cries for acceptance, it will only ever come when we turn the barrels of our guns to the gender colonizers.

[genderkoolaid]

TW: Description of fatal violence against a Black trans man

San Francisco's DA has released the video of Banko Brown's murder. His murderer is not facing any charges because of the claim it was in self-defense, hence why protestors have been demanding the video be released.

Banko, who was unhoused and struggled to find housing as a Black trans man, was accused of shoplifting- although his friends disagree with this (although, in my opinion, poor people should be allowed to take whatever the fuck they need & security guards are bastards too). The security guard who killed Banko, Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, claims that he threatened to stab him, and later lunged at him, which is why he was shot.

The released video shows Banko walking quickly towards the door before being physically stopped, and then aggressively attacked- punched in the face, thrown around, and forced to the ground, all while trying to get out of the store. After he is free, he grabs his bag and begins walking backwards out the door facing the security guard, who is following him as he tries to escape.

Anthony then shot him. Because he "feared for his life."

Civil rights lawyer John Burris said: "It seems to me the officer was being aggressive, physically controlling, and beating up on Banko, who ultimately broke loose and went out the door. He turned and was facing him, and he was shot. I haven’t seen any evidence Banko was lunging toward the officer. It seems the use of deadly force was unconscionable and unnecessary" and calls into question the allegation that Banko threatened to stab the officer.

Black unhoused lives matter. Black transmasc lives matter. Donate to his family's GoFundMe for his funeral.

[pumpumdemsugah]

On a site as white as this one of the most popular posts about white supremacy is a white trans person aggressively insisting that you can't combat white supremacy without transphobia or they said transphobia is central to white supremacy is to be expected with a group that cannot handle accountability

Do you actually believe that or is this a case of white people finding a way to talk about white supremacy where they don't feel implicated because of their one oppressed identity

Because I don't find any of these even slightly genuine and the fact is there are lots of ways to end transphobia and white supremacy remains because the masculisation of black people stems from slavery not transphobia and you'd know this if you read anything about slavery. It could have been a discussion of trans people of colour, especially black ones in the global south and how they experience most of the violence against trans people but then we have to talk about racism and white trans people would feel left out and excluded and start ranting about exclusionists tearing the movement apart of whatever melodramatic self centred nonsense

[kkoffin]

omg please post the posts from terfisaslur.com its truly disgusting what they post about terfs, people need to beware about how disgustingly awful these "trans women" are. "stab your local terf" ?!?! the fact that the whole website is literally just abusing women sexually and non sexually is disturbing.

As much as that website is useful for proving a point and peaking, or realizing that often times, these people have no interest in a genuine debate, and rather have more of a Me Ne Frego mindset, personally I do try to avoid it because I feel it only radicalizes me/others (in the bad way) more than it does educate me. I don't want to engage with a TIM/TRA and feel horrified or disgusted or hateful or fearful because of the endless rape and torture and other threats I've read. I want to be able to engage in discussion with them, and there are many out there that aren't what you see on that website - many are young, and have fallen into the ideology. Many are same-sex attracted and afraid of their sexuality, many are feminine men or masculine women who have been told this is what they want. Some have eating disorders and are told by school councilors "You starve because you aren't meant to be curvy! its body dysphoria!". Many are CSA victims.

Rare as they are, there are trans-identifying people who are willing to engage in discussion with a gender critical person without intellectual dishonesty or aggressive rhetoric. It's important to balance knowing when someone has no intentions of actually hearing your argument out (like everyone in the screenshots you see on this website) and when to be kind and understand that many people have been aggressively lied to about what radical feminism/gender criticism is, and we don't want to drive those people further away. We already have to fight with so much misinformation and lies about our ideology. If you are someone who can handle it, its better to focus on theory, and hope that you can share the information in a way which makes sense to anyone who is willing to listen to it.

Tldr: yes this website is an eye-opener, its... amazing in a sense, but it's also painful to look at and personally i'm not for blackpill-type content. For anyone who does want to see the website: here it is huge warning for descriptions of extreme sexual violence, rape, torture etc etc against feminists. Don't doom-scroll it.