#TIMs better at womanhood than actual women

[effluvlia]

#gencrit #they can’t help themselves #TIMs better at womanhood than actual women

[lavenderfeminist]

on the agp topic: I've been friends with a TIM for years, they're a childhood friend who i met long before i peaked and one of the few trans individuals from my old circle who i can still stand and actually speak with. they've mostly had feelings for women throughout their life and currently identify as a 'lesbian', but they've never obsessed over their relationships being 'lesbian relationships' or made it a big part of their identity. they just prefer to date women, and they're aware that they're more likely to be rejected because of transitioning but don't blame women for it or feel entitled to relationships. I was under the impression that the only 2 kinds of TIMs are HSTS and heterosexual AGPs, but I've been confused over my friend cause they don't seem to fit into either. do you think bi/het TIMs necessarily have to be AGPs, is it possible for a het TIM to not be an AGP? or coud they just be better at hiding or suppressing that type of behaviour?

I definitely think there's room for causes of male dysphoria that fall outside of (or even in between) ~the binary~ of HSTS and AGP, but I can't say I've put a lot of thought into forming my own hypothesis, or that I've seen any that really seemed to reflect a unique group of dysphoric male individuals. There's undoubtedly men who enjoy performing femininity without being aroused by it (even if it's rare) and develop dysphoria related to it, or some who have true sex-based dysphoria as a result of, say, abuse. That said, I don't think it's possible to know for sure that your friend isn't an AGP; I maintain it would extremely difficult for you to know exactly what's going on behind the scenes.

Ultimately, I find that the explanation doesn't matter more to me than the impact. Whether HSTS, AGP, or something else, males like your friend are still claiming a life experience that doesn't belong to them. I don't have an issue with feminized men or masculinized women; that wouldn't make me much better than the conservatives who exacerbated this issue in the first place. It would also be fundamentally disrespectful to detransitioners, who deserve to let their bodies be as they are without shame. Putting aside the negative health effects of hormone therapy (which is extremely unwise, but you'll see what I'm trying to say), if a man wants to take hormones, so be it! If a man wants to perform femininity, so be it! If he wants to do all the things TIMs today like to do (minus the misogyny of mimicking our voices and supposed mannerisms), so be it! He crosses the line when he claims it makes him a woman. He crosses the line when he claims it makes him a lesbian. I think it's fair to say we're more inclined to show sympathy to HSTS, because we understand there's a lot of guilt and shame leading to it that is the result of living in a homophobic society. I can understand hoping your friend falls more into this category so you feel you can be more sympathetic. Whether your friend makes a big deal out of it or not, though, it is fundamentally misogynistic and lesbophobic for him to claim womanhood or lesbianism is something he can identify into. If he's using women's bathrooms, entering lesbian groups, validating other TIMs who do, or speaking about misogyny as if it's his own, I don't need to know if he's a HSTS, an AGP, or something else, because I know he's male, and I know he's far from innocent.

#asks #to review

[jewishfem]

do you know any ways that alleviate dysphoria without transitioning? i kinda just woke up from my trans nightmare. i'm female if ur wondering. if you don't know, could you redirect me to a blog that does?

Hey anon, so, i had written down my own advice, and also asked my friends, many of whom are detrans and have suffered from dysphoria.

But first I want to say that I'm glad you woke up. It's hard to leave and change a mindset that felt right with our feelings even if not with our common sense.

Forst are my friends' advices. I'm copying it as they are, without paraphrasing (only certain replacement, [like this]. My own advice is below my friends', as i believe theirs to be more experienced.

Without further ado, here are all the advices:

——

— Hello!

It's been a LONG time since I've experienced dysphoria(I detransitioned).

It feels like your mind doesn't belong in the current body you're in and that you want to just rip [your] skin off. (Mental health issue)

For me, I wished I could just close my eyes and never wake up. Or be "reborn" a male instead of female and just some...other thoughts along the lines.

How did I "get over it"?

I...guess I surrounded myself with more positive influences. I grew up in an abusive household that held sexist views. When I left, I could think clearly for myself.

I suppose my suggestion for her would be to try and find some positive influences(ex. Could be as simple as hangout out with loved ones, finding role models,etc) in her life and think critically(ex. "Why would you feel better if you transitioned to male?")

I realized I wanted to transition to escape my life...and also because I had internalise misogyny to where I did not think I was "allowed" to do certain things because I was born a female...

— Something to have her consider is that what she likes, and who she is doesn’t change what she is. She is female. A woman. A girl. Zero percent of her outside world or her mind can impact this. I hear a lot of young women trans [recte transition] because they feel like they enjoy masculine things. Well, if a woman does it it’s a women’s thing. Gender tells us women should only pursue and enjoy certain things and not others. This is just simply, False with a capital F.

Another help is recognizing that the way porn and indeed most media presents women to the world is also False. That is not what and how sex is. You don’t have to like it or accept it to be a woman. It is at odds with womanhood.

To reconnect and learn to love your body and accept it, a trick I learned a long time back is to focus on what your body does for you. Rather than how it looks while it does it.

Look at your bones and muscles working together so you can walk and stand and pick things up. Dance. Run. Your throat and lungs do this cool thing where you can speak. Sing. Your heart, keeps your body supplied with nutrients from your digestive system. Digestive system all on its own without any prompting, turns food into fuel for this amazing robot suit that is your body. Brain can interpret every single impulse from every nerve in your body. In real time. It allows you to connect with the outside world and experience it. But you also get to control it. Meditation, therapy exercises, physical exercise, these things have an impact on your brain. And you choose to do them.

Your body and your experience in it is really remarkable.

Thighs aren’t fat. They’re strong for carrying you around. Arms aren’t skinny. They are perfect for hugging loved ones. Eyes aren’t too small, they allow you to see the world around you. Focusing on what the body does takes that focus away from what it doesn’t look like. Breasts? Nourish new life in a way nothing else can. Don’t want children. That’s ok. Just recognize what your breasts can do. They don’t have to do it. Uterus and ovaries? Literally creates a human life from two single cells. You have the power of creation in side you. Whether you use it or not. Period? This amazing way your body protects itself from non viable pregnancies and keeps your body safe. Periods are the ultimate cleanse. And your body does it for you. All on its own.

These are the thoughts that help me deal with having a female body and accepting it.

— The thing that helped me most was radical body acceptance. Just 'this is me and I accept that I am the way I am'. Idk how effective it would be for that individual but it was foundational for me overcoming my dysphoria

====

My advice:

~ it's sometimes impossible to look at the mirror. The body feels bad and ugly and overall just wrong. But it's ours. It's ours to keep, and not to destroy. Expose yourself to yourself gradually. Especially the parts that make you at most unease. Treat it like a phobia, or some forms of allergies. Gradual exposure can help. First, love the parts you can't see — your heart, your lungs, dammit, tell your tendons you love them (!) because they're part of you.

Slowly reach parts you feel most dysphoric about. You'll already know how to love your other parts. Your hands that let you touch loved ones, hold them, rub a cute cat or dog. Your mouth and your stomach that tear apart these nutrients into the most basic units. Your skin that protects you and that lets you feel sunlight and raindrops. And then, when you know how to love these more or less basic parts of you, reach the complex ones. You don't need reasons at some point, but you have the love to give and it's enough. You don't need any reason besides it's yours.

~ i suffered (and still sometimes relapse) from body dysmorphia, and well, music and self reminders helped me a lot. I drew on my skin with pens and sharpies, soccer teams logos, random lyrics. My reminder to myself, before i started giving myself good reminders was "don't fear death"" but to not fear death,,, i needed no more reminders of that. then I realized, i can remind myself more important things, of better things. Birthdays, my favorite teams' wins, my most hated teams' worst losses. Then it went to 1238 "grammar teacher said something grammatically wrong", "x mathematical axiom", drew emojis and flowers. I did so to remind me to smile, to breath clean air (as clean as possible at least). At this time of self isolation, you can leave the notes at your house. Sticky note with "the only parabola that matters is the smile" or some other body positive puns. Dysphoria is a different hatred of your body, but all self hatred can be fought with self love.

~ a feeling I still feel a lot is hat i don't deserve to live, i only take too much space. It's what brought me so quickly into dysmorphia. Try to find what brought you to dysphoria pull out the source, or face it so you know how it looks like when it sneaks up to you. Recognition and acknowledgment means you can deal with it better as it won't shock you. You'd be able to throw it out before it attacks you.

~ surround yourself with positive influences, and also avoid negative influences. If your close friend group is sexist and/misogynistic, then distance yourself from them. A lot of the self hatred comes from what we've been taught for years about ourselves. Female role models, positivity, cute little notes, etc, and surround yourself with actual body positivity.

~ creativity: Maybe start a cute bullet journal or something similar. Create things and surround yourself with your own creations. Bullet journals are a fun way to keep you busy while also help you be more productive in school and/or life. You can fill it with quotes and pretty pictures and fun doodles.

~ you and your body are not different entities. It's part of you, part of your life since birth, especially because you're female. It feels a bit degrading at first, but in reality, we are our bodies. When were stressed, our body reacts physiologically. When we see someone we love, our heart beats faster.

I remember reading something another woman wrote, saying her dysphoria is at its worst during her period, she got panic attacks every time she started getting it. We're told that our period is what makes us gross but also what makes us women/feminine, but it only makes us women, not feminine, and it's part of our physiology, it made us have lower social standing but only because men decided so. Some women don't get periods, but all those who get periods are women (and I'm not talking about TiM "periods" but real ones). It's one of the parts that can be the hardest to embrace, but it's also a reminder that we, women, are actually the most ideal creation of mother nature regarding humans. Long lasting, unrelenting, strong and (usually) the actual creating power. We're the power of creation as a means for creation, and men? Most of them only create as a means for destruction.

~ healthy lifestyle: a lot of things start looking better when we start a healthier lifestyle, especially life. Add a salad to one of the meals

~ lastly but most helpful for me was writing all my negative feelings down and then just tearing the paper apart, and afterwards throw it to different trashcans, like you'd do with an old credit card. It helped me during some of my most depressive episodes.

#detransition #mine: reply #mine: replies #anon #gender critical #i guess

[taramaclaywasaterf]

Opinion on the nikkie tutorials situation 👀

Oof ok so I didn’t know who this dude was before everything went down, and I didn’t care enough to look heavily into it at first. I didn’t really realize just how massive of an audience he had, or how many people would be talking about it. But then I got this ask and curiosity got the better of me lol

First off, I didn’t watch his “coming out” video or whatever, because I really don’t feel like listening to some dude mansplain womanhood to me for however long. I have read a bunch about it ever since this anon peaked my interest though.

It’s also really important to reiterate that I didn’t know who he was before all of this, so it’s physically impossible for me to look at him and objectively say whether he passed before or not (not that it matters, a dude is still a dude, regardless of what he looks like.) I’ve only known him these past, like, 48-ish hours as a man, so of course that’s all I can see/hear, and it genuinely wouldn’t be fair to sit here and say I could clock him had I not known. He’s clearly got A LOT of surgery and transitioned younger than most TIMs, so he’s got all that in his favor, plus he seems to have a naturally softer face for a male. His weight also definitely helps smooth out and somewhat camouflage some of the harsher male features.

That said...yeah. Knowing he’s a man right off the bat, it’s all I see. Like, that’s a whole ass Augustus Gloop lookin dude.

I will also say that I think it’s absolutely disgusting that he was blackmailed into coming out. Like...I don’t care who you are, where you stand politically, radfem, libfem, whatever...that shit is never ok. It’s genuinely upsetting and very scary, and my heart does go out to him. If he was a straight TIM in drag, I’d feel much differently, but seeing as he’s a gay man whose just been outed to the world...all I can do is hope he has a good support system around him. But that’s where my sympathy for him begins and ends.

All that said, I know what you’re really here for, so I’m not gonna keep yall waiting any longer....holy FUCKING shit am I sick of these dudes thinking that playing with goddamn Barbie dolls as a kid makes them women. I played in the fucking mud and ate bugs as a kid. That doesn’t make me a dude anymore than liking dresses and makeup makes him a woman. These men are so blatantly, unabashedly misogynistic that it makes me sick. Not to mention, transing children because they’re GNC is flat out conversion therapy. Its castrating young children because they show signs of being gay because they’re GNC, all before they even know what homosexuality is. It’s pure fucking evil.

And the fact that he’s been lying to his boyfriend this whole time? Jesus fucking christ. I just...I’m livid. The lesbian and gay community has been fighting for decades to prove we aren’t these evil sexual deviants who prey on poor wittle innocent straights and get off on “infecting” heterosexuals with our gayness. And then these pathetic fucking perverted freaks come along just as we finally start to get some tiny fragment of acceptance, and they fucking destroy it for us.

This man is being fucking celebrated as “brave” and “stunning” for outright admitting to being a fucking rapist. He raped his boyfriend, and is getting praised for it, with no regard for the fact that he’s now putting his boyfriend and gay men in ACTUAL danger- and not the made up, imaginary kind of danger that trans”women” love to tell stories about.

I’m also very curious to see how many women peak because of this whole thing. I scrolled through his twitter to see reactions, and it was flooded with clearly well-meaning normie women asking genuine, good-intentioned questions...only to be attacked and dog-piled by a bunch of vile TIMs and pathetic handmaidens for not using the ~*correct*~ language. Like, I’m talking about cruel, personal, misogynistic attacks from these men, all because these women dared to ask a “wrong” question.

Anyway, yeah. That’s my opinion on the whole thing...sorry for it being so long, anon, but I kinda have a tendency to ramble lol. I hope it was at least somewhat coherent, but I’m currently sick with some type of cold and really don’t feel good, so my head is kinda fuzzy lol

~

........oh, and I mean...c’mon...it’s uncanny, right?!!:

#asks #anon

[peakblr]

rad asks: 3, 10, 16

ah hey!!!!!! thanks for asking 💕💐 sorry this took so long

3. Are there any parts of radical feminism, or beliefs commonly hold by radical feminists that you strongly disagree with?

im actually having a hard time answering this ahshskshdlska i wrote a really long rambly response but i ended up justifying what i was describing as disagreeing with LOL so like. idk no widely held radfem beliefs are coming to mind, sorry im just as disappointed as you are shdkshdlsjds i hope this doesnt sound sheepish or anything. So i’ll say what i do agree with, which won’t come as a surprise to anyone probably.

i’m anti porn, i think porn should be illegal, should not exist and all of it should be destroyed, pornstars should be given justice and compensated somehow for the govt allowing this shit, and all pornographers should be considered lower than dirt and killed publicly LOL. and i don’t feel bad about that, they don’t feel bad about filming rape and selling it, having the pornstars they abuse lie about how they love it when asked. i feel the same way abt prostitutes and their pimps, that paid consent is not consent and pimps can all drop dead.

i’m all for separatism, no it would not stop men from being men, but it would save women and girls a lot of grief, hurt and scarring.

i think gender isn’t real, is used to oppress women and helps no one, and that id rather it be abolished than exist to validate some people who like gender roles, ackshully.

ive been agnostic for a long time; my mom and my brother are atheists, my dad is a deist. but i will sooner believe that the creator of everything is female, having given birth to the universe than a male. A man’s involvement in creation is his ejaculation. No more, no less. life does not begin in the testicles, or you wouldnt see all this anti abortion stuff, you would see more anti male masturbation stuff–if it weren’t mostly about using women as incubators, lol. that being said i’m pro choice clearly.

i am anti surrogacy, for similar reasons. same sex couples should absolutely be allowed to adopt, but no one has the right to have a baby except the woman who can use her own uterus for her own baby. even with infertile women, there is no justification for paying another women to rent out her uterus.

i currently am not vegan but i admire the ideas behind it, and i see the similarities between how animals and women are treated. i do know however that those who are farming this produce are not necessarily treated well either. disclaimer i know literally jack shit about it so i can’t really speak much for it either way at this moment.

i know there are trans identified, detransitioned or reidentified females who don’t like words like “mutilation” to describe the surgeries they have had to remove their breasts or to alter their privates to mimic penises, and while i don’t insist on mutilation being the word used, i don’t see how it is inaccurate and i find it hard to talk about it in a positive light, less i be endorsing that women get these surgeries to ease their discomfort with their bodies. that being said i don’t want tifs or detransitioned/reidentified women to beat themselves up and constantly regret it. it is not their fault that they were made to be so disconnected from their bodies. they did not want that, and with the trans movement there were not a lot of people telling them that there are other ways besides transitioning to deal with these feelings. i don’t see how this can be hard to believe seeing as we call it the trans cult all the time, which is an accurate name by the way.

i like the alternative spellings of woman and women. womyn, wombyn, wimmin, womxn, a mon, wom or whatever it is. i don’t currently use them myself but i love them and i don’t care how “stupid” you think it is. you know whats stupid??? the words “trans woman,” “trans man,” and “nonbinary.” “Cis woman.” yeah ill take wombyn any day rather than agree that i “identify” as a woman for not subscribing to the transgender religion.

political lesbianism is shitty, i understand some straight women don’t wanna be celibate, but dating lesbians to stick it to the men and not because you love that lesbian is selfish i think. if youre bisexual then you are also not a lesbian but by all means be a febfem or just a bisexual who does not fuck with men.

prostitution will never be empowering. make up, nails, impractical clothes, revealing clothes is not empowering, having men think you are sexy or fuckable is not empowering. you are not “doing it for yourself.” “Poly” relationships are not empowering or woke, making yourself more accessable sexually to men is not empowering in the same way that it empowers men to have sex with multiple women.

idk ive been writing this for a million years but thats some things off the top of my head that i know i Do agree with, i know that wasnt the question but i still wanted to say something lol. i realize now this answered multiple questions from that ask post so im sorry if anyone else thought of asking those things that i answered LOL

10. What’s your relationship with the term “terf”?

ah! i do jokingly call myself that occasionally, you can see it right there on my about page. but in all seriousness it’s horseshit and goes to show how narcissistic the trans movement is. I see people, newly self described radfems who haven’t figured out what the point of it all is, who try to say “there’s a difference between terfs and radfems! You can be radfem and trans inclusive!” or whatever. To which I say, 

these are not two separate groups. Actual radfems are called trans exclusionary because they don’t think men who identify as women can be oppressed by women, and that having been born as a woman is not a privilege, regardless of how that woman identifies. 

radfems aren’t even trans exclusive, really. While there are many detransitioned, reidentified women, there are also many who have transitioned and intend to stay that way, or who are even transitioning currently for their own reasons and comfort, while still confronting their womanhood and how they have been affected or are effected by being a woman in our society as well as how transitioning is dangerous. it’s male exclusive more than anything, and rightfully so. any problems men have are created by other men, and as one user on here put it, feminism should not be “all lives matter.” 

i forgot to say this initially but being “trans inclusive” is interpreted by some to mean “trans endorsing,” that being trans is an innate thing just like homosexuality, that brain sex is real, and that there is nothing wrong with trans identified females getting surgeries they don’t need on perfectly healthy genitals, or getting hormones they otherwise wouldn’t naturally have that have life altering side effects. otherwise i would be called trans exclusive. LOL. so it really does not mean anything, ultimately.

16. How do you feel about the terms TIF/TIM?

i think they’re great. it says exactly what it means. it is much more appropriate than trans man or trans woman, and it makes it easier to talk about them with a little less word salad. the term trans man others tifs from females, and the term trans woman others tims from males. this is problematic. there is nothing differing tifs from females and tims from males outside of the fact that they are trans identified. the only differences they may have are if they have surgically and or hormonally transitioned, but it is not enough difference to make them the opposite sex, nor does it erase male or female socialization, and the benefits or consequences of being a man or a women, respectively. i worded this a lot better when i saved this draft last but tumblr seemingly ate it LOL so thats a drag. but yeah. tif/tim is great. i don’t think it should be offensive, there is nothing insulting or cruel about it. at best it is “invalidating.”

thank you for sending me these!!!! i’m sorry if my answers were unsatisfactory or hard to understand lmao i edited a lot of fluffy blabbering out of my responses believe it or not. i hope you’ve had a great day and that you’re having a lovely night 💌🌻😊

#ask

[x----tine]

Artist Cristine Brache has developed an interest in surrealism. For her recent exhibition, Commit Me, Commit to Me (Cázame, Cásame) at New York’s Fierman Gallery, the artist has created a sculptural installation rife with references to some of the surrealist movement’s most important female practitioners. In particular, the anthropomorphic forms and hybridity between body and object of the figurative sculpture that functions as the installation’s centerpiece, Woman Getting Reupholstered, recalls those soft sculptures of Dorothea Tanning such as Nue Couchée, 1969. The larger installation—in which a figure appears seated with the floral pattern emblazoned on both the piece of furniture and the figure indistinguishable, a resin  moon illuminated by a striking shade of blue, entitled Gaslight (After Remedios Varo, Papila Estelar, 1958), is hanging from the ceiling concealed within a small bird cage, and a kind of miniature mountain replete with water depicts small figures bathing and swimming—references Mexican surrealist Remedios Varo’s 1958 painting Papila Estelar. Brache had previously only been familiar with the male surrealists, and the renewed interest in the work of the women within the movement—Carrington, Varo, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, and others—that has developed in efforts to correct its canon made Brache understand why people had told her in the past that her work evoked surrealism.

“When I saw [these artists’] work I found myself drawn to surrealism for the first time,” says Brache. “I was drawn to surrealism because it’s a code. Lately, I’ve been drawn to the ways in which oppressed groups speak in code to survive or avoid persecution for self-expression.” As an example of cultural codification, Brache often points towards the Orishas, or the spirits/deities of the African Yoruba diaspora who identities were merged into those of the Catholic saints to survive the onslaught of erasure that came with the Caribbean slave trade. “Due to the need to assimilate with the icons of Catholicism , the deities were assigned a correlating Catholic Saint,” she says. “The survivalist mutations of Santeria that draped Yoruba beliefs in a cloak of Christian beliefs is known as syncretization.” Her exhibition last year at Locust’s Projects in Miami, Cristine’s Secret Garden, explored this notion in depth. Ghosts, like ideas and concepts, are adaptable.

Brache believes that that codified language of surrealism—and as Roland Barthes pointed out in Death of an Author—is an especially codified language because it sought to unleash the potential of the unconscious mind via the “irrational juxtaposition of images” that help separate a work or text from its maker or author—is especially suited to women artists. She cites an article written by Lexi Mantakis for Dazed. “Women emblazoned surrealism with a new type of self-awareness never achieved by their male counterparts,” writes Mantakis. “Their intuitive expression turned the movement from something quite dissociated with reality, to a deeply personal exploration of human emotion, personal trauma, the subconscious, female sexuality, and identity, all through a lens of fantasy.”

Breton saw surrealism as a movement that liberated artists to explore and express “the actual functioning of thought.” To Brache and Mantakis, male artists used surrealism to project their interiorities and fantasy lives onto the world, while female artists used the codified fantastical imagery and language of surrealism to express something more rooted in lived reality. Surrealism gave women artists the opportunity to express themselves in a veiled way that allotted a kind of freedom, and were able to do this better than their male counterparts because women are used to being culturally conditioned to codify communication. “All marginalized groups find ways to codify their behavior to survive or avoid persecution,” says Brache. “Women often use (for example) beauty and demeanor/language as tool to operate within patriarchal systems (take women's use of exclamation points in emails). To me, this is a code.”

Brache sees surrealism as contradictory in its treatment of the women in its canon. From her perspective, the history of the movement has been typified by one persistent gaslight, or manipulation by means of denying reality, in which the artists who best exemplified its tropes have until very recently been relegated to the status of muse to some of surrealism’s most famous male artists. Tanning, for instance, was better remembered as Max Ernst’s wife than she was a significant artist in her own right until relatively recently. Photographer Dora Maar had long been historicized as one of Picasso’s muses, rather than one of surrealist photography’s foremost pioneers. Do women actually make for better surrealists? It’s hard to know, really, whether an artistic style can be better realized according to the genders of its practitioners. But nevertheless, Brache’s approach in her recent exhibition forces her audience to confront questions around gender, art history, manipulation, and cultural codification. For Brache, surrealism is emblematic of the oppressed artist screaming to be heard while self-conscious of who might actually be listening.

That Brache hadn’t quite understood her connection to surrealism is interesting, because manifestations of the style in her work have always been rather clear. On the surface level, one could make the connection between Brache’s working in a variety of disciplines and the multivariate practices of her surrealist forebears. Like Carrington, whose fantastical and bizarre short stories rivaled her visual artworks in their importance, or Unica Zurn, who produced writings that pioneered the “abstract horror” style that would later influence writers like Clarice Lispector and Blake Butler at the same time that she was producing macabre and strangely seductive illustrations and drawings, Brache is as serious about her work in text—poetry, specifically—as she is in her visual artwork. “It's totally a different process, but I think the feelings and intentions come from the same place,” says Brache. “I like different media because it does different things and it can enhance an idea as a result of its very form.”

But perhaps more indicative of Brache’s connections to surrealism is her underlying artistic ethos. The artist excavates her own psychology and personal experiences, and connects it to broader collective struggle. The work isn’t about her necessarily, but nevertheless her own memories and traumas inform the ways in which she makes art about the world around her. The personal, the political, and the social collide and coagulate in the work, blurring the structural boundaries between self and group “I draw from my personal experience and use that to look to the world in order to articulate a collective experience to bring awareness and empower people (on a personal level),” says Brache. “I would never want to make work about something I haven't experienced myself because I don't think it's my place to.” Her 2018 painting, Painting of a Collage My Mother Made (she cut Michelle Pfeiffer’s face out so she could be catwoman), recreates a collage made by her mother in which her mother’s face replaces the actress in the second Tim Burton Batman film. The image becomes a tender homage to a mother while it also emphasizes a woman’s desire to be creatively fulfilled, empowered, demanding to be heard and seen.

Partially, one of the reasons that surrealism remains seductive to contemporary viewers is its direct, libidinal simplicity: the clarity in the paintings of René Magritte, the frank and explicit sexuality in Louis Aragon’s novels, the freedom in the automatist approach to art making. Surrealism utilizes simplicity to transport content and ideas directly into its viewers’ subconscious minds. Like the vampire priest in Park Chan Wook’s Thirst who reanimates his dead lover with sex and the offering of his own blood, surrealism allows the artist to share his/her world with a viewer through blunt, erotic, and sometimes violent imagery. The content is codified, but the concept communicated is often clear. Directness, or simplicity, characterizes Brache’s work as well, and she concedes that directness is something that she strives for, but makes sure to differentiate it from ‘flatness.’ “If you can communicate something complex simply, then I believe you've distilled the idea to its purest form,” says Brache. “There’s nothing around the idea that gets in the way of its interpretation.”

You see this directness in her poetry, its blunt provocations and incisive observations of sex, womanhood and contemporary life in liquid modernity. In her poem Sophie, the text reads like something you’d read off of some lurid dating profile.

my name is Sofia, black eyes, with a tight and petite body, I am 168cm,49kg, 35c-24-34. a cute and sexy girl. I work in a cloth shop in daytime, but in nighttime I am also doing some part time escort.

In Brache’s video piece made in collaboration with the artist Brad Phillips, ppants (for Brad), Brache is depicted in lower profile and over the course of two minutes she slowly urinates in her own jeans. A pee spot grows in width over her crotch while the flash of a camera is seen going off behind the frame. The elemental transgression of taboo becomes both playful and heroic; the decision to lose control over bodily functions becomes an act of power. One can imagine the ghost of Henry Miller watching from behind the camera, muttering “I love everything that flows.”

Surrealism has long been the spectre haunting Brache’s work, but in Commit Me, Commit to Me (Cázame, Cásame) the spectre has become corporeal. She is now dealing with the legacy of the movement as she has always dealt with art making: directly. Brache is placing herself within the legacy of surrealism, and seeing within it a style specifically suited to be made by women who have already adapted to codify their language within the oppressive hierarchies of contemporary life. Surrealism is an art of “code-switching.” Brache is an artist interested in codes.

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The Women and Men Who Marched on Washington, In Their Own Words

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While the aerial photos from yesterday’s Women’s March on Washington show the half-a-million attendees filling streets and spilling out onto the lawns of the capital—a teeming blanket of pink and black, on the ground, with barely any cell service and sign-wielding marchers sandwiching you in from all sides—it was close to impossible to conceive just how far the crowd really went. What was clear, however, was the diversity of the people on the ground: families with three generations of women who had trekked from across the country, longtime activists rallying beside first-timers, mothers and fathers holding photos of their young daughters, and trans women banding together to demand a voice.

MORE: What Women (and Men) Wore to the March on Washington

The myriad faces in the pack were matched by innumerable reasons to take a stand, from the hyper-personal to the political (though at times like this, the two seem to be one and the same).

Read on for why 14 marchers decided to join the movement in Washington this weekend:

Aleesha Woodson/STYLECASTER

Sally

Ann Arbor, Michigan

“I have three daughters that deserve to grow up with the same reproductive freedoms that I had. Two of my daughters are gay, and one of them is going out with an African-American Muslim woman, and she’s frightened, and that breaks my heart. This is not the America we should be living in.”

Can you tell me about your jacket and signs?

“These ribbons are the voices of the women who couldn’t attend—friends, coworkers, family members, Facebook friends. I offered to take their voices to Washington, so I’ve taken down what they wanted to say and posted them on my sleeve so they feel represented. There are so many issues that Donald Trump is attacking. I don’t really feel that he’s a legitimate president, and I don’t think he represents myself or the American people. We all spoke and we elected Hillary. And the back sign is about democracy—I really feel that our democracy is under attack, and we have to stand up like this and do something about it now.”

Aleesha Woodson/STYLECASTER

Aleesha Woodson/STYLECASTER

Deanna Dewey, Leah Taylor, Nikola Bergos, Elizabeth Dunbar, and Courtney Nichols

Brooklyn, New York, Connecticut, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles

Courtney: “I bought a ticket the night of the election—I had a call to arms, in a way. I’m very active in the revolution [laughs]. I did a lot when it came to the Dakota Access Pipeline, and then Black Lives Matter, and reproductive rights. I’m hoping to get a sense of solidarity out of today. I plan on crying nonstop and feeling the witchy womanhood that is us. I hope these protests continue for the next four years.”

Elizabeth: “I wasn’t going to come to the march originally, but these two were like, ‘We’re coming to town and we want to go!’ And I thought about it, and I wasn’t going to go originally because I didn’t think it would make any difference, wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t change the outcome. But really I think it’s about more than that—we get to see all the people who believe in the same things that we believe and will fight together to keep the things that we have and get the things that we want. It’s been tough on women and minorities and LGBT communities and everyone that isn’t in the majority, but it has ended up with more support for causes like Planned Parenthood and causes that we all care about, but don’t necessarily put our money where our mouth is, so hopefully we can keep the momentum going.”

Aleesha Woodson/STYLECASTER

Ingrid

Kansas City

“I didn’t really decide to come to the parade until today. I am glad that everybody’s here, but also feel like there could be more representation for people other than white women. It’s very, like, Hillary Clinton feminism. I just hoped that people could branch out a little bit. I came here with that in mind and I’ve seen a lot of that, but a lot of the speakers were women of color, or trans women of color, so it’s a lot better than I thought.”

Aleesha Woodson/STYLECASTER

Erin Morris and Nicole Bennett

Brooklyn, New York

Erin: “We are here today to make some noise—but also spread some positivity with our heart sign. For me it’s definitely about reproductive rights, and also fighting against that nonsense that’s up there [gestures at group of counter-protestors with anti-Black Lives Matter and anti-gay signs].”

Nicole: “I’m here to fight for women’s reproductive rights. We decided to come a couple months ago. We came with her whole yoga studio—she’s training to be a yoga teacher—so the studio was like, ‘Let’s go and spread the love and be happy.’”

Aleesha Woodson/STYLECASTER

Melissa (left) and Amanda

Bridgewater, New Jersey and Brooklyn, New York

Amanda: “I feel like there’s been an attack on every segment of society, and before it was covert and now it’s blatantly obvious, and we need to stand up and fight back. I’m reading this book called “Dark Money,” which I suggest to everyone, about how there’s been a lot of funding of groups, a lot of changing society from what it was, of making “progressive” into a dirty word, and now it’s very clear that they are taking our rights away from us—healthcare, equal pay, rights for minorities. And it’s all out in the open. There’s a sign over there that calls Black Lives Matter protesters “rioters” and “thugs,” which everyone knows is a code word. It’s just unacceptable.

Melissa: “I completely agree with my daughter. I’ve never protested ever, so this is a first for me, but I just thought it was important to come out and really alert folks to what’s going on, and that we can do something about it if we stand together. People really need to wake up, and I think just by the crowds here, it says a lot of people are starting to take notice.”

So what are the next steps?

Amanda: “I’m a lawyer, so I’m organizing. I think getting involved locally is the biggest thing. They can’t run away from us—we’re their citizens.”

Aleesha Woodson/STYLECASTER

Tim Jackson

Memphis, Tennessee

“I’m here because I’d like to believe that I fought for something more. I was in an Iraq campaigns in 2006-2007, and if I was willing to go over there when I was younger, I’d like to believe in what I was fighting for, and I can’t get behind the direction the country is going in right now. I came with my fiancée, Ashley—we took the train and drove—and I also wanted to come to break the stigma about vets that we’re very conservative. I don’t want to blanket people, but there’s a stigma, and I want to show that there are those of us that believe in equal rights for everybody, simply put.”

Aleesha Woodson/STYLECASTER

Anne and Judy

Boston, Massachusetts

Judy: “We’re here to bring attention to the very poor president that we elected and to oppose him.”

Anne: “We’re very outraged. Planned Parenthood was there for me when I was young, and I’m here for Planned Parenthood. We’re here for equal rights: we don’t believe that lesbian, gay, and transgender people are a special interest group or that Black Lives Matter is a special interest group. They’re American citizens, same as everybody.”

Have you been to many marches and rallies like this in the past?

Judy: “Oh yes. We got married on the steps of the IRS with about 5,000 other gay couples—actually, we’ve gotten married three or four times, but that was one of them.”

Anne: “We go back to Civil Rights and we go back to Vietnam. This is fabulous. It’s great that people are marching at this time, right after the inauguration. It just shows right away that there are a lot of people out there that don’t support his policies. We decided to come way before the election, but I just didn’t think this would happen—it was really heartbreaking. I really thought in my lifetime I’d see a woman president, and Hillary was by far the most qualified.”

Aleesha Woodson/STYLECASTER

Stewart and Quinn

Flemington, New Jersey and Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Stewart: “I think a really big thing is that this is trying to be intersectional, trying to include racial justice and economic justice, and just looking though the crowd, color was necessary to be here. I’ve been doing activist work for a few years now, but this is my first time doing it in Washington.”

Quinn: “I guess I’m here because I’m queer? [laughs] And obviously this administration has very little support for many people of America, including myself. I first marched on Washington for the Iraq War, and I’m hoping that this leads to more activism, not just in the next four years, but just a movement of people being more active in their government and how things are run in our country.”

Aleesha Woodson/STYLECASTER

Tyler Orr

Maryland

“I’m here to protest women’s rights—I decided to come last week with my friends from high school. I’m standing here [in front of anti-LGBT and anti-Black Lives Matter signs] because of these bigots behind me. I wanted to cover all that up. This is my first protest, but definitely not my last.”

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from The Women and Men Who Marched on Washington, In Their Own Words

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