#also discussions on self identified feminists

[fall-and-shadows]

Personally, I think there need to be more discussions about how detrimental liberal, faux feminism has been for girls. But men have no business commenting on feminism of any kind anywhere as far as I'm concerned

#is liberal feminism really even a thing anymore #or has it been completely compromised and coopted #also discussions on self identified feminists #bc i know my experiences with this cant be just me #they dont even support or believe women #the backlash is real

[vexingwoman]

hi sorry (one of the previous wumph anons): this is completely random and there’s no need to answer this but… you said you got a lot of anons on the topic. What was the general consensus on the whole phenomenon among them?

Just to contextualize this ask: I recently mentioned how the whump community (known for romanticizing the extreme anguish, torture, and trauma of fictional characters) has an abnormally high amount of members who identify as trans men. And more interestingly, that almost all the characters whose anguish this community romanticizes are male as well. Many radical feminists have subsequently discussed why this might be.

I can’t say there is much of a consensus at all. Most theories I received as to why this community almost exclusively romanticizes the anguish of male characters were vastly different, and at times, outright contradictory. However, here are the most common ones:

-It’s a homoerotic fetish. This is an obvious and uncomplicated conclusion to draw; most members of the whump community are simply girls who fetishize male homoerotic dynamics. This effectively explains why the whumpee, the whumper, and even the caretaker are most frequently all male characters.

-Readers have too much compassion for female victims. Many radfems expressed that female anguish is too reflective of reality—especially considering most whump themes are forms of abuse that, outside of fiction, females are the primary victims of. The result is an uncomfortable degree of realism in which female readers may involuntarily project themselves onto the victimized female character. Therefore, replacing the victimized female character with a male helps to dilute the degree of realism and create a necessary distance between the reader and character.

-Readers lack compassion for female victims. Other radfems including myself feel that whump consumers fixate on male victimization because female victimization is expected, eroticized, and trivialized—meaning, female-coded anguish is only recognized as horrifying and emotionally compelling when experienced by a male character. Essentially, female victimization titillates the audience, but male victimization is treated rightfully as a horrific and traumatic incident. Thus, the appeal for male victims is an obvious conclusion; only then is trauma and violence treated as it should and only then is the victim truly treated as a victim.

-Male victims are an intriguing reversal of gendered expectations. Self-explanatory. A handful of radfems stated that seeing a male character in a vulnerable, victimizing, or compromising situation might be an intriguing reversal to the assertive and combative male character archetype. This is a convenient answer, except that it fails to explain why the abuser (or whumper) in these scenarios is still male and not female, considering that a female abuser would also constitute as an intriguing reversal of gendered expectations.

-Male characters are generally more compelling. Again, some radfems have stated that male characters are simply better written, but I find this another highly convenient yet fallacious theory. In my opinion, this is an oversimplified analysis in which female readers fail to consider how deeply, unconsciously, and invisibly their internalized misogyny actually runs, and instead choose to project that internalized misogyny onto the author. I elaborate more on this here.

-Male victims are vicarious revenge for misogyny. This was the rarest and most conflicting answer. Only three radfems expressed that seeing male characters in victimizing situations operates as a form of imagined revenge for either the male character’s machismo or the machismo of real-life men. This is unconvincing not only because of the obvious fact that female readers adore these victimized male characters, but also because the main appeal of this genre appears to be sympathizing and rooting for the male victim. An anonymous asker articulated the issue with this theory quite nicely:

In conclusion, it’s a highly controversial but fascinating discussion. I’ve enjoyed everyone’s commentary so far, even if I disagree with some of it. And I’ve tagged all posts related to this discussion under #whump on my account, in case you want to read through them and form your own opinion.

#radical feminism #radblr #misogny #sexism #whump #whump community #answered asks

[newlyy]

2.9 million likes and the comments seem to overwhelmingly agree with the viewpoint that trans-identified males shouldn’t play in women’s sports (like, to the tune of those comments getting 100k likes). But I think this video also showcases how calm and intelligent the debate from gender critical feminists is, and how it’s met with derision, self-righteousness, and a complete unwillingness to to have a discussion.

[nervoustragedyluminary]

Idk why calling transmasc people "cunts" & "bitches" in an insulting way is so normalised by fellow transmascs and trans guys in the Anti-Transmasculinity and transandrophobia tags.... like you realise you're just doing toxic masculinity and transphobia right?

Trans women never asked you to do this and it's pretty transmisogynistic and chauvinistic to claim you're doing it on their behalf or to fight for their liberation when it's actually the same self centred bullshit that predatory cishet men do when they go "I'm a feminist and all men are trash (but not mee I'm one of the good ones)"

the tone of many of these kinds of posts is very "I'm not like those other guys I'm one of the cool guys who is better than all the whiny boys who are behaving like girls (Derogatory) for talking about Anti-Transmasculinity and I'm gonna prove how feminist I am by calling them cunts and bitches and telling them they aren't real men because IMO 'real men' (white pericishet abled men) don't face gender based oppression or talk about facing it"

it's just very thinly veiled truscum "you're a transtrender for talking about Anti-Transmasculinity " BS trying to hide behind "I'm defending trans women & fighting transmisogyny by calling out these whiny bitchcunt tboys who won't man up and suffer in silence for the good of trans women like I do" when you're not even centring trans women in this kind of "advocacy";

you're just doing the classic thing of making it all about your own insecurities with masculinity and attacking other trans people for not being 'stoic' enough about transphobia and violence they face & claiming that trans women benefit from our erasure and silence .

Like you realise most trans women don't see you hurting trans dudes, misgendering them or mocking trans survivors of DV & SA and go "woo yeah this helps me fight transmisogyny & SA and DV against trans women please tell another guy that he deserves to be SA'd or detransitioned for being whiny"

and it's pretty telling of your unexamined transmisogynistic assumptions about how this behaviour must somehow benefit trans women that your first go to for "how can I be an ally to trans women? " is apparently to seek out trans guys and tell them they deserve sexual or domestic violence while calling them bitches and cunts and misgendering them to try to threaten them into silence on issues that effect them

... Just yuck behaviour like how to say you agree with terf rhetoric about trans women being pro DV and SA MRAs without saying it.

Seriously if you want to advocate for trans women and trans fems (and trans neuts) try to actually listen to them and stop trying to use them and their struggle for liberation (which is inextricably entwined with our own) as an excuse to play out this tired self obsessed "I'm more of a real man than you" dominance paradigm BS

And also maybe while you're at it listen to some of your fellow trans men and transmascs talking about their own issues and don't be so quick to assume without cause that they're blaming trans women for Anti-Transmasculinity existing in the first place or that they think trans women as a group are oppressing them.

Like there's a HUGE difference between talking about societal violence from cis people, lateral in community violence and anti transmasculinity and going into terf GC & radfem BS that claims that trans women are "using mAlE pRiVeLeGe to rule the trans community and oppress the poor TIFs" & listening to the good faith discussions and understanding what people actually mean when they talk about Anti-Transmasculinity and transandrophobia actuall helps you to quickly identify and discard BS terf rhetoric that tries to pretend to be pro transmasc rather than just writing off anyone speaking on these issues as "you're just a detransitioner (Derogatory) in waiting you're not a real trans man because real men don't have or talk about problems"

#transmisogyny #Anti transmasculinity #Transandrophobia #Rape culture #Toxic masculinity #chauvinistic saviour complex

[theoldlesbianwithcats]

you are so real for that response to nansheofearth's comment. lesbians are stuck licking crumbs off the boots of bihet feminist women or queer/trans identified people.

ive been to polilez/radfem events too, and hearing them talk is as alienating as being a homosexual women in queer spaces. sorry i dont want to listen to women talk about how boring their husbands became, or the 4 kids they had with a man before they "became lesbians". it is so alienating as a lesbian, you feel like you truly are a freak of nature, when even other "lesbians" can talk so casually about sleeping with men, so what's wrong with you that your whole being seizes with disgust and wrongness at the thought. or maybe there really is no one like you in the world.

it sucks that even other lesbians make allowances for radical feminist homophobia. our self esteem is so grounded into the dust that we think we need to put up with this homophobia for the "greater good".

your blog has become the go-to for lesbians haha, i check it regularly even if i don't otherwise check tumblr, so i'm throwing in my few cents into the discussion.

Hi anon!

(Anon is referring to that post.)

Thank youuuu, your last paragraph made me so happy 🥹 I'm glad my blog can be a positive lesbian space! Now I'm thinking I should post more beautiful women and gifs from lesbian movies hehe

I totally understand what you mean, that's pretty much how I felt when I went to that lesbian festival (tbh I knew something was wrong when the woman who handed me a flyer at the entrance had super long glittery stiletto nails, I almost left then and there 🤣)

To summarize the first edition of that lesbian festival last year:

First there was a panel on lesbian representation in the media that was derailed to trans males within ten minutes (and even complained about trans criminals being misgendered!), the second panel about intersectionality of lesbians of color had zero lesbian in it, only bi women and trans males

Then there was a lesbian comedy show with two fakebians talking about their ex-boyfriends and making jokes about lesbians' supposed obsession with astrology + a non-binary bi woman who claimed that her gender identity made all her relationships gay (she called herself a dyke and a faggot)

There was a sex-ed booth held by an influencer who had DYKE (yes, in all caps) in her Twitter bio while talking about her het hookups (and throwing a real tantrum when people told her it didn't make sense), she also made sex ed videos on our national tv channel's website where she said that lesbians have sex with men and that men can be lesbians. She has since removed dyke from her bio.

A lesbian bookstore had a booth too, the original owners retired and the new ones are polilez queers who keep promoting books about lesbianism being a choice... Half of the books at that booth were about trans people.

Needless to say, I wouldn't even inflict that on a lesbian I dislike as a prank!

What you said about "lesbians" talking casually about having had sex with men reminds me of a French podcast I listened to years ago that was about bisexual and "lesbian" women who were with men before realizing they were attracted to women. The first conclusion I had was that I couldn't relate at all and felt very uneasy about it. I didn't even dare write my second conclusion back then but it was basically this:

I couldn't differentiate their stories at all. And deep down, they must know this because fakebians use their experiences with men as a way of relating with bi and het women while being mostly hostile to gold stars and finding us unrelatable!

Anyway, this is really long already haha Question for the gold stars: what would be your dream lesbian event? 💃 (apart from being only for actual lesbians, of course!)

[viviennelamb]

Can you tell us more about how engaging in degeneracy (in thought or action) affects one's appearance, particularly in how one ages? Sorry if this is something you've gone over in your book, I haven't had the chance to purchase it yet. "Hitting the wall," and attraction politics in general is a common thing I used to see discussed in feminist spaces. They complain about how men don't want women to age and say men are the ones who only look good in their 20s. My thought when people talk about others "hitting the wall" is that it isn't simply getting older that makes someone look bad, but their habits are starting to show in their face because youth is so forgiving of self destructive behavior. That grace period wears off and all the alcohol, drugs, sex, anxiety and stress start to become evident. On social media I see women posting pictures of themselves saying "this is what a normal 30/40/50 year old woman looks like" and they look terrible. I occasionally see older women who look vibrant but most look dried out and dead inside. I even know people my age who look like that already. My generation is very obsessed with skincare, and to a certain degree I enjoy it as well. It feels good to take care of my skin but I try to keep it as simple and possible. It seems like people think having the perfect 10-step skincare routine is going to erase everything they're putting their body through.

I don't have much about the state of the body in OTE as it is about how to identify and remove egotism from your life, but the next book is filled with this topic.

With accelerated aging, the usual wrinkles in the face, dry skin, sensitivity to the sun are a given. Most males lose their hair at an early age, and women as well. This doesn't include people who were born with finer textures of hair, I'm talking about people with thick hair, losing the majority of it by the time they turn 30. But aging within the body is what matters even more: joint pain, poor immune system, tooth decay and loss, loss of the senses, nerve damage, "early on-set" dementia, etc.

I've seen 18-year-olds look like a mediocre 50 (the one I'm referring to in particular talked about sex almost non-stop and was into BSDM). It's also quite shocking how old "old" people look in general, there's always been something off with the amount of unrecognizable change we see in a relatively short period of time. Sorry, but 50 years is not a long time, but it is if you're putting your body through a daily hell—rampant abuse of the mind and body is the culprit. This is the primary reason why capitalism will not die, it's because people need to work to buy products that don't work to make themselves feel clean without actually being clean. Skin care, organic eating, cleanses, detoxes emerge from the desire to clean oneself from of self-abuse. The best detox is to stop putting stuff into and on the body and let the body heal on its own. The body is self-sustaining until it's taught that it isn't.

Whenever somebody is really sexual online, and then they post a picture, they look just as repulsive as the words they spew. I haven't seen an exception to this yet. It's incredible that they think they're attractive, but sexophiles have a different standard among themselves. They have to hold on to their youth because they won't have it for long. I've seen the absolute most hideous and repulsive people considered attractive because they've been vocal about their sexcapades.

The “standards” discussion is fake, lustful people fuck anything they can get their hands on. Men and women are having an ego brawl when it comes to the beauty/aging discussion, truth is they're equally yoked. Once they're together in person, it's a fundamentally different story, which is why they say “This doesn't happen IRL.” Filth attracts filth regardless of the pseudo-values and artificial types postured.

Being attractive is a thing when it comes to particular features because that doesn't matter. It's really more a test of time. There's a discernible difference between people who abuse themselves and who don't. It's incredibly obvious when you become more discriminating. It's not just an energy, either, but something that can be observed. People who have sex morph into monstrous aliens—the more sex they have, the more grotesque. The eyes really are the window to the soul.

A woman hits the wall when she knows the truth about men, it doesn't necessarily correlate with age. Men want to see that you're not defiled. When men see that you're still pure, they have an urge to destroy you and then get a younger chick to do the same thing. The older a woman is, the more likely she is to be sexually damaged, and they don't want that. They want to do the damaging themselves.

Chastity, meditation and loving God has reversed all the “mysterious” problems I experienced previously, and it hasn't been close to a year yet. Never thought I'd say having a period is enjoyable, but it is now.

#ask

[mxunsmiley]

hm. i think i’m gonna stop identifying as nonbinary. had a galaxy brain and seemingly unrelated realization while reading who’s afraid of gender? by judith butler. whose dense iconic works i must read fully bc i don’t really like these more accessible ones <- deranged man speaking

not to say i am not genderfluid or whatever nonsense anymore, but i just don’t see the utility, especially when i do ~align myself in a way to binary gender. i think the most useful way is to simply go with tme/transmasc and transgender, especially when i think coalition with binary trans people is more important than insisting on a rigid division between “nonbinary” and “binary” trans people when their experiences frequently overlap and inform the other, or are the exact same experiences… not to say there is no friction or pressure on either group, from both sides, but i think an insistence on demarcation with “binary vs. nonbinary” has only perpetuated the ignorance and lack of understanding between them

does it matter if a binary trans person identifies in no way as nonbinary, if their gender is delegitimized in the exact same way, if they are not even treated as the binary gender? it’s not a nonbinary only experience to have your gender denied or seen as fiction. the real enemy here is the denial of self-determination and bodily autonomy, not how weird your gender is and the mean binary trans folks who are such normies, cue obsessive identification with violent slurs with no actual basis to the claim of “empowerment” when they’ve never actually been weaponized against you

i do get upset when it feels like i’m in a room and i can’t go to either side and feel like i belong, but i think it’s a Me issue, that actually isn’t exclusive to me as a multigender person, and is common for all trans people. i do think there has to be serious discussion of multigender people that goes beyond a simplistic understanding of gendered oppression, but invariably, that also has to include transmisogyny, and the imagining of gender itself as something more than only self-identification, and even cisgender realities with gendered oppression. it concerns everyone on earth and to pretend that the rules are the same in every circumstance is also silly, at the same time as imagining a meaningful separation of binary and nonbinary trans people is nonsensical

and anyway i think the “discussions” of gender oppression and misogyny on this website never go beyond dogmatic takes that have no basis in more than superficial knowledge of feminist theory. and are also the most important to people to weaponize in. Fandom matters.

#lupe text posts

[disillusionedmonster]

i’m 14 and a trans boy, i bind my chest and wear a masculine school uniform.

No adults in my life are trans, nor have they encouraged me to be.

i bind because it makes me comfortable in my own body. there is no trans ideology.

being trans isn’t the easy route to escape being female

it’s the hard route to self-love and acceptance.

Chest binding is dangerous and can cause lasting damage and chronic pain to your ribs, so please be careful.

"Comfortable with your body". If you were comfortable with your body you would simply accept it as yourself instead of making changes to your physical appearance. Why is it that you are not comfortable with your body? Why do you need to change in order to be comfortable? What is causing that feeling that your body is wrong? What makes you think that your feelings are different from any other woman and girl on the planet? The only thing that makes us a woman is our bodies. I do not buy into regressive ideas that push that being a man or women has to do with the stereotypes, roles, jobs, personality traits ECT assigned to the sexes. That it is decided by some internal feeling embedded in our beings instead of just the simple reality of having a female body.

Regardless of whether you want to accept it or not it is an escape from being female. If it wasn't you wouldn't be trying to erase your female traits. You wouldn't be trying to distance yourself from being female by identifying as a man. There are many reasons that women and girls would want to try and identify out being female. It's a scary time for women with a push back against our rights, the rise of pornography and the suggestion that women exist as sex objects for men, the constant threat of sexual and physical violence and the way that society sets up being female as the "other".

You might not be being encouraged by the adults in your reality but the internet and social grooming is a powerful thing. Gender identity is an ideology that functions the same way a religion does. There is no way to prove that your 'soul' or mind exists in the wrong body. There is no such thing as a female or male brain. Mind body dualism is the cornerstone of almost all religions and gender identity is no different. Religions also often deny reality, the reality in this case being that you cannot change your sex and that gender is a social construct created to set up a hierarchy between men and women to keep women suppressed. It also sorts people into the categories of the righteous and the evil, with no room for discussion about the effects of medicalising kids and adults with untested hormones and blockers. No room to discuss how the concepts of sex and gender intersect and the ways in which transpeople can be protected from discrimination without encroaching on the rights of women and LGB people. No room for questions of the dominant ideology without the risk of serious social consequences.

The rise of gender identity is a backlash to the push for the destruction of gender roles in the 70s to present that feminist worked really hard to push back against. Why are we bothering to sort people back into the conservative boxes of masculinity and femininity, arguing that these concepts are what define if someone is a man or women. Creating new boxes when people don't quite fit.

I am not going to pretend I know your reasons for transitioning, but whatever they are I hope you end up happy and safe in the end regardless of what you choose.

#radfem #radical feminism #gender critical #anon #hidden stranger #radical feminists please interact #radfems please interact #radfems do interact #rad fem #radfems please touch #radfems do touch

[rad4learning]

My feminist-related reading progress

My thoughts on different texts I've read

Most recent: The Dialectic of Sex

For all of these I'm not going to point out everything wrong or that I disagree with in them; I assume you'll be reading critically, taking value and discarding other stuff. I'm writing these from memory of my impressions and key points. I may get things wrong - please feel free to lmk if I do :) The Dialectic of Sex: - I really wanted to really like this, my expectations were very high so that may well be part of why I feel underwhelmed by it - I think it is worth reading - although I expect other readers to also object to components of it - even if for no other reason than to interrogate her assertions about the requirements for womens' liberation - Straight after this I read women race & class which briefly criticises this text for perpetuating myths irt black men sexualising white women - I agree with Firestone's claim that the condition of women and children are highly linked and I support children being able to have more autonomy. I cannot agree with the idea of removing childhood entirely (she is explicit about this including irt sexuality) & I think the treatment of children's vulnerability was unfortunately shallow - which is especially unfortunate given her recognition of the links between childhood and women's liberation - Explicitly radical feminist theory text

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982: - Short read, fiction - This is an easy, quick read suitable for women without background in feminism - It's great at identifying the "little" (or not so little) everyday misogyny that permeates women's lives - Don't expect it to give you direction or theory knowledge - Focus on South Korean women, the focus of the book on pointing out the unfairness of what typical resonates cross-culturally

Daring to be bad: - Recommend reading - Can be a bit difficult at the v. start if not familiar with US 1960s history to keep track of the groups but soon becomes easier - Provides information about US radical feminism, how it started and how it went from a focus on gender abolition up to political lesbianism & idea of men and women having innately different natures - Explicitly radical feminist history text focusing on 2nd wave (author's views are also apparent) - Self aware about it but focus again on the stereotypical group The female eunuch: - I mostly read this because it was recommend to be by an older radical feminist who talked about how influential it was at the time - Still relevant today - I thought the concept (something like: women being used for sex and yet having our sexual desire/energy stripped from us) was interesting and worth reading - Explicitly radical feminist theory text focusing on 2nd wave - Very much focused on the stereotypical feminist group - white, western, heterosexual etc. Talkin' up to the white woman: Indigenous women and feminism - Wayyy too postmodern for me - difficult read -- I particularly hated how she comments on some Queer Theory authors including bestiality in "Queer" -> without criticising that - Aileen Moreton-Robertson wrote this based on her dissertation - Relevant criticisms of white feminism and discussion of Indigenous understandings

Who cooked the last supper? The woman's history of the world - I mostly read this because of how much a woman whose blogging I respect hypes it - don't get me wrong there were good bits (and I certainly wouldn't take back reading it) but it wasn't that groundbreaking for me - You might like it more if matriarchy is smth you get hyped about - Expect mentions of other groups but still a relatively stereotypical focus The hidden face of eve - Recommended reading - Nawal El Sadaawi is socialist feminist, not radical feminist, still read the book - If you're not convinced search her name up, learn about her, then read it - Discusses feminism in an Egyptian context and provides guidance to readers on not using feminism as an imperialist bludgeoning tool Gyn//ecology - This book should not be recommended for beginners - Seriously, I cannot emphasise the above point enough. - The ways she uses language requires adjustment -- Including being like "Lesbian is for women-identified-women, not mere female homosexuals, for whom I'll use lowercase 'lesbian' " (I'm paraphrasing from memory but that is the gist / it is really THAT bad) - quote from Audre Lorde's An Open Letter to Mary Daly "As an African-american woman in white patriarchy, I am used to having my archetypal experience distorted and trivialised, but it is terribly painful to feel it being done by a woman whose knowledge so much touches my own." - There are some useful criticisms of patriarchy in there but the above should make it clear I consider the text highly flawed - Part of the "Lesbian Feminism" branch (read: political lesbianism)

Invisible women - Good "look how feminism is still relevant!" text, recommended for that (yes, including to radblrians), - Easy read & good book to loan to other women in your life - I really liked it but don't expect it to challenge or deepen your ideological understanding that much - Recent feminist text, focusing on statistics Sexy but psycho - imo: some good some not so good in there - this book may mislead you if you are not familiar with the relevant subject matter & there's alleged dodgy ethics stuff with the author - Dr Jessica Taylor openly describes herself as a radical feminist. She does have a PhD in psychology (not in clinical psychology) - I disagree with her thesis that all mental illness should be viewed through a trauma lens & imo the handwaving away of the biopsychosocial model as bio-bio-bio is intellectually lazy - recent feminist text focusing on (poor) treatment of women in psychology & psychiatry The beauty myth - good text to read if you're trying to care less about your appearance, particularly if you are white and western - Naomi Wolf treated some of the statistics poorly so be aware of that (take any stats she lists about anorexia with a grain of salt, there's a research paper on this). She's also a conspiracy theorist, so makes sense I guess? - Feminist text form the 90's Ain't I a woman - Recommended reading - Illuminating text focusing on how Black women in the US have faced the double burden of racism and misogyny as well as overlapping misogynoir - Explicitly discusses feminism and Black women's roles in it

Right wing women - Recommended reading - Very radblr friendly - don't expect much ideological challenge - Radical feminist theory text focusing on why right wing women would work against their own liberation

I read I think 6 Sheila Jeffrey's books in the span of less than a week so they've blurred together - can't provide much useful commentary but those were my first intro to feminist theory books I think Abdullah Öcallan's ideas on needing to restructure the family to restructure society & his ideas around what that society would look like are interesting to read. (If unfamiliar look up who he is before diving into Jineology research) Honorary shout out to why does he do that? - also recommended reading I also recommend looking up statistics for women in your area (including dis-aggregated ones for different groups of women) & of course talking with and learning from women irl.

There are maybe, 5ish others I've read that are on feminist drives and that sort of thing but I can't be bothered writing any more rn and at first I forgot them for inclusion so clearly not the biggest deal (they're not key theory texts or anything).

#reading ideas #book quote #r4l thoughts #still a beginner don't take my recommendations too seriously

[onecornerface]

The notion that the “root cause” of transphobia is the denial that trans people “really are” their self-identified genders is absurd. A statement like “trans women aren’t women” (or even “trans women are men,” which is distinct and more severe) is usually more a symptom of transphobia than its cause. Even when it is a contributing cause, it is far from a root cause. I’m so sick of this nonsense.

For instance, you can totally be a vicious transphobe even if you truly believe trans women are women, trans men are men, and nonbinary people are nonbinary. There are so many more layers to transphobia than a view about a murky and hard-to-interpret metaphysical thesis about gender category membership criteria.

Some trans-exclusionary feminists now say trans women may be women but aren’t female, and instead of “women only” spaces, there should really be “female only” spaces. Of course, the discourse on whether trans women are “female” is also largely a red herring too (on both sides), but still. It goes to show that affirming that trans women are women is far from sufficient to secure trans rights.

Affirming that trans women are women is also not necessary to secure at least most key aspects of trans rights (even if it is still important in other ways). For instance, some transfem nonbinary (perhaps among others) people are not women, but they obviously should not be forcibly removed from women’s spaces-- for many reasons. So we should recognize that being a woman is not strictly necessary for legitimate access to women’s spaces.

When determining that trans women should not be kicked out of women’s spaces, the important facts are that exclusion would harm trans women and some cis women (e.g. GNC cis women who “pass” for men) and trans women-- whereas inclusion would in fact not harm cis women. These are the main morally important facts. The discrediting quality of anti-trans stereotypes also factor in. But does an obscure metaphysical claim like “trans women meet such-and-such criteria for membership in the social kind ‘woman’“ also really matter in this discussion? Not really! Or not that much, if at all.

Some people even claim “science” proves trans people “really are” their self-identified genders. This is as nonsensical and irrelevant as the notion that “science” proves trans people “really aren’t” their self-identified genders. See this post for discussion on bogus neuroscience arguments in particular.

Utilitarianism is arguably false, but utilitarian-style considerations will help you un-break your brain on this topic. Would a utilitarian care if a new study somehow proved trans women were men (which, lol, fat chance)? No, of course not. And neither should any sensible deontologist.

And also, on both utilitarian and deontological grounds, I’d argue that disrespect toward people’s reasons for their gender self-identification is much morally worse and more important than agreement or disagreement with some claim about whether someone “really is” a given gender (whatever the fuck gender is). For a discussion of topics in this ballpark that I partially (not entirely) endorse, see trans philosopher Talia Bettcher’s article “Trans Identities and First Person Authority” (although she still considers the validation of self-identification important).

Only a few aspects of transphobia can plausibly be construed as boiling down to denial of self-identification claims, whereas most aspects of transphobia cannot.

#transphobia

[kiefbowl]

https://www.tumblr.com/imanes/181546472260/httpswwwtumblrcomdashboardblogluckystrabis?source=share

would you analyze this queen

>bc that one post about attachment to womanhood is still hurting people’s feelings, let’s keep talking about it.

There is a link they have at the top of this post that doesn't work for me, but otherwise I'm not sure what post they're talking about. So that might have some missing context. I also want to point out that you sent me a reblog of the op, and the reblog is dated 2018, so this is more than 5 years ago written.

>radical feminist notions of gender socialization correctly frame it as a traumatizing process.

Now there are two ways of interpreting this: 1. they are actually talking about radical feminists or 2. they are talking vaguely about the women online who may or may not call themselves either radical feminists, radfem, or terfs who might say any number of things.

Generally speaking, the idea that radical feminists talk explicitly about "gender socialization as a traumatizing process" is a little wonky. This isn't a tenet of radical feminism specifically as I understand it. Gender socialization has garnered a lot more discussion relatively recently in more explicit terms by public self identifying radical feminists because of the concerns of transgender ideas, sometimes even developing in response to ideas set forth by transgender activists. I don't think many radical feminists would hold tight to the idea that gender socialization is traumatic to men, since men are socialized to benefit from the sex hierarchy. If it's traumatic to anyone, it's women, though the idea that being socialized into womanhood is always and totally a traumatic experience just feels a little...rote. Not truly grasping the entirety of what socialization is. But to be clear, I don't think a lot of feminists go about making this point first and foremost, but rather talk about specific ways gender socialization is traumatic to women and girls (which is in service to argue the larger point that the sex hierarchy is real and that women are a marginalized class). I doubt op is truly interested in engaging with those ideas meaningfully, despite calling radical feminists "correct" about it.

The other interpretation is, well, "I read some tumblr posts that said this." I'm sure you have. Me, too. Some really intelligent women are on tumblr and they make a lot of intelligent posts about gender and gender socialization. I also know that when you have a little insular pocket online in any community, it's easy for those people to mimic what they say to each other unthinkingly. This is not a moral judgement on my part, and I don't think it's exclusive to feminists...it's inclusive to everybody (finally something that is!! the weak human psychology!! lol). My only point is, if you want to go find someone saying things that will make you mad, you can go do that online because you can find at least one person saying the exact thing you want them to say, so you can respond to it. It becomes an outrage machine, despite not really reflecting what a group truly believes, or what most people believe, or what is meaningfully understood. I only say this to suggest perhaps this post is one of those posts that is responding to a general sentiment they have vaguely seen and not meaningfully tried to understand and have reinforced by reading posts that are just sort of nothing burger but have the right words strung together in the precise way to make op cringe or whatever.

The point is, if you want to understand what someone is saying to truly understand it, you have to ask them. So if someone posts "gender socialization is traumatic" with not much else context, that's already such a vague sentiment it would behoove you to be intellectually curious enough to ask them "what do you mean? can you expand on this so I understand it?" And if you're someone who wants to be understood, it would behoooooove you to welcome the opportunity.

If you were to ask me if I think "gender socialization is traumatic" I would say "It depends on what you mean." So we're already hitting a wall to understanding each other. Anyway...

>a contradiction arises, in that case, when they assign positive moral traits to female socialization

This is another example where I'm not going to say this doesn't happen, but this is not an understanding within radical feminism. That doesn't mean a radical feminist couldn't believe this, it just means that the texts that support radical feminist ideas are not interested in sanctifying being a woman as some de facto morality. That is a ridiculous claim and proves that op is not interested in engaging with radical feminist texts as serious scholarly works. In defense of op, they are probably young and have never had their analytical skills challenged outside of, say, high school class. It does lead me to believe this person is responding only to vaguely feminist ideas they've seen in posts that have made them mad without trying to meaningfully understand them. So, +1 to me for guessing that :)

>(and femininity by extension)

Even more factually wrong than the statement above. op cannot understand when feminists discuss womanhood, that it is not an interchangeable word with femininity. Because in op's mind, femininity is innate, whether they realize they believe that or not is no matter.

>because, much like society in general, they believe that an ideally traumatized woman is able to access moral high grounds that other people cannot.

Truly offensive and in fact betrays that this is what op believes. op believes in a connection between morality and suffering. Why do I know that? Because they interpret this from ideas that have nothing to do with morality. If someone says "women are oppressed" they have not made a moral statement about women. If anything, they've made a moral statement about men. If you read "women are oppressed" and you read "women are moral" you have made that connection.

This is also a good time to point out that if this was something they were writing for school, they would need to then support their claim with sourced quotes. It's convenient that this is tumblr where they aren't compelled to do this. Who said this? When did they say this? How many of them said this? Did they say this explicitly? Are you extrapolating? What was the context? Where was it said?

But the true interesting part is "society in general." It's so fun to see in action MRA points infiltrating supposedly quote unquote liberal/leftist gender ideas...how does society in general demonstrate seeing the traumatized woman as the most moral person? Outside of your favorite genre tv scenes you're able to recontexualize to your heart's content. When a woman kills her abuser, how likely is she to serve more time than he would have if he had been sentenced to abusing her? QUICKLY!

>“i was socialized female” becomes an admission of guaranteed prosociality, a set of traits that are only ever harmful because they are at risk of exploitation via external forces.

Even if I didn't just argue that this point is moot because the previous points are not true or supported by evidence...hwuh?? What are they saying. Does this even follow from what they've said so far. "prosocial" is a word I had to look up, and it's a psychology word meaning "intended to help or benefit another person or group." They haven't talked about this at all. Also, prosociality is not really a form of the word, "prosocial behavior" is a phrase used.

So, to rephrase: "I was socialized female" becomes an acknowledgment (by feminists) that prosocial behavior is guaranteed, a set of traits that do not causes harm but are at risk of exploitation which would then cause the traits to be harmful [editor's note: to whom?].

Again...what? (I also cut the "via external forces" because how are you at risk of exploitation via internal forces lmao).

Even if I was to do a good faith read of this, it would be like "when feminists argue that women are socialized female, they are saying that women are socialized into prosocial behaviors." Which, yeah okay...but what of it? Prosocial behaviors are good therefore women are morally good because of femininity? This is just not a thing feminists really say.

>this is why many radical feminists view trans men as safer & more politically enlightened than trans women

The religiosity of op is apparent all the way through. The talk of morality, "politically enlightened"....etc etc. Feminists aren't really interested in who is more politically "enlightened." Trans men aren't included in feminism because of how safe they are or even how politically enlightened (whatever the fuck that means) they are...it's just that they're female. They could be the nastiest most awful person in the world and they're still included. Like come on now, did someone go to bible camp when they were younger? I think someone went to bible camp when they were younger. (It wasn't me)

>- because of their proximity (imagined or otherwise) to femaleness, to daintiness, to softness and benevolence.

boring sentence

>“male socialization” is synonymous with antisociality, and becomes lobbied at trans women as a whole when individual trans women do things that radical feminists deem “unwomanly,” from having controversial political opinions to committing violent crime.

Feminists don't care about womanly-ness. I know op thinks we do, and specifically "radical feminists" because that's who they said (I haff to laff), because they see the argument that feminists have that "woman are female, and women are socialized into femininity" as saying "women are feminine, which includes being female", but anyway...let's talk about how they include in "unwomanly" committing violent crimes???!!!???!! whuahauhahah???? Is it perhaps not more sane to think that women are concerned about violent crimes men commit because of the harm they cause not that they aren't feminine behaviors???? A deeply unserious post I am regretting writing 1K about it.

>the gender socialization model becomes a way to moralize sex assignment by prescriptively linking particular experiences of trauma to particular personality outcomes.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, it's a way to describe OPPRESSION BASED ON THE AXIS OF SEX!!!! AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MORALITY OF BEING BORN FEMALE!!!! TRAUMA IS A SIGN OF MISTREATMENT HELLO??????

Here's a fun tip when analyzing the work of someone: if they start talking about the moralizing within an argument that is not about morality, they are in fact the moralizing one and do not know what they're talking about. Go ahead and disregard whatever they're saying, they don't do their homework and will never seriously try to understand anyone without bringing up morality.

>it is no longer a theoretical framework meant to honestly and meticulously analyze how children become gendered subjects.

weird online speak, why do people talk like this. how "children become gendered subjects"....okay. Well they become gendered subjects, you weirdo, by gender socialization...they thing you pointed out "radical feminists" were correct about as being traumatic? also why meticulously. again the religiosity...we must suffer through the virtue of hard work by being meticulous. I would guess that when this was written op was 16 years old, had definitely been to bible camp once, and had their own laptop that their parents didn't monitor, and are deeply afraid of being a bad person more than anything in the world (but only as judged by their peers).

>it is now used to reproduce the very gender roles that proponents of the framework claim to be against.

10 second fart noise this conclusion is not supported by your own argument. In this essay, I will talk about how women are always nice and that means feminists think women are always good. In conclusion: feminists meanie weanie actually. Yeah okay buddy.

[dankovskaya]

It really is crazy to think abt what has happened to feminism even within the most self-identified progressive circles within the past idk 5-10 years like either people have just deluded themselves into thinking basic gender inequality is Over or misogyny being so ubiquitous and commonplace has like. Tricked people into thinking it's too mundane and unremarkable to actually be a priority❓️⁉️ its like calling yourself a feminist or even discussing basic 101 gender issues has entirely "gone out of fashion" and this is also definitely 100% interrelated to the anti-trans explosion but ik people smarter than me have already written abt this somewhere

[boreal-sea]

www.tumblr.com/femsolid/701727431780859904

This you?

Am I Femsolid? No. Do you mean to say my posts look like some of the ones in the screenshots? Also no. Like, laughably untrue.

TL;DR - the link is a list of screenshots, many of which are discussing radfem and terf red flags, others of which are people accusing other folks of being terfs.

Some of the red flags pointed out are very valid; in other cases, the person making the accusation is clearly in the wrong. It is a mixed bag of things that are true in certain contexts but none of which can be said to definitively mean much of anything.

---

I've actually made a whole post talking about how people shouldn't bend so far backwards in their attempt to spot radfems and terfs that they start spouting shit that's actually anti-feminist and in some cases downright misogyny.

Those screenshots are a mix of people being right and people being wrong.

One thing I will say straight up:

It is a tactic of TERFs to call trans people and trans allies "TERF" any time that person says anything even vaguely feminist because they are trying to confuse people into thinking there are a bunch of unhinged anti-feminist trans people out there.

They also do this because sometimes, if a trans ally is called "terf", and if they think it's trans people doing it, they may end up switching sides and becoming transphobic, so terfs are actively trying to recruit people through this method of harassment.

I'm not saying ALL of these posts are cases of cryptoterfs. But some of them feel pretty troll-like to me.

---

First two to three screenshots: talking about sex-based oppression does not make you a terf. Sex-based oppression is real. Everyone knows this. My guess is that the people who made those posts are in fact TERFs themselves.

---

"Raise boys and girls the same" is not terf rhetoric, that's basic feminism.

---

"Women arent even oppressed" post - OP is a child. Their opinion is irrelevant.

---

I dislike framing women as a "victim class" - I prefer to just call them marginalized as a class? And not all women are equally marginalized and some women DO have privilege over men. I don't agree with their phrasing here necessarily but they bring up good points.

---

Saying someone can "feel like a woman" is not sexist.

---

The next one calling out "afabs" in quotes talking about privilege is, overall, true.

The fact that this particular post uses "afab" instead of "cis women" though, is a red flag to me.

Some anti-transmasc people will use "AFAB" instead of "cis women" to lump trans afab people in with cis women and claim all afab people are on the same level of privilege/marginalization. This is not actually true, and cis women have more privilege than trans men.

---

TERFs and radfems regularly throw trans men under the bus during abortion talks. This is just fucking true.

---

Posts that tend to focus entirely on how all men are oppressors, posts that regularly refer to cis women as "females", and that try to claim that being a woman is an identity based on shared suffering...

That stuff can indeed be a red flag that the post is by a terf or radfem.

---

Unfortunately, middle-aged white women in American tend to be conservatives. They overwhelmingly voted for Trump. They are very likely to be transphobic. I don't personally advise people to stereotype like that, but it does make me do more research and look through that person's posts to see what they're saying about trans people. Like the OP of that post, I have rarely been wrong.

---

Anyone who self-identifies as a misandrist is unsafe for trans people, and it is a HUGE red flag that the person is both transphobic and a radfem.

Also, anyone can suffer from misogyny.

---

Again, unfortunately, a lot of pro-feminist symbols and phrases are used by radfems and terfs, and they tend to use those phrases more openly than normal feminists do, so those are indeed red flags.

---

On Tumblr, seeing "anti makeup" on someone's profile is a red flag.

---

The body hair post: this reads like a terf's parody of what they THINK trans men say and it's honestly hilarious.

All the trans men I know are huge feminists who believe anyone of any gender or sex should have the right to do whatever they want with their body.

---

Yeah uh that's transphobic as hell. WTF Lady Gaga? You're usually very trans-inclusive.

---

Nah I'm gonna keep saying "sexism".

---

Yeah, talking about the trauma of girlhood is unfortunately often a terf dogwhistle. Not always, but it's a red flag and you have to go double check. I sure wish transphobia wasn't so rampant among radfems and I wish this wasn't necessary, but it is.

---

"There's no wrong way to be a woman/girl" has very specifically been used against me, a trans man, as a way to misgender me and tell me I'm harming little girls by being trans. I completely understand other transmascs feeling like this phrase is a red flag.

---

The last screenshot is the weirdest thing I've ever tried to understand and if I'm reading it correctly, they're claiming that trans rights are more important that women's rights?? Fucking bonkers.

Women's rights are human rights, too.

You cannot try to places human rights into a hierarchy. They are all equally important. Women's rights, trans rights, racial equality, etc - all of these are spokes on a wheel AND individuals may exist at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.

#anti terf #anti radfem

[gatheringbones]

victoria brownworth, from living lesbian nation, from smash the church, smash the state! the early years of gay liberation, edited by tommi avicolli mecca

["One of the many ways 1970 differed from now is that queer youth— lesbian, gay, transgendered, even bisexual— were not honored, embraced, or even accepted except as sexual playthings. We were told, repeatedly and often not very nicely, that we were unsure, game-playing, too young to have made up our minds (this was in the days when being queer was perceived as a choice rather than orientation) about our sexuality, yet we were desired, which only added to the confusion of our status. These conflicting messages made becoming part of the burgeoning post-Stonewall movement all the more difficult to navigate for someone as young as I was when I moved into that circle of older queer men and women.

In addition, the movement was, and remainned for many years, male dominated and male focused. Those used to the LGBTQI political buffet can't imagine what it was like when it was merely G. That G-is-for-gay was expected to include anyone and everyone, regardless of gender or orientation, and include them—men, women, transgender people and bisexuals— under what often felt like a repressive and exclusionary male rubric.

The world Radicalesbians opened for me was one at an almost breathtaking variance with the rest of my life. The women in RL were predominantly women in their 30s and 40s, some of whom had been married to men but who had left their husbands and sometimes even their children for other women. Others were women who were stone butches who had never been with a man in any context and never would be, because women were their life. All, however, were hard-core feminists with a perspective that was defined by the surety that women were not second-class citizens but were, in many if not all respects, superior to men.

There was a self-confidence and self-acceptance in the women I met when I was a teenager in RL that was not reflected anywhere else in my life: Not at my all-girl high school, not in the gay bars I frequented with my fake ID and ready lies, not from my Seven Sisters-college-educated mother, nor from my female teachers. The time I spent in RL helped mold me into the radical lesbian feminist I still am today, but I would not know that until much later.

In my college years, reflecting back on my days in RL, I drifted toward lesbian-separatism and began to clarify for myself as well as for other women through my writing and activism, what it meant to be a lesbian in a gay male liberation movement. I needed to immerse myself in women, in lesbian feminist theory, in a world that was as removed from the patriarchy as we could create within a larger patriarchal society. It was a heady and difficult time, and many other women I knew were struggling to achieve this balance between the male-dominated heterosexual world and the gay liberation movement of which we were a presumptive part.

In the period when RL was functioning in Philadelphia, we held weekly meetings focused on political action and consciousness-raising. I met lesbians who would lead the movement in Philadelphia with me. Clarifying our positions as lesbians who were feminists, as opposed to male identified, was central to who we were as a group and as a model for the movement we were building— our lesbian nation. We read, we discussed, we planned, we got angry with men and male chauvinism and with subjugation within our own movement. We began what I would later come to view as stultifying, smothering rhetoric about the politics of sexuality that left little room for interpretation and which defined lesbian sexuality from the Andrea Dworkin vantage point: Penetration = subjugation = heterosexual mimicry. In our quest to denounce all things heterosexual and male, we had also inevitably denied ourselves the kind of expansive sexuality that gay men were concomitantly reveling in as we built our theory and our politics and they fucked their way through the decade post-Stonewall, forging a politics through sexual experience, rather than the desexualizing of theory.

The context of sexual liberation was limited in this lesbian-feminist, consciousness-raising, politically correct world to simple the right to be coupled with another woman, while over in the gay liberation movement it was defined as a continual debauch— sex with anyone and everyone, with a big fuck you! to the heterosexual paradigm under which gay men had, pre-Stonewall, been forced to live. For radical lesbian feminists, the goal was different: It was to eradicate the taint of men and heterosexuality and patriarchy from our lives in every way possible, from lipstick and bras to high heels and penetration. We were all engaged in the same liberation movement, but the things we saw as essential to that liberation were so different that one radical lesbian feminist declared that we would always have more in common with straight women than with gay men, because those women could share the common bond of our oppression, which gay men never could.

This was the conflict that kept Radicalesbians and Daughters of Bilitis separate from groups like Gay Activists Alliance and Homophile Action League. Sexuality was the bridge that connected us, but gender was what separated us. How could radical lesbian feminism and gay liberation meet, meld, and ultimately coalesce into a larger, workable model for a civil rights movement?

My formative years in RL were destined to define me as the quintessential man-hater: The patriarchy was my enemy and the enemy of all women. How could I then embrace the gay male liberation movement? How could both sides of the queer spectrum meet, when gay men had no interest in women or feminism and lesbian feminists had been so damaged by the patriarchy that dealing with men had caused and continued to cause many of us actual physical pain?

This conundrum haunted me as a teenager and well into my college years. I hung out at the gay coffeehouses and political action meetings of queer groups on the University of Pennsylvania campus at Hillel House and Houston Hall. I was also part of the gay and lesbian group at the college where I spent my undergraduate years, Temple University. There I met gay men with whom I would forge lasting political bonds."]

#Victoria brownworth #lesbian literature #history stuff #transcribed

[farmerlesbian]

Radical feminism is not synonymous with transphobia and it’s frustrating to watch people encourage blacklisting an entire school of feminist thought because it is associated with fringe groups. It limits discussion on real political conversations that are in many cases embraced by trans people like myself such as freedom from sex/gender distinctions. The movement was also essential to including lesbians in feminism who had been intentionally excluded by heterosexual liberal feminists. Fringe groups on the internet should not prevent us from engaging with real feminist theory. Other words/phrases on your blocklist are real dogwhistles created by people in that fringe group, so I understand blocking them, but radical feminism is an actual academic and political school of thought that is not necessarily dominated by transphobic voices and I don’t think we should encourage censorship, especially because it is not inherently harmful like transphobia.

i don’t personally know that much about different schools of feminist thought and theory, i just know these are the tags that are used on tumblr which is the website we are on, and how they self-identify in ways that are easily identifiable and filtered. i hear you and you’re probably right that it sucks to have the term co-opted. by blacklisting / filtering the terms i suggested, the posts still show up in your dash, they’re just hidden and you can super easily still look at what the post says with one click, so it doesn’t feel like censorship, just a way to have a big warning “this post may have content from a TERF”. it is a reliable way to identify them like it or not. you can then go from there and investigate what they’re putting on their blog to see if they’re transphobic as well to make sure. the vast majority of blogs identified specifically as “radfem” or sometimes even “terf”, much less often the full “radical feminism”.

also fwiw i’ve never missed out on any actual non-TERF posts about radical feminist theory on tumblr by having radfem and stuff filtered. idk maybe i don’t follow the types of blogs that’d be talking about it but it simply has not been a problem for me. i’m not getting like false positives lol it’s pretty consistently accurately identifying TERF created content on tumblr

#not farmer lesbian content #mod alfalfa #transphobia / #i spent some time today going through terf blogs and notes #it was not pleasant #anonymous #ask farmer lesbian

[athenasparrow]

Apologies if you've answered these already somewhere but now I have to know your answers, too. :'D

Which character do you identify with the most?

Who is your favourite character to read about?

Favourite to write about?

Which character do you hate the most?

Which character do you find the most challenging to write about (or just dislike writing about them and avoid it :P)

No apologies @itsjamespotter! I was hoping someone would throw my own questions back at me - thank you for indulging me! 😂

Which character do you identify with most?

My "favourite" character is Sirius. My professional life is all Hermione. But the one I think is the most like me (as a person) is James : D

He's quite a joyful human who has a stable, ridiculous family and infuses other people with happiness. I've been told I do that. And I'm rather silly like him too : D I put a lot of myself & my family dynamics into The Potter Fam:

(1) Euphemia is inspired by my family shenanigans (she just lacks the boundaries lol)

(2) the super flirty side of Lily definitely comes from me 😘

(3) James being flustered and horrified at his mother comes from back when I was a teenager (and was a lot more awkward about talking about sex in front of my parents) 🤣

(4) Sirius' unfiltered comments are me when I lose my social grace and diplomacy - or my sibling being their usual self LOL.

Who is your favourite character to read about?

Lily! Because each writer brings an incredibly unique perspective : D Especially since there's not a whole lot known about her, so different writers can choose different pathways. Always so interesting <3

Favourite to write about?

I get the most giggles when I bring in Euphemia : D There's always a bit of nostalgia as well, since she's a manifestation of many people in my family (but mostly my parents!).

James is one of my favourites to write about because I like to put characterisations of a generous, kind, feminist man on the internet in hopes that it provokes more emotionally-intelligent thinking from readers : D As a straight woman, I'd really like there to be more men like James out there LOL.

This is also why I love writing smut with James <3 And why I think smut is so important to put out there (but that's another discussion, I'm already saying SO MUCH).

Which character do you hate the most?

Snape! His obsession with Lily is a really creepy representation of men who can't take no for an answer (and that's usually how he turns up in mine). I think his behaviour of "loving" Lily, but being fine with her baby and husband being killed is fucked up and reminds me of serial killers with delusions.

Which character do you find the most challenging to write about (or just dislike writing about them and avoid it :P)

EUGHHH PETER! Since I mostly enjoy writing an older Lily and James (10 years later in canon divergence or just complete alternate muggle universe) I can usually get away with Peter being a thing of the past. When I jump into 7th year fics, he's normally just a fly on the wall.

I just can't find it within myself to devote energy to even though I've read some really interesting portrayals recently. I love when people put the canon element of Peter betraying Lily and James in their muggle au's, but nope, just can't do it!

#athena was asked #athenasparrow #itsjamespotter #charlie mail #thanks for asking!