#anyone who says otherwise is a blatant transphobe who has no idea what being trans even means | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sierra0451 · 9 months

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Something I've been seeing around a lot that really kind of bothers me.

Say, hypothetically, we have a transphobe. That transphobe goes into, let's say, an Instagram comments section, saying that "mental illness shouldn't be supported!!" or that "mental illness should be treated mentally, not physically!!" And you have a trans ally responding with "trans people aren't mentally ill-".

There's one really big issue with that—a lot of us actually are. To argue on that ground instead of taking a step back is to, wittingly or otherwise, concede that if someone is mentally ill, that they don't deserve to be respected. Now, I imagine you're very clever, and you've already realized that we have a word for that line of thought—ableism.

It really bothers me that that's the main counter to some idiot saying that being trans is a mental illness and that we shouldn't be "pandered to", or that "mental illness shouldn't be forced down [their] throats" (both things I, and I imagine a lot of you as well, have actually seen real people say), not just because that argument is never made by someone seeking a good faith discussion, but also because not calling out the blatant ableism sewn into those statements validates it and, in the end, hurts disabled trans people.

I wrote a coming out post on a personal account of mine off Tumblr (what platform it's on, I won't be disclosing here), and I wrote about this exact thing. I'll just restate here what I said over there:

Yes, I am mentally ill. Anyone who knows me likely knows that this is not new ground we're covering. Whether or not I'm mentally ill has nothing to do with the validity of my sense of my own gender identity, and—more importantly—if you are someone who sees mental illness as a reason to choose not to show other people as basic an amount of respect as to simply address them as they wish you to, I think that's grounds to seriously question your morality.

I think that should be enough.

Tl;dr, entertaining the argument with transphobes that being trans is a sign of mental illness and, thus, shouldn't be accepted the way it is enables ableism and hurts trans people who actually struggle with mental illness. It's never an argument made in good faith. If you have the platform to do so effectively, call out the ableism. Don't entertain the idea that people with mental illnesses don't deserve basic respect; that's ableist.

#transgender #trans #rant #tw transphobia #tw ableism #sierra's ramblings

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catlesboy · 3 years

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afab demigirls and amab demiboys are so valid and you are “trans enough”

#anyone who says otherwise is a blatant transphobe who has no idea what being trans even means #aka its transphobes suck hours #post by wren #textpost #lgbtq+#lgbt+#lgbtq #mogai #mogai safe #imoga #demigirl #demiboy #demigirl positivity #demiboy positivity

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naoto-lovemail · 4 years

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Why is it harmful to see Naoto Shirogane as a girl?

[This is not an argumentative post. I am a trans man. This is meant to be educational anyone who denies or even gets aggressive at the idea of Naoto being trans.]

There’s already some posts about this, but I still wanted to make my own and dump it. I apologize for not putting this under a cut, but I feel like people will dismiss it otherwise.

Naoto introduces himself as a boy. Naoto/ 直斗 is a boys given name that means “Honest Big Dipper”, likely not the name he was given by his parents at birth since he’s afab. He clearly doesn’t use his ‘natural’ voice, and tries to make his voice sound deeper, but it still sounds off. This implies he’s working on voice training still and hasn’t mastered his range.

From just looking at canon art of Naoto, we can tell he binds. Sometimes he has a very clear bust, and sometimes he’s completely flat. In Line Sticker art, this is confirmed to be done with bandages.

I bring this up because it’s important to establish: Atlus does not know what they’re doing. Safe binding is not a trans only resource. Cis afab cosplayers bind if they want a flat chest when cosplaying either flat chested women or men, so safety on doing this should be known.

Bandages are not safe. Naoto is putting himself in danger just to make himself look flat chested.

Let’s look at his shadow:

Regardless of in boss-form or not, the shadow has a flat chest. If Naoto’s shadow was a part of himself that he was hiding from, and what he’s hiding is that he’s supposedly a girl, why does his shadow fully present as male?

That’s not what his shadow is. His shadow is Naoto’s insecurities. “He’s not actually a boy. He’s childish. He just doesn’t like himself. He’s scared that people will see him differently if he was clearly a girl. He’s just doing this to success.”

Taking these thoughts that Naoto’s shadow expresses, it becomes obvious that he has internalized transphobia. He’s justifying why he identifies the way he does and telling himself he’s not really what he is.

The game portrays these thoughts and insecurities as internalized misogyny that he needs to overcome.

I don’t know how to tell you that telling an afab person who has said that they’re a boy that they are, in fact, really a girl with internalized misogyny is incredibly transphobic, toxic, and harmful.

This exact mind set is the reason I personally and many other trans men are not allowed to start our medical transition until we are able to leave our parents.

For Naoto’s justifications, saying that it’s so he won’t be judged in the work place- His mother was a famous detective. There’s no reason he should have this fear, and even then, why go so far as he has? Voice training, unsafe binding, and for his work place to not know his agab or dead name? He would have had to legally change it. No one who is just pretending to be a gender they aren’t would not go through THIS much trouble.

There’s also the tons of medical themes that Naoto’s shadow talks about, which- again- for a trans person, having medical themes and surgery on the mind, especially a ‘life altering’ surgery, it’s not that uncommon among trans folk who plan to medically transition. Why would a detective’s dungeon be medical themed when he has no medical traits to his character aside from, perhaps, his transition plans?

Something that bugs me and I’m sure many others a LOT is how, as soon as Naoto’s shadow says he’s ‘actually a girl,’ everyone instantly begins to refer to Naoto as a girl. When this happens from a source that isn’t the character themself, it’s blatantly transphobic. If you hear about someone’s “actual gender” from a person who ISN’T that someone, talk to them about it. Ask them how they actually want to be referred by.

Another small thing, but Kanji is meant to be gay but then they pulled “Aha, he has a crush on Naoto, so he isn’t ACTUALLY gay!” which, yeah, homophobic and transphobic. If a gay man likes a trans man, that is still just as gay as if he liked a cis man. Making Naoto ‘actually a girl’ was hitting two birds with one stone, and cishets- and even other queer people, sadly- ate that shit up.

I’ll go over some arena screenshots now, thank you to @covecaller for posting them.

How much needs to be said about this one? It’s very common for trans people in unwelcoming situations to wish they were born as the gender they actually are, and it especially would make sense for Naoto. As soon as he was outed as afab, no one refereed to him as a boy and they never even asked him about it first.

This is blatant transphobia. “You lack confidence in yourself” is word for word what my mother said to me when I came out to her. Calling trans people ‘lies’ or a ‘liar’ for their identity? Also blatant transphobia.

You can look at the other arena screencaps Zach posted here.

You can say all you want that p4 is old, so of course it’s going to be bad, but so what? Letting it constantly get off the hook and never criticizing the creators will give them a message. Letting things like this go hurts the minorities that that character is a part of, and this is backed up even less by the fact that Atlus STILL hasn’t done anything about it. There is still persona 4 content being made, and Naoto is still being sexualized when he is, by the way, 15-17 throughout the series, and misgendered.

Yes, Naoto is portrayed as a girl who isn’t confident in himself and has internalized misogyny in persona 4, but that’s because the creators see trans men as girls who aren’t confident in themselves and have internalized misogyny.

Reblogs are highly appreciated, feel free to make your own additions with more proof if you feel like I missed out on something important with explaining why Naoto should not be portrayed as a girl.

#shirogane naoto #naoto shirogane #p4 #persona 4 #smt #shin megami tensei #long post #transphobia #txt #This is leaving out tons and tons of scenes where he's uncomfortable with comments and actions towards himself + his body #And him basically telling people to mind their own business about it #Which is something trans people have to say a LOT when it comes to our bodies #trans naoto #trans naoto shirogane #trans shirogane naoto #just dumping some more tags

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smallhatlogan · 5 years

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Why Nonbinary Borderlands Fans are Mad About Zer0′s Pronouns, In a Timeline

2012

Zer0 was introduced in Borderlands 2 as a character meant to be absurdly mysterious in almost every way. Zer0 is apparently not their real name, they seem not to be human (but it’s unclear if they’re an alien, robot, or something else entirely), no one knows where they came from, etc. Still, in Borderlands 2, they defaulted to he/him, and was assumed male. It’s worth noting that Borderlands 2 also featured Bloodwing, Mordecai’s pet alien bird. In the original Borderlands Bloodwing was referred to as he/him, but switched between games to she/her. This is explained outside the game by Burch, who says that Bloodwing’s species changes gender halfway through life.

2013

Gearbox released the Diamond Plate Loot Chest. In it was the “Pandoran Gazette” an in-universe newspaper. It included an “Ask Doctor Tannis” advice column, the last question being:

Dear Doctor Tannis,

I have heard you are acquainted with the vault hunter known as "Zer0". I have been meaning to ask - that's not really his true name, is it? Hell, maybe Zer0 isn't even a "he". Do you have any details on this mysterious figure?

- Curious in Old Haven

Dear Curious,

I am indeed acquainted with the towering stack of leather and poorly-written poetry that so many refer to as "Zer0". As you have correctly noted, "Zer0" is not the Vault Hunter's true name. Zer0's actual name and gender are (CONTINUED ON PAGE 9)

Page 9 was not included. To my knowledge, this was where it was first seeded that Zer0 may not be male.

November 2, 2014

In a panel titled “Playing as a female character panel - Does it Matter” during PAX Australia, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford discussed Zer0’s gender:

“The other things that’s interesting to me is sometimes when there’s characters that don’t have a gender or have an ambiguous gender I’ll choose them...In Borderlands 2 we left Zer0’s identity very ambiguous. What gender is he?” *crowd laughs* “We need better pronouns, don’t we? Don’t we need better pronouns?” (Timestamp)

“What’s the gender of Zer0?….That says more about me than it does say about Zer0, the fact that I use the pronoun he when I describe Zer0. In fact, um, we purposely have left Zer0’s gender ambiguous. There’s a lot of folks at Gearbox that like to think that maybe Zer0’s of a particular species that doesn’t have gender- That is more androgynous.” (Timestamp)

(Timeline continues under cut)

November 25th, 2014

The first episode of Tales From the Borderlands was released. Anthony Burch answered this question on his Ask.fm:

To my memory, tumblr blew up with excited nonbinary fans. Prior to seeing screenshots of this, I really didn’t have interest in Borderlands. The idea of a cool nonbinary character who used they/them pronouns, admist a virtual desert of representation, made me play through the entire series as fast as I could so I could catch up in time to see these pronouns in action. For a long time afterwards I’ve seen other nonbinary people expressing the same sudden interest in the series after learning this about Zer0. Because, yeah, it was a pretty big deal.

2015:

Zer0 appeared again in episode 5 of Tales, released almost a year later after the first. Their voice had changed to one that sounds more ambiguous in terms of gender, but Zer0 was still being referred to as “he/him”. Anthony Burch was one of the writers on this episode. Afterward, he answered this on his ask.fm:

Since he claimed it was honestly a mistake, nonbinary fans held out hope. There were posts going around tumblr clarifying that yes, Zer0 was still nonbinary, and still was meant to use they/them pronouns. It was just a mistake made by a thoughtless cisgender man. Of course, then some presumably-cisgender fan goes to Burch, and validates him, because clearly a character can’t just up and CHANGE pronouns! It’s not like anyone ever does that in real life!

It’s not a fair point. It’s a dumb point from someone who has no stakes in this. (Another thing worth noting is it has only been other characters who referred to Zer0 as he/him. Zer0 has never made a point of standing up for their own pronouns.) After this Burch just kind of gives up on the whole idea.

This statement about characters being “progressive enough not to misgender someone” is weird, because the characters, even the sympathetic ones, in Borderlands have often blatantly failed to be progressive. The original Borderlands has the worst of it, it’s your basic 2009 edgelord shit. There’s blatant misogyny, not to mention the extremely homophobic joke surrounding Mr. Shank (and within that the transphobic joke about his girlfriend being a man in a wig). Burch only started writing for the game in Borderlands 2, however. It’s a huge step up, but there’s still a lot of bigotry. Captain Scarlett makes a “no fatties” joke. Mr Torgue fat-shames Ellie. Mr Torgue uses the R-slur. Multiple characters slut-shame Moxxi. Incest jokes surrounding Scooter, who also is implied to be a huge creep towards women. Heck, there’s the entirety of Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt DLC is a racist, colonialist mess. Its antagonist is implied to be gay, one of two gay male characters introduced thus far, and he’s a pathetic, creepy stalker. This is the game series where there are two common enemy types whose names are straight up ableist. So citing characters as being “too progressive” rings hollow with this context. Besides, trans people are often misgendered, even by people who’d otherwise be considered progressive. Burch left Gearbox the same year, so he’s not entirely to blame for what anything afterwards. He just set a pretty bad precedent.

2019:

Gearbox did seem to take the “make a new nonbinary character” thing to heart. They give us Fl4k, again a nonhuman character, who uses they/them pronouns. And okay, I love Fl4k, but like most nonbinary people I’m tired of all nonbinary characters being robots, aliens, or otherwise non-human in appearance (a trope that yes, Zer0 falls into as well). Still, Fl4k is cute and having a nonbinary playable character who uses they/them pronouns is cool! I definitely plan to play as them. Many nonbinary fans were suspicious though, it seemed likely that Fl4k might be meant to appease us and they could keep on using he/him for Zer0. We were proven right when they released the gameplay preview on May 1st. We hear Zer0 called “he”. None of us are surprised, but it still hurts, we felt like we’d been baited with Zer0. Besides, why can only one character at a time be nonbinary? Why can a bird change pronouns but not a person? Why was a writer allowed to go out and promise this if it wasn’t going to be followed through on (yes, he didn’t use the word “promise” but telling a marginalized group something like that isn’t something you can just “forget” without people feeling betrayed)?

And that’s where we’re at, as of me writing this. I feel like there are some comments I’m bound to get on this, so I’ll answer them here: Why are you making such a big deal about this?

Me typing a few paragraphs isn’t making a big deal. But I feel misled and baited. After a few years of no clarification after Burch promising us they/them Zer0, a lot of people hung on to hope. A lot of people became big fans of Zer0 because they’re a fun, badass, nonbinary character. Their design is really, really rad! And heck, they were (at least for a time) the most popular playable character in Borderlands 2. Telling everyone, in-game, “actually Zer0 was never really a he, they’ve been a ‘they’ this whole time” would have been HUGE. Like how Blizzard made Overwatch’s poster girl, Tracer, canonically a lesbian, and then revealed their badass gruff guy (who fills the roll of your basic FPS protagonist), Soldier 76, to be a gay man. They/them are still not widely accepted pronouns. For us who use them, it’s difficult to convince people not to default to something gendered. Especially when we fail to appear completely androgynous. I’ve been told Zer0 can’t possibly be nonbinary because they have a deep voice and “masculine” body shape. But real nonbinary people come in all shapes and sizes with all kinds of voices!

What about Fl4k?

As I said, I’m very happy about Fl4k. They fall into some problematic tropes even more than Zer0 (as Fl4k is verified beyond a doubt to be a robot, and has an “acceptable” androgynous shape to them). I don’t know their voice yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if it also fell into the category of “acceptably androgynous”. Fl4k is new and already “they/them”. Zer0 is an established character who already has a lot of fans among a bunch of different groups of people. There’s definite value in demonstrating a character can switch pronouns, since pretty much every nonbinary person who uses they/them haven’t used those pronouns their entire life. Besides, there can and should be more than one nonbinary character. Fl4k being nonbinary but not Zer0 kind of feels like Gearbox expects us to shut up and be happy with what we’re given.

What about nonbinary people who use he/him pronouns? Can’t Zer0 be that?

Those people are real and valid. However, we’re talking about real people versus a fictional character. I admit I’d feel better if it was stated, in-game, “Yeah, Zer0 is nonbinary and uses he/him”. But even then, it’s REALLY EASY for cisgender people to ignore that information and write Zer0 off as male (And knowing gearbox, they’d put it somewhere easily missed. I’ve surprised so many straight people who’d played through Borderlands 2 with the fact that Sir Hammerlock is gay, simply because it was only verified in a side quest). And you know, we were promised they/them, so like, not doing that kind of sucks. Also I think it’s really important to normalize they/them.

So what are we supposed to do about this? What do you expect to change, anyways?

Honestly? I don’t expect Gearbox to fix this so late. In all likelihood, that’s way too much dialogue to re-record. But I still think it’s worth making our voices heard. We shouldn’t silently put up with this kind of thing. Other people will pull the same shit, being either unsympathetic or unaware of the harm they do. And heck, it’s unlikely, but maybe Gearbox will at least acknowledge their wrongdoing.

Also, it’s maybe worthwhile to ignore canon, and keep referring to Zer0 as “they/them”, or if this whole thing is news to you, it’s not too late to start. It would mean a lot to nonbinary fans, and make a point about how Zer0 is regarded.

#borderlands #borderlands 3 #zer0 the assassin #misgendering #tftbl #anthony burch #zer0 #nonbinary #transgender #representation

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renardtrickster · 5 years

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ThePedanticRomantic Rebuttal: “Traps” Don’t Exist And Here’s Why

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This video has been out for a month, so maybe nobody cares about it. I made a previous debunking, but decided to re-do it. If you still care, you’ve come to the right place. If you don’t, then why are you still reading? There’s two other rebuttals on this, one which I’ll link because I liked the video, the other I won’t because... I didn’t.

First thing’s first, kudos to PR for clarifying the Lily Hoshikawa situation. Really frustrated at people trying to weave Lily into what she isn’t. Unfortunately, that’s about the only good thing I have to say about this video.

Second thing, before we move onto The Beef. Neither Astolfo nor Ferris/Felix Argyle are nonbinary/trans. Astolfo does use they/them pronouns sometimes and their gender is listed as a secret sometimes, but they also use he/him pronouns, and get listed as male. Astolfo has a very teasing personality, liking to mess with people, and that’s painting the medium by reflecting that mindset in some of the official guides and stuff. That’s the exact same tier of joke as a girl’s character sheet listing her weight as “that’s rather rude to ask”, but you somehow believed that was an official sources even though that only happens sometimes.

The Felix situation is even more blatant ignoring of the actual character. The reason Felix acts girly is because Crusch, the lady of house Karsten, is something of a tomboy and people expecting her to act like a real lady gets in the way of her work. They made a promise to each other, with Felix lending Crusch his “knightly side” and Crusch lending Felix her “girlish side”, so Crusch would be unobstructed in her duties and Felix could excel at serving her better. Demanding to be called Ferris and declaring himself a “pretty girl” is part of this, so he could seem more feminine and “make up for” Crusch and otherwise hold up the promise. Blocking secondary sex characteristics is also this. If he went through puberty and became more man-ish, that would break the promise because he couldn’t be girlish like what he promised. Felix doesn’t actually identify as a girl. He outright says he is a man “in both body and soul” and one chapter is outright titled “Felix Argyle is a pretty boy”.

ThePedanticRomantic used Lily’s backstory, context, and character to point out how she was trans, but completely glossed over all of that for Astolfo and Felix to lie about them being nonbinary and trans respectively. It’s incredibly transparent (pun not intended), because Lily’s explanation takes the first 5 minutes of the video, Astolfo gets 10 seconds, and Felix gets a minute.

Second, the video really bothers me as someone who is vaguely interest in language, lexicon, and all that junk. Pedantic spends several minutes talking about how Trap evolved from “crossdressing boys who make pingy feel funny” to trans and other similar identities too, making the point that the language is too fluid to just say “well that one’s wrong”... But then she says that because it’s gone too far, it’s unable to be reclaimed or used non-offensively? That’s doublethink so bad I got whiplash and am now typing from the hospital. Language can have multiple uses, but still have “wrong” use. Like, let’s look at “Lterally.”

Speaking on strict terms, Literally means “exactly, without exaggeration”. “That bear was literally nine feet tall”. But people also use literally in a figurative sense. “That bear was literally the size of a house”. I’m sure there’s a proper word for this, but it’s taken on a slang connotation. Both of those sentences were “correct” in that they both flow correctly, and you get what the person means, but by the book, the second person was incorrect because that’s not what the word means, and they stretched it for some purpose.

Similarly, let’s look at “trap”. “Bridget from Guilty Gear is a trap” is correct because this fits the original definition of the term, and the intent of the usage aligns with what the majority of people mean when they say this, contrary to what the video would have you believe. “Erica Anderson from Catherine is a trap” is incorrect because she, a trans girl, doesn’t fit the original definition of the term, and even though you know what people are egging at when they say this, they are the minority, and the vast majority would agree that they are using the word wrong, in addition to the fact that they’re probably dicks or at the very least misinformed.

Additionally, Jasou and Otokonoko, while I like those words and a buddy o’ mine even uses them frequently, are not the solution. First of all, you even said that the history included both crossdressing men, and trans women. So does Trap and Drag Queen and any other word implying some degree of not conforming to gender roles. This seems to be saying that Jasou and Otokonoko are “good” simply because they haven’t been “tainted” yet. Tying into the second point, what’s to stop transphobes and Edgy People and other buttheads from adopting Jasou and Otokonoko and use those to refer to trans people. At best, we’re just rotating words and sooner or later, we’ll be right back at square one. At worst, you’re actively ringing a dinner bell for them. You know that these kinds of people love jumping on “safe words”, mandating a newer, gooder word that doesn’t have offensive connotation will just encourage them to use it in an offensive sense, and then we’re back to square one.

Perhaps the biggest one of all though, ties back into the idea I discussed with Literally. The intention of the user matters a whole lot. Trap alone is just a word with a few implications and meanings attached, but it’s nothing until someone applies it, and what it’s applied to. If a person calls a crossdressing anime boy a trap, that’s not transphobic. If a person calls a transgender anime girl a trap, that’s transphobic. Similarly, if you call a crossdressing boy a crossdresser, that’s not transphobic. If you call a transgender girl a crossdresser, that’s transphobic. If you call a crossdressing man a man, that’s not transphobic, If you call a transgender woman a man, that’s transphobic. You wouldn’t make a video trying to state that “crossdresser” or “man” are innately transphobic words and that we should stop using them and replace them with something else, you would correct the person using those incorrectly that it’s incorrect, and if they persist, you dropkick them like garbage into a trashcan.

And, while this isn’t as strong as the other points... The “far right memetic anime fan” burn says more about you than it does about any dissenters. If you end your thesis with “and if you disagree, you’re bad”, all it does is display a lack of confidence in your persuasive and informative skills on your part. To anyone who was on the fence, you guilted them into agreeing with you for fear of being called a transphobe, to anyone who disagreed with you, you just stacked the deck because now they’ll already have people predisposed to thinking them a monster, and to people who already agreed with you, you just pandered to them.

I’d also recommend watching this video by TheSMonroeShow. Seeing it on my dash inspired me to re-do this rebuttal, and he focus more on the general history and connotations and junk where I mostly focus on ThePedanticRomantic’s statements and how language works.

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#thepedanticromantic #the pedantic romantic #trap #jasou #otokonoko #rebuttal #discourse #oh no renardie is posting #infoxicated

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cowboyjen68 · 5 years

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that one ask you got wasn’t transphobic because she said she isn’t attracted to trans women (although you don’t always know when a girl is or is not trans and if you’re attracted to her when you thought she was cis and not after you know she’s trans is indeed transphobic and if she has a vag there is no way to blame it on not liking penises), it was transphobic because she said that it’s impossible for a lesbian to be attracted to a trans women. trans women are women plain and simple. (1/)

hey are not men and it is transphobic to say they practice “performative gender,” have “male bodies,” liken being attracted to them to conversion therapy, and say they cannot be desired by lesbians. that’s an extremely binary and transphobic way of thinking of trans people. some lesbians have problems with penises, and that’s ok, but what isn’t ok is to reduce trans women with penises to that part of their body

2/)or their “pheromones” or whatever and justify blatant transphobia by saying that it’s a matter of personal preference. you are not always going to know who is trans and who is not, indeed many straight men and gay women date trans women and are still their sexuality, first of all, and second of all, a trans woman’s worth is not defined by someone’s ability to be attracted to her. writing it off as not being able to be attracted to trans women is a dangerous generalization bc it normalizes (3/)

not only the idea that trans people are undesirable, but also that it’s ok in the least to reduce them to their genitalia or to even suggest that they are always going to be whatever they were assigned at birth. lesbians can be and are attracted to trans women. it’s up to those who aren’t to examine why, because it’s not that they have “male pheromones” or penises.

(4/)some of them are on estrogen which changes pheromones and some of them have vaginas. it’s because of transphobia and the ingrained otherment of trans women. this isn’t policing someone’s sexuality, this is calling out of dangerous rhetoric that contributes to more violent transphobia whether or not you have trans friends (5/5 fin.)

soo. honestly.. I am have had a shit month and a REALLY shitty couple of weeks. And I am exhausted and sad and experiencing heartbreak and loss and fear and uncertainty all at once. Like life altering terrible. So I will do my best to answer this.

I can only speak from my experience. I am not trans, nor in any way gender dysphoric. I don’t have a degree in gender studies. I proclaim zero expertiese on gender or transgender issues.. hence my speaking partner who handles that information.

I do align my sexuality and my gender with people who were genetically and biologically born with my same sex traits. NOW.. as I have stated. I have no idea if I have ever been phyicially attracted to a trans person..because I have not dated anyone who is trans.. I know this because I have had sex with all of the women I have dated.. which is not many… I never said it was impossible nor did I say their attractiveness had one single rats ass to do with their validity or right to be happy, healthy and safe.

Lesbians defining their own sexuality is well with in their rights. If they only want a vagina that is all original parts that is not transphobic,, but to say lesbians can’t be same sex and gender attracted feels homophobic to me.

I don’t claim to have immunity because I have trans friends. Far from it. But I do make the effort to bring them to every table I sit at out in the community so their voice can be heard. The deal is.. they agree to hear my voice.

If a lesbian wishes to define herself as a lesbian and date a transwomen.. okee dokee. FIne with me.. I don’t own the rights nor do I really care what her partner has in her pants. NONE of my business. If a trans person tells me they are a woman.. good enough for me.. I don’t need an explaination nor disclaimers nor a run down of what is under the hood. Same goes for me.. If I say I am a lesbian.. done. .end of converstation. Let’s all go get some vegan tacos and bitch about Trump. I don’t need to define that further. It is just unneceassary for casual interaction.

If I started to fall for someone then found out they have a penis, that is likely a deal breaker for me.. One, yes…partially to societal pressure that lesbians don’t like penis. That is a giant barrier I likely could not break through. I am one hundred percent willing to admit that. I can’t lie and say.. I’d get over it.. I wouldn’t want to start that relationship on unfairly shakey ground. Not if I truly cared. And secondly, and mostily, because penises just don’t turn me on. I don’t like them on me, in me or a touching me. AND if the person is post op? Can’t give you an answer.. for me personally I don’t have any clue if I would be arroused.. never been in that situation.. I literally have no way to know.

The conversion therapy part comes into play because many lesbians.. and I know this is unpopluar but it is true for many and a fact is a fact, just don’t like nor want to like a penis no matter who has it.. Lesbians to the far end of the same sex trait and same gender attraction exist. I am one.. as far as I have experienced. I don’t owe anyone to say otherwise. It would be disingenuous at best.

I don’t hate transpeople.. I am not afraid of transpeople. I support their right to exist, to be happy and loved and I support people who id as lesbians to date anyone they want. If you can fucking meet someone, fall in love and have mind blowing passionate sex.. then god damn well do it because such a thing is a rare and wonderful.

I love vaginas and breasts that are part of the original body.. I just do.. I don’t have any interest in finding out otherwise.. but ALSO don’t feel the need to announce that every where I go.

You ask me to examine why? I admitted above some of that is due to societal and community pressure, but by in large you are correct.. IT IS UP TO ME and I choose to not really look into it because right now I have no reason to question my sexuality and natural attraction. Should a situation arrive where It would warrant a closer look I can still choose to delve deeper or not and that is my choice. I don’t owe anyone an examination of how i define my lesbianism… just like no one owes me one as to how they define theirs.

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freedom-of-fanfic · 6 years

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radfem lite(tm) and tumblr discourse

identifying radfem dog whistles: that is, radfem ideology when it’s not obviously and blatantly transphobic or anti-sex worker

nobody likes TERFs or SWERFs - or so we like to think, even if we don’t entirely know it means to be a terf or swerf. but the truth is that radical feminism - the overarching worldview that contains within it both TERF and SWERF ideology - is fairly widespread and even popular here on tumblr. it’s just that most of the time it’s not identified as being radfem/terf/swerf rhetoric unless the transphobia (or anti-sex-worker sentiment) is blatant and open.

this is the first of a series of posts intended to help fellow people on tumblr identify and understand what I call ‘radfem lite’ - radfem rhetoric that is not obviously transphobic or anti-sex-work, but naturally points one towards becoming a radical feminist (that is, abandoning intersectional feminism, eroding belief in free will (particularly in regards to consent), embracing binarist thinking & gender essentialism, and denying or belittling all forms of societal oppression that are not directly related to misogyny.)

radfem lite rhetoric is frequently a ‘dog whistle’ as well - a phrase or word that has more than one meaning depending on who hears or reads it. non-radfems hear one thing; radfems and their targets hear another. those who become radfems or radfem targets eventually become familiar with the true meaning of the dog whistle word or phrase, but the majority of those who spread it have no idea what they’re really ‘saying’.

some of the things I’ll post about will have overlap with other types of exclusionist thinking, or will have been adopted by those who aren’t radfems so widely that it might seem absurd that it has radfem roots. I’ll try to be clear about why I am attributing a concept to radical feminism when I introduce it.

some things will also have some grain of ‘truth’ to it - the reason why the radfem lite concept seems reasonable to non-radfems. I’ll try to identify that grain of truth, and dismantle or demystify why the reasoning built around it is faulty.

Why am I doing this?

the first and most obvious reason is the number of ‘OP was a terf so I stole this post’ headers i’ve seen that are followed by a post loaded with radfem lite rhetoric. many, many people on tumblr know that terfs (and swerfs) are bad, but don’t know why or can’t identify terf rhetoric if it isn’t labeled ‘terf rhetoric’.

but also: because radical feminist thinking - particularly the anti-porn branch, which bends into SWERF thinking - is highly appealing to fannish tumblr, and forms the basis for a lot of fandom anti-shipper thinking and arguments. I hope that seeing the radfem roots of these arguments will help those leaning into fandom anti-shipper thinking avoid falling victim to radical feminist outreach.

post 1 / some basics

What is radical feminism?

Radical feminism - which encompasses, among others, subgroups such as trans-(women) exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs/TWERFs), and sex-worker exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs) - is an ideology that holds that the most important and severe axis on which oppression occurs is patriarchal social structure and its inevitable product, misogyny.

By discounting all other forms of oppression and marginalization as being of lesser or no importance, radical feminists (aka ‘radfems’) naturally conclude that those they perceive as men are unable to experience meaningful societal oppression and those they perceive as women are unable to experience meaningful societal privilege. As such:

it is impossible for a (perceived) woman to have a mutually beneficial friendship, business partnership, romance, or sexual relationship with a (perceived) man.

Further, their perception of how oppression works is frequently concerned only with the binary sex organs one is born with (or ‘closest to’/that which was surgically created for intersex people).

The belief that a (radfem-perceived) woman cannot have a good or beneficial interaction - especially sexual interaction - with a (radfem-perceived) man, which (like misogyny) belittles and degrades the ability of women to make decisions for themselves, encourages activists to focus on modifying and correcting the behavior of perceived women rather than focusing on modifying and correcting societal inequalities caused by gender/perception of gender. This misplaced focus disproportionately harms sex workers* and/or any (perceived) woman having sex or in a line of business that radfems consider ‘degrading’ to women**.

The reduction of gender identity and experiences to sex organs alone leads to inclusion and/or exclusion of people from ‘womenhood’ based on whether radfems perceive a person as ‘born male’ or ‘born female’. This causes disproportionate harm to trans people (trans women particularly), leading not only to misgendering, but accusations of sexual assault/attempted sexual assault, (mostly directed at trans women), exclusion from gendered spaces to which they belong, and erasure.** It also harms anyone who does not identify with a binary gender by reducing their experiences to their agab, and anyone who does identify on the gender binary but does not ‘look’ sufficiently like the gender they identify with (which may include those who identify with their agab.)

(*this is because radfems believe that only people they see as women are sex workers and their only clients are people they see as men.)

(**all this potentially leading to even more severe consequences, such as being assaulted, attempting/committing suicide, or being murdered, among others. the consequences of radical feminist ideology are severe.)

Why is all radfem ideology so dangerous?

if you’re wondering ‘what’s the problem with radical feminism when a radfem isn’t a TERF or SWERF’, this is why radfem ideology as a whole is damaging and harmful to embrace:

because its ideology is, at heart, transphobic, and leads to trans people being harmed or killed or otherwise put at severe risk.

because its ideology is, at heart, anti-sex work, and leads to sex workers being harmed or killed or otherwise put at severe risk.

because its ideology is, at heart, based on the existence of a gender binary created by sexual dimorphism, and leads to erasure and harm of anyone who does not identify on the gender binary

because its ideology is non-intersectional and therefore belittles or ignores many axes of oppression and marginalization that can have as much as/greater effect on any given person’s quality of life

because it flattens societal structures to a single dimension (sexism), encouraging black and white thinking: namely, all (perceived) women are inherently good and all (perceived) men are inherently bad

this harms (perceived) women by putting them on a pedestal, expecting them to be ‘better’ than other genders in every way, only to be knocked off if they don’t appease radfem standards of female behavior

it erases the harm that women with axes of privilege over other women can do to those other women

it erases the harm that women with equal privilege can cause to one another (abuse in a relationship between two lesbian women), and the harm that women can do to those who are not women (predatory women who prey on men/children are erased, for example)

dismisses the victimhood of victims/survivors of oppression or harm who are not seen as women

because its aggregate societal effect is to reinforce patriarchal social structure, misogynistic dismissal of (perceived) women, and magnify sexism, primarily by putting pressure on (perceived) women to perform womanhood to radfem standards while ignoring (perceived) men as being beyond hope of reform.

because all of this hurts everyone, regardless of their gender, and disproportionately harms those marginalized by additional axes of oppression (such as race, sexual orientation, etc).