#I would not be rhetorically barred from lesbian identity

[mueritos]

I sent your post regarding destigmatizing transmasculinity to everyone I know because it hit the nail on the fucking head without diving into weird "Therefore, it is trans women's fault" rhetoric that I see a shocking increase of on this website. However, I do notice a lot of discourse regarding the relationship between gender and race being led primarily by white trans people who have fundamentally different interactions than I do, and I've had plenty of arguments about how no, black transmasc people don't have privilage over black transfem people because being percieved as a gnc black woman or a black man are equally dangerous (speaking as a butch black transfem). Thoughts?

First off, thank you for reading the post and sharing it. My main reasoning behind the post was because I was also frustrated by the white dominant ideology regarding trans identities, especially in regards to gender and race (and in how they use trans women as a scape goat for transphobia and colonialism). Gender is racialized, and unfortunately white trans people view their gender as outside of race because they already epitomize normalcy in terms of race. I want to also make it clear that I don’t speak for Black folks, and I’m simply relaying information of what I have learned over the years of interacting with Black communities, the history I have learned in my courses with Black professors over the years (both focusing on queer theory and Black history in the US), and the books I have been reading for my own research. If i have any information or ideas incorrect, I would be happy to adjust them accordingly ^-^

The lack of critical gender reading is also another issue within the community in terms of why we have so many issues with white trans people speaking over BIPOC trans people, especially Black trans people. I find that white queer people seem to only read about white queer people, and never want to explore outside of that. No Audre Lorde, no Bell Hooks, no Ida B wells, no Sojourner Truth, no June Jordan, no Marsha P Johnson or Slyvia Rivera, no Essex Hemphill or Arturo Islas, nothing. Race is already difficult to grapple with for white people, and they believe our shared queerness is enough to unite us all under the same struggle of sexual and gender oppression. This isn't true obviously, and quick historical knowledge about the history of ballroom, urban culture in cities, the policing of BIPOC bodies and identity in bars/clubs/street corners, even going further with the women's suffrage movement being anit-Black and saying that they supported all women (many suffragists tokenized Black women), but did not want Black men to have a vote/power, etc.

The history of the US has always made gender racialized. From the moment Columbus stepped foot into the Americas, thought the Natives were “sodomites” and “hemaphrodites”, they thought them overtly sexual and called them animals for their lack of clothing. The same was applied to Black people in the US; their dehumanization was racialized just as much as it was gendered; Black women were seen as “jezebels” to justify the sexual violence against them, and Black men were viewed as “beasts of burden” to justify the labor and the hypersexuality imposed onto them. Everything that gender is today has ALWAYS been because of white people. Theatre in the 20s and 30s used Black face to show “pansy” behavior against “normal heterosexual behavior”, making it clear that normal = white (my sources here are based on Michael Bronski’s A Queer History of the United States). This is quite literally not that hard to understand, but unfortunately white ideas about “male privilege” and misogyny fails Black communities, especially trans Black people.

Male privilege seems to only exist at it’s rawest form in white cisgender heterosexual men. White cisgender gay men are close after; historically they have always been able to obtain employment and housing and resources at rates much higher than even white lesbians throughout history. Anyone outside of this scope, however, does not have male privilege, and even Brown men, despite living and participating in the patriarchy (like we all do), don’t experience male privilege the same way white men do. Sure, maybe Brown and Black cisgender men will not have much trouble getting employment compared to Black and Brown women, but the rates at which they are policed, both by institutions and society/people, also places them at a disadvantage. BIPOC men experience a racialized manhood, one that inherently has already failed them on account of not being white.

This is why intersectionality is important, and white people just don’t have a good grasp on it, no matter how many times they watch Kimberle Crenshaw’s TEDx talk (lol). When your gender isn’t racialized, you have no reference for what a racialized gender feels like. Yes, female presenting and GNC presenting and “non-passing” BIPoC individuals face more discrimination and oppression than BIPOC men, but not all BIPOC men are cisgender, heterosexual, monogamous, or “male” presenting. I always say no bigot is going to ask what identity you are before calling you a slur, and the same is just as true for BIPOC queer people. No racist is going to make sure to ask if you’re Black or mixed before calling you the “correct slur”, many of them see anyone who is outside the white heterosexual cisgender norm and go with the first slur they can think of. THAT is why there is no clear hierarchy in terms of how much oppression you face according to your identities when you’re a queer BIPOC. Yes, colorism, yes cisgender privilege, yes heterosexual privilege, yes, this is why intersectionality exists, but I don’t believe oppression should always be quantified when it comes to racialized gender and sexuality. BIPOC queer people are already well versed in intersectionality; we already care and cherish for each other based on our shared struggles. I’ve quite literally heard more discourse regarding transmasc vs trans femme privilege from white queers than from BIPOC queers. THAT says enough about the difference of where our respective communities are at. BIPOC queer people are already leagues ahead when it comes to intersectionality; white queer people are still stuck quoting Kimberle Crenshaw on their email signatures. 

I’m not sure if I answered this to the fullest of my abilities, but I wanted to make the effort to give you my thoughts. I thank you for such a wonderful question. I am not the first or last person to talk about this, and I encourage anyone who wants to do more research to look into the various authors I have mentioned, as well as BIPOC creators online. I also recognize that non-Black folks have their duty to learn about this as well, and if I can contribute to that conversation for other non-Black people so that they are more compassionate and understanding to Black experiences, then I’m grateful to have expressed my thoughts. (ps, if there r any spelling mistakes, im sorry, but I dont proofread my asks before sending them off)

Like I mentioned before, I’m happy to adjust and correct myself, This is a very complex issue and takes relearning years of history. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

Have a great day my friend!

#muertoresponds #trans stuff #discourse #trans discussion

[mejomonster]

Honestly genuinely fully want: more lgbt spaces! Yes in schools and colleges but also for adults and full communities like lgbt communities for a whole town etc, and yes like more gay bars in more towns but also more gay coffee shops and bookstores where people can easily gather for meetings and socializing. More lgbt events regularly in communities so we can build in person communities in our own towns

Also want more genuine discussion of the b and t in lgbt. It was not until a Diversity Equity and Inclusion seminar in my workplace that I ever ran into a comprehensive discussion of the spectrum of sexuality including pansexual and bisexeual as valid real sexualities that were explained, of romantic and sexual attraction as 2 specific things, of gender being defined in depth along with how presentation and masculinity/femininity do not have to match gender identity (masc women, feminine men, masculine nonbinary people etc exist). As a young adult my old gsa mentioned NONE of this, and informative lgbt websites of the time had some of this info but you had to dig for it all. If work trainings now can cover these topics well in 1 hour then these topics can start being explained and discussed better in more circles.

More aromantic and asexual inclusion in discussions (and in an ideal world more demiromantic and demisexual, greyace greyaro included in discussions). It's wonderful there's a show Koisenu Futari finally acknowledging some of the ace identity but it is a sliver in the huge world and asexuality and aromantic should be discussed so much more, with people able to talk about their own experiences and find community. When I was younger, in lgbt spaces for teens I literally never heard of anything but gay and lesbian, so trans kids and bi and pan kids were all left being told they didn't exist or needed to figure everything out on their own. That's what every ace person goes through. Now even as trans people are in the public discussion enough theres a tiny bit of understanding of what it means (still not very good though which is why I think everyone should learn the actual definitions of gender and sex and presentation at some point), and bisexuality occasionally gets acknowledged (though still rarely explicitly labeled but we are starting to get some nice instances of it actually addressed like Nick in Heartstopper), and still ace and aro identities are fairly largely ignored in media as far as explicit identifying and discussion. I would love lgbt spaces to also provide info on what those labels mean, for people to be able to discuss their experiences and connect. A while back tumblr seemed to be a sliver of space where asexuality and aromantic did get discussed, but then it got hit with waves of acephobia (a bit like how now there's swarms of anti trans rhetoric going after users all the time). And now while I can see some people connecting about experiences, the overall amount of info being shared and community discussion seems lower from what I see (and Maybe it's still fine and big and I just don't see it much, but also I'm sure ppl who seek to destroy all of us sure hope to shut down ppl in the whole community and lower our ability to connect to others in social support)

#rant #lgbt #i mean technically lgbt+ #i just. over the pandemic my city removed the only gay club #the only lgbt spaces are for college kids. what about adults who want community? what about everyone? #and god i would love aro and demi discussions with peers. but i know ill probably not get that #i have tried to discuss demiromantic and demisexual to ppl befote #and on tumblr if it was strangers i just ran into too many ppl who wanted to say demi didnt exist #(and that aro and ace in general didnt -.-) #and like. my dude. i spent my whole life bisexual and nonbinary #my WHOLE LIFE bitches told me i wasnt supposed to exist/was wrong about myself/my identity wasnt real. so by now i know #very well that my feelings ARE real and whats ppl being shutting down to me. so i know what i experience is real #but 1 it must be hard to believe that if ppl shut u down and u arent used to it constantly like me. 2 i still #had no idea why i didnt relate to normal ppls crushes or stuff until i found the definitions of demi #3 i would hope other ppl have an easier time figuring things out than me

[crossdreamers]

What the TV series “It’s a Sin” tells us about the tactics of anti-trans activists today

Over at Twitter Owen Jones reflects on the way the history of bigotry is repeating. The new British TV series It’s a Sin reminds him of how the tactics once used against gay and lesbian people is now used against trans and nonbinary folks.

Owen Peter Jones is a British newspaper columnist, commentator, journalist and political activist. 

It's a Sin is a British television drama serial written and created by Russell T Davies. It is about the queer community in the 1980′s London.

Owen writes:

One of the most important themes in 'It's A Sin' was about gay/bi people and shame - caused by growing up in a society that saw gay/bi people as would-be sexual predators, violators of biological reality, threats to children, immoral, deviants, and generally undesirable.

While HIV rates remain significantly higher among gay and bisexual men, treatments now allow those with HIV to live healthy lives. Alcohol and drug abuse as a response to shame and trauma caused by homophobia is today a bigger problem in Western nations.

It's important to make this point because the evidence suggests that mental distress is even more acute amongst trans people, who are today the most marginalised and oppressed part of the LGBTQ+ world.

Anti-trans activists use the same arguments as the homophobes

Today, anti-trans activists play the exact same songs about trans people: that they are would-be sexual predators, violators of biological reality, threats to children, immoral, deviants, and generally undesirable.

Some of those anti-trans activists responded viscerally to being called out for enjoying It's A Sin. They are furious at being compared to the monsters who victimised gay people, even as they obsessively target trans people in the same papers that obsessively targeted gay people.

Some of them point to their past association with pro-gay struggles, or in some cases simply that they have been to gay bars before, as though any of this gives them a lifetime freedom pass to say whatever they like about other minorities.

But as It's A Sin shows, a society which made gay people feel unwelcome - as burdens at best and as menaces at worst - inflicts terrible damage on gay people. The same is being done to trans people.

However those who, in some cases, spend a genuinely huge amount of their lives talking about trans people as would-be predators or threats to children justify it to themselves, they are inflicting the same injuries on trans people as It's A Sin underlined is done to gay people.

The quadrupling of transphobic hate crimes, the 48% of trans people who fear using public toilets, the trans people discriminated against at work, the quarter who've suffered homelessness, all of this is erased from the "conversation", such as it is.

Even the focus on contexts which don't affect 99.9% of trans people - but which are used to attack all of them - namely prisons and sports deliberately excludes questions like 'Why are there no trans Olympic medallists?' or 'How do we stop trans prisoners being assaulted?'

Inflicting the same damage

The hounders of trans people may hate It's A Sin being used to hand them a mirror. But the anti-trans faction, who operate strikingly like a cult, are not only singing the same tunes - they are inflicting the exact same damage on trans people as gay people have long suffered.

oh and I've set this so only people who follow me can reply because, although anti-trans activists have made a conscious decision to relentlessly and obsessively target me, and I can live with that, I don't want trans people to have to sift through their bile.

“Gender critical” parents who are harming their kids

Some other thoughts. 

 One of the most powerful themes towards the end of It's A Sin is Ritchie's mother being confronted by Jill for the damage she inflicted on her gay son, suggesting that the shame she instilled in him helped drive behaviour that led to his infection with HIV.

"Actually it is your fault, Mrs Tozer," says Jill. "All of this is your fault."  Jill adds: "The wards are full of men who think they deserve it."

She was right. So many of the gay and bisexual men who died often lonely deaths in hospital wards were traumatised by their parents.

Today, most gay people have gay friends who have mental trauma which often leads to alcohol and drug abuse with absolutely catastrophic consequences. Many, all too many, have had friends who've died from suicide. The culprits? Society in general but often parents in particular.

It's A Sin showcased the LGBTQ family, of other LGBTQ friends filling a vacuum left by the absence of a loving family. A big role of that 'family' is to pick up the pieces because of the damage inflicted by parents on their children.

When parents refuse to properly accept their LGBTQ children for who they are, they insert ticking time bombs in many of them. That bomb may detonate in their 20s, their 30s, their 40s, who knows, maybe in their 50s or 60s. But in many of them, it will detonate.

This is why there is a genuine horror watching self-described "gender critical" parents ranting about trans people on the internet. Because I can't help but think, oh god, what if they have trans children. What damage will be inflicted upon them.

In some cases, the bigotry of anti-trans activists - often radicalised by newspaper columnists, online rabbit holes, and somewhat perversely, Mumsnet - will collide with reality. Read this about an ex-'gender critical' activist and their trans nephew.

But in other cases, transphobic parents will stick determinedly to their guns and inflict the same damage on their trans children as homophobic parents have always inflicted on their gay children. We should be clear: homophobia and transphobia are forms of child abuse.

Hiding behind the argument of protecting their children

Both traditional homophobes and contemporary transphobes claimed they were protecting the welfare of children. As anti-gay campaigner Anita Bryant declared: "As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children".

Today's anti-trans activists use the language of 'safeguarding' and often suggest that parents know what's best for their children. This is clearly not always the case. Lots of children need to be protected from their parents. That includes many LGBTQ children.

So when this Times journalist attacked Mermaids, a charity supporting young trans people, for including an 'exit button', suggesting it was 'a major safeguarding breach'. Many LGBTQ children don't have supportive parents and need to hide their identity away from them.

Anti-trans rhetoric echoes anti-gay arguments

Anti-gay rights campaigners long focused on the danger posed by predatory gay men to vulnerable children, and pointed to scandals in, for example, the Scouts and the Catholic Church as evidence. Today, anti-trans activists similarly extrapolate extreme cases to make their case.

In the 1980s, it was claimed an all-powerful gay lobby was putting political correctness ahead of people's well-being. The same language is used about the objectively marginalised trans minority today. The second screenshot is from this weekend's Times newspaper.

That's why so many gay people stand up for trans people. Trans people, of course, are in our shared LGBTQ spaces, and their experiences do differ in important ways - but we see them going through the exact same things we've gone through.

It is, frankly, grotesque that gay people who for very obvious reasons stand with their trans siblings are then vilified as misogynists, or have obvious homophobic tropes about wanting to endanger children's safety thrown at them.

It's also perverse that many of the same people publicly cooing over It's A Sin are the same people trying to hound the LGBTQ allies of trans people out of the media (they can't really do this to trans people because there are very few trans people in the media).

LGB people attacking trans people

As for the LGB people who participate in the hounding of trans people. There have long been examples of oppressed groups who participate in oppression, often against themselves: women against the Equal Rights Amendment and feminism, right-wing black Republicans, and so on.

These anti-trans LGB activists are not only completely unrepresentative of LGBTQ people: many queer bars and spaces bar people who express their bigoted opinions for very obvious reasons: to ensure they're safe spaces for the whole LGBTQ rainbow.

Watching straight people try and foment a civil war within the LGBTQ world by platforming these completely marginal bigoted zealots is actually completely and utterly grotesque.

Finally (!) in the 1980s, almost the whole media was anti-gay, and public opinion was overwhelmingly anti-gay. Today, almost the whole media is anti-trans, but while transphobia is rampant, anti-trans sentiment is not as widespread as anti-gay sentiment back then. There's hope!

But it takes huge courage to speak out in support of trans people in Britain in 2021. One day, there will be TV programmes about the onslaught against trans people. Those who victimised trans people today will be portrayed in them. They'll go down in history as hate figures.

Sadly, it's too late to save all too many LGBTQ people who had ticking time bombs inserted into them both by society and by their homophobic and transphobic parents. They detonated. But we can save others from that fate. So speak up.

Read the whole thread with other comments here!

Read also Michael Cashman: Loss and anger raged in me after watching It’s a Sin – the stigma we faced in the 1980s is now being directed at trans people

Photo of Owen Jones: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtqa #transphobia #homophobia #terf #terfs #gender critical #lgb alliance

[bonesy-doodles]

As an avid user of social media, I’ve started seeing an uprising in discourse on whether or not nonbinary individuals can identify as gay (as in attracted to men) or lesbian. As someone who has identified as lesbian for the past four years and only recently settled upon my gender identity being agender, I’ve taken time to look at this discourse and arguments made on both sides. This, of course, is my own informed opinion based off my own experiences and evidence I’ve seen other nonbinary people give.

To start off, I mostly see this argument made around the lesbian identity specifically, with gay being mentioned every now and again, but rarely as if it’s a second thought. This discourse also can come along with the whole he/him and they/them lesbian discourse as well. Seeing as this is the case, I will mostly be referring  arguments based around the lesbian identity, but know this includes the gay (attracted to men) identity.

First, the argument that nonbinary individuals should be using trixic (nblw) or toric (nblm) instead. Let me start with the precedent that it is completely valid to use these terms if you find that it encompasses your experiences. These terms seemed to have been made to liberate nonbinary individuals from the binary terms, but they are relatively new terms. For years, nonbinary individuals haven’t had these sexuality terms to use or explore to see if they are comfortable with them. And even after these terms were coined, many individuals don’t find that they encompass their experiences as a nonbinary individual. And for years, I’ve heard from several parts of the community saying that all sexualities can include nonbinary (and personally, that is up to the individual person to decide if they are attracted to nonbinary individuals or not).

The next argument I’ve seen if that lesbian and gay are binary terms, and that nonbinary people can’t use binary terms, full stop. This is a harmful idea that can shame us out of using terms that we are comfortable with. Each person who falls under the nonbinary umbrella has experienced their journey to discovering their gender differently. This means everyone has different words they are comfortable with. This includes pronouns (and remember, pronouns do not always equal gender).

The best way I can convey this is by using myself as an example. I am agender, which personally means that I don’t really identify with any gender. However, I use prefer and use she/her and they/them pronouns, but I don’t care if he/him is used. I am very comfortable with certain binary terms, and uncomfortable with others. I do not refer to myself as a woman, girl, man, or boy (unless I am not out to the person I’m speaking to). I do use terms like girlfriend, wife, mother (and father as a joke), king, queen, priestess, and a few others, while I don’t use boyfriend or husband. I don’t use miss, mrs, or mr. I kinda use mx, but I prefer captain to be completely honest.

By saying nonbinary people can not use binary or gendered terms is a gross misunderstanding of what nonbinary is and can be from person to person based upon their own experiences. We were all raised differently, we all have unique relationships with our gender.

Next, I see people using the dictionary definitions to bar us from using these terms (I’ve mostly seen lesbian used in this case). And, I’m being serious when I say that I see a lot of TERF rhetoric being used during this argument. Yes, the definition is a “homosexual woman”. From this you would say lesbians are women that are only attracted to women, and since nonbinary people are not women, they are disqualified from being able to identify as lesbians. But, nonbinary isn’t a third gender in between or in complete opposition of man and woman. It’s a linguistic term that describes a large amount of queer identities that don’t fall into the traditional binary our society has set out. There is genderqueer, agender, demigirl, demiboy, bigender, genderfluid, and the list goes on.

So, now that you know nonbinary is a complicated category of gender experiences, what are “lesbians” and why can nonbinary individuals use it? Lesbian is an identity that is a subversion to what society sees as to what womanhood is. It goes against the idea that a woman’s life must revolve around a man, therefore it goes against and subverts our traditional idea about what it means to be a woman. Within the lesbian community, we see a wide range of gender non-conforming and people rewriting what womanhood is. And many nonbinary people have a strong connection or experiences with womanhood depending on if they were born afab or if they are more femme presenting.

The TERF rhetoric I see comes along with the hate many lesbians who use pronouns outside of she/her get. I’ve seen this called Vixenamoric. It is used by people who believe in some sort of purity surrounding the woman and lesbian identity. TERFs say trans women are invading women and lesbian spaces, and then Vixenamoric say nonbinary lesbians are invading women and lesbian spaces. TERFs believe in this purity of women, and Vixenamoric people say they include binary trans women, but exclude nonbinary lesbians because they believe in this purity of lesbianism. In both instances, they are simply transphobic and should be ignored for their “pick me” attitudes.

Finally, more transphobia I see is the double standard people have with cis lesbians dating nonbinary lesbians compared to nonbinary people identifying as lesbians. My girlfriend herself has experienced this double standard, and this whole argument invalidates her identity as a lesbian and other lesbians who date nonbinary individuals. She has received comments like “Oh, you’re dating a nonbinary person? That’s so cute” but then they smack my identity as a nonbinary lesbian as “not making sense”, “impossible”, and invalid. She said it herself, It’s blatant transphobia.

In summary, nonbinary lesbians and gays are completely valid identities because the individual themselves believes the linguistic terms describe their experiences. We need to stop pushing this purity culture and “pick me” attitude in our community. We need to stop policing other’s identities. Invalidating others isn’t going to make the LGBTQIA+ community any better. It’s going to make it worse and cause large divides. And it’s certainly not going to make you a better person. It’s all of us against the cis-heteronormative and allosexual world and we need to come together and learn about each individuals experiences and how complex sexuality and gender identity is. There is no one right way to do things.

If you still don't understand, do some personal research and find nonbinary individuals expressing their experiences. But, if you refuse to accept nonbinary lesbians and gays despite everything that has been presented to you, get yo transphobic ass out of here. 

#lesbian #gay #nonbinary lesbian #nonbinary gay #nonbinary #nblw #nblm #not art #text

[breeeliss]

I've been using Doe and Stag because I thought that it was better for bisexual people to have their own terms instead of borrowing the ones lesbians were using. I get that it's not wrong to use them but I always thought it was just bisexual people wanting to have their own terms since they've always been two separate identities.

well the funny thing is that the separation between women who were only attracted to other women and women who were attracted to women and other genders wasn’t really a point of focus until the rise of lesbian separatism and identity politics. 

lesbian and sapphic were terms that mainly referred to women who slept with women and that was it. before lesbian and sapphic, “tribade” was the word of choice during the 1600s to the 1800s, and it came from the word “tribadism” which literally means scissoring, i.e. the sexual act. so tribade, lesbian, and sapphic weren’t really identities so much as they described women who had sex with and had relationships with other women. there was no distinction besides that. 

the first time bisexual was used was in Charles Gilbert Chaddock’s translation of Psychopathia Sexualis which was one of the first books written on sexual pathology in the 1800s. before this, bisexual was usually used to mean hermaphroditic, usually in reference to plants. this was the first time the word was used in reference to people who were attracted to multiple genders. this wasn’t an identity yet. bi/lesbian women were always in a shared community and they organized and convened under “lesbian.” before the 60s, when studies were talking about lesbians, they usually meant all sapphic women. and of course when butch/femme started cropping up in gay bars circa the 50s and 60s, bi women were at those bars, in those spaces, using those words. 

it wasn’t until monsters like sheila jeffreys and all the other cis white female lesbian separatists popped up in the 70s and coined the term “political lesbian,” i.e. women who don’t fuck or fuck with men. it was seen as necessary for women to only engage with women who have cut all their ties to male privilege. this included cutting out bi women (bc they fucked men), trans women (bc they were thought to still be men), queer women of color (bc of their activist work with men of color and their inability to exclude men from their politics), and a whole other slew of marginalized identities. 

((and for a quick bit of irony: lesbian separatists often critiqued the use of femme/butch by lesbians as well because they felt it was a symbol of oppressive patriarchal standards and a way of replicating heterosexuality)). 

so of course right around when the stonewall riots were going on, bi groups started appearing because they were effectively shut out of both gay and straight communities. LGB created the distinction between lesbians and bi people. and if you skip to now, whenever people do research on the history of lesbian identities, they read “lesbian” as “women who are only attracted to women” and assume that bi women are excluded from that history when in actual fact they were right smack in the middle of it the entire time. that’s where people on tumblr get mad at bi women for “co-opting lesbian terms” and “stealing from lesbian history.” 

doe/stag were coined as a way to mirror femme/butch because bi women erroneously think that femme/butch are not part of their history. the fact that bi women feel the need to come up with/use doe/stag and steer away from butch/femme is the exact kind of thing TERFs and lesbian separatists wanted to accomplish in the first place. they wanted to treat bi women like traitors who would not relinquish their heterosexual privilege and thus posed a threat to lesbians everywhere (which, needless to say, is horse shit). 

so all that to say, it’s not better for bi people to come up with their own terms because butch/femme were terms used by bi women since their inception. you don’t have to feel like you can’t use those words as if they’re not yours because they are yours and they are a part of your history. anyone who attempts to make bi women feel guilty or wrong for identifying as butch/femme are likely regurgitating TERFy rhetoric they’ve found floating around the internet without realizing it. 

sources: [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] 

EDIT: lol i totally forgot to source sheila jeffreys’ fabulous terf bs: [x]

EDIT (2): MORE sources on bisexual movements since people seem to be dead set on pegging me as a lesbophobic bi: [x] [x] [x] 

#lgbtq #queer #lesbian #bisexual #Anonymous #ask

[vtori73]

Okay so... I'm making another post again about this (CW for mentions of Biphobia and transphobia):

Only it's not ABOUT this but it's about what I as a queer ACTUALLY care about in terms of rep and such. Real quick I will say that as much I do agree with SOME of these being bad fancanons for being negative/stereotypical whatever I ALSO think claiming some of these as outright harmful is a bit much & grasping at straws a bit.

Anyway moving on, right now I'm seeing specific Lesbians are harassing the writer of the new Harley Quinn Comic eat, bang, kill tour because they wrote her as Bisexual... not a decision the writer made herself but something that was WRITTEN into the original show that the comic is following.

Like... I'm sorry but first things first based on facts if you know anything about Poison ivy before recent depictions she has been heavily represented/written/depicted as straight, I don't believe if she's ever 100% stated as such but... come on, no straight people were back then, media still doesn't feel the need to state characters as hetero because our society very much does the whole "assumed straight unless stated otherwise." And Poison ivy, in certain depictions ive seen at least, comes off VERY much as for the male gaze and I know lesbians are used this way often BUT this isn't as often in certain media like comics (or wasn't common) where they usually would prefer them be open to men so the demographic they care about can fantasize about being with the character.

Second, this IS definitely being fueled by racism since the writer is Black woman (not mention also queer & disabled) and so far the people responding have been white or at least one of the main ones is.

Third, this is just another one those things that to me REALLY shows how Biphobic certain parts of the Lesbian community can get.

Like I'm sorry, what I'm about to type of probably going make some upset and scream "lesbophobia" but I HAVE to share because I can't be the only one who feels this way... I feel wary around Lesbians online sometimes, not because of any stereotypes but because I've SEEN how openly, some Ive followed even in the past, are to complain about us (Bi+) people and openly explain how they DONT want to share spaces with Bi woman. Look I get wanting to hangout with people just like you, BUT its weird how quickly some Lesbians are to want to discard us and not relate to us because we possibly may like, talk about, be in relationships with men and it's even MORE weird that that's a determent to y'all even though these same types of lesbians make their whole identity/community dependant on men (I'm sorry but even if it's specifically about hating men ur still at the end of the day... making it seem like ur sexuality/community hinges on men) and not you know... loving woman.

I've seen some Lesbians complain about how they need Lesbian ('only' heavily implied) bars and how its annoying that bi woman go to them. And countless of stories of Bi woman being shunned, turned down for being Bi, no I'm not saying that is so awful Lesbians don't want to "sleep" with us (why the parentheses? eh just that I'm not going to assume ALL anyone wants to do after meeting in a bar is to fuck it's probably a good chunk of the time but not 100%) I'm saying it's pretty Biphobic, bigoted, etc to turn someone down JUST for being Bi, you obviously only have a problem with Bi people being Bi.

And also yes we do get hurt because duh its Biphobia but we also are ultimately glad to know because we wouldn't want to sleep with Biphobic people anyway we just want y'all to acknowledge it for what it is, a bigoted prejudice, no not a boundary but a Biphobic preference. I know a lot won't get that and scream "it's a boundary, it's a boundary!" and I don't know if they do this to Bi woman who say it but if this was about Trans woman they would also add "you just want to rape, coerce, harass Lesbians into sleeping with you" & usually paired with plenty of misgendering. I feel like I have seen it but only more so in terms of gold star lesbian rhetoric instead of terf rhetoric.

Either way, it just kind of sad, frustrating and annoying that Bi+, trans, etc can't DARE to bring this stuff up without being called Lesbophobic (just using this term would get me harassed & called a bigot on Twitter because it "contains a slur") because we SHOULD be allowed to bring up stuff that hurts us but we can't because LGBTQIA people seem to have this unspoken hierarchy of who gets cared about, believed, listened to first and it's definitely seems based on the order of the letters in the alphabet soup.

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But anyway yeah, I have a hard time taking the post I shared an image of above seriously when stuff like I wrote above is going on. Yes I do think being critical of fandom in terms of bigotry is important, ESPECIALLY racism because that honestly is one of the BIGGEST problems since fandom is dominated mostly by white people (specifically women & queer people) however... I don't think the above is a decent example of that, it condenses the issues and leaves out so much needed nuance and such (yes this is cropped so it doesn't include some of the other additions to it but tbf from what I remember it didn't really add nuance, just clarifyed what the first post was doing).

For example, a Bi person headcanoning a character Bi a majority of the time should not be considered Biphobic, even if the character is a negative stereotype PLENTY of people do this as a way to reclaim the character from the bigotry that was written with it. Or the above, if someone hc's a character who is a badass as Bi there shouldn't be an issue. Now if a Bi person hc's others like the above there MIGHT be an issue then. Also, not to mention that identities intersect, if a pan ace person want to hc certain characters a certain way that could be stereotypical should we label them xphobic regardless of their identify?

I just think the original post it too vague and paints all fandom hc the same regardless of who is making them and like I said before, while this can be a problem I have more of an issue with this new trend of shutting down others hc because others claim the character even though the characters specific id is never said & thus should be open to anyone (example: Lesbians claiming its bigoted or get upset at others for hc a character as Bi that they hc as Lesbian even though the character was originally written straight or is very heavily straight coded and/or had relationships with men). Also fandoms erasing characters identities that are outright stated or implied is ALSO a huge thing I find to be more of a problem then the above post (examples: Luz Noceda from Owl house is stated by the creator as being Bi but people are calling her/them (her & her girlfriend) lesbians; another one that I feel is SORT of a problem but I also can't 100% condemn people who do this because the show doesn't help with continuing to be vague about it is Bob Belcher & him being hinted at being Bi but is erased by straight and gay(LG) fans as being straight).

Also I don't apologize for all of my examples being about Bi people, biphobia, etc because I am Bi so that is what I know and experience first and foremost!

[wandererslullabi]

SGA/SSA aren’t LGBT+ terms you should be using

In fact, they’re not even really terms from our community at all.

In this post I’m going to be talking about two terms sometimes used by some people in our community: SSA (same sex attracted) and SGA (same gender attracted). Note, however, that this post is NOT about SGL (same gender loving) which is a completely unrelated, lovely term created for and by black LGBT+ people. To clear things up, the SGA term is not based on the SGL term; SGA was already an entirely separate term based in violent homophobia, which I’ll speak on below.

So, what’s wrong with SGA and SSA, and why do I have the right to speak about it?

I was born and raised a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a church that until recently also went by the nickname “Mormons.” (Yeah, I know it’s a mouthful. Don’t worry, I’ll be using LDS, Mormon, or The Church for the rest of this post.)

This church has a very long, horrible history of homophobia and transphobia which continues to this day, and they’re known for using the SGA/SSA terms to describe LGB+ people, to the extent that the SSA and SGA terms are considered fairly taboo in the queerstake community (queerstake  being what much of lds LGBT+ call ourselves). I grew up hearing the SSA/SGA terms with lot of negative connotation, and to put it shortly, the church has for a long time “encouraged” lds LGBT+ people to call themselves “same sex/gender attracted” instead of LGBT+.

This statement, by the church leader Dallin H. Oaks (more on him here in a post by a gay mormon) is a pretty good example of the kind of rhetoric they use to encourage this: “We should note that the words homosexual, lesbian, and gay are adjectives to describe particular thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. We should refrain from using these words as nouns to identify particular conditions or specific persons.” (x)

This kind of rhetoric is repeated so often in the church that “same sex/gender attracted” is the way a majority of cis straight lds people refer to LGBT+ people aside from negatively using the word “gay” or “homosexual.”  They often use it talking about how we “suffer” from SSA/SGA, are “afflicted” with SSA/SGA, “struggle” with SSA/SGA. Instead of being gay, we “have” SSA/SGA.

It’s used as a way to essentially brainwash LGBT+ lds people into distancing ourselves from the LGBT+ community and further envelop ourselves in the church’s “you should repent from your homosexual behavior” mentality. The two terms are used fairly interchangeably; I’d argue SSA is used more often, but SGA is starting to get used more as well. In any case, it contributed to my younger self’s phase of “I won’t label my orientation” because I’d been trained to think that if I didn’t label it and I kept doing what the church said, my attraction to girls would either go away or I could just ignore it. Which, uh, didn’t really work, seeing as I’m extremely queer now.

A church university called BYU has, in particular, been homophobic to an extreme, actively participating in anti-LGBT+ efforts. In fact, they’ve been ranked one of the least LGBT friendly universities in the entire US! What an incredible achievement! You can read the history of their homophobia (and some transphobia) in this article (including a fairly extensive timeline from the 1950s up to the end of 2018). To sum up some of the really bad parts, though (the sources are in the link):

They repeatedly banned LGBT+ people from their university entirely, then banned students from being openly LGBT+, and are suspected of firing several staff members for being gay, as well as for suspending and expelling students for dating or kissing people of the same gender

In the 60s through 70s, they began administering “electric aversion therapy” in order to “cure” LGB+ students (this “therapy” involved showing gay people nude pictures of the same gender and giving them electroshocks in order to make them associate those feelings negatively). This method was ineffective at making the LGB+ people straight (obviously), but the people who underwent it reported extreme decrease in mental health and increased suicidal thoughts. At one point this therapy was required for anyone suspected of being gay. The therapy ended in 1983, but only because of the overwhelming reports that it wasn’t working.

In 1965 there were 5 reported suicides of gay Mormons at the university in a single year, and the LGBT+ Mormon suicidality in Utah has continued to be high. 

In the 70s, when Dallin H. Oaks was president of the school, he created a surveillance system to “catch” LGB+ people, including literally spying on gay bars and implementing recording devices to watch for any suspected LGB+ students, as well as posting fake gay advertisements to “ensnare” them.

Dallin Oaks also helped create the Institute for Studies in Values and Human Behavior, which was dedicated to proving that being gay was a choice, in order to re-affirm the church’s stance on homosexuality at the time. The freaking director of the institution, Allen Bergin, once said that homosexuality was “caused by some combination of biology and environment.” (thankfully, the church no longer believes being gay is a choice, though they talk about how “SSA/SGA behavior” is a choice as often as they can.)

I suggest y’all also read the Payne Papers (aka Prologue), which was written by two gay BYU students in 1977 in response to a homophobic professor at the university.

In 1997 there was a poll where 80% of students said they wouldn’t live with a roommate attracted to people of the same gender.

“In 2000 a reported 13 students were suspended from the University when caught watching the TV series Queer As Folk. The next year two gay students (Matthew Grierson and Ricky Escoto) were expelled under accusations deemed ‘more probable than not’ of hand-holding or kissing.”

In 2005, The Foundation for Attraction Research (FAR) was founded, run by mostly BYU professors. In 2009 the organization published Understanding Same-Sex Attraction which advocated therapy to change sexual attraction (evidently they didn’t learn their lesson lol).

In 2014, a BYU survey to students only gave the option of “heterosexual but struggles with same-sex attraction" or "heterosexual and does not struggle with same-sex attraction” for people’s sexual orientation. Y’all, this was only a year before same-gender marriage was legalized in the US. That’s just bad.

LGBT+ students are currently still facing risk of expulsion from the school if they hug, kiss, or date someone of their same gender. Celibacy is mandatory.

All LGBT+ groups are currently banned from meeting on campus, so there’s only a single LGBT+ group for the school that meets at a library in the city.

And of course, this is only what happened at a single Mormon university. You’d be surprised how much power the LDS church has, especially in Utah. Ya know Dallin H. Oaks, the homophobe? Yeah, last October he gave a homophobic and transphobic talk in front of over 4 million church members from all over the world.

During the course of all that homophobia at BYU, “same sex attraction” and “same gender attraction” were both terms used regularly in this therapy and in the church, alongside “homosexual.” And as I said earlier, they still use these terms today! In fact, if you wanna see them in action, you can just visit this page on their official website, which has “same sex attraction” right there in the title. The entire website continues to follow the implied idea of “we’ll tolerate you saying you’re gay, lesbian, or bisexual, but we’d prefer if you’d just say you’re same sex/gender attracted, because being gay/bi/lesbian is a lifestyle, and we don’t support it” and the whole website is basically “it’s okay to be attracted to the same gender, but it’s a sin to ever do or think anything gay!”

You can also just search the internet for “same sex attraction” or “same gender attraction” and a bunch of christian articles will pop up with rampant internalized homophobia among LGBT+ church members, and a bunch of homophobia from the church itself. It’s possible this SSA/SGA rhetoric isn’t specific to my church, as I haven’t researched other church’s histories as thoroughly, but the church absolutely contributed to anti-LGBT+ efforts throughout history, using “SGA” and “SSA” the entire time. This isn’t even a thing of the past, LGBT+ Mormons are still freaking here going through all this--conversion therapy is still not banned in Utah.

So, TL;DR: the “same sex/gender attraction” phrase was used in LGB+ conversion therapy, and is still used to perpetuate homophobic rhetoric in the church today. Because of that, a lot of my fellow LGBT+ Mormons are uncomfortable with the terms being used as umbrella descriptors for our orientations. So when someone tells you “SSA/SGA was used in Mormon conversion therapy, please don’t use it,” take them seriously. Yes, I understand that they’re sometimes helpful terms when talking about LGB+ identities, and I’m (sometimes) more okay with the usage of the terms than others, but in general, if you’re not a person affected directly by the church’s usage of these terms (read: an active LGBT+ Mormon or ex-Mormon), please don’t use them liberally, and don’t use them to freaking discourse about who does or doesn’t belong in the community. “SSA/SGA and trans” is not how you should be defining our community, I don’t care whether you’re an exclusionist or an inclusionist, just don’t. And you should never. freaking. use them. to refer to any LGBT+ Mormon who asks you not to.

And, last of all, as a bi person, y’all should not be implying that attraction to the same gender is the only thing about our orientation that makes us LGBT+. I’m not just LGBT+ because I’m attracted to the same gender, I’m LGBT+ because I’m attracted to multiple genders. My attraction to multiple genders makes me inherently Not Straight. Biphobia and monosexism is an issue that greatly affects mspec people, and it’s time monosexual LGBT+ people recognize that homophobia is not the only type of oppression we face. Not even to mention how SGA and SSA terms are exclusive of nonbinary orientations, which don’t always involve even having a same gender to be attracted to.

Exclusionists and inclusionists alike please reblog. Y’all need to listen up. Queer Mormons aren’t here to play.

#lgbtqia #sga term #ssa term #lgbt history #ace discourse #conversion therapy tw #suicide mention tw #bi discourse #bisexual #lesbian #gay #lgbt #queer history

[queernuck]

Who Is Mayor Pete?

an interesting phenomena surrounding that post that criticizes the supposed homophobia of backlash to Mayor Pete on grounds of how difficult it is to read him as gay, how much he comes across specifically as an assimilationist, as an example of what exactly many of us hate seeing in that community, is that there is a certain way that it resonated with TERFs which I think is important to consider. it taps into a great deal of rhetoric around the way that transmisogynist violence is enacted, how the creation of hostility in communities to ideas of queerness, faggy-ness, how the sanitization and creation of a fetishized notion of butch/femme culture has been a project of so many TERFs unfortunately, the way all of these converge into the yearning for the exact image that Mayor Pete fits: one of an incredibly assimilated, boring figure which refuses typical libidinal flows, who almost reads with a kind of sexlessness that dovetails quite nicely into the sort of policy goals that he most typically holds.

while discussing him as a Republican is perhaps not quite accurate, the way in which he is reminiscent of a recent letter to the editor where a gay man talked about how the transition from Obama to Trump impacted him little but a transition to Sanders (he fears) would ruin him due to his career as an investment banker, Buttigieg typefies this idea, the archetype of the successful gay man who has rejected all of these signifiers of gayness, who has divided himself cleanly from any kind of notion of “queerness”, of faggish tendencies, who almost more closely resembles an embodiment of the sterility and structural prescriptivism that “homosexual” would imply. He is not violating any sort of taboo except insofar as his violation thereof affirms the mirrored process: in becoming-gay, Mayor Pete does such in a way that affirms the mirroring of that process in the dominant subject, is part of a series of desiring-machines through which the libidinal flows of numerous Democrat voters may be actualized. For many, the idea of Mayor Pete as Their Gay Son is a kind of fantasy, a point in the questioning of why their own children cannot manage to just be “normal”, cannot have jobs in finance or join Naval Intelligence or become mayor of South Bend.

There are many men that outwardly appear like Mayor Pete out there, and I can hardly blame them. However, just as Mayor Pete is not Pete Buttigieg, is rather a kind of second-order simulacra intended to relate to other candidates and to voters in a certain fashion, they resemble him only in that they have these rather carefully constructed personae which they use in order to gain the advantages that apparent assimilation brings with it. In their real lives they may be fathers and husbands and have relatively normal, “basic” tastes but at the very least, if they are sexually active even with only a single partner, they violate at least some kind of taboo and become an unsuitable subject. The hate the sin love the sinner ideology is very much prevalent in ideas of even a married gay couple, where the idea of two men being married to one another and having a happy, fulfilling sexual relationship is itself revolting. 

When one throws in various different scenes and communities such as PNP/Chemsex, leather, even simply going out to the wrong sorts of parties or gay bars, and what is seen as a kind of salacious and enticing possibility for heterosexuality is now a condemnation, is too much for being a violation of far too many taboos at once. That some gay men have open marriages is an indication of degeneracy. This is true, as well, for many trans women: simply enjoying sex, having sexual partners, is seen as a sort of unsuitable deviance, as part of an inherently sexual identity and moreover the reduction of trans women to fetishes, the notion that we cannot exist at all except while evoking kink, that us, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals are all constantly evoking sexuality through mere existence even when heterosexual identities are allowed to imply or mimic our own while being outwardly validated, being understood as separated from these behaviors.

A comment that particularly sticks with me from this cursory (but rather unsurprising) investigation of transmisogynists getting angry about the idea that Pete isn’t Queer Enough is an insistence that one does not want to share community with “the BTQ, you are freaky and not in a good way” as one person put it. Going beyond the usual “drop the T” rhetoric, the concentration on just lesbian and gay identities is a kind of reactionary turn toward using taxonomy and ideological fetishism to create notions of what our community should be rather than looking at who it has been, who we have found solidarity with, and moreover why this solidarity is so important. The way in which Mayor Pete most openly seems a figure of heteronormativity is not in being happily married, especially given that so many happy marriages and engagements I know of consist of two people who would be marked deviant just by their identification. It lies, rather, in the same kind of turn of separation and separatism that so many transmisogynists generally and TERFs more specifically accept as part of their ideological positioning, are eager to use as part of maneuvering into a position of accomplishing the most important parts of their ideology. 

The reactionary red-brown alliances one sees TERFs willing to make (that is, if they were even really all that red to start with) are hardly accidental, and do little to advance the causes they supposedly stand for except through empty signification of a progressive simulacra of the reactionary ideology they support. The aforementioned discussion of a sort of fetishization of butch/femme identity is the means by which reference to an imagined past, one which includes these roles and imagines lesbian bars, spaces, identities is so often cleansed of any meaningful history, any connection to radical politics beyond being left-wing by the liberal standards of the current Democratic party, any kind of actual look at how and why communities of LGBT commonality were formed and realized and lived and continued and developed to this day, is used as a means of recapture for transmasc identity in order to affirm the biological determinism that their ideology necessitates. This turn is used to insist on trans men as something lesser, something denatured and not to be understood as a “man” while trans women are absolutely, ontologically men in a sense that can never be changed, that persists as the kind of marker which ignores any experience of transness in order to instead whip up a false frenzy of ideological maneuvering against vulnerable women. The conservatism of clinging to particularities of past expressions of “butch” and “femme” rather than looking at how they deride current and contemporary communities which contain plenty of butches and femmes, which contain other expressions of gendered performativity, which navigate the tensions of the sexed body through these performative creations of identification and shared space within, and most of all how many of these spaces are ones where liberation is seen as shared, as including justice on grounds of fighting antiblackness, supporting antiracism, intensely personal accounts of anti-antisemitism and anti-Islamophobia and anti-Xenophobia action, a paradigmatic antifascism, opposition to colonialism, a philosophy of anticapitalism, how vital the turn against assimilation therefore is, that the idea of assimilation as a whole involves abandonment of these ideals and instead an acceptance of the very structures that Mayor Pete most ardently advocates for, is what makes him so frustrating.

His prominence is defined so much by his assimilationism not because he is a relatively boring person with a husband. That describes plenty of people who still at least passingly validate the necessity of how LGBT histories involve anticapitalist struggles, who may themselves hold these views. There have always been people like Mayor Pete: they were the landlords driving up rent in Greenwich Village during the AIDS Crisis. They were the ones saying that bills could only pass if they dropped protections for trans people. He is a representation of the way that so many politicians only turned to supporting gay marriage when a certain arbitrary threshold was crossed by public support for the idea. The way that criticism of Mayor Pete as a politician who holds incredibly reactionary views, who has presided over violent police action and brazen codification of antiblackness within police work, who willingly joined a colonial war machine and uses that as part of his sales pitch, one who will defend the interests of capital to his dying breath as part of his campaign, one who somehow manages to propose a more cumbersome healthcare plan than Obama’s ultimately ended up being, this is the kind of candidate we have at hand. 

And he is fucking awful.

#pete Buttigieg #mayor pete

[gaypornshack1]

What Price do We Pay for Gay Marriage?

The Supreme Court’s decision affirming the proper to couple across the us may be a joyous moment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. Recognition of our equal dignity, and of our right to an equivalent legal protections straight couples enjoy, may be a civil rights milestone. But it could even be the last hurrah for the movement for gay freedom that began after war II.

But such unity of purpose comes at a price. Freedom to Marry, the advocacy group that has led the wedding equality movement, was in 2013 the most important recipient of cash from foundations that specialize in gay causes.

LGBT Rights Social Movements

Will even a fraction of the energy and money that are poured into the wedding fight be available to transgender people, homeless teenagers, victims of job discrimination, lesbian and gay refugees and asylum seekers, isolated gay elderly or other vulnerable members of our community? round the same time ny State legalized couple , in 2011, it had been slashing funds for services to homeless youth, who are disproportionately gay or transgender.

The movement for gay rights that began after war II was waged from society’s margins; its most outspoken proponents sought to overturn social convention, not join it. it had been not in the least inevitable that the movement would at some point coalesce around marriage.

In 1953, the primary year of its publication, the national gay magazine ONE dismissed the thought that gays might at some point be allowed to marry. “Rebels like we, demand freedom!” one article declared. “But actually we've a greater freedom now (sub rosa because it may be) than do heterosexuals and any change are going to be to lose a number of it reciprocally for respectability.”

Of course, this freedom was precarious; the subsequent year the l. a. postmaster refused to deliver a problem of the magazine on the grounds that it contained obscenity. Though the Supreme Court ruled within the magazine’s favor, many gay publications, businesses and bars were forced to shut within the 1950s and 1960s.

What About Black Gay People?

But more gay and transgender Americans are permanent outsiders. Some churches are doubling down on anti-gay rhetoric, which fuels family rejection and contributes to youth homelessness. Violence against transgender Americans is on the increase . Gay people in prison remain subject to rape and abuse. Rates of latest H.I.V. infections are rising among young black men.

Just as feminists learned after the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, a movement that throws most of its weight in pursuit of one policy may falter and stagnate when it achieves a powerful victory.

Gays must now devote to the fight for cover from discrimination an equivalent resourcefulness and energy with which we fought for the proper to marry. we should always confine mind that our struggle began as a fight against police harassment, and “Black Lives Matter” is our cause, too. Befitting its status because the 20th, not the primary , country to legalize couple , America should preach equality abroad humbly, acknowledging that it does so with the zeal of a convert.

The gay movement has stood for valuing all families — including those led by single parents, those with adopted children, and other configurations. it's stood for other ideas, too, that risk being lost during this moment’s pro-family turn: that intimacy, domesticity and caretaking don't always come packaged together; that marriage shouldn't be the sole thanks to protect one’s children, property and health; that having a family shouldn’t be a requirement for full citizenship; which conventional respectability shouldn’t be the sole route to social acceptance.

Many of the undergraduates at the school where I teach cannot remember a time when couple was unthinkable. except for most Americans alive today, to return out as gay meant accepting that we might never wed. It meant that we who decided to return out had little choice but to empathize with the excluded. We weren't , for obvious reasons, the marrying kind; that was a part of what made us special.

For some folks , marriage are going to be a ticket out of the margins. But it might be a tragedy if, vindicated by the Supreme Court, many folks proclaim a premature victory, overlooking those folks who are still overlooked , and lots of more people round the world for whom the search for basic recognition is far unsure . Betraying our history — forgetting what it's meant to be gay — would be a price too high to pay.

It is unfortunate that the movement’s two great victories of the last decade — the proper to serve openly within the military and therefore the refore the right to be married — have come as progress has stalled or reversed in numerous other areas of civil rights: equal pay and reproductive choice for women; housing and faculty segregation; police violence against minorities; and the prospects of an honest wage and a modicum of job and retirement security for all.

Conclusion

It is no accident that the one civil rights law that might likely apply to the best numbers of gays — a ban on discrimination employed and housing on the idea of sexual orientation or identity — continues to elude us. An anti-discrimination law creates substantial costs not just for the govt , which must enforce it, but also for companies , which must suits it; letting gays into military service and into the institution of marriage doesn't . Indeed, 379 employers, including many of the nation’s largest airlines, banks, health insurers and makers , filed a quick in support of couple , arguing that inconsistency in marriage laws created an onerous regulatory and financial burden and hurt their efforts to recruit talent.

After Massachusetts became the primary state to legalize couple , in 2003, a backlash of ballot initiatives and referendums banning such unions swept much of the country. In response, many lesbians and gay men who were tired of marrying forgot their doubts for the cause.

#gayrights #gay marriage

[jackawful]

Here's the thing: "butch and femme are lesbian-exclusive identities" is a claim that has to be backed up with like...reasoning and evidence if you're going to make it. The vast majority of the time, what's used to back it up is just straight-up wrong about bi women and the nature of our ties to, and participation in, lesbian culture. Often when I've seen this stuff I've been too upset to respond well to specific arguments, let alone compile them, but I have a little bit of distance and feel the need to put this all in one place. So here's a list of actual reasons people give for this assertion, what they imply about bi women, and why the prospect of people just accepting them bothers me:

Butch and femme are identities about performing gender specifically for other women and not men, which is an experience only lesbians have. The implication here - sometimes explicitly spelled out depending on who's writing it - is that bi women, as women attracted to multiple genders (usually) including men, automatically and inherently perform at least some of our gender expression for the benefit of men. This isn't true! Judging from both my own experience and that of a lot of bi women I've talked to, performing gender for men is usually something that happens due to internalized misogyny, and something we work to overcome if it's even something that effects us in the first place. Often, the goal isn't even to perform gender for other women - it's to perform it for ourselves, in a way that flags that we're queer and will hopefully attract other women. It's actually really disturbing and misogynistic to claim that women who are attracted to men inherently shape how they dress and act to please/appease men, cause that's a really unhealthy and damaging thing under patriarchy, even for straight women. This argument also ignores butch and femme lesbians who do their gender expression primarily for themselves, a sentiment I've seen in a lot of published writing on both identities.

Butch and femme were created by and for lesbians in lesbian bars during the 30s-60s, so bi women, who were not present, using the terms in the modern day would be ahistorical. Plenty of other people have made plenty of good, accurate points refuting and complicating this narrative of history: the use of the terms in ball culture, evidence of the words in Polari cant, the continuous use of fem(me) by gay and bi men into the modern day, the way the meanings of "lesbian" and "bisexual" gradually shifted into their modern usage through the 60s-80s, the participation of people we would now consider bisexual women in lesbian bar culture, etc, etc, etc. It's pretty clear to me that this is a flattened, simplified conception of a queer history that is actually very complex and hard to trace - if you want sources, I'll dig them up on request, but it may take a while. But one more thing bothers me about this argument: personally, as a butch/masc woman who specifically has trauma tied to being forced into the traditional housewife role, it would have been much, much more difficult for me to find men who would accept me as I am had I lived in the 30s - so difficult that, in that different cultural context, I may have identified as a 100%-attracted-only-to-women lesbian, especially since "bisexual" wasn't even a cultural concept at the time. And beyond that, I've been raised in a working class environment. I probably have more in common with the lesbians that went to lesbian bars than literally anyone middle class or above. Beyond that, even if this simplified historical narrative were 100% accurate, there is literally no reason these terms would have to remain the same in the modern day. Language changes.

Lesbians need a lesbian-only vocabulary/everyone's taking everything away from lesbians already/our culture is being destroyed by everyone just being considered "queer" and making this vocabulary lesbian-exclusive is the only way to stop this. I usually see this as a tacked-on addition to the two points above, but I have come across it on its own a few times, usually from T/ERFs or crypto-TE/RFs. And I think there's a reason I see this one more in radfemmy spaces: it's reactionary. It's drumming up fear that one's culture will be erased if anything ever changes about it, and a desire to return to an imagined ideal past where there were no culture-stealing invaders. And it's directed at other LGBT people, not like...straight cis people (you know, the ones that hold power in our society?). I worry that it's the first step into a lot of other nasty rhetoric, especially the "lesbian not queer" facet of it, which is something TER/F groups have often used to claim that The LGBTQ Community has betrayed the L by accepting the T (and less commonly, the B). Like, I know there's a subset of people out there who will plug their ears and immediately discount this if I say "this is TE/RF rhetoric" but...it is, and it's dangerous, especially because it's that rhetoric that exists where TERFiness and fascism overlap. And man, on a personal level? It sucks to be the target of that. It sucks to be painted as an invader and an enemy and a thief to a group that by all accounts should be where I can find my siblings. Bi women connecting with the history and culture behind identifying as butch/femme takes nothing away from lesbians, it doesn't dilute the terms, and in fact, it can only contribute to the survival of butch/femme culture because it means there are more self-identified butches and femmes in the world. So even if you're unconvinced by the rest of this post, I'd really prefer you Not with this.

And that's...actually pretty much all I've seen used to back this up, actually. If you have an argument that doesn't boil back down to one of these three, I'm open to hearing it. If "bi women can't be butch or femme" is a thing people are going to believe and spread, I want there to be discussion with some depth to it, and I want it to be respectful of what bi women actually feel and experience.

Also, a note: I've used "bi women" as a shorthand here, but this definitely all applies to other multisexual (pan, queer, etc) women.

Gonna tag some more public blogs who I think might be interested in this: @bisexualfemme @beautifullybutch @bilations @dykebisexual @lesbianthor @feminismandmedia

#bi butch tag #bi femme #bi women #bisexual #bisexuality #butch/femme #butch discourse #femme discourse #just casting a wide tag net so people will see this don't mind me

[discyours]

so. do you homosexual radfems intensely stare at every m/m and f/f couple trying to find out if one of them is trans so you can tell yourselves "yep that's a hetero couple" even tho said couple would be considered homosexual by society (and thus suffer homophobia) or do you just do it online?

“You homosexual radfems” is a bit ironic here bud. 

Do you want to take a rough guess at how many same sex couples I’ve seen in real life? The answer is two. Two lesbian couples, and I only knew they were lesbians because I was personally close to them. I’ve never seen a same sex couple just walking around holding hands. If I saw what looked to be a same sex couple in public around where I live, I’d definitely do a double take because me misjudging and them turning out to be heterosexual would actually be the most likely scenario there. 

Passing is conditional. Not a single stranger has called me she since I’ve come out (I got called ma’am once, and that was because of my voice. The person who said it corrected himself once he saw me), but that’s because my appearance generally isn’t put into context. I don’t think I’d pass if I were to walk around holding hands with a woman, and frankly I’m a little scared to. Likewise, if I was attracted to men and were to walk around with one? Highly fucking unlikely that people would see two cis gay boyfriends, especially since you have heteronormativity working against (or rather, for) you there as well. 

That’s not to say that I pass as well as any trans man ever has (absolutely not) and that trans men who date cis men have never experienced homophobia. But the idea that a trans man (even a trans man who passes in some if not most scenarios) and a cis man are always going to be seen as homosexual by society is complete and utter bullshit. 

Furthermore, the street harassment you may face if people see you as gay is nowhere near the full extent of homophobia. Homophobia is not just “you look q*eer and I don’t like that for reasons I can’t understand, so I’m gonna treat you like shit”. Homophobia is institutional. There are detailed explanations for why it’s wrong or sinful or unnatural to be homosexual, all across the world and dating back centuries if not millennia. You think those fully affect you just because some strangers saw you walking around and concluded that you and your partner can both grow facial hair? Homophobic laws don’t affect you. As long as you don’t change your gender marker (which is, you know, a choice) you can marry your partner anywhere in the world. You won’t even be legally barred from adopting children anywhere, if PIV sex doesn’t cut it for you. 

One of the fundamental roots of homophobia is the idea that sex must be for procreation. A same sex couple cannot procreate, so their attraction is a purely self-serving lust. Everything God is supposedly against. Heterosexual trans people may end up becoming infertile through transition, but at least they had a choice on some level. I’ve had to live with the knowledge that there has never been an acceptable way for me to be attracted to women, and that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I’ve tried to get rid of my attraction to women many, many times and it didn’t work. I will live and die with an attraction that I did not ask for and can do nothing about, and if the [people of various religions] are right then I’ll spend eternity in hell for it. Millions if not Billions of people believe this, and their rhetoric is inescapable. You’re aware of it regardless of where you move, regardless of who you tell and regardless of what you do. It affects closeted SSA people as well as people who never act on their attraction. Trying to squeeze homophobia down into something more inclusive and centering it around the idea that people might think you’re gay, as long as they don’t look for too long, is frankly fucking insulting. 

And that’s what it comes down to. I’m not the type of person to argue that trans people never pass, and I don’t believe that everyone will always see you as heterosexual just because you are. If a trans man faces street harassment for walking around with his boyfriend, I’m not gonna say he was lying. I’m not gonna give him shit for referring to it as homophobia. 

But y’all cling onto the mere possibility of that as validation material. You try to redefine homophobia, redefine the most commonly experienced forms of it, hide the history behind it just because it doesn’t suit you. Homophobia isn’t uwu validating to me at all but it’s a real fucking thing that I don’t get to shape around my desired identity. Of all the radfems who are genuinely transphobic, all the radfems who harass heterosexual trans people or publicly mock the pictures they post, of all the radfems who do this shit that I speak out against… you come into my inbox because I still believe that “sga” trans people are heterosexual? Sort out your priorities. 

#anon #gender critical

[aspec-sexuality]

tell me. when did asexual people fight for the rights of the lgbtq community? where were you at stonewall? what about the aids crisis? i am 100 percent supportive of asexuality (i think i might be ace???) but i can’t believe they’re lgbtq if they haven’t been in the fight. gay/lesbians were. bisexuals were. trans people were. asexuals weren’t.

Can you prove that? Can you assert that with facts and evidence considering that asexuality and the ace and aro spectrum wasn’t fully and completely established until recent years? Or that the majority of a-spec people either have other queer identities or assumed they were some form of m-spec because the lack of attraction for any gender can be construed as equal attraction for all genders?

Where were you? What were you doing? What about the people who were in the closet? Those in different countries? Those in secluded areas? Are their LGBT+ identities revoked also because they “weren’t there”?

Why do you insist on legitimizing a-spec identities based on past instances that hopefully will never reoccur again? Is there some bar keeping newly identified identities from integrating into the LGBT+ community? When was the deadline?

What about the a-specs that work in LGBT+ centers now? The ones that help distribute resources and organize events and volunteer? Do they count because they are “there”? Do you qualify someone’s queer identities by the amount of hours they put towards the community as if it’s some membership earned?

Here’s some advice, stop listening to Exclusionistic rhetoric that was created purely as an attack on a-spec identities instead of any actual problems or real validations that are implemented and instead think for yourself why they were integrated into LGBT+ society and who would want them removed

#anonymous #ace discourse

[vixianna]

But Where’s the Legislation?!

Is it just me, or are other PoC uncomfortable with the white discoursers obsession with legislation as the One True Form of Systematic Oppression? Not only is that not true, but expecting legislation in a 21st century western country to specifically mention a group completely misunderstands how oppression actually works.

Black people are still oppressed in America, and it’s not because there is specific legislation mentioning us to keep us from getting houses or marrying. That’s not what oppression looks like in America. (For the most part. Not even the bathroom bills that target transness specifically mention trans people.)

What you should look for in legislation, when you’re looking at legislation, is disproportionate impact. You are looking to see if how the law is crafted, regardless of if it was the crafter’s intent, disproportionately impacts one group over another. 

The reason for marriage equality isn’t because it specifically targeted LGBT+ folks, but because it disproportionately affected(basically entirely affected) the community. The reason the voter ID laws are getting struck down right now isn’t because it specifically mentions PoCs, but because it disproportionately affects us. 

And this is a specifically white problem and outlook. It’s the same as when white racists scream about how “Jim Crow is over and there’s no segregation and there’s no oppression now!” It’s the same with the white liberal obsession with legal rights, like marriage equality, meaning that LGBT+ oppression is over. It’s the same when exclusionists and inclusionists center their whole goddamn arguments about whether this or that legislation actually does fucking whatever to ace people. (Show me the country where it’s ILLEGAL to be ace?????!)

That’s a damn smoke screen. Oppression, systematic oppression, isn’t based around explicit marginalization from society. Marginalization in this case being the society in question is trying to force the group out of society itself. To be “marginalized” here isn’t the same as what most people in the discourse use the word to mean. Being kicked out of your home, denied housing, fired from your job, ect. are forms of marginalization. They seek not to exploit members of the class, but drive them from society itself.

The most basic forms of oppression involve economic exploitation. So, you’ll see members of this class concentrated in positions that allow their labor to be extracted from them without fair(or with no) compensation. This is why, one of the reasons why, LGBT+ people are disproportionately poor. (The same with PoC. There’s a longer, semi-related post, about how race was created and maintained to craft a social class of proles to be economically exploited for the norm’d classes benefit.) 

There are other forms of (systematic) oppression of course, but marginalization is the most severe form of physical material oppression. When Marginalization takes place, the society has “decided” this crafted class is so “abhorrent” they aren’t even worth economically exploiting. (Think of the genocides of indigenous people’s around the world.) 

Therefore, it’s possible, and in fact entirely probable that systematic oppression is taking place without Marginalization.(the final form of Marginalization is attempted or completed genocide btw.) By the time legislation comes into play that is specifically crafted to curtail the rights, movement, freedom, ect of a crafted class, you are in the beginning stages of Marginalization. 

Most oppression these days(ableism is an exception), isn’t in a Marginalization stage. It’s in less extreme stages of oppression(this includes against PoC, including fellow black people.) 

That being the case, how can we conclude systematic oppression is taking place before we get to the extremes of Marginalization? 

I mentioned Economic Exploitation, and considering we’re living in a Capitalist fun house of death and suffering, that’s a good place to start. There’s also Systematic Violence. I consider all forms of oppression systematic violence, but in this cause I mean physical(and emotional) violence and abuse. Increased deaths, sexual assault, physical assaults, arson, defacing of property, ect. You’re looking at people burning down or bombing religious centers(or the attack on the LGBT center that happened recently). This will happen at the individual and larger levels of an identified group. So, disproportionately violent interactions accruing to a certain group is an example of systematic oppression. 

For systematic oppression absent Marginalization, we would expect to see Economic Exploitation and Systematic Violence.

So discoursers, on both sides, should be asking:

- Are aces disproportionately targeted for physical violence? - Are aces disproportionately poor? - Are aces disproportionately homeless? - Are aces exposed to increased violence against their property?(i.e. someone torching your home for being ace)

Ect.   

Another form of systematic oppression is “powerlessness” and this comes from the group in question being forced away from positions of power in society. This is open LGBT+ people being removed from office or not voted for. This is, in an internalized way, members of the group thinking they will never end their own oppression(I’ve seen discourers say this, all of them exclusionists, but this is a common sentiment among the oppressed). Radical liberation thinking involves the idea you can accrue power and dismantle the system oppressing you, and one of the more insidious ways that oppression works to keep the oppressed buying into the system itself is forcing them to believe their oppression is inevitable and unchangeable.

One of the biggest results of “powerlessness” on a personal level is psychological disorder. Feeling you have no control over your life or power to protect yourself/do things, causes psychological distress. For groups affected by oppression which takes the form of powerlessness(and powerlessness is a psychological campaign taken up by the norm’d group in power), you’d expect to see increased mental illness. You also expect feelings of brokenness, worthlessness, self-esteem problems, comparing themselves to the norm and hating that they deviate, ect.

So discoursers on both sides should be asking:

- Do aces experience higher than average rates of depression? - Do aces experience higher than average rates of anxiety? - Are they more likely to be suicidal or self harm? - Is this psychological distress used to signal that they are ‘unfit’ or inherently ‘sick’? - Are aces disproportionately barred from positions of power in society?

As a final semi-related note, there is a difference between visibility, hypervisibility, and invisibility, that isn’t really talked about in discourse. Neither hypervisibility or invisibility is good or a privilege. Black people are hypervisible(and invisible), trans people(especially trans women) are hypervisible. NDN people’s and Asian peoples and Ace people are invisible. People who are hypervisible often see invisibility as a gift or proof of lack of oppression. It’s not. To be invisible is to be rendered not just unseen, but silenced. Your pain, suffering, oppression isn’t just ignored, it is denied. Both the “model minority” myth for Asians and “all NDNs are extinct” myth exist to deny, ignore, and (at the most extreme) silence the experiences and oppression of these two groups. Hypervisibility requires being surveilled but not seen. It means being viewed as an object, being fetishized, being treated as rhetorical device instead of human. It means being viewed as a threat, as an walking stereotype and example of a group instead of a person. It is depersonalization through means of obliterating personal identity.  

That ace people are “unknown” isn’t invisibility on its own, however, enforcement of invisibility requires certain things. It requires the denial of examples of systematic ill-treatment. It requires the silencing of attempts of the group to organize, to create language to describe their own experiences, to accept their experiences as having happened or valid examples of prejudice against them. To enforce invisibility is ultimately about silencing. So examples of invisibility will mostly be focused around attempts to deny the reality of or redefine the reality of the groups in question.  Truscum rhetoric is based around enforced invisibility as an example. 

Proving that aces aren’t hypervisible isn’t proof on its own as a lack of oppression(as that’s not what oppression is/means). A lot of groups who are hypervisible define their experiences as the real oppression. And the same can be said of invisible groups. Every ace who has ever typed “well, at least people know what being gay is!” is mistaking hypervisibility for visibility.(visibility here being the state of being seen, acknowledged, understood, and listened to, the default state of the norm.) Most oppressed groups experience both forms of social oppression, but some experience only one or the other. (NBs for example suffer from being invisible, not hypervisible, and gay and lesbian people are for the most part rendered hypervisible not invisible.) But the fact one group is hypervisible and another is invisible does not mean that either group isn’t experiencing oppression.

You need to look at actual stats about the group in question.

This is aimed at everyone in the discourse, please please stop centering Systematic Oppression around legislation and legal rights. That’s not the only way oppression takes places. That’s not even the most common way oppression takes places in 21st century western countries. Branch out and actually talk about oppression and oppression dynamics rationally. Study the oppression of various groups outside of the LGBT+ family if you have to! The (basic) Dynamics of Oppression don’t change, just the target. 

#ace discourse #racism #oppression dynamics

[cinelikeme]

Butches are Disappearing

https://youtu.be/ryUktDRu15k

The Argument

I’ve had many people tell me that they’re sad that butches are disappearing and that this is just another way to “convert us into heteronormative boxes.”

00:13 Physical Transition and Bodily Autonomy

I have some fundamental core values which I will not compromise. One of these values is bodily autonomy. As long as you aren’t harming anyone else, you can do what you want with your body, because it’s yours, no one else should tell me what to do with my body. Trans-exclusionary feminists seem to have this idea that transgender people are influencing butches to transition. I have never in my life seen or heard anyone telling anyone else to transition. Ever. You know what I have heard, plenty of trans-exclusionary radical feminists telling people not to transition. When a community tells a group of people what to do with their own bodies, that sends up major red flags for me. Now I know I said “as long as you’re not harming anyone,” and I understand that some people think transitioning is harming oneself, now this is arguably subjective, but at the end of the day, look I’m good and healthy, not in pain right now yay me.

I’m still butch. I’m not “disappearing,” I’m not going anywhere. I will never be heterosexual, I will never be straight, I will sure as hell never be heteronormative. You know what /is/ sad, is that my period almost killed me, twice. Because of the body I was born into, I could have been wiped off the face of the planet far too early, all for a set of organs I will never ever use for anything. And whenever I tried to address this, medical practitioners made it all about future babies and preserving fertility. That’s what’s really fucked up. My diction for top surgery was made partially because of gender reasons, partially because of non-gender medical reasons. Anti-trans feminists seemed horrified that I removed “perfectly healthy body parts,” but mine weren’t perfectly healthy. And also even if they had been, there would be a higher chance that one day they wouldn’t be. Now I don’t have that concern. Additionally this rhetoric doesn’t take into account the wonders that surgery for the right person can do to their mental health. There were a lot of factors that contributed to my choice; no decision is ever made in a void.

02:08 Peer Pressure

I see so many TERFs talk about butches being “pressured” into taking T. I don’t know who these people hang out with, but that isn’t safe, it isn’t nice, and it sure as hell is neither my experience nor does it reflect the ideologies of the community as a whole. I have never seen or heard of anyone being pressured to take hormones. While I have heard many trans people and medical practitioners to caution people and to tell them to take their time and really think about things before making any irrevocable decisions.

Anti-trans people advocating for the “preservation of butches” talk about how the transgender movement “pressures” butches into transitioning. The only pressure I have ever felt from anyone in regards to transitioning, has been the deliberate and consistent pressure from anti-trans people to not transition in any way. I have never felt pressure from any trans person, association, or movement, to transition. In fact I have felt very rigid forms of gender and sexual policing within lesbian spaces (Wear a push up bra or a sports bra, but never a binder. Date femmes, not butches. Be monogamous. Don’t date trans women, only date cis women. Dating someone double your age is unacceptable and frowned upon, even though you’re well into your twenties and a mature adult who can make their own decisions. You have to love your breasts, you have to love your period and bleeding with the moon, even though both these things clearly make you miserable. Even some old-school lesbians have said that using a strap-on means that I want a penis, and that the only “real” lesbian sex is without any toys.) A while ago, before I really identified myself as non-binary, I went out to a lesbian bar, and the lesbians thought I was a man, as though I can be butch, but not /too/ butch. Here’s another example, I am butch, and I am attracted mostly to other butch people, sometimes femmes but less frequently. But after a few times of hitting on butches in lesbian spaces I learned very quickly that that was not ok. Butches would react to me the same way a homophobic straight man might react to a gay man hitting on him, they seemed repulsed, they didn’t just politely reject my advances, they seemed incredibly offended that another butch would find them attractive, as though I was “threatening their masculinity” or something. In my eyes that kind of behaviour reenforces the heteronormative (homonormative) binary way more than taking hormones does.

Ironically- or perhaps not at all so- I have found far more acceptance for alternative modes of being and modes of desire in trans spaces than lesbian spaces. I have always felt and received such unconditional acceptance from the trans community.

04:40 The Trans Cult

I also see a lot of TERFs refer to the trans movement as a cult, yet a defining feature of a cult is cutting off social ties with people outside of the cult, and conforming to the cults standards of being. As I said earlier, I have received far more pressure from lesbians to conform to a certain standard and to be a certain way. All the advice I’ve gotten from trans people is “You do you. Figure out what you want to do with your life. Don’t make decisions to quickly, take your time. Find support people outside of the trans community.” None of this is cult-like behaviour. And it seems to me that to this certain group of anti-trans people, you can’t question your gender, you can’t have that freedom, they seem vehemently against people having trans friends, I’ve seen them actively trying to persuade people not to transition. Their behaviour reminds me of the Christians standing on the side of the street handing out gay conversion therapy leaflets to queers walking by.

05:39 Being Butch and Trans

Much academia supports the idea that Butches have always been trans. That’s not to say trans men, or that butches are interested in what we understand today as ‘transitioning.’ But that the concept of being transgender has often and largely incorporated gender non-conforming people. This also highlights the fact that they aren’t necessarily two distinct categories. See Ivan Coyote, Leslie Feinberg, Jack Halberstam, these people are butch and trans.

06:13 Forgetting Butch Trans Women

The other problem with this argument is that you refuse to acknowledge that butch trans women exist too. (List a few: Ricki Wilchins, Jo-I-Dunno, and I know a few wonderful butch trans women personally who I’m not going to out here). So you may feel like you're loosing some butch women because they come out as trans women, but some other people are trans women who are butch lesbians, and if you refuse to acknowledge that they are women too then you’re transphobic plain and simple. And if you acknowledge that they are women, but that you would never date them and so don’t count them in your pool of eligible butches, then you’re looking at butches as objects for your own sexual gratification, and that’s really fucked up.

As a side note, there’s been this conversation going around about if you’re a lesbian and a trans woman discloses that she has a penis, and you choose not to have sex with her or date her any more for that reason, does that make you transphobic? The answer is no. A lot of TERFs seem to think that trans people are saying they have to fuck women who have penises or else they’re transphobic. No, no one’s saying that, in fact I’ve never ever seen or heard a trans person say or write that. You don’t have to have sex with someone you don’t want to have sex with, plain and simple. Consent is mandatory in all things.

But plenty of trans women have had genital surgery, and saying they’re not women, because of their assigned gender, is a shitty thing to do.

07:43 Attacking the Wrong People

Many studies on young trans kids show that social transitioning results in less feelings of depression. TERFs saying it’s because gender nonconformity is punished, and by transitioning the TERFs assume that the trans person if now being celebrated because they’re adhering to gender norms. While trans activists say that young trans people having access to early care is going to be wonderful for the future mental health of the trans community because, puberty is bad enough, imagine going through the wrong one. It seems to me that regardless of which of these is true, attacking trans people is not the answer, it’s not productive. If you’re worried that gender nonconformity isn’t being celebrated enough, then by god celebrate it! Amplify the gender nonconformity you have in your own life. Also knowing the trans people I know, they’re a lot more likely to buck the gendered expectations of their gender identity once they feel comfortable in the amount they’ve transitioned, because they’ve already had to put up with that bullshit once.

08:42 Detransitioning/Trans Regret

Some people regret transitioning. It happens. Of course it happens. For a variety of reasons. Do some people wish they’d never transitioned, yes. Are those people a large proportion of the people who transition, not at all. Does that mean we shouldn’t talk about it, no. But does that mean that we should stop everyone from transitioning because some people are sad that they did, of course not.

The stories I hear from people who detransitioned were:

They felt they had to make a decision quickly because they weren’t given breathing space to identify as ‘gender questioning’ for a while- hey you know what places don’t let you identify as gender questioning? Anti-trans spaces that’s where.

Trans and depression. Talk about transition as seeming exciting, depression is not looking to end it, it’s looking for change. If gender becomes more fluid and transition becomes normalised I believe it wont appear as an appealing out for people with depression trying to figure out how to fix themselves.

I must stress these two examples are a tiny percentage of an already tiny population. Statistical outliers, whose needs must be addressed, yes, and whose stories should be told, yes, but do not for a moment pretend that they represent a majority of experiences.

10:46 Feminism

Kids asking about gender. “Are you a boy or a girl?” When you let them know there are other options, you expand their world view. I love the idea of embodying a hormonal and surgical middle ground as a visible representation of possibilities outside of a strict gender dichotomy. Surely this can only be good for the deconstruction of harmful gender ideologies, which must be overall a positive thing for feminism.

11:15 I Love Butches

Visibility is important. But the things is, if someone who I thought previously identified as a butch cis woman comes out as trans, I’m not loosing anything in life, I’m not left here with a gaping hole in my heart. There are plenty of other butch role models for me to look to.

11:34 Afterword

It’s interesting too, I feel, that some older trans folks are worried that the increased availability of puberty blockers to young trans people, and the vast resources that allow children access to gender clinics, means that in future trans people are going to be less visibly trans. That more trans people will pass as cis, and visible trans people will start disappearing. This anxiety that the anti-trans lesbians have about butches disappearing is echoed across the LGBT communities. Gay men are worried they’re loosing men to transition, lesbian women are worried they’re loosing butches to transition, visibly trans people are worried they’re loosing young trans people to cis-passing privilege, bisexuals have never been visible so they aint worried about shit, and also many bi and pan people love people of any gender so they don’t seem too invested in this weird sexual and gender puritan ideology. The general theme is is that LGBT people seem to be worried about queer visibility being on the decline, but more people than ever are coming out as LGBT.

I myself am concerned for the future of lesbians, shunning their trans friends and allies and committing in-group fighting within the LGBT community; that is how the real enemy wins. That is how the conservatives get us. They divide and conquer.

Links: http://www.handsomerevolution.com http://www.butchwonders.com/blog/our-25-most-powerful-butches http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/10/05/record-numbers-of-young-people-are-coming-out/ 

Note: Yes this content doesn’t lend itself too well to a video format, it would probably be better as a written article. But this is my forum and mode of delivery. I’ve had enough of anti-trans lesbians attacking me, or trying to “save” me, which is incredibly condescending and erases the years of research and soul-searching (I actually prefer soul-creation) I have done. So I wanted to put all my thoughts down into a (big) “bite sized” chunk here to direct them to when they start to vomit a world salad at me. 

There are a couple more arguments that I had had hurled at me that weren’t addressed here: 
Equating trans gender people with “transable” people- apparently able bodied people who deliberately become amputees or blind themselves. My transition has not made me reliant long term on ability aids or other people’s help. I am just as physically and mentally capable as before so your argument falls short. It makes no sense.

TERFs arguing that the statistics of the murder rate of trans women is fabricated or exaggerated. Many trans women do get murdered just for being trans women. I personally have never quoted any numbers, fabricated or otherwise. And whether or not that is true, does not invalidate my identity. (I mean, I’d actually be glad if it weren’t true, that would mean less trans people were getting killed and that my life would actually be safer.)

[ask-the-crimson-king]

((This was FAR too big for an ask, put a read more cut where you see fit))

Ok, so the accusing anon mentioned it was the Progress Flag they saw and the way they worded their explanation kinda went in a few directions, which I'll try to sort through:

"Nazi and Nazbol [Nazi-Bolshevik] Groups": Yes, that is a thing that exists, but on a smaller scale online and not nearly as prominent in the living world as other supremacist ideologies. Yes, there are people who actually looked at the darkest days of both German and Soviet History and decided "This could work well together", but they are dunked-on HARD by both pro-fascists and pro-communists by their very nature. Do not ask me how neo-Nazis and Tankies got together in such an unholy union or what they stand for because none of it makes sense to my Bachelor's education degree with social science emphasis OR my regrettable experience from both groups in my soon-to-be 29 years of life

"Eth Nat [Ethnic Nationalist] desires": Yes, those unfortunately exist around the world. Racism and ethnic cleansing isn't a solely White practice, but it's definitely been done by Whites throughout US history and its affects (and believers) still exist to this very day. Only non-White supremacist American group I can recall is the very loose online Hotep community (remember the "We were kings" memes?) that's legitimately Black supremacist and also incredibly anti-Semitic, homophobic and misogynistic---so taking a rainbow flag wouldn't be their work || [Don't forget the ethno-nationalist cleansing of Armenians that is still happening right now, and the settler-colonialism happening with the Palestinians.]

"Representing clear racial politics": Well, I guess if you loosely define Black Lives Matter and its main message of "stop profiling us as criminals and even if we are criminals, treat us humanely as you do White criminals", then it would count as "racial/identity politics". So would the "Stop Asian Hate" movement in response to COVID fearmongering, but if we're really defining any political movement (for good or for ill) as "racial" if it affects a given race, then practically everything is racial politics---by nature of people of different races experiencing things, even within the same country or social class

___ [I think they were trying to say Nazi and Nazi-adjacent groups were seeing the flag as depicting "clear racial politics". I have seen fascists use this talking point, but against non-white minorities. Never for them.] ___

"Protected by a strong border": That definitely is a policy point put forward by ethnic nationalists, pro-fascists, etc. and groups have tried to parrot or "steal" progressive groups' rhetoric to then apply to border security (remember that map of America made into a cartoon woman, gripping her skirt as a hand from the South reaches up, all with the caption "My borders, my choice"?). As for how black and brown are "stronger" colors than pink and white, that's entirely a cultural bias in associating light or warm colors with femininity or "weakness"---which is why Hitler rotated the original Hindu swastika 45 degrees to resemble an X rather than a cross and painted it black rather than the usual pink or light purple, as well as why the upside-down pink triangle was used to mark LGBT+ citizens

"The fact that four in rotation makes a swastika": I mean, if you were to completely disfigure any 4 stripes in such a way, it could resemble an X or a cross, but the swastika itself has 4 more "legs" that stick out from the base. But with how much the human mind needs to warp any given lines into a new symbol, you may as well just slap the graven image itself on the thing and be forthright with it

[And they do! Homofascists/4Chan or generally right-wing trolls in the past have, indeed, simply slapped it on the standard 6-color pride flag.

More info on fascism/it's supporters/how it gains traction under the cut.]

As for whether so-called progressive people do parrot fascist rhetoric and support fascist policy? That is also unfortunately true. Don't ask me how I know this or how this even could happen, but there were a few Trans Fascists I came across and I found two of their flags: one being just the swastika slapped onto the Trans Pride flag, the other being the Lesbian Labrys in the place of the axe in the fasces symbol (that ancient Roman symbol of a magistrate's power over life and death, the origin of the term "fascist/fascism") on the Trans Pride Flag

___ [People who try to be progressive but fall into the pit-falls of Nazi or fascist ideology are why we have NazBols. It's why we see groups trying to "take the land back" and basically create woke ethno-states for marginalized people. I am not saying this referring to indigenous peoples who are fighting to keep their land (which I do indeed support), I have also heard weird Tankie-esque stuff about Black people feeling so much safer away from whites, and other people of color who may feel the same. Thus creating a separatist divide and creating "woke" ethno-states -- "It's for the good of the minorities so they can feel safer!" Or we could talk about and tackle the systemic problems leading to people feeling this way? How about that instead? "But it'll never work!" It won't if you never try.

Don't fall for Black separatism, kids. You are not only feeding into the interests of white supremacists, but you're also becoming a reactionary in the process. Just because you are white, it does not mean you are an inherent threat to your nonwhite comrades. Diversity is strength. Remember that.] ___

My own hot take? We should remember that at the very core of Nazi ideology---no matter how many self-proclaimed LGBT+ individuals also proclaim to be Nazis, no matter how many non-Whites or women march beside them, no matter how many Nazis claim otherwise---is Nazism is straight White male supremacy and those undoubtedly deluded into being their "allies" are simply a means to gaining government office democratically

But once that purpose is served, they too will be slaughtered. Anyone PoC, LGBT, non-Christian or otherwise not fitting the mold of "the Supreme Master RaceTM" who is utterly duped into supporting their agenda (and cause them to succeed) would merely buy themselves a stay of execution at the cost of their neighbors' lives---before their blood also becomes the oil on the gears and their bodies also become the coal in the furnaces of the fascist war-machine

Populism, the Nazis' preferred tactic and a pillar of fascist ideology, is dependent upon democratic majority. It would be incredibly stupid (though these ARE Nazis and fascists we're talking about, so the bar is well beneath the floor as it is) to instantly demonize everyone who doesn't fit their tight mold the moment they set foot on the streets. They will deny being homophobic. They will deny being racist. They will pay lip-service to feminists. They will force a smile on their faces and hold back their gag reflex in the company of "lesser beings" just long enough to get some votes

Hitler did not seize power overnight. Hitler did not seize power, period. Hitler was elected by the desperate, the foolish and the ambitious in equal measures. The Nazi Party did not run door-to-door to viciously murder every Jew the second Hitler was inaugurated. Every Jew was not immediately sent to the death camps. The Jews were not Hitler's only victims. The Jews were not even Hitler's first victims, though the Jewish casualty count is the still highest that we can confirm

In order to both remove the "undesirables" from Germany and to control the German populace, Hitler and the Nazis went down a very long list. Every potential political opponent, every ethnicity, every possible demographic and label besides "Aryan Nazi supporter" was scheduled to be systematically demonized, discriminated, disappeared and destroyed when it was most convenient for the Nazi Party to do so

When it was ultimately the Jewish people's turn, the removal of their humanity was a long and gradual process of public indoctrination and supported legislation that lasted several years. Once the Jews were stripped of rights and thought of as nothing more than vermin by the German masses, the Nazis simply played their willing role as exterminators. Whether the Germans thought it would go so far or would go so bloodily is an afterthought that came far too late

Remember well the words of regretful Hitler supporter and Holocaust survivor, Martin Niemoller:

"First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me."

To all those who those who look upon their far-right reactionary movement and think "They will always stand by me and the power I give them will never be used against me": You could not be any more wrong, yet you already believe their lies

----

[Good and informative post for those not already familiar with any of these terms, which is why I put the cut where I did. I also added a bit of my own commentary here and there to try and provide examples along with an explanation of the terms I was using.]

#fascism cw #nazi cw #genocide cw #genocide mention #good shit #submission

[bountyofbeads]

A 12-year-old black girl walking home from school. Gay pals leaving a bar.

A Trump family friend watching TV.

A Muslim veteran driving to work.

In 2018, they all became victims of a record-setting year of hatred in D.C.

By Michael E. Miller  | Published August 21, 2019 | Washington Post | Posted August 21, 2019 1:58 PM ET |

The girl had tutoring after class that day, so she was alone as she left Alice Deal Middle School and began walking the mile to her apartment.

“Mommy,” the 12-year-old said on her cellphone. “I’m on my way home.”

But as the black seventh-grader turned down a quiet street in Northwest Washington, she said, she noticed a white man watching her. When he began walking her way, the girl crossed to the other side of the road. She had just ducked under the low bough of a magnolia tree when she heard something behind her.

As she turned, the man lunged at her, she recalled.

The girl fell on her back in a stranger’s front yard, screaming as the man pinned her down.

“Shut the f--- up, n-----,” he said, according to a police report.

The girl said she was able to hit him in the face and kick him in the groin. As he rolled off her, she sprinted home, sobbing.

“I thought I wasn’t going to see my mom ever again,” said the girl, whom The Washington Post agreed not to name because she is a child and a crime victim.

The Nov. 28 incident was one of a record 204 suspected hate crimes in the capital last year. The true number is probably higher because, experts say, many hate crimes are not reported to police. Even so, the District has the highest rate per capita of any major city in the United States, according to Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino.

As reports of hate crimes have surged across the country, much of the attention has been focused onwhite-supremacy-inspired mass shootings in Pittsburgh and El Paso and an attack by an avowed neo-Nazi in Charlottesville.

In Washington, the arrest of a self-professed white nationalist allegedly plotting with his brother to spark a race war made national headlines. Meanwhile, the reported attack on the seventh-grader — just two weeks later and a few miles away — received no media coverage. That was true of the vast majority of suspected hate crimes in the District in 2018.

The Washington Post examined all 204 incidents investigated by police as hate crimes, interviewing two dozen victims and several suspects. What emerged was a portrait of pervasive bigotry and violence: gay men and women assaulted on the street, transgender people threatened by strangers, African Americans taunted with slurs, Muslims harassed for wearing headscarves, synagogues subjected to anti-Semitic calls.

Roughly half were violent crimes ranging from robbery to sexual abuse to assault, which was the most common offense.

Yet most suspected hate crimes go unpunished in the District. Despite a strong push by police to identify and investigate bias-motivated incidents, there were no arrests in roughly two-thirds of the cases, The Post found. Of the adult suspects identified, just 55 faced charges of any kind. None has been convicted of a hate crime.

D.C. police say the seemingly random nature of some hate crimes can make arrests difficult, and racist or anti-Semitic graffiti can be tough to trace to a culprit. “We have a robust and comprehensive process,” said Lt. Brett Parson, commander of the Special Liaison Branch, which investigates suspected hate crimes.

Jessie K. Liu, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement Tuesday that her office takes hate crimes “very seriously” and recently added a second coordinator to prosecute them. “We continue to work closely with the Metropolitan Police Department to investigate these cases, and with victims to pursue justice in them,” she said.

The city’s year of hatred began in January with a ride-share that descended into racist violence. It ended 12 months later in an alley, where a bisexual man was assaulted with a frying pan. In between, simmering biases boiled over on a near-daily basis. Road rage accelerated into racism. Roommates threatened to kill one another over politics. An elevator ride ended with one neighbor’s hands around another’s neck.

“It’s always the same with you Spanish, Latin American people,” one female Lyft passenger allegedly told another on Jan. 17, 2018, before punching her in the face. “You come to this country and steal from us.”

Nearly half of the victims belonged to the District’s large LGBTQ community. There was also a surge of partisan hatred in the most political of cities as supporters of President Trump were attacked and his critics received death threats.

Many people who track hate crimes see a connection between Trump’s ugly political rhetoric aimed at immigrants and people of color and what has been unleashed in communities across the country.

“Look at the environment that our nation’s leaders have created,” said Bobbi Strang, president of the District’s Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance. “Everywhere people are feeling empowered to say and act according to their worst impulses.”

Or as Levin put it: “We are seeing a democratization of hate.”

Michael Creason and Zach Link were drinking at the Dirty Goose — a gay bar on U Street just two miles from the White House — when Link decided it was time to order his friend a ride home.

It was about 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, April 15, 2018. As the two walked hand-in-hand on the busy sidewalk toward an Uber, a group of men bumped into Creason. When Link followed them and demanded to know why they had jostled his friend, the group attacked.

“You f------ fags,” one of the men said, before punching Link in the face.

As a bystander filmed on her cellphone, two men punched and kicked Link as he lay on the ground. When Creason tried to help him, a third man blindsided him with a blow to the back of the head.

“What’s going on?” said the woman filming, as Link spat out his teeth and Creason lay unconscious in the street.

The video of the attack went viral. For the LGBTQ community, it was a reminder that this city of 700,000 people, often viewed as one of America’s most gay-friendly, is also home to more reports of homophobic hate crimes than almost anywhere in the country.

The 61 anti-gay and 33 anti-transgender incidents investigated by D.C. police last year easily eclipse those in the 18 other big cities Levin has studied, including New York, with 8.5 million people, and Los Angeles, with 4 million.

How the targets of hatred vary from city to city

The victims of suspected hate crimes often reflect the makeup of their city, as D.C., with a large LGBT community, and New York, with a large Jewish population, demonstrate.

Washington D.C.

Sexual orientation 61

Race 39

Ethnicity 36

Gender identity 33

Religion 25

New York

Jewish 189

Black 45

Sexual orientation 45

Muslim 18

White 17

San Francisco

Race or ethnicity 38

Sexual orientation 16

Religion 9

Gender nonconformity 2

Multiple bias motivations 1

Seattle

Gay or lesbian 34

Black 24

White 12

Jewish 6

Asian 6

Note: Hate crimes based on each city’s classification. The Post categorized some incidents differently than D.C. Police.

Source: Washington figures based on a Post analysis of D.C. police data. Other cities based on data from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism; California State University, San Bernardino

One reason may be the sheer size of the District’s LGBTQ community — about 10 percent of the city’s residents. Police also attribute the record number of attacks to better reporting and closer relations between law enforcement and gay and transgender residents.

Activists agree but also say the climate is worse now than it was a few years ago.

“We see the evidence in hate-crime statistics,” said Strang, the gay and lesbian alliance president, “and we see the evidence in viral YouTube videos.”

In 2018, a gay man was threatened in the locker room of his gym. A woman came home to find her gay pride flag smeared with feces. A lesbian was called a “dyke” and body slammed by her own brother who said “if she wanted to act like a man, he would treat her like a man,” according to a police report.

Rudolph Williams was dancing at a nightclub on Feb. 3, 2018, when another clubgoer asked him to move. Williams, who is openly gay, responded that he was “just listening to the music.”

Suddenly, he said, he was struck in the head with a champagne bottle.

“I felt the warmth of the blood run down my face,” he recalled, and the man who wanted him to move laughed. “He said, ‘You faggy motherf-----.’ That’s when I knew it was deliberate,” Williams said.

Transgender men and women also were frequent targets of abuse, especially those who were homeless.

In September, Kristen Laird was settling in for another night near Dupont Circle when she was approached by a man who asked whether she was a man or a woman. When Laird said she was transsexual, Mickey Crawford — who was also homeless and has a long criminal record, including a sexual assault conviction — demanded sex. When she refused, Crawford said he would come back later and rape her.

“I get harassed on a fairly consistent basis,” Laird told The Post. “But this last one scared me.”

A week earlier, she and her partner had been hit by a teenager wielding a bicycle helmet. Neither incident was prosecuted as a hate crime. Crawford, who pleaded guilty and said he had a drinking problem, was sentenced to 180 days’ time served.

Another transgender woman at a homeless shelter downtown found a piece of paper in her locker that read: “BITCH THIS WOMEN’S SHELTER LEAVE BEFORE WE KILL YOU, FAGGOT.”

Transgender people were pistol-whipped and spit upon, attacked while taking out the trash and visiting the library. In December, the National Center for Transgender Equality received three threats in less than 24 hours, including one promising to “rid the earth of scum and garbage like you.”

Each incident reverberated through a tightknit community still reeling from the death of Deeniquia “Dee Dee” Dodds, a transgender woman who was killed during a 2016 armed robbery.

After the attack on U Street, Creason woke up in a hospital bed with no memory of the incident. Then someone sent him the video.

“It’s not a fun experience to see yourself dropped like a rag doll in the middle of the street,” Creason told The Post. He sent the video to the police, who released images of the suspects, along with a plea for relevant information.

None came. The attack is one of 128 suspected hate crimes that remain unsolved.

On a Saturday evening in October, a man with an assault rifle walked into a Pittsburgh synagogue and opened fire, shouting "All Jews must die." By the time he was arrested, 11 people were dead.

Two days later, before the victims of America’s deadliest anti-Semitic attack had been buried, the phone rang at the Washington Hebrew Congregation.

“I’m so glad that 11 people died at the other temple,” the caller told a receptionist. “I wanted you to know.”

Anti-Semitic hate crimes are on the rise across the country. In Washington, the call on Oct. 29, 2018, was one of 17 suspected anti-Semitic hate crimes last year, according to The Post’s analysis of police reports.

Most of those involved swastikas scrawled in visible locations: a store window in Georgetown, a mailbox downtown, the girls’ bathroom at an elite private high school. One man walked out of his house on a wintry morning in Chevy Chase to find the Nazi symbol freshly drawn in the frost.

Police also investigated reports of seven anti-Muslim incidents — up from two in 2017 — and one anti-Hindu incident, The Post found.

In October, a man came to the headquarters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and started yelling, “I hate Muslims,” according to a police report. When asked to leave, he made a throat-cutting gesture at a receptionist.

A deaf student at Gallaudet University reported being stalked for months online by a man who mocked her for being Muslim and told her “Trump is going to kill you.”

“I blocked him again and again, but he kept coming back every time, making new Instagram accounts,” the student told The Post via a sign-language interpreter. “He was constantly messaging me, every day, 10 to 15 times.”

The Post generally does not identify the victims of crimes without their permission. The student, who did not want to be named, said she had grown up in New York City, where she had been threatened with a gun after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But nothing had shaken her like her Instagram stalker.

“Anytime I go outside, I feel like I’m constantly looking behind my back,” she said. “Being Muslim and deaf, I feel like I can’t trust anyone.”

Sarah Amer, a Palestinian American, was driving to work in downtown Washington in June 2018 when she spotted a woman panhandling on the side of road. As Amer rolled down her window to give her money, the woman noticed Amer’s hijab.

“You f------ terrorist,” the woman screamed, according to Amer. “Go back to your country.”

Then the woman began hitting Amer’s car with a shoe.

Amer drove away and reported what happened to the police. But that incident and others she has endured cut deep for the Air Force and Peace Corps veteran. She recently stopped wearing her hijab, a decision that led some family members and friends to question her faith.

“After years of abuse — mental, emotional and physical — now I’m in the clear,” she said. “If this brings judgment, it’s between me and God.”

There was no such option for the synagogues that started receiving threats in March 2018. The first target was Tifereth Israel Congregation . Then a male caller threatened to sexually assault a female employee at the National Synagogue across the street.

In October, after the deadly attack on the synagogue in Pittsburgh, the Washington Hebrew Congregation received a flurry of voice mails that said: “Go [to] hell Jew,” “Hitler’s trash” and “F--- your Torah,” according to court records.

The calls finally stopped in November with the arrest of a mentally troubled man named Yohanes Lemma.

Lemma is no white supremacist. This spring, the Ethio­pian immigrant welcomed a reporter into his small apartment in Takoma Park, Md., full of plastic flowers and photos of his wife. As his 4-year-old son watched videos on a cellphone and ate ice cream, Lemma described moving to the United States in 2006 after winning the green-card lottery.

A devout Christian and now a U.S. citizen, Lemma said he never had a problem with Jews in Ethi­o­pia. But a few years ago, he said, he began to feel a strange sensation in the back of his head.

“I feel the Jewish people attack me and my son,” he said.

Lemma admitted to leaving the threatening messages, including the call he made two days after the Pittsburgh massacre.

“I made a mistake,” he said. “I didn’t know this was a crime because I am a foreigner.”

A few weeks after speaking to The Post, Lemma pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor stalking — not a hate crime — and on May 3 received a suspended sentence of 365 days and five years’ probation, which includes mental health screening.

But Lemma also told The Post that he still thought his family was somehow under attack from Jews, adding that next time, instead of threatening synagogues, “maybe I will go to the police station.”

The man was watching his friend Tucker Carlson on TV, texting the conservative talk show host during commercial breaks, when he heard a bang.

As Carlson railed against a migrant caravan, the man walked to the front of his townhouse, where he could hear someone shouting. When he looked outside, he said, he saw about half a dozen people pelting his home with rocks.

As he dialed 911, the glass door suddenly shattered.

The rock had “F--- TRUMP” written on it.

“This has been nonstop,” said the man, a GOP donor and Trump family friend who The Post agreed not to name because he was the victim of a crime.

“I am probably going to have to move out of D.C.,” he said. “I’m not safe.”

The incident in mid-November was one of 10 politically fueled hate-crime reports last year, according to D.C. police. Washington is one of the few cities in the country that counts political affiliation as a basis for hate crimes.

Victims include the famous and the ordinary, conservatives and liberals.

In March 2018, a preschool teacher was waiting in line at a taco restaurant near Dupont Circle when she interrupted two women as they criticized the president.

“I support Donald Trump,” said the teacher, who said she still fears for her safety and asked not to be named. As an argument erupted, the teacher began filming on her phone. Seconds later, the two women attacked her, breaking her finger and bursting a blood vessel in her eye, she said. Her video of the assault went viral as conservative websites cited it as an example of liberal intolerance.

A year later, the teacher told The Post she is still paying off her hospital bills and seeing a therapist.

A Latina, she said she voted for Barack Obama and then Hillary Clinton in 2016, before taking a shine to Trump after the election. But she said the attack — committed by two black women who were not apprehended — had left her wary of African Americans.

“I’m dealing with a lot of trauma and anger,” she said. “If I see a group of people who are black, it’s like I can’t say anything anymore because it’s like they are going to attack me.”

“I don’t want to think that way,” she said.

Most of the reported incidents came within a month or so of the midterm election. Only one has led to an arrest, police records show.

On Oct. 26, a letter arrived at the D.C. office of Gara LaMarche, president of the progressive Democracy Alliance.

“I know who you are, what you look like, where you work, where you live, and what you drive,” the letter said, according to a police report. “I’m an ex-Army Ranger who has access to classified information about everyone in this country. . . . So, I think I’ll pay you a visit soon. What do you think will happen then? Trust me — it will be the worst day in your life!”

“This was the same week pipe bombs were being sent to people” around the country, LaMarche told The Post. “The atmosphere was kind of unnerving.”

Tucker Carlson himself was the target of another politically motivated incident, police said.

Protesters calling themselves “Smash Racism D.C.” gathered outside his house the night after the midterm election to denounce his harsh anti-immigration rhetoric. Carlson wasn’t home, but his wife was. As she locked herself in the pantry and called 911, a protester with a bullhorn blasted him for “promoting hate.”

“We want you to know, we know where you sleep at night,” the person said.

Carlson’s friend, the GOP donor, said police didn’t take it seriously when his back door was smashed a week later. They ignored surveillance footage and dismissed the idea of dusting the rock for fingerprints, he said. After he offered to turn the rock over to federal law enforcement agents, the police changed their minds, he said. Police later told him the rock was too porous to test.

D.C. police said they investigated the case thoroughly, including the rock and surveillance video, but could not identify the culprits.

After the incident, the donor said, more glass was broken, patio furniture was tipped over, sandwiches were thrown at his windows, and sushi was left to rot on his grill. He didn’t call police again.

“It’s not like they said, ‘Stop bothering us,’ ” he said. “But I got the sense that they thought they had bigger things to deal with.”

Not long ago, he moved.

It wasn't until later after the police interviews — that the black middle-schooler had time to think about the slur she said her white attacker had shouted as he pinned her to the ground. She had heard the word before growing up in the District. But never like that, she said, never so full of hate and menace.

At least a dozen times last year, African Americans were called the n-word during suspected hate crimes in the District.

One man heard it as he was spit upon; another as he was attacked with a bicycle lock; a third as he was driving, when a man in a pickup truck next to him shouted it while brandishing a handgun, according to police reports.

In April 2018, a woman visiting the once-segregated Banneker swimming pool — built for blacks in 1934 — returned to her car to find her tires and seats slashed and “N-----” scrawled on the hood.

There were 75 suspected hate crimes in 2018 motivated by race or ethnicity, up from 65 in 2017, The Post found: 26 against African Americans, 24 against Hispanics, 15 against whites, six against Asians, three against people perceived to be of Arab descent and one against all nonwhites. (The Post sometimes classified the type of suspected hate crime differently than D.C. police, and counted the incidents by the year in which they occurred.)

The reports reflected an increasingly diverse city where many neighborhoods are changing, but where many prejudices persist.

An Indian woman was spat upon in a Chinese restaurant in Adams Morgan by the director of a Polish American cultural organization, according to one police report. Two Asian women were allegedly attacked on separate occasions while shopping. A woman became angry at employees at a Popeyes chicken restaurant for speaking Spanish and began throwing things at them.

Occasionally, the suspects’ language echoed that of President Trump.

A Latina told police that a stranger grabbed her buttocks near the Mall, then told her to “get out of the U.S.” and “go back to her country.” Two Hispanic men were approached on U Street late one night by two strangers who called them “MS-13,” a reference to the gang, before punching and kicking them, according to a police report.

The day after the midterm election, a Hispanic woman was crossing the street when the driver of a car told her to “Go back to Mexico,” according to another report. The woman then told the motorist, who was black, to “Go back to Africa,” prompting him to get out of his car and punch her in the mouth.

For the seventh-grader, the racist attack during her walk home from school in November deeply shook the girl , who had only recently moved to the neighborhood.

“The first three nights, she woke me up, screaming,” her mother said. “She dreamed that the man was following her again, or that he was in our house.”

The girl said she initially distanced herself from white friends. She told only one classmate about the incident.

“I don’t want people to think I’m looking for attention,” she said.

A week after she and her mother reported the attack, police suspended their investigation.

“There was no video recovered that would have assisted this case,” police said in a statement. “Cases are suspended when the detective [has] exhausted all leads.”

The girl, now 13, said what happened has shaken her faith in adults, white people and the police.

“I feel like the detective thought I was lying,” she said. “I’m not going to lie about something that traumatic.”

Peter Hermann and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

#hate groups #hate speech #hate crimes #trumpism #trump administration #trump scandals #president donald trump #donald trump jr #melania trump #trumpsucks #against trump #be best #benjamin netanyahu #israel #u.s. news #u.s. department of justice #u.s. government #fbi