toadcroaky

[toadcroaky]

saw someone criticizing the transfem werewolf metaphor and comparing it to how zootopia (badly) sets up predator vs prey as a race analogy and i feel like i should clarify

the transfem werewolf metaphor works because people assume werewolves will be predators to humans, when in reality, real wolves are just. not really all that dangerous to people

and yeah you could argue that a lot of werewolf mythology involves them being violent but thats part of the metaphor! how many people do you think got their impression of trans women absolutely ruined by someone telling a story of some trans girl and calling her a child predator or a big scary man in the woman’s bathroom? because it’s quite a few!

the metaphor works because, much like werewolves, there’s really no reason to assume that trans women are dangerous to anyone else except what people (who have had their fear weaponized) say about them

[toadcroaky]

IT FUCKIN YURI DAAAAAAAAAAAY

[toadcroaky]

Happy Yuri day to all who celebrate this important holiday.

I am no longer asking you WILL think about women kissing today.

[toadcroaky]

[toadcroaky]

[toadcroaky]

one time in college when i was like 19 this guy in one of my classes asked me out and he was SO nice so i cannot stress enough i did Not want to hurt his feelings. i turned him down very gently and told him i just wasn't interested, which was the truth.

anyway a week later one of those evil christian demonstrators was on campus shouting at people and generally we ignored them because what they want is an audience and an argument. but on this day i was walking by on my way to ballet so i was in leggings and a sweater over my leotard and he yelled "nice cameltoe, dyke!" and i honestly was less angry at him than i was at my university for allowing him to be there. they said it was public property so he had the right to "assemble" but i didn't understand why sexually harassing students and calling them slurs was included in that "right."

anyway i was 19 and so mad and i spun on him idk probably i was going to hit him and people saw that because they got between us and gave me the classic "he's not worth it" speech and i was like okay you're right.

so he shouted something about me liking pussy and i laughed and said "actually, i do! you got one thing right!" and then i turned to walk away

and one of the guys who intervened (thankfully so i didn't get expelled for beating someone up on campus) was the guy who'd asked me out and after i calmed down and he was sure i was okay he was joking around to lighten the mood and he said "'pussy' huh? now i know why you weren't interested in me hahaha."

and my autistic ass said, without thinking, simply trying to clarify my identity at the time and that genitals aren't gendered etc. "no i am bisexual, that wasn't it."

[toadcroaky]

This is who is leading the NYC mayoral democratic primary rn

[toadcroaky]

vis a vis recent discussions about bottom surgery: i see people saying that tgirl pussy is "normalized" and i see people saying that tgirl dick is "normalized". i need everyone to remember the actual world we live in which is one in which NONE of it is normalized. the "normative" way for a trans woman to be is dead or a man. our very existence is radical. don't make decisions about your body on what is or isn't radical "enough" and definitely don't inflict judgement onto your sisters on what choices they're making. any kind of transition at all is the most radical thing in the universe. you are living and you are creating yourself and you are being a woman in opposition of everything everyone in the world is telling you. tgirl pussy and tgirl dick are both perfect because tgirls are perfect. it is simultaneously true that wanting to keep your dick is judged and wanting bottom surgery is judged because everything we do is judged. love yourself and your sisters

[toadcroaky]

If you're in NYC and you haven't voted yet I'm gonna need you to go tomorrow and rank Zohran Mamdani #1. Tomorrow is the last day for early voting and then you won't get a chance again until Tuesday. It's extremely important that we elect Zohran.

His platform centers the following:

Affordable housing

Freezing the rent

Fast and free busses

Department of Community safety

No cost childcare

City owned grocery stores

Taxing corporations and the wealthy to pay for all of this

Here is a direct link to the platform with more details.

DO NOT RANK CUOMO.

Andrew Cuomo is a rapist. He's a Zionist who is literally on Netanyahu's defense team against the ICC. And his primary interest is upholding the status quo. He's backed by billionaires and landlords. NYC cannot afford a mayor like this.

If you are registered to vote in NYC I'm begging you to do so. We have a real chance here

[toadcroaky]

i remember a few years ago when ppl literally dying via a record breaking heat wave hitting a city without the infastructure to handle it was met with ppl going 'pff. barbecue weather. aint even bad.'

i now see that kind of comment as a red flag lol

[toadcroaky]

[toadcroaky]

Another non-human packer argument has hit the queer teenagers discourse

[toadcroaky]

A grown ass adult when you vote for a different character on a tumblr poll

[toadcroaky]

I ❤️ contributing to low birth rates

[toadcroaky]

[toadcroaky]

Rings my fucking bell, like a perennial fucking plague maiden:

Center harm, not disgust!

When in doubt (and when not in doubt, just swept by problems bigger than you and assured by someone that they know the answer, so don't think right now, just Do!), center harm.

Focus on what specific harm you're reducing with your actions. Make sure it's tangible and concrete. If your actions are minimizing hypothetical harm at the cost of real, tangible harm on others, 9 out 10 times you're on the wrong fucking side, being weaponized by propaganda.

If a conversation revolves around disgust as a driver for action, you're being radicalized. If a call to action depends on your emotional response, you're being manipulated. I'm sorry, this isn't the 90s anymore, social media has eroded the web of respectability of the pre internet society. The primary axis for misinformation to spread in this day and age is emotional response: half the things you believe are true and share as such are not based on fact, expert opinion or personal research. Social media has conditioned us (all of us! You and me and most dangerously of all, the idiots we put in power) that if something feels true, it probably is.

But do you know for sure it is? Do you think it's true because you have first hand experience or actual time spent on reputable sources learning it to be fact? Or just because it aligns with your worldview and it would be nice for you if it were true?

Are you taking action because you're angry and a group of fellow angry folk invited you to join them? Do you have a plan or is this just catharsis? Are you aware of the consequences of your actions or are you drunk on rage and focused only on the immediate future?

Center harm. Center specific actions and their consequences.

Discomfort is not harm. Disgust is not harm. Hypothetical paranoia is not harm.

The reactionary pipeline is real and your self-image as a progressive is not actually enough to save you from falling down the hole. Radicalization is not hinged on politics alone. Saying you're a leftist is worthless if your thought process and actions themselves are indistinguishable from qanon losers. Conspiratorial thought has literally no politics inherently, and your insistence it does is pure lack of critical thought on display.

Center harm, not feelings, not politics, not group think.

Center harm, and remember that individual actions cannot dismantle systemic structures on their own, so anyone who calls for individual action at the cost of community structures is not actually trying to change anything, and instead actively suppressing efforts to make anything better in any way.