#I say approximately because I do like grouping a single authors work together so I tend to claster them in the year/decade I consider them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

secretshinigami · 3 years

Text

A First Time For Everything

Author: @complicatedmerary

For: @misora-massacre

Pairings/Characters: Halle Lidner/Naomi Misora; Naomi Misora, Halle Lidner, and I suppose Raye Penber is there, too, I guess :p

Rating/Warnings: General; brief alcohol mention

Prompt: Halle and Naomi go on a blind date

Author’s notes: Hello, hello! After writing Naomi on the other fic I gave you, I got inspired to continue writing her, especially with this intriguing prompt. I had my eyes set on a regular dinner date, but it was so boring, I had to think outside the box. How about the gentle appeal of a wlw romance of what-ifs and cherished memories? Now that is more like it! You deserve a good time after the stress of the BB fic, so, hopefully you will enjoy this! Also, the friends’ names? Totally intentional. :)

-----------

“What do you think about sunsets, Naomi?”

“Hmm?” Naomi shook off her tiring trance. It had become the standard for Naomi to be absentminded every single time Raye wanted to have a party. In this case, he expressed desire to show off to the whole city that him, Raye Penber, had finally gotten brave enough to propose to his girlfriend, Naomi Misora. It was cute, really, Naomi thought, but a single text and some phone calls would have sufficed. She was not a big fan of crowds; he should know that already. Right?

“I said, what do you think about sunsets?” Raye embraced Naomi from the side and kissed her cheek.

She smiled. “I think they are nice, very romantic. With the right person, that is.” Especially on a nice balcony overlooking the city, as the crowd is engrossed in their own little world. Thin fingers wrap around hers, her thumb gently rubbing on the underside of her hand. Naomi looked intently at their hands and her heart skipped a beat as a rush of fluttering feelings vibrated in her stomach. Was that what they meant when they say you have “butterflies” inside you? She did not seem to mind at all, like she was used to the effect she caused because of her beauty and enthralling disposition. How many girls were they before her? Why did she care? It was not as if she was ever going to see her again. Perhaps she should give her number, make sure she never forgot about her.

“You seem deep in thought.” Her blonde hair was gently blown from the crisp breeze, it was almost too perfect.

“Hmm?” A distraction from her ramblings inside her head, but not quite. Naomi was more transfixed by her amber eyes than anything else. How can a woman be this beautiful?

Raye’s watch beeped loudly, the recreation of her memory evaporating like water. “Whoops, it’s almost time. You would not mind helping me with the drinks, would you? You are such a good mixer; our guests would appreciate it.”

He clearly meant his guests with maybe two of her friends. “Right, no problem.”

At this rate, a drink was not such a bad idea.

God, she needed a drink.

She could not believe she was looking forward to this. Cathy was so vague about this Hal guy, but what was said intrigued her. All she knew was that his name was Hal Bullook, he had blond hair, brown eyes, and he was at least over five feet and ten inches. Also, he was a CIA agent. A total dreamboat, Cathy promised. Hal has heard plenty about you, she also said. She gulped. Cathy had no filter; if she told him some embarrassing facts (like the milk slipping accident from work), then she would be mortified. Then again, maybe it will make her endearing and cute in his eyes, there was nothing wrong with that.

Today was a gathering between members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other local governmental organizations; it was not for business, this was a regular party to get everyone together for a job well done. Plenty of fun to spread in one evening, it was bound to be unforgettable.

This was the most obnoxious party Naomi has ever been to and Raye had finally beaten his own record.

Maybe she was the one who did not understand how parties worked, but if this was an engagement party, then why was there a group of guys watching sports on her television, in her living room? And where were Cathy and Shoko? Did they miss their invitations, or did they ditch her for something else?

“Raye,” Naomi hissed, snatching him away from the group and setting him aside.

“Naomi, what was that all about? You can’t just barge in when someone is having a conversation.” Raye shook his head in disappointment.

“This is out of control! I thought the whole point of this party was to share the news. I was asked to bring snacks into the living room as if I was servant and not the main co-host. Do you realize how humiliating this is?”

“Oh, Naomi, I’m sorry, no one should treat you like this. Tell me who did it so I can tell them to leave.”

Naomi sighed. Raye could be dense sometimes, but gosh, he was too sweet. Was she making a big deal out of nothing? “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll get bored soon. By the way, have you heard from either Cathy or Shoko? You did invite them, right?”

“No, I have not heard from them, but they should be coming soon. Cathy is always late, remember?”

That was true, but that did not explain Shoko’s absence. Unless … “If they decided to arrive together, then that would explain everything.”

“Are you sure you are okay, Naomi?” Raye placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry if my friends had other plans, but I promise we will make the announcement together. Just … give it some time until the mood has been set, okay?”

“Fine,” Naomi mumbled. “You did promise.”

“Thank you,” Raye pecked her lips. “Excuse me for one second.”

The doorbell rang and Naomi perked up. In an instant, both Raye and Naomi gathered by the door and let it swing open. The sight made her smile. Speak of the devil; Cathy and Shoko were just late after all.

“Wow, girl, look at you,” Cathy giggled. “You are an absolute knockout.”

And indeed, she was. Naomi was wearing a silky, black dress, her legs accentuated tastefully by the knee length and the six-inch black heels. Her long hair had been waved with a curling iron and her makeup was subtle yet elegant. Caramel lips and a brown smoky eyeshadow, she looked flawless.

“Hopefully, I did not overdo it,” Naomi shrugged.

“Nonsense, you look perfect, if you don’t make heads turn, then they are missing out.”

Naomi gave a small twirl. “I hope Hal likes me.”

“Yeah, Hal …” Cathy fiddled with her bracelet, looking to the side. “Come on, let’s go, we can’t be late.”

“You do realize you are late, right?” Naomi teased Cathy.

“Yeah, yeah, that was bad.” Cathy blushed. “But I have a good excuse this time. Traffic was a nightmare.”

“You say that every time.” Naomi drank from her glass.

“It’s true, though!” She widened her brown eyes to appear more innocent. “I know I have concealed the truth from you before, but I’m not lying right now. I have bad luck, that’s all.”

“Fine,” Naomi could not be bothered to continue this discussion. “I forgive you.”

“And that’s why you are a great friend, you are willing to look past my flaws.” Cathy giggled.

At approximately 4:30, Naomi and Cathy arrived at the gathering, prepared to have the greatest time possible. Naomi was transfixed by the amount of silver decorations the room had all over. It was as if there was plenty of money invested to make it look pretty. And from the corner of her eyes, she saw the type of food that was set on the table. It was a banquet full of delicacies that range from a fancy ham and an elaborated fruit salad.

At least she felt better about her dress code.

“Wow,” Cathy gasped.

“I know,” Naomi replied. However, there were more concerning issues. If she could find Hal, perhaps they could crack a joke about how this gathering’s budget was blown for appearances. Then again, there was the possibility that he could have a terrible sense of humor. She had to thread lightly. Now, where he could be among this sea of professionals? Funnily enough, she did not catch a lot of men that were at least taller than five feet and ten inches, so perhaps Hal was in the bathroom.

She stood there in her spot, darting around for a sign of a tall blond.

Well, she did see a tall blonde woman among the crowd, but that was definitely not Hal. Their eyes aligned and she waved at her, smiling. Naomi waved back. She must be a coworker she had never notice before, it would have looked bad if she ignored her.

However, where was he?

“What are you doing?” Cathy took her arm and dragged her in the middle of the room. “That is your date, come say hi to Halle. Hey, Halle, here she is!”

Halle? What was Cathy talking about? No, she must have been confused, Hal was somewhere around here, this had to be a joke—

Hold on a second.

This was a joke. Blonde hair, brown eyes, she seemed taller than five feet and ten inches, especially with those high heels …

Did she miss something? Did Cathy set her up with a woman all along?

“Who is Shoko’s friend?” Naomi pointed towards a young-looking man standing next to Shoko.

“Oh, that’s her new boyfriend,” Cathy shrugged. “I barely know him, he is new in town.”

“Huh,” That was all Naomi could say. Shoko’s dating habits were … unusual to say the least. That was not a negative thing, she reassured herself, Shoko was an attractive woman. With her sleek, dark brown hair, high cheekbones, and slender figure, she attracted men like honey. If Cathy can call herself unlucky, Shoko was the opposite. It was hypnotizing, really, how Shoko threw her head back with laughter and remain poised. Her boyfriend was cute and all, but he could not hold a candle to Shoko. He almost looked … average next to her.

“Wow, could you stare any harder?”

“Hmm?” Naomi was shaken from her train of thoughts.

Cathy raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms against her chest. “If I did not know any better, you still like girls. Does Shoko know that you have a crush on her?”

“Shh, Cathy, that’s enough,” Naomi set her aside. “No, I don’t have a crush on Shoko. Also, can you keep it down?”

“Wait, Raye does not know about you and Halle, does he?”

“Shh!” She raised a finger over her mouth. “No, and I would like to keep it that way. That part of my life is done for.”

“You literally stared at Shoko like you wanted to kiss her.”

“Cathy, can you drop this?” Naomi backed away. “I’m with Raye and that’s all there is to it—" When she turned around, she bumped into a guest and her glass spilled on her white blouse. The sound attracted lurking heads to witness the disaster, including Shoko’s.

“Naomi!” Raye came to the rescue with a paper towel. “Don’t worry, I can fix this.”

Humiliating tears sprung from her eyes, her shame hot against her cheeks. She waved Raye from her sight and ran towards the bathroom, slamming the door shut.

Forget about the ruined blouse, why couldn’t Cathy mind her own business? Sure, it led to something wonderful once, but that was in the past.

Was it?

“Is she gorgeous or what?” Cathy smirked at Halle. “Naomi was looking forward to this day.”

Naomi wanted to cry from the humiliation. What did she do to deserve this?

“That makes the two of us,” Halle laughed, it sounded so warm and clear. “Thank you for helping me out, Cathy.”

“Could you excuse us for a minute?” Naomi flashed a pained smile as she set Cathy aside away from Halle, into the women’s bathroom.

“You lied to me!” Naomi whispered in anger.

“I’m sorry, okay? I met Halle in a case, and she told me that it was hard getting dates when you are a lesbian and one thing led to another and we started talking about you.”

“What. Did. You. Tell. Her?”

Cathy sighed in defeat. “That you were single and that you were totally a lesbian, too.”

“What?” Naomi was flabbergasted. “When have I ever given the impression that I was into women?”

“I mean,” Cathy waved her hands to Naomi’s sides as if her mere presence was the logical explanation. “You love to wear leather, I have never seen you in a skirt, and you ride the sturdiest motorcycle I have ever seen. Can you blame me?”

“What is wrong with you?” Naomi snapped. “I am appalled that you would do something like this. You made me believe I was meeting a guy named Hal … Oh, my God, Halle, Hal … You mispronounced the name on purpose because you knew deep down that I was never going to be okay with this.”

“I did this because I thought you knew that you were a lesbian all along and I was trying to keep it undercover for your sake!” And now Cathy was crying with tears rolling down her face. “You have to realize that I did not do this with bad intentions, I care about you, you are my best friend, I was trying to help.”

Naomi merely shook her head and sneered. “Don’t ever speak to me ever again.” And with that, she stormed from the bathroom.

“Wait, please!” Cathy collapsed on the marble floor and continued crying on her knees.

Crying was useless and a waste of time, she needed to get over herself. Naomi washed her face and wiped water with a towel, taking a deep breath to take some control back to her senses. She was going to pretend that the issue was the stained blouse and move on.

Fortunately for her, the focus was on that stupid sports game, and she was able to sneak to the bedroom and change her blouse into a regular long-sleeved, black turtleneck. She breathed out a sigh of relief. There, it was as if nothing happened.

She was not going to let this train wreck ruin her chance to have a good time, but she needed some time alone. The balcony was impressive, and it gave her the space necessary to come back to the party when she was ready. She looked ahead to the horizon and thought back to what Cathy said. Could there be some truth to her words? Sure, she did struggle getting dates with men, but surely that had nothing to do with her being into women, right? Her mind dwelled on Halle’s face and she groaned. Poor Halle, she was involved in this mess whether she liked it or not and she did not know to properly apologize to her. “I’m sorry my friend told you I was a lesbian?” Yes, that would go over well.

“If I didn’t know any better, it seems that I was not who you expected.” A familiar voice rang in Naomi’s ears.

She turned around and released a pained sigh. There she was, standing tall, unfazed that there was drama in the first place because of her. She was so put together; Naomi was almost jealous that Halle had better control of her emotions than she had.

Those CIA agents must be operating on a league like no other.

Naomi cleared her throat. “Oh, no, that’s the problem, you were described perfectly.” With an excluding factor, that is.

“Listen, I understand that blind dates can be weird, but I was willing to take a chance because it’s not every day that I get to know someone who is in the same line of work who is also into women.” Halle shrugged. “Does that make sense?”

Oh, how was she going to break it to her that she was probably not a lesbian? And yet, those words never exited from her mouth.

“It does make sense,” Naomi nodded her head, smiling. “I’m sorry about before, you are right, blind dates are weird. It could have been way worse.”

Halle chuckled. “What, like dating a serial killer?”

Naomi burst in laughter. “Oh, God, can you imagine? What are the chances of that happening in real life?”

“Believe it or not, it is way more common than you think. Thankfully, both of us are safe.”

She had to admit, Halle was funny. At least she could check off “sense of humor” off her list.

Huh. Hm.

“Just out of curiosity,” Naomi said breezily. “Did Cathy tell you anything interesting about me?”

“You mean like the ‘Milk Slipping Accident’? Yes, if that is true, you are hilarious.”

It was not surprising Cathy told her that story, she was expecting nothing less.

“It would be better if you heard my version of the story, I was the main instigator, after all.” She beckoned Halle to stand beside her. “Come on, I bet Cathy left off some important details.”

Whatever was going on inside did not matter when the woman in front of you also shared interesting stories of her own. One thing that Naomi learned from this fiasco was that perhaps the reason why dating men never worked out for her was because the spark was simply not there. With Halle, however, once the awkwardness went away, it just made sense. A part of her was still struggling with this newfound source of self-discovery, but once she allowed to just let herself be, it was comforting. She already admitted that she never dated another woman before today (which made Halle laugh, oddly enough), perhaps Halle would make this journey easier for her with no judgment.

“Sorry to interrupt you, but I’m just noticing that the sun is about to finally set.” Halle remarked.

“Do you like sunsets?”

“I think they can be romantic with the right person. Other than that, they are just nice.”

“Have you done this before?”

“Watched the sunset with someone else? Not romantically, no, but I always wanted to.”

“Well,” Naomi offered her hand. “There is always a first time for everything.”

Fast forwarding to the once evaporated memory from Naomi’s mind, after a tentative silence from both women, Naomi and Halle shared a kiss, the first of many that were set to come after Naomi insisted to at least see each other one more time. Unbeknownst to her, Cathy caught them in that embrace and never spoke one word to Naomi about it to avoid confrontation.

The following week, Halle organized a picnic date near a hill to enjoy the serenity of the lack of crowds. Naomi enjoyed herself on the mat despite the cold weather. She did not mind because she could just ask Halle to give her a jacket.

The less they talked about their eventual separation to get back to their normal, working lives, the better. If there was one thing Naomi learned from this experience is to just allow herself to be at peace with the present.

“Naomi?” Raye knocked on the door, the interruption of her thoughts never stopping her peace.

It seemed that Naomi was staring at the wall all this time. “Yes?”

He opened the door and sheepishly peered from the view. “I think it’s time.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“I kicked out the rowdy people out of here, we shouldn’t encounter any more disasters.”

Naomi chuckled, embracing Raye’s neck. “They should have been kicked out way earlier, but I forgive you.”

“Oh, you forgive me?” Raye mused out loud. “You are right, I should have listened to you all along.”

She gave him a firm kiss. “At least you are learning.”

A loud clink could be echoed across the living room, striking attention from every angle.

“Thank you all so much for coming,” Raye began. “I know my parties are bound to be entertaining, and for good reason, but we have an announcement to make, and after this, we can properly celebrate.”

Naomi raised her right hand, allowing the sparkle of the diamond ring to bling bright. “We are engaged!”

Shoko was the first to voice her excitement and soon everyone else follow with cheers and claps.

Raye squeezed her from the side and beamed with pride to finally give up this announcement. Naomi felt celebratory for a moment, but her smile faded slowly as her mind decided to ignore the noise until it turned into a blur. She somehow felt … empty.

“Look, Halle, the sun is setting,” Naomi pointed at the sky.

“Crap, we have to go back,” Halle began to stand up from the mat.

“Are you kidding? I have never seen a sunset from a hill, let’s not end the fun just yet.”

“Well, if that’s what you want, I suppose we can stay longer.” Halle went back to the mat and embraced Naomi from behind, allowing her to settle against her.

Even when the sun set into dusk, none of them were willing to leave each other’s arms.

#fanfiction #death note #submission #naomixhalle #Naomi Misora #halle lidner #Raye Penber #complicatedmerary #misora-massacre #Mello's Birthday Mayhem 2020

15 notes · View notes

im-auntie-social · 3 years

Text

Tagged by the kind and lovely @ilikeblue and @zetaaa

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag 10 authors!

I’m still a baby as far as posting fic, so let’s do this in chronological order, oldest to newest, all JB with the exception of #1:

1. “Heads up!” (the Novel That Won’t Die, otherwise known as Uncertainty Principle, YA, pending a near-total rewrite so I can pitch it as a rom com because “story about weirdo college students doing weird stuff and growing and whatnot” isn’t a genre unless you add romance or trauma or both. sigh.)

2. There was a hole in the Force. (You Happened to Me aka the Star Wars AU Episode 1, rated T, complete)

3. “If I didn’t know better, Tech, I’d think you were trying to run away from me.” (Love Isn’t a Sprint, It’s a Marathon, rated T, one-shot)

4. There is nothing on earth Brienne Tarth hates more than poster sessions. (Questions of Science and Progress aka Science Bros to Lovers, rated T, complete)

5. There’s one present left under the tree, but it is so small Brienne is worried Jaime might not see it. (N06: Radical Red, rated T, one-shot)

Now some unposted WIPs, in order of most likely to ever see the light of day to least likely (excluding WIPs that consist of a single line and/or I don’t want to talk about)

6. A sprawling and active community where the summer has been long, but winter is coming. Welcome to Westeros County. (what it says on the tin, rated T)

7. Jaime had been standing outside the ballroom’s grand main door for what felt like days when it eased open a crack and a large, head-tailed figure slipped out. (SWAU episode 2. Will probably be supplanted by a much punchier prologue and/or main title crawl)

8. “This is Varys, talking to you from in front of the Red Keep Theater in King’s landing!” (Singin’ in the Rain AU, lots of fun to write but it’s JBO (JOB?) and that makes me a bit nervous because it’s new for me and I don’t want to screw it up. Also still figuring out how to pull off Lina!Cersei with only canon-typical misogyny.)

9. Brienne fiddles with her StagPhone restlessly as she waits for her new student to arrive. Her new student and, apparently, her student’s nanny. (”hypothetical tutor fic,” hopefully a one-shot?)

10. When I woke up I knew three things: I was in a diagnostic and repair cubical on KingsLanding station, I had no memory, and my governor module was offline. I went to work anyway. (”murderbot Brienne,” currently giving me fits about literally every aspect. Hopefully a one-shot because a) approximately four people will read a first-person POV genre fic born mainly from sarcastic discord comments about “robot bodyguard Brienne,” and b) see above re: fits)

11. Brienne Tarth was no swan. (”ballet fic” that is also vaguely a GNC fic? idk)

12. Being a ghost is exhausting. (creatively currently titled “brienne is a ghost,” something I noodled around with for a few days during NaNo. Rereading it I kind of like it? But there are at least two really good ghost!Brienne fics already and I’m not sure this cake would add anything?)

13. (cheating because it’s still an outline) Brienne joins a knitting group consisting of Cat, Olenna, Genna, Lysa, and Old Nan. (also what it says on the tin, mostly because I miss my knitting group and also I adore the idea of giving Brienne a pack of dgaf older ladies to support and encourage her. I may have to invent a Martell grandma to round out the group....)

Patterns: Among posted fics, 3 of 4 start with “there,” which I never noticed before. Huh. I also notice I don’t actually like half of the WIP starters, probably because they’re not pithy and straightforward like the published ones? For some reason I thought I tended toward dialog for first lines but apparently not!

Favourite: While #4 is absolutely the most autobiographical, I’m always going to have a soft spot for #2. I joke that the JB Star Wars AU is the fic I was born to write, but I wasn’t at all sure anything would ever see the light of day until the prologue came together.

Tagging: Ah dang I’m late to the party and I have no idea who’s been tagged and who’s posted, so if you’re seeing this and haven’t posted your answers, consider yourself tagged!

#writing #fic writing #writing meme #time capsule post to be remembered and laughed at in X years

3 notes · View notes

awashsquid · 5 years

Text

The long-awaited (for @sittingoverheredreaming, at least) Part 4 of this commissioned series! Group post here, if you need to catch up. If you like it, drop Sam a thanks for commissioning me, or give a comment or reblog - we authors thrive on feedback! Hope y’all enjoy.

The next hour passed in such a daze of quick events that Michiru scarcely recalled them even as they occurred, one moment bleeding into the next like inexpertly applied watercolors, mingling until the entire canvas was muddied beyond recognition of what it once was, what it should have been. There were doctors in and out of the room, she recalled, and she knew that she had signed several documents with a shaking hand, her signature remaining as delicate and ornamental as it had ever been, still a perfect piece of artistry even as the canvas of her world rended itself into scraps of confetti.

Haruka never left her vision again, staring at her intensely with those green eyes that she knew couldn’t be real but somehow had never felt more alive, the lips that she knew could not be there, and yet she could feel when they brushed against her head, her hand, her cheek. The pain as her wounds knitted back into place was nothing compared to the searing agony in her chest, each beat of her traitorously living heart a reminder that she had ruined everything to save Haruka, to save the woman that she loved, and she had not even succeeded in that effort.

Once she was settled at home the others left her room, Rei doing so only after instructing her gently to get some sleep. Hotaru offered to stay and provide healing, but Michiru asked to have some time alone - except she wasn’t really alone, Haruka was sitting on the bottom of the bed - and Hotaru did not push further. The heavy wooden door shut and Michiru turned to the phantom of her lover, not wanting to say the words aloud but knowing that she needed to in order for them to become true.

“You are not really here. My Haruka is dead.” The sentence came out in a whisper that turned into a strangled, choking sob, her weakness on full display as tears ran openly down her face, dotting the hospital gown she still wore with markers of her own incompetence.

Haruka - not Haruka, she corrected internally, some manifestation of my own subconscious - shrugged in that same casual way she had a thousand times, her shoulders lifting slightly before relaxing again. “I’m as here as you want me to be, Michi.” She flipped herself onto her knees and crawled closer, and Michiru could swear that she felt weight and heat from where Haruka’s body covered her own. “I’m as real as you need me to be.” She kissed her again, less gently this time, a hand winding through Michiru’s hair in a familiar caress.

“This isn’t real,” Michiru whispered between kisses, shaking her head.

Haruka smirked devilishly, her free hand wandering downwards, Michiru gasping softly. “I’ll make it feel real.” Michiru bit her lip, knowing that the touches weren’t really happening but unable to deny their effect on her regardless. “Does this feel real to you?” She let out a soft whimper under the familiar caresses, Haruka’s practiced hands knowing exactly what she wanted.

Haruka drew back suddenly, ceasing her touches, and Michiru nearly groaned with frustration. “Do you want me to go away, Michi? Just tell me to leave, and I’m not real any more.” The sparkle in her eyes and the growing, almost predatory smile on her face indicated that she already knew the response, and as Michiru leaned forward to press her lips against her lover’s, she tasted of apples.

At the Shrine across town, Mercury pored over her handheld computer and studied the flashing symbols on the screen with ferocity. The knowledge of how to unlock the hidden data from the days of the Silver Millenium had been gifted to her when she remembered the ancient, long-dead language that had been used then, its characters foreign to all living eyes but hers now. She smiled at the thought that she was the last person with such knowledge, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

“How are we progressing, Mercury?”

Mercury jumped internally as the cool voice washed over her like a wave, whipping around and falling to a knee as instinctively as she breathed, the motion just as effortless and necessary. “My Queen,” she responded, the air in front of her lips fogging just slightly, her element showing itself more in the presence of its mistress. Her eyes stared at the hem of the white gown in front of her, everything else in the room dim and dull by comparison of its pearlescent shine.

“‘Princess’; I am not Queen as of yet,” she corrected, and Mercury felt a trickle of sweat freeze to the skin on her back, icing over. “Stand, Mercury, and give me a report.” A pause - then, as an afterthought: “Please.” The last word sounded out of place with the others, a switch from her natural cadence to an attempt to pronounce a concept from a newly-learned foreign language. Mercury stood and raised her eyes to the face of her ruler, though never high enough to make eye contact, her gaze resting on the flawless porcelain cheekbones.

“Princess,” Mercury forced out with mild effort, which she endured because she could not fathom the thought of disobedience, “As you are aware, Jupiter expended her energies greatly during the battle. She was left in a comatose state. You chose to revive me -” revive seemed the wrong word somehow; she had never been dead, just slumbering beneath the surface of a weak-willed teenage girl, one whose favor of kindness over science disgusted her - “two days ago, and have been resting your energies since then.”

Her gaze drifted past Serenity to the bed behind her where Jupiter lay, Sleeping Beauty tucked between Rei’s anime-themed sheets, still and unresponsive as a fairytale illustration. “There has been no change in Jupiter’s status. I remain unable to wake her, and it is only through your daily energy sharing that she continues to exist in this state.” The knowledge of her failure hung greatly over her head, and she resisted the urge to drop to her knees and beg forgiveness, if only because her Princess would not stand groveling from her soldiers.

“Scan me. I would know the probability of a successful revival at my current energy levels.” Mercury nodded and took a step backwards, raising the computer and tapping a few buttons to bring up the proper display. Data scrolled across her visor and screen simultaneously as she allowed the computer to work, a few moments of silence passing as the calculations were completed.

“The probability of success at this time would be approximately 86.83%, Princess. There is a 8.49% chance that she would improve slightly but not wake; a 3.14% chance that no change would occur, and a 1.54% chance that you would extend your own energies too greatly and damage yourself. Given these values, I believe that you could safely awaken her at this time.”

The Princess-Queen glanced over at Jupiter in the bed, still and fragile and somehow looking so small, despite being taller than either of the other women. Serenity nodded sharply. “Very well, Mercury. Your diligence is noted and appreciated.” She frowned even as Mercury bent at the waist slightly, a thanks for the compliment that her body performed naturally. “Will I need to recharge so long before waking Uranus? And what of Pluto?”

Mercury shook her head lightly, ice-blue hair sweeping out of her eyes. “No, my Q- Princess,” she corrected hastily, “your powers were much more significantly depleted from your own transformation, eliminating the opposing army, and purifying myself. Awakening Jupiter will use a large amount of your energy, but it should recharge significantly faster. I estimate that you will be able to revive Uranus within 24 hours.”

Serenity’s rose-petal lips curled into a tiny smile, so minute and controlled that a less observant party could have assumed it was a trick of the lighting; but Mercury was nothing if not an efficient tool for data intake, and so she catalogued the discrepancy as she continued to speak. “Pluto’s body has yet to be discovered. As the area has been thoroughly canvassed, my current theory is that she dematerialized and was instantly reincarnated at the Time Gate, as is typical of her position. We do not currently possess a means of reaching the Time Gate to confirm this hypothesis. My recommendation is to classify Pluto as a lost asset.”

The rose of Serenity’s lips wilted, and the thorns of her perfectly white teeth poked out from underneath the small curl of disgust. “That is...disappointing, indeed.” Pluto had been one of the stronger defensive Senshi, and Mercury knew that from a tactical standpoint the loss of her power was not insignificant. “Still,” Serenity continued, taking small, gliding steps towards the bed where Jupiter lay. “We will have the rest back soon. Beginning with her.”

She stopped at the bedside, pale hand reaching out somewhat tenderly to brush back the bangs from Jupiter’s forehead. Serenity’s eyes, as blue and as cold as the most rare of sapphires, closed as she touched a single finger to the center of the prone woman’s forehead. The golden moon on her face began to glow, its aura traveling downwards over her unearthly pale skin from her neck, to her arm, to that extended finger, and finally onto Jupiter before disappearing into her forehead. Serenity’s brow creased slightly as the light increased in strength, crescendoing until there was a single bright flash of white light that forced Mercury’s eyes to squint shut, unable to withstand the intensity.

When she reopened her eyes, Serenity looked slightly less radiant than she had a few moments prior - her sapphire eyes were fogged over as though in need of a polish, and the subtle sparkle that her skin always seemed to hold now was emphasized by the light layer of sweat that crossed her chest. The woman in the bed looked much the same, except that her hair had lightened a few shades, a more medium-brown at the roots fading into a tan shade towards the bottom. Her eyes opened to reveal the other change in Jupiter’s appearance, the bright yellow irises seeming to crackle with electricity.

She sat up quickly, a near-predatory smile on her face as she cracked her neck, then her knuckles, the second causing small sparks to fly from her hands as she did so. Jupiter rose from the bed, steady as though she hadn’t just been in a coma moments ago, and knelt at Serenity’s feet. Mercury knew chastising her for such strain would get nowhere - Jupiter had never been one to listen to reason - and so chose to put her energy into performing a basic vitals scan, just to ensure that all had gone as it should have.

“My Queen,” came Jupiter’s voice, rumbling and sure.

This time, Serenity did not correct the title. “Rise, Jupiter. There is much work to be done if we are to enact Crystal Tokyo.”

Jupiter did as she was commanded, a broad smirk spreading across her face as tiny crackles of electricity danced across her knuckles. “I can’t wait to begin.”

#my writing #commissioned work #sittingoverheredreaming #fanfiction #sailor moon #michiru kaioh #sailor neptune #haruka tenoh #sailor uranus #usagi tsukino #neo-queen serenity #ami mizuno #sailor mercury #makoto kino #sailor jupiter #this is kind of a stop-gap before the next chap where things pick back up a bit #sorry if it is at all anti-climactic aha

15 notes · View notes

radicalmommyxx · 5 years

Text

The Transgender Movement and Bad Stats: A Debunking Compilation

https://medium.com/@sue.donym1984/the-transgender-movement-and-bad-stats-a-debunking-compilation-31760947b382

“It has come to our attention, that, scattered across half a dozen posts, is debunking of a variety of statistics associated with the transgender movement. We fear they may be a little buried in some very long posts. We wondered how to fix this problem. The solution is this article.

Nothing excites readers like the Medium equivalent of a television clip show, which is exactly what this is. We’ve decided to gather all those statistics together in one handy article, so you can reference it in all your online Twitter debates, as God intended.

The US Transgender Survey is a source of many statistics about transgenderism you will find in international policy debates, arguments on the internet, and cited by LGBTQI+ activist organizations. It is run by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE).

It describes its survey to the IRS with the following:

““SURVEY: THE U.S. TRANS SURVEY IS THE NEW NAME OF THE LARGEST SURVEY EVER DEVOTED TO THE LIVES AND EXPERIENCES OF TRANSGENDER PEOPLE. THE USTS IS A SURVEY FOR ALL TRANSGENDER IDENTITIES, INCLUDING TRANSGENDER, GENDERQUEER, AND NON-BINARY PEOPLE, AND WILL BE THE LARGEST AND MOST DIVERSE TRANSGENDER SAMPLE TO DATE. THE USTS IS OUR COMMUNITY’S SURVEY: THE USTS DATA SET AND RESULTS WILL BE AVAILABLE TO COMMUNITY ADVOCATES, ORGANIZATIONS, AND RESEARCHERS FOR YEARS TO COME.” [sic]

The IRS form lets us know how much that survey cost — $318,154. So, what information about the transgender community did $318,154 give us?

We took a look at the lauded NCTE survey, the National Transgender Discrimination Survey(NTDS) which is downloadable from their website, to find out about what information it can give us.

The problem is that the survey, despite its six figure costs, contains numerous methodological flaws, rendering it’s information useless. It isn’t worth discussing what the survey actually shows us, because it is a survey where the sample was built on self-selection. It isn’t random. The survey, which was run online, had as its first question ‘have you already taken this survey before?’, and warned that taking the survey repeatedly would not increase the number of entries into a prize draw (you can view a screenshot here). That meant the survey could have been taken over and over again by the same person. It was also meant to provide US-based statistics, but had no geo-location restrictions. That’s not a valid data-set. That’s not even going to pass an undergraduate statistics course. Supposedly NCTE cleaned the data-set, but I am not sure how you can clean a survey with such flaws. It should only serve as an indicator for further research at best, not a bible or a reason to bring about legislative change. It brings into question every statistic in the survey. Other criticisms were that it tried leading participants into a particular response.

It is an issue because the survey has gone on to shape public policy and be cited by numerous other organizations. The survey, which is incredibly flawed, has been cited numerous times by other associated transgender lobby organizations — the Human Rights Campaign, the Transgender Law Center, the National LGBTQ Task Force, a litany of other lobby groups and the Democratic Party, all groups that use its statistics as crucial evidence for their argument that transgender people are the most oppressed minority in America. Despite its methodological flaws, it was published, and proudly sponsored and cited by a number of corporate and philanthropic foundations. This was also used by groups funded by these organizations as electioneering material”, and for lobbying purposes — to advance an agenda. But if the survey is flawed as it is, why not try and find better statistics? And why use bad statistics to advance an agenda? And this is not the only example of bad transgender statistics.

Bad Stats Go To Prison

The assertions of many of these groups and media outlets — that trans women are stopped more frequently by police, for example, are just simply not true or lacking in evidence. For example, in this Vox article, we are told, for example, that according to a report by Movement Advancement Project and the Center for American Progress, that ‘Police often target LGBTQ people, particularly transgender women’, and told that ‘Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people are twice as likely to be incarcerated. Rates are even worse for transgender people.’:

“According to the National Inmate Survey, in 2011- 2012, 7.9% of individuals in state and federal prisons identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, as did 7.1% of individuals in city and county jails. This is approximately double the percentage of all American adults who identify as LGBT, according to Gallup (3.8%).

Sixteen percent of transgender and gender non-conforming respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey indicated they had spent time in jail or prison, with higher rates for transgender women (21%) and lower rates for transgender men (10%). Comparatively, about 5% of all American adults will spend time in jail or prison during their lifetimes.”

The problem is, is that’s just not true. I took at look at the report they’re citing in the article. Trans people aren’t over represented in prison: but the LGB are.

The report states roughly 7.9% of inmates in state and federal prisons were lesbian, gay or bisexual. Trans isn’t included in that statistic. That’s disproportionate compared to Gallup’s count of LGB people, which is around 3.8% of Americans.

Those statistics are from the same 2011–2012 National Inmate Survey that Vox is citing in that article. According to the same survey, 5,000 inmates identified as transgender. (this is all in state and federal prisons). The Williams Institute estimates the transgender demographic to be 0.6%-1% of the population.

The current US prison population is 2,220,300 (according to a 2013 report), which means that 0.2% of the US prisoner population consists of transgender prisoners , which is actually under-representation for their demographic. Trans people are less likely to be imprisoned. It certainly illustrates very neatly the problem with talking about ‘LGBTQI statistics’ and treating a set of very diverse groups as a monolith and erasing the LGB in the process. It is clear from the statistics provided that discrimination exists. That discrimination is towards same-sex attracted individuals — the LGB.

Including their statistics with groups that are not same-sex attracted is simply a recipe for erasing discrimination against same-sex attracted individuals. This is not just the case with prison statistics, but others too, such as homelessness statistics. The popular figure is that 40% of homeless youth are LGBT. I have seen this re-purposed into 40% of homeless youth are trans, or are queer, etcetera. The reality is very different — the 2012 Williams Institute survey that is the source of that information says, well, I’ll quote for you:

“The findings from this survey demonstrate that many LGBT youth are at high risk of homelessness, often as a result of family rejection and abuse. The analyses offer critical insights into the challenges that these young people face when they seek help during a very difficult time in their lives,” said Laura E. Durso, Williams Institute Public Policy Fellow and study co-author.

[…]

Among the key findings:

* 94% of respondents from agencies work with LGBT youth

* 30% of agency clients identified as gay or lesbian

* 9% identified as bisexual

* 1% identified as transgender”

Yet you will see this figure repeated as ‘LGBT homelessness’. Yet of that 40%, 39% were same sex attracted. 30% of homeless youth are gay or lesbian and erased from their own statistics, which have been re-purposed for the transgender movement. Those are the figures you never hear.

Of course, there’s always more bad stats to debunk. Many of the groups said that ‘trans women are six times more likely to be assaulted by police’. But that’s not a great statistic either. It appears to come from this report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs(NCAVP). The Arcus Foundation, notorious for funding transgender astroturf, provided ‘generous support’ and funded the survey.

Even in that report, we get this statistic:

“Of the total number of survivors, 47% identified as gay, 17% identified as lesbian, and 14% identified as heterosexual”

The vast majority of those surveyed as victims of violence were homosexuals. That heterosexual figure is heterosexuals being mistaken for homosexual and then attacked on that basis. This agrees with FBI statistics, which recorded 1,303 hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and 131 as a result of gender identity bias. That means that, according to FBI figures, 16% of single-bias hate crime incidents were from bias against sexual orientation, and 1.7% were a result of gender identity bias. (For reference, 59.5% of single-bias hate crime instances were racial in nature, and the vast majority of hate crimes are single-bias incidents). Those FBI figures come from 16,149 law enforcement agencies — which is almost certainly a very good sample. The NCAVP survey, by contrast, surveyed thirteen local member organizations for their report. It isn’t a survey of the general population, nor representative of the general population. It’s a survey of people who engaged with the NCAVP.

That means we can say that trans women who engage with the NCAVP are six times more likely to be assaulted by police. But we cannot apply that to the general population, which is what many of these groups are doing.

This is not the only statistical error that is commonly cited when relating to trans people in the justice system. For example, you may read that trans women are more likely be assaulted in a men’s prison. This comes from a 2007 California study, which used a convenience sample of transgender women in California’s prison system, and then compared that convenience sample to a sample of the general prison population, which is to put it mildly, a statistical abortion. The amount of transgender women sampled was 39, and compared to a random sample of 322 male California state prisoners. A later 2009 study on the entire transgender population of men’s state prisons in California found that trans women prisoners were more likely to be in maximum security (Level 4 Custody in California), with 32.1% of transgender prisoners in California men’s prisoners, compared to 22.8% of the general population in California. 29% of transgender prisoners were in Level 3 Custody compared to 24.1% of the general population. They were also more likely to be sex offenders — 20.5% of transgender inmates were sex offenders, compared to 14.6% of the general population. They were also more likely to be mentally ill — while 26% of California’s male prison population had been diagnosed, 71% of transgender inmates had ‘ever had a mental health problem’, and 66.9% had had a mental health problem since their incarceration. 20% of them hadn’t presented female until their most recent incarceration.

Not quite the rosy picture painted by activists, is it?

41%

Partcipate in this debate long enough, and you’ll see the repeated claims that trans people attempt or commit suicide at extremely high rates. It’s used to browbeat opposition into submission. But where does it come from?

That 41% suicide statistic comes from a report done in 2014, based on data from 2008 in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, from the Williams Institute, part of UCLA School of Law. Here is a link to the William’s Institute report. Of course, they debunk their own statistic on the third page of the report. How convenient for me.

“While the NTDS provides a wealth of information about the experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming people, the survey instrument and methodology posed some limitations for this study. First, the NTDS questionnaire included only a single item about suicidal behavior that asked, “Have you ever attempted suicide?” with dichotomized responses of Yes/No. Researchers have found that using this question alone in surveys can inflate the percentage of affirmative responses, since some respondents may use it to communicate self-harm behavior that is not a “suicide attempt,” such as seriously considering suicide, planning for suicide, or engaging in self-harm behavior without the intent to die (Bongiovi-Garcia et al., 2009). The National Comorbity Survey, a nationally representative survey, found that probing for intent to die through in-person interviews reduced the prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts from 4.6 percent to 2.7 percent of the adult sample (Kessler et al., 1999; Nock & Kessler, 2006). Without such probes, we were unable to determine the extent to which the 41 percent of NTDS participants who reported ever attempting suicide may overestimate the actual prevalence of attempts in the sample. In addition, the analysis was limited due to a lack of follow-up questions asked of respondents who reported having attempted suicide about such things as age and transgender/gender non-conforming status at the time of the attempt.”

Oh. It’s inflated. Because it was a binary question and may include all self-harm attempts. Studies done on those binary questions have shown that it can completely inflate your results.

Oh.

Worse is yet to come though.

“ Second, the survey did not directly explore mental health status and history, which have been identified as important risk factors for both attempted and completed suicide in the general population (Lasage, Boyer, Grunberg, Vanier, Morissett et al., 1994; Suominen, Henrikssen, Suokas, Isometsa, Ostamo, et al., 1996; Harris & Barraclough, 1997; Bertolote & Fleischmann, 2002; Nock, Hwang, Sampson, & Kessler, 2010). Further, research has shown that the impact of adverse life events, such as being attacked or raped, is most severe among people with co-existing mood, anxiety and other mental disorders (Breslau, Davis, Andreski, & Peterson, METHODS AND LIMITATIONS 4 Methods — continued 1991; Kendler, Kardowski, & Presco, 1999). The lack of systematic mental health information in the NTDS data significantly limited our ability to identify the pathways to suicidal behavior among the respondents”

They don’t know why the rate is so high — so you can’t say 41% of transgender people attempt suicide because of ‘lack of acceptance’ or ‘bathroom bills or ‘Donald Trump’. Because the study didn’t ask those questions. That would be the case even if the study didn’t have major methodological problems anyway:

Third, since the NTDS utilized convenience sampling, it is unclear how representative the respondents are of the overall U.S. transgender/gender non-conforming adult population. Further, the survey’s focus on discrimination may have resulted in wider participation by persons who had suffered negative life experiences due to antitransgender bias.1 As the relationship between minority stress and mental health would suggest (Meyer, 2003), this may have contributed to a higher prevalence of negative outcomes, including lifetime suicide attempts, in the sample. These limitations should be kept in mind in interpreting the findings of our analyses.

What’s a convenience sample? How is that a methodological flaw? Simply put: the results of a survey of a convenience sample are only relevant to that particular sample. How?

Say I asked ten friends about whether they liked purple hats. As it turns out, all those friends like purple hats. I cannot then go and say ‘one-hundred per cent of people like purple hats’. I only asked my friends — maybe we all belong to the Purple Hat Club. Convenience sampling introduces too much bias for results to be meaningful outside of the sample itself.

In fact let’s have this paper in Developmental Review explain it better than I can, because you can’t use a convenience sample like that:

“Regarding its disadvantages, results that derive from convenience sampling have known generalizability only to the sample studied. Thus, any research question addressed by this strategy is limited to the sample itself. The same limitation holds true for estimates of differences between sociodemographic subgroups. As another disadvantage, convenience samples typically include small numbers of underrepresented sociodemographic subgroups (e.g., ethnic minorities) resulting in insufficient power to detect subgroup differences within a sociodemographic factor or factors. Moreover, although small in number, these underrepresented sociodemographic subgroups introduce modest amounts of variation into the sample, enough variation to produce statistical noise in the analyses but not enough variation to harness or control statistically. Indeed, the widespread use of convenience sampling may be partly responsible for the host of small and inconsistent effects that pervade developmental science, why sizes of effects often vary depending on the variables considered, and why research shows links between particular setting conditions and outcomes for some, but not other, groups”

That 41% stat is bogus. As is everything else in the 2008 National Transgender Discrimination Survey. I’ve officially debunked it. Well done me. Unfortunately, that will not stop the effects of citing its statistics for a decade even though it used a convenience sample and you can’t generalize those statistics to the broader transgender population.

Sigh.

The most disturbing thing about all of this? You can find the description of the study’s methodology on page three. It literally takes some basic curiosity and five minutes, to find out that 41% statistic is statistical noise and not representative of the transgender community. To find that out, I Googled the statistic, and the report was the first result. I then read the PDF.

That is all the effort it took to point out that this statistic is a load of crap. It didn’t stop the media citing it, or activists citing it to policymakers though.

Instead, those groups use it frequently, despite the fact it’s a statistical artifact. It’s been cited to policymakers — and its horseshit. The suicide statistic is a false number used to deceive and scare people.

Yet another scare stat — like the fake murder epidemic.

Fake News And Murder Statistics

We’re often told that there’s a transgender murder epidemic: that trans women are the most likely demographic to be murdered, and therefore the most oppressed, and so on.

I decided to verify this, and GLAAD (which is, remember, an acronym now devoid of meaning. How’s that for symbolism?) gave me the answers. How many homicides of American transgender people were there in 2016? I am sure you are waiting with bated breath for some kind of titanic, earth shattering number that will have you click ‘exit tab’, and bitch about my bullshit article on Twitter. Okay, here it is:

27.

That’s not a typo. It really is 27. The number of total murders in the US in 2016? 17,250, and disproportionately trending black and male. 27 is 0.15% of murders in the US. In terms of figures, the Williams Foundation did a survey and estimated the number of trans people at 0.6% of the US population. The US population is estimated at 325 million at time of writing, which results in a figure of 1.95 million trans people across America.

We’ll take 1.95 million Americans. If we figure how many trans people are victims of murder a year as a percentage, that figure is 0.0013%. Per capita,that’s a ratio of 1.3 trans people murdered per 100,000. The murder rate of women in the US is triple that, and of men, quadruple. Even with an extremely conservative estimate of 0.1% of the US population (or 325,000 trans people), we have a murder rate of 8.3 per 100,000. The murder rate of Chicago is twice that conservative figure at 16.02 people murdered per 100,000. In terms of gross numbers — that’s 11,535 murders of male Americans, and 3,292 murders of female Americans in 2017. 27 is small potatoes. That is not a murder epidemic — in fact it’s a murder rate per capita lower than Canada. It certainly doesn’t mean that there’s an ‘epidemic of transphobic violence’. That’s not something to campaign about — you’ve got it better than literally everyone else. Even if we use the Human Rights Campaign estimate of 750,000 trans people, which is half the 0.6% number, we get a murder rate of 2.7 per 100,000. That’s not a high murder rate. That’s lower than every other demographic in the US.

We are told, that supposedly, 1,700 trans people have been murdered worldwide over the last seven years in this article on Buzzfeed. Your eyes immediately drift to the ‘1,700’ figure, and don’t see the 7 years, do they? That’s why I bolded it. It’s fairly obvious statistical sleight of hand. If we take the 0.6% estimate of trans people in the US and apply it globally to a population of 7 billion people, we get 42 million people. 1,700 divided by seven years gives us a grand total of 242 murders a year. That amounts to 0.003 murders per capita of trans people, worldwide, every year. That’s definitely not an epidemic. In fact, that’s a global murder rate lower than every other category on earth. The murder rate per capita of unicycle-riding clowns is probably higher. To #StopTransMurders would be to eliminate the homicide for an entire group of people, which no nation has been able to accomplish. Ever.

Maybe you think 42 million trans people on this earth is too big a number. So, we’ll make the figure 5 million people. A murder rate of 242 per year of a group of 5 million people is still a per capita rate of 4.84 — roughly similar to the US overall murder rate of 4.7. And that’s with a hugely conservative number that I literally pulled out of thin air. All these figures say the same thing — there is no trans murder epidemic — and philanthropic groups and their funded organizations supporting trans rights and sympathetic media have to perform statistical sleight of hand to even make such a proposal look even the slightest bit true. For comparison, the highest murder rate in the world belongs to Honduras, which had 90.4 homicides per 100,000 in 2017. That’s a violent epidemic. To add — the majority of those 27 killed? Black prostitutes. No middle-aged white trans women were killed at all (though some did commit murders) yet they are the ones bleating about #StopTransMurders and working in activist organizations. And the sex-work and transgender lobby does not seem to care about those vulnerable prostitutes, beyond using their names and deaths as a political prop.

If you’re wondering about the gay and lesbian side of things, rather than the transgender epidemic that doesn’t exist, yet is talked about so heavily, the FBI reports in its latest Hate Crimes report state that 16.7% of hate crimes were motivated by sexual orientation. 1.7% were motivated by gender-identity bias. Of the 1,255 victims targeted by sexual orientation, 62.7% were anti-gay male, 21.6% were LGBT (mixed group), and 11.7% targeted towards lesbians. There were 131 victims of ‘gender identity-bias’, 20 of whom were simply ‘gender-non-conforming’. In terms of hate crimes (which is criminal offenses carried out motivated by bias, not necessarily violent) gay men are disproportionately over-represented among the LGBT. That’s an actual disproportionate epidemic of violence — rather than the trans murder epidemic that doesn’t exist.

When was the last time you saw that on BuzzFeed?

But this is not the only ‘transgender murder epidemic’ article on Buzzfeed. The author of that article on Buzzfeed I just linked you, Dominic Holden, wrote a feature entitled Why Are Black Transgender Women Getting Killed In Detroit that uses the same sleight of hand, saying that the murder rate has ‘doubled’ yet doesn’t give you a number. I looked into the source it cited, and the murder rate doubled from 12 murders to 24 murders. That figure comes from the National Coalition Of Anti-Violence Programs, counting between Transgender Days of Remembrance. That’s an even lower figure than the GLAAD data! And it is not just Buzzfeed doing this. A quick Google search leads to more repeating of the ‘trans murder rate is so high it’s an epidemic’ meme . In fact, I googled ‘trans murder epidemic’ and got 535,000 results from Wikipedia, to the Human Rights Campaign, to ‘America’s transgender murder epidemic: why is nothing being done?’ from a UK website called ‘Blasting News’. It even appears as the beginning of the National LGBTQ Task Force’s 2016 annual report, highlighting its #StopTransMurders campaign. But the facts and figures say there isn’t an epidemic. Rather the opposite — trans people have the world’s best murder statistics, as a group. The ‘epidemic’ is easily debunked using LGBTQI+ groups’ own statistics. The trans murder rate is a false meme worthy of inclusion in a late 90’s chain email promising you the truth about Bill Clinton and Whitewater. It’s literal fake news.

The statistics aren’t the only fake news on this matter. Journalist Andy Ngo recently wrote about the queer community faking hate crimes in Portland, including a trans woman who said they had been attacked by thugs with bats, and started a GoFundMe to support themselves, but later turned out to have fallen over while intoxicated:

“Last month, Sophia Gabrielle Stanford was at the center of a fundraising campaign. The GoFundMe page described the trans activist as a victim of a “brutal and aggressively blatant hate crime” in which assailants had beaten her unconscious with a bat in southeast Portland.

The campaign and shocking story went viral. However, the police reports raise questions about what happened that night.

In the early hours of Sunday, Feb. 10, emergency services received a call about a woman, identified as Stanford, found on a sidewalk with scrapes on her face and knuckles, claiming that she may have been assaulted. The responding officer, Edgar Mitchell, noted that Stanford smelled of alcohol.

“I asked [Officer Zachary Roe] what happened,” the report states. “Roe said the individual admitted to being intoxicated, and Roe believed the person fell and hit her head.”

Stanford either could not or would not state her name to the police. The responding officer was unable to discover Stanford’s name and claims that she made a threat: “If you don’t treat me right, my people will get you,” she said, according to the report.

The report also states that Stanford lost a pistol and bag she was carrying at the time of the alleged attack. A local resident found both items and flagged down another officer, Cuong Nguyen. When Nguyen attempted to return the gun to Stanford at nearby Emanuel Hospital, where she had been transported, she was already discharged.

The GoFundMe page stated that Stanford had suffered a “serious concussion” and would need intensive physical therapy, CT scans and counseling”

Using fake statistics only fuels things like this — GoFundMe scams and wasting police time. I don’t have time for graft. Do you?

Oh, I forgot, and fueling a fire that doesn’t need to be fueled — all this sort of thing does is promote an unnecessary moral panic.

Bad Stats Help Nobody

The thing I always ask myself when I see these sorts of things, is well, why? Why overstate, misinterpret, or flat out lie? Why not have a survey with a rigorous, objective method of data collection?

The trans movement has a data problem. It has a data problem with it’s medicine, and it has a data problem with it’s prison statistics, it’s ‘murder epidemic’, and even it’s suicide statistics. Where it doesn’t have data, it appropriates the statistics of gays and lesbians, as we see with homelessness statistics — where 40% of homeless youth being ‘LGBT’ slowly turns into ‘40% of homeless youth are trans’, despite the fact that 39% of that 40% aren’t transgender at all. Talk about gay and lesbian erasure — they don’t even get to have their own statistics any more, even when they’re not very good ones!

There are a variety of hypotheses that come to mind for me when I attempt to answer ‘why?’. One is that an actual study that wasn’t a complete mess would show statistics that the transgender movement wouldn’t like to hear, or have the public see. They could undermine their narrative and send their movement reeling. Actually, come to think about it, this is the only hypothesis I have. It certainly explains the flat out dishonesty of the transgender movement. It is not as if the transgender movement is lacking in money. Surely the over $300,000 spent on the NCTE survey could have been put to better use than an online survey and a glossy brochure.

Because if we look at the statistics we do have, the transgender movement and it’s claims are clearly undermined — and that’s a problem. Unless they’re hideously oppressed, demands to completely undermine the concept of ‘sex’ in the legal system might be sensibly ignored by policymakers. Instead, because they’re so oppressed, because the ‘statistics’ say so, the transgender movement gets a seat at the identity politics table.

It needs to stop. Now. These claims aren’t backed by hard data. They’re barely backed by any data at all. Before we make changes that could permanently sterilize children and erase gays and lesbians from their own movement, we should really have a better idea of why the transgender movement wants those things.”

I’d like to point out tumblr will not let me post this link, regardless if I use safari or google chrome to source it, but will let me post/link other links. Hmmm...as of when I’m posting this, it was posted sometime today (April 17th). I wonder if this will be removed too.

#radical feminism #radfem #terf #terfsafe #terfs interact #merf #merf safe #receipts #resources #terf safe #gender critical

36 notes · View notes