#or also sometimes when ppl are politically reactionary | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comradekatara · 8 days

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saw ur post on lok n the bender v nonbender oppression dynamics (or lack of ig) n if u dont mind me talking in ur inbox for a min but like. i think if lok wanted to explore the concept of oppressor/oppressed in a "post"-revolution world, i think it couldve been done if the shows main premise circulated around 'following politics as a principle v as a reactionary identity'. now this would require the writers being ppl who understand the nuances of oppression n history of oppressed ppl also sometimes taking up spaces as oppressors etc. but like. it couldve been interesting. oppressed ppl coming out of really fucked up oppressive regimes n how they reacted bc emotionally ur all over the place n u have a lot of emotions bc *ofc* u do. like the concept of southern water tribe benders "coming back" to the tribe n being so relieved there is any semblance left of the tribe, of their ppl, the culture that was actively eroded thru genocide but also maybe exploring anger bc like yeah thats their ppl, yeah they experienced so much oppression *obviously* but also as nonbenders they werent literally *locked and caged* n that can bring up complicated feelings (IF they really really wanted to go a nonbender v bender route. i dont necessarily think that shouldve ever been the route but like if the worldbuilding wanted it to be in that direction idk. it couldve explored legitamtely intersting dynamics that happen on a smaller --> larger level. but also that anger being directed to benders in the nwt for "not doijng enough" for them as their kin across the globe - an interesting positiona that was sorta touched on in s2 but like....not really. idk i just feel like..i wouldve really liked to see water tribe coming out of the war n at first feeling the relief of like 'its over' but then theres just...anger. like. a fuck ton of anger. n its obviously directed at fire nation but also the fire nation is ALLLL the way over *there* and currently the ppl who ended the war are trying Really Hard To Keep Peace and there is an Attempt at rebuilding the culture(s) but also...theres so much anger n i can see it also being redirected back at their ppl which i dont think is unrealistic..

or maybe exploring fire nation specifically. in a way to avoid/minimize accountability fire nation nonbenders couldve been like '100 year war is UR fault benders!11!! we were ~innocent~ n dragged along! to which the benders wouldve OBVIOUSLY reacted terribly too. but that is a convo i could realistically see happening in a fascist society that has been "defeated" n THAT is more interesting to me to see esp bc that would require a complete dismanteling of the monarchy but would obviously bring up other issues of 'we're losing our ~culture~' (an argument we literally see alllll the time w fascist countries) n thus a rise in conservatism in which fire nation ppl could stoke the tension in like. earth kingdom (since fire nation are still settlers in earth kingdoms) by pitting earth kingdom benders against nonbenders ('umm if our monarchy is getting taken down so is urs so whats UR culture earth ppl? umm why was the dai li (benders) basically puppeterring the king (nonbender)....r nonbenders weak....') n that sort of fascist rhetoric spreading thru the globe. even that sort of world building makes more sense to me then what they attempted in s1 where nonbenders n benders were just...hating....for no legit reason? idk.

and it could just be taken further w s4 - kuvira whos all 'earth kingdom has been suffering so we need to make sure that never happens again' which like ok...foundations are kinda there but then veers off bc her politc fails n ends up embodying fascists - which is arguably a great representation of liberalism aka what happens when u dont have principles as a politic but rather surface level understanding. like lok frustrates me bc there are lots of interesting political dynamics i feel couldve been explored just like...more. how liberalism normalizes the road back to fascism. how when the dominiant culture is fascism it can take root globally n that it takes like...a lot of work to dig to it n that requires being principles not just following somebody who seemingly represents an identity without meaning. for korra to actually go on a journey n couldve been an exploration of her radicalization being in line w her spirituality n positioning in both the physical world n also the universe. couldve been a show that really threw digs at obama. but also for that the show n the writers would need to understand what identity politics is as a politic n read the combahee river collective statement which like...ik they wouldnt do so..

yeah I mean you say a LOT here but the through line I am really getting from this is that lok needed to be grounded in genuine material analysis of the geopolitical conditions wrt how these various colonial dynamics and social discourses would have evolved in a postwar society, and instead of actually critiquing those social positions (namely liberalism) they instead perpetuate it because they are simply unserious and shallow. yeah.

#iftari #asks #lok crit #like obviously there’s a lot to say here but if I responded to everything point by point this ask would be one million words long . so

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uncloseted · 1 year

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what do u say to a friend who seems to be falling to a transphobic path (via insta shorts). before she told me she supportss ppl's identities and pronouns but now shes repsoting bathroom trans women in bathroom content. where do i find resources and good evidence to help her im rlly sad abotu this

Ahh, that’s a hard situation to be in. Social media algorithms are so powerful in pulling people further and further towards prejudiced viewpoints. What to say kind of depends on the person- what their stated concerns are, what they’re actually worried about, and what kind of points usually get them to change their minds. That said, there are a few things I’ve had at least some success with:

The first one is to try and get the person to empathize with trans people. Usually this involves asking them how they would feel if people insisted on calling them [opposite gender version of their name] and using [opposite gender pronouns]. This is especially effective if the person has a nickname they exclusively go by, because then you can ask them how they feel when people insist on using their “birth name” instead of the name they go by. You can also ask them to reflect on their own relationship with gender. What makes them feel like they’re the gender that they are? How do they know their gender? Is their gender identity important to them? What does gender mean to them? Sometimes just getting them to reflect on what the trans experience is like makes a difference in terms of seeing trans people as people who just want to be respected instead of as a political football. Depending on how they feel about that line of questioning, another tact you can try is “born this way” - that trans people are born trans, and that it’s unfair to discriminate against them for something they can’t control. That was relatively effective when people were debating over gay marriage, and I think it works reasonably well here, too. This can also be a good place to point out that people who we might consider “trans” - that inhabit a cross-gender role in society, who cross dress, who occupy the social role of a third gender, etc. - have been documented for tens of thousands of years. It’s not a new phenomenon, despite the fact that people treat it as if it is.

Going off of that, it can be helpful to put the trans rights movement in a historical context. I like to remind people that they were losing their minds in this exact same way about gay people ten years ago, and then they all kind of got over it and the world hasn’t ended as a result. Is this really, substantially different than that, or do people just not like change? A lot of reactionary movements are just people who don’t like change trying to retroactively justify their discomfort, and I don’t think this case is any different. This works particularly well with the bathroom debate, because you can say, “we’ve always had moral panics about bathrooms. Until the 1960s, bathrooms were racially segregated in the US. Politicians argued that desegregating bathrooms would lead to a public health emergency because because “venereal diseases were commonplace among blacks, and an integrated ladies’ room would put white women at risk of catching VD from black women”. In the 70s, the Florida Legislative Investigative Committee issued a report warning of the dangers to the “health and well being of our population” due to gay men using public bathrooms, with particular concerns about gay men assaulting young boys in bathrooms. Obviously, neither of those things happened- there was no increase in VD after desegregating women’s bathrooms nor an uptick in child molestation because we allowed gay men to use public restrooms. Do we really have evidence to suggest that trans people pose a credible threat to public health or public safety? Or are the talking points about trans people in bathrooms the same as these previous pro-segregation talking points in that they’re not based in fact?

You can also ask them about the practicalities of their concerns. Assuming we did want to make sure that the only people allowed in women’s bathrooms are people who were assigned female at birth, how do we enforce that? Is there someone who will stand outside every public restroom and check people’s ID cards? Will women have a special key that allows them access to women’s restrooms? It’s not practical to go by “well, I’ll just know,” because lots of trans women “pass” and a lot of AFAB butch women don’t. In fact, AFAB butch lesbians have reported that they’re facing more harassment in public bathrooms than ever before. And ironically, this creates a situation in which trans men can’t use the bathroom that transphobes think they should be using- lest they be accused of being a man in a women’s space. Depending on the person, this may be the time at which you can point out that bathrooms bills aren’t really about protecting women in women’s bathrooms- they’re about creating a situation in which trans and gender nonconforming people are excluded from public life.

Along with the practicality concern, you can ask about practicality on the part of the trans person (or person they think is pretending to be trans in order to game the system). Sticking with the bathroom example, being a rapist who dresses up as a women and assaults people in bathrooms is a terribly impractical plan. They would have to, what, buy women’s clothes, dress up as a woman, wait outside a public restroom, wait for it to be totally empty, then wait for an unsuspecting woman to go in, follow her and sexually assault her while hoping nobody enters the bathroom during the assault or hears from the outside? Purely from a practical perspective, who would bother to do that? I’m sure it’s not zero people, but I don’t think the legality of trans people being in public restrooms is going to meaningfully change the number of sexual assailants that choose that method, right? If they’re going to do that they’re already doing it, legal or not. This type of argument also works for “men entering women’s sports to get an advantage” - practically speaking, would it be worth it to physically and socially transition and face the social repercussions of being trans all to try to get a slightly better chance at a college scholarship or to get a slightly better chance to win a professional sporting competition? Maybe those people are out there somewhere, but to me that seems like a huge, lifetime commitment for a very temporary career, and I just don’t think many people are going to do that. Plus, these kinds of arguments are red herrings- what they’re worried about isn’t actually trans people, but (mostly) cis men pretending to be trans for some sort of perceived advantage. It feels unfair that trans people should have their rights taken away because cis men might try to take advantage of those rights.

Again down the practicality route, you can try the, “what are you actually worried about?” tactic. People who are anti-trans will often claim that they’re not against trans people; they simply have concerns about a specific threat that trans people pose. They’re not against trans people; they’re worried about sexual assault in public bathrooms or they’re worried about fairness in sports or whatever. At this point, you extrapolate what they’re “actually” worried about- “oh, so you’re worried about sexual assault against women, that’s a really big concern for me, too.” Then you hit them with, “so surely you’re this concerned about [bigger problem], right?” This can look something like, “you must be really concerned about the 70% of sexual assaults that are perpetrated by someone the victim knows and the 67% of assaults that happen in the victim’s home or the home of a family member. What do you think we can do to protect women in those circumstances?” If you want to be a bit cheeky, you can say something like, “if you’re worried about sexual assault, you must be really concerned about the fact that 66% of trans people will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.” Putting their concerns into a larger perspective forces them to either acknowledge that there’s a bigger issue they should be paying attention to or it forces them to admit their problem is just with trans people, regardless of where harm is actually being perpetrated.

In terms of resources, a lot of you will probably know that I really like Natalie Wynn’s YouTube channel, Contrapoints. It provides a lot of thoughtful and nuanced discussions of trans identity and transphobia, as well as discussing the mentality of people who are transphobic and how their minds might be changed.

I’m sure there are other trains of thought you can try and that these may or may not work for everyone, but they are tactics or arguments that I’ve found to be useful in my day to day life. Hopefully they’ll help a bit for your friend, too.

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cypr1anlatew00d · 1 year

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sigh

the “t/rf accusations are over-used and stopping any form of REAL f/minism” being the emerging cr/pto narrative, especially in response to ppl rightly cluing into how they’re using algo-friendly content/accounts as an entry ramp to larger audiences, like, the exact alt-r/ght playbook, is such a good gambit I’d admire it if it was like a round of among us and not treating aspects of living people’s lives like chess pieces for the cruelest and stupidest possible outcome...

like A) it’s a great way to get people to again entertain the possibility that we lose something by being more disinclined to entertain & spread posts that make broad, essentializing generalizations about “men” (no matter how “inclusively” you try to phrase them, lol) or other not necessarily transphobic but frequently co-occuring reactionary positions often masqueraded as the hard core real ass “materialist analysis” “they” don’t want you to know about, ie sex negative, anti-porn, anti-sw, carcereal f/minisms (at least one of the above tends to be the “actual issue” if you investigate what the op is being “unfairly criticized” over). This hilariously sometimes expresses itself in an attempt at stoking nostalgia for like 2014 male tears mugs era tumblr. This Is What They Took From You ladies... the true high water mark of effective demands for womens equality.

What these “important” lines of argument mostly have in common is that they’re a well-critiqued element of “consciousness raising” f/minism, where personal traumas or even just icks are expanded fractally to explain all social and political phenomena as this sort of Ur-historical pattern of interpersonal cruelty inherent to “male” psychology... as early as the 70s this was identified as a great way to get an increasingly paranoid and standoffish clique/cult together that achieves little politically. But as a tactic it frequently comes back despite its ineffectiveness (I would even argue that it is and remains the main expression of f/minism in the US and UK at least, despite arguments that uh... caring about trans people or treating sex workers as human adults with jobs or whatever has put it on the back foot), because it is comforting to have some quasi-religious universal explanation for your suffering, even if it relies on reifying a binary & hierarchal narrative of gender much more than it takes steps to dismantle it. (in fact, especially to white or gender conforming or middle class or cis women, changing things too much or past a certain point can be “scary!”, an unexamined impulse that unites many libs rads and trads.)

There are actually a ton of practical political demands that don’t require or hinge on this language at all, and it’s not a coincidence that most of these supposedly “vital” arguments intersectionality has given us less of a taste for mainly propose policing interpersonal behvior rather than creating a scenario where power is more evenly distributed, where people have more autonomy over their life, so individual asshole sexists become less important and less able to flex power over people in their orbit.

And B), which is probably more importantly to address: it’s convincing because it flatters notatively f/minist cis women’s perceptions that it’s both overly-likely and self-evidently ridiculous that someone would call them transphobic, and also that there’s like, outsize risk or consequences for them if someone says this. Which of course, is the classic “I’m Being Silenced!!” line but from a slightly different angle. This feels like an innovation because it’s so obviously a bad faith tactic when you put it that way, but has, apparently, finally found a way to be phrased in barely-progressive terms that have people genuinely worrying again that The Down With Cis Bus will come for them. Anyways sigh. come back to this post in a year to see if I was right. I sure hope not.

#also like in light of several ''''materialists'''' reneging and/or becoming explicitly transphobic over the past few years...#maybe not looking at these things close enough is closer to the actual problem yknow

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lovenotesuggestions · 5 years

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Is there a way you could tell me all of the 'names' for exclusionist people? Like terfs, or people who think you need dysphoria to be trans (I don't remember the name ;_;) I want to be as inclusive as possible, and thus wanna read and learn more about exclusionists. You're very knowledgeable about the LGBTQIA+ community from what I've seen, at least a lot more than I am, so I figured you'd know at least some of them. I also wanna make it clear who to put on DNI list for my blog.

Thank you for thinking of me to ask, and for trying to educate yourself! Off the top of my head, the main things I can think of to look out for are:

TERFs sometimes also go by ‘gender realists’ or ‘gender critical’ - they’re more likely to self-identify as terms like those rather than as TERFs because they consider it a slur (it’s not). Also look out for people with things like XX or ‘adult human female’ in their bios or usernames - it’s TERF shorthand for identifying themselves as ‘real’ women. You may also see the term TWERF - trans women exclusionary reactionary feminism. Some people interpret the R to stand for radical, but reactionary is more accurate.

The folks you’re thinking of who think you need dysphoria to be trans are called truscum or transmedicalists. On twitter especially you often see them with crossed sword emojis or lightning emojis in their usernames/bio, which they use to indicate themselves as fans of K/alvin G/arrah (censored bc he and his fans tend to namesearch him to harass people who call him on his shit) or storm ryan, who are two particularly virulent truscum youtubers. Ofc not everyone with these emojis are people like these, esp with the new pokémon game that just got announced, but I tend to be cautious of it.

People who exclude ace and aro folks don’t tend to have a specific name - they tend to self-identify as ace exclusionist, though some self-identify as aphobes (which like... blows my mind when they claim to just not think aces/aros are LGBTQ+, but are happy to call themselves openly discriminatory and hateful towards ppl for having an orientation?? anyway that’s a can of worms for another day). They usually only refer to themselves as ace exclusionist, but this also extends to aro folks too.

Not specifically LGBTQIA+ related, but it’s also worth looking out for SWERFs, which stands for sex worker exclusionary reactionary feminists, whose feminism opposes sex work and opposes legalisation of sex work (particularly full service sex work, which is the preferred way to refer to prostitution) despite evidence that criminalisation of sex work actively harms sex workers, who are disproportionately poor, POC, and LGBTQIA+.

There don’t seem to be any other exclusionist ideologies with specific names (at least not that I’m aware of), but some other common ones to point out are:

non-binary exclusionists, who don’t believe non-binary genders are real (sometimes referred to as exorsexists, which is a name for the specific type of transphobia experienced by non-binary people) or who gatekeep the way n-b people behave, i.e. who say n-b people can’t identify as gay or lesbian, can’t use he/him or she/her pronouns, can’t use neopronouns, can’t medically transition, can’t present in a masculine or feminine way, can’t have typically masculine or feminine gendered names, etc.

people who don’t believe pansexuality is a valid orientation (who think it’s just bisexual for people who want to be special, or who believe it’s inherently transphobic due to a misconception that bi = attracted to cis men and women and pan = attracted to cis and trans men and women, when actually bi = attraction to two or more genders, and pan = attraction to all/regardless of gender - whether or not the people in question are trans doesn’t play into it).

There are even still people who don’t think trans or bi people should be included in the LGBTQ+ community, even though it was a bi woman who organised the first pride parade, and trans women of colour who were instrumental in the Stonewall riots.

There are also a few particular brands of lesbophobia becoming louder recently, including but not limited to: people who assume all/most lesbians are TERFs or aphobes due to an unfortunate minority of vocal lesbians with these views, people who think lesbians can’t be non-binary, and people who don’t think lesbians can use he/him or they/them pronouns.

People who don’t believe others should identify as queer or use/reclaim the term.

If anyone thinks of anything I’ve missed anything off, please let me know! Also, if anyone has any additional good-faith questions, like what particular terms might mean or what I might be referring to at certain points, then feel free to ask them!

Pre-emptive note: This blog firmly believes in the inclusive nature of the LGBTQIA+ community - the history of our movement is based on inclusiveness and unity between the different groups marginalised for not conforming to cisheteronormative standards, and exclusionism has always been a bad thing for us - it’s the thing that made lesbians, bi folks, and trans folks have to fight to be included in the acronym, even though they were the founders of the rights movement. My LGBTQIA+ community is for anyone who isn’t cisgender, heterosexual, heteroromantic, and perisex and who wants to be a part of it. Policing people’s presentation and the way they go about expressing themselves in a world that tries to quash our self-expression is not part of the spirit of the movement that is supposed to celebrate diversity and non-conformity. People being themselves doesn’t make the community ‘look bad’ or justify homophobia or transphobia - the people to blame for discrimination are the discriminators, not the people being discriminated against for rejecting toxic respectability politics. I will not be responding to any discourse on this matter - y’all know where the unfollow button is. Keep it out of the replies and out of my inbox and generally away from me.

#long post #not a suggestion #negative /#homophobia /#transphobia /#queerphobia /#Anonymous #answered

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azdoine · 5 years

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see, like --

ppl are always asking why we need to acknowledge or care about the queerness of a bad actor when we have much more important things to worry about, like acknowledging the offenses of the actor and punishing them for their offenses. (and for the record, this vagueblog is prompted by a lot more than a recent soundbyte from ‘nonny)

but just on a purely pragmatic level, this elision of queerness is utterly suspect: homophobes and transphobes are still going fold the existence of any given queer offender into their ongoing narrative that queer people are offenders in general. to deny the queerness of a queer offender is thus trivially contextualized as naivete and delusion (as a childish inability to acknowledge an obvious truth), or as outright deception and duplicity (as a no-true-scotsman rhetorical dodge) at best. at worst, denying the queerness of a queer offender is a first capitulation to the very overarching purpose of such reactionary rhetoric (i.e. to dissolve the very category of “queer people” and to assert that the notion that queerness itself is nothing more than a front for offenders to hide behind).

and in those situations when queer community response and responsibility would actually be appropriate, rather than being an absurd rhetorical demand from reactionaries, denying the queerness of an offender threatens to make the offender into someone else’s problem and scapegoat both (by socially amputating them from the queer community which may or may not have actually enabled them), and it creates or amplifies perverse incentives by normalizing the use of reactionary rhetoric in the community (otherwise-progressive queer people are likely going to have a hard time grappling with offenders when standard procedure for handling offenders is to lean into the respectability politics they would normally hate).

and on a purely factual level, of course, this elision of queerness is also sometimes just fucking flat-out wrong.

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transwolvie · 7 years

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lesbianjameswilson replied to your post: “you can be wlw if you ever identify as a man and...

I mean honestly I’m pretty sure most of the reason it’s like that for wlw is because most wlw are literally terrified of men. It’s really messy politics but in general wlw groups have a lot of reactionary politics which mean that they’re going to be messy. I just wish there was a better way to make the distinction between “this group of ppl wants nothing to do with men and that’s ok” and “this group of ppl is okay with gender variance like that” but even then it’s still

Yeah I mean I get that but like............if wlw communities are going to be accepting of cis bisexual women, who interact with men, then why cut off someone who may sometimes be a man but is ONLY going to interact with the community as a woman?

Yeah I just like. The reactionary politics of it--also, like, I’m not trying to claim I have a stake in specifically lesbian community or have a right to identify as a lesbian, because imo I DON’T, but wlw is supposed to be an umbrella label for women who are attracted to women (including bi and pan people) so as someone who IS a woman WHEN I’m attracted to women, it stings a bit to be shoved out.

Annoys me way more with the mlm community though because when they shove out femme people (even femme men) it’s because they’re misogynists lmfao

It’s just. Frustrating. Because I’m not asking for full unquestionable entry to LESBIAN communities, I’m asking for access to wlw communities....because I identify with that because when I like women, it’s as a woman. :///

#lesbianjameswilson #tomi talks

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ramroller · 5 years

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the hardest thing over the last couple of years has been to understand and accept how urgency lends itself to fascism and other reactionary viewpoints.

it definitely seems like things are moving faster and more crazily each day. this is obviously creating a lot of anxiety and fear.

but that fear is the heart of a reactionary mindset (thanks yoda lol). the fear that these smalls gains will be taken back from us just as quickly as we win them. and unfortunately, just as all of us have to go through the difficult and painstaking process of unlearning racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc, we also have to learn to reject the reactionary frame of mind that leads those of us with the privileges of the so-called "first world" to believe that what our society puts out as truth, via news and the media, is THE truth. there is A LOT to be said about how folks in the US prioritize the aesthetics of how we convey information rather than the information itself- a soundbite can be cut to mean anything- context is VITAL.

something that i think about almost every single day now is the night before dinner when i was at camp when our prayer leader, at the end of prayer, said "remember to be careful about what you say to who you dont know. we know not all the moles are white".

i guess this is on my mind daily because it seems like the reductive binaristic mentality of identity politics has thoroughly infused a lot of the organizing and activism ive been involved with, to varying degrees. and yeah, sometimes that was on me. but more importantly and more often, it was on a few of us, coming to bad conclusions through a series of different people's bad politics. and that is what can be really dangerous, because you've tricked yourself into thinking that because it was a group's decisions, there were checks and balances, instead of understanding that we were all starting from the same flawed mindset.

for me it's always been the urgency. and in trying to look towards the longevity of what we can build, that urgency has always been there just on my shoulder. it's the main point where i have refused to acknowledge my own internalized reactionary mindset.

i had to read, and read, and read it again, before i was finally willing to accept how fear and urgency make us extremely effective tools of the power structures that be. and now to combat the fear that we've had these realizations too late, and the urgency that comes from that. is it a self-maintaining cycle.

for me, ive gotten about as far as realizing that this manipulation of my psyche if taking place. i'm starting to recognize when it's happening, but more importantly i understand how it actually works against what we are hoping to build. the rest of it is on me to accept that this is real even though it hurts my ego to admit that i've gotten played here and there. but basically if you arent learning one thing every day about everything going on that doesn't fundamentally challenge the points of view you've developed- ESPECIALLY if you consider yourself a political outsider- then you're definitely getting played.

i hated it when ppl used to imply that i was in a leftist echo chamber, but unfortunately, the internet is very very good at creating such paces. if it's been a minute since you learned something that radically alters how you understand this fight, youre probably in one too. it's cool, cause we've all been there, but ultimately you gotta kick the door open yourself. /endthought

#this is 100% about the investigative series into the connections between greta thunberg and the anticipated fourth industrial revolution #into green capitalism #id sugget everyone read the series

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