#but also completely ignores the fact that intersex people exist

[fozmeadows]

As someone who hasn't read the works of radical feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, could you explain what's wrong and what bothers you about biological essentialism? I'm curious about your opinion after reading your post on radfems (and I'd like a perspective that isn't so based on biological gender essentialism, which I honestly have a hard time moving away from because I don't understand other perspectives well). 👀

The problem with biological essentialism is that purports to answer the eternally unanswered question of nature vs nurture in a wholly one-dimensional way - ie, with biological sex as The Single Most Important Aspect Of Personhood, regardless of any other considerations - while simultaneously ignoring the fact that biological sex is not, in fact, a binary proposition. We've learned in recent decades, for instance, that intersex conditions are much more common and wide-ranging than previously thought, not because scientists have arbitrarily changed the definitions of what counts as an intersex condition, but because our understanding of hormones, chromosomes, karyotpying and other physical permutations has expanded sufficiently to merit the shift. So right away, the idea that humanity is composed of Biological Men and Biological Women with absolutely no ambiguities, overlap or middle ground simply isn't true. Inevitably, though, if you mention this, people with a vested interest in biological essentialism become immediately defensive. They'll start saying things like, oh, but that's only a tiny minority of the population, they're outliers, they don't count, as though their argument doesn't derive its claim to authority from a presumed universality. To use a well-worn example, redheads are also a tiny minority of the population, but that doesn't mean we exclude them when talking about the range of natural human hair colours. But the fact is, even if humans lacked chromosomal diversity beyond XX/XY; even if there were no cases of cis men with internal ovaries or cis women with internal testes or people with ambiguous genitalia - and let's be clear: all of these things exist - the fact is, our individual hormones are in flux throughout our lives.

There are standard ranges for estrogen and testosterone in men and women (which, again, vary according to age and some other factors), but two cis men of the same age and background could still have completely different T-counts, for instance - meaning, even the supposed universal gender factor isn't universal at all. More, while our hormones certainly play a major role in our moods and cognition, so do a ton of other genetic and bodily factors that have nothing to do with the sex we're assigned at birth - and on top of that, there's nurture: the cultural contexts in which we're raised, plus our more individual experiences of living in the world. One of the most common, everyday (and yet completely bullshit) permutations of biological essentialism comes when parents or would-be parents talk about their reasons for wanting a son or a daughter. Very often, there's a strong play to stereotypical assumptions about shared interests and personalities: I want a son to play football with me, for instance, or: I want a daughter to be my shopping buddy. But even within the most mainstream channels of cishet culture, it's understood that these hopes are not, in fact, grounded in any sort of biological certainty. The dad who wants a sporty son might be just as likely to end up with a bookworm, while the mother who wants a little princess might find herself with a tomboy. We know this, and our stories know this! For the entirety of human history - for as long as we've been writing about ourselves - we have records of parental disappointment in the failure of this child or that to embody what's expected of them, gender-wise. More than that: if biological essentialism was real - if men were only and ever One Type Of Man, and women were only and ever One Type Of Woman, with recent progressive moments the sole anonymous blip in an otherwise uniform historical standard - then why is there so much disparity and disagreement throughout human history as to what those roles are? The general conception of women espoused in medieval France is thoroughly different to that espoused in pre-colonial Malawi, for instance, and yet we're meant to believe that there's some innate Gender Template guiding all human beings to behave in accordance with a set, immutable biological binary? And that's before you factor in the broad and fascinating history of trans and nonbinary people throughout history - because despite what TERFs and conservative alarmists have to say on the matter, our records of trans people, and of societies in which various trans and nonbinary identities were widely understood (if not always accepted), are ancient. We know about trans priestesses from thousands of years before Christ; the Talmud has terms describing eight different genders, and those are just two examples. All over the world, all throughout history, different cultures have developed radically different concepts of femininity and masculinity, to say nothing of designations outside of, overlapping with or in between those categories - socially, legally, behaviourally, sexually - and yet we're meant to believe that biology is at all times nudging us towards a set, ideal gender template? There's a lot more I could say, but ultimately, the point is this: people are different. While some aspects of our personhood are inevitably influenced by genetics, hormones, chromosomes and other biological factors, we're also creatures of culture and change and interpersonal experience. The idea that men and women are fundamentally different, even diametrically opposed, at a biological level - that the major separator in terms of our personalities and interests isn't culture, upbringing and personal taste, but what's between our legs - is just... so reductive, and so inaccurate.

We can absolutely have common experiences on the basis of a shared gender, but gender is not the only possible axis of commonality between two people, let alone the most salient one at all times, and the idea that we're all born on one side of an immutable biological equation that cannot possibly be transcended makes me feel insane. According to modern biological essentialism, intersex, trans and nonbinary people are either monstrous, mistakes or imaginary; all men are fundamentally predisposed to violence, all women are designed for motherhood, and we're meant to just hew to our designated places - which, conveniently, tend to echo a very specific form of Christian ideology, but which in any case manifestly fail to account for how variedly gender has been presented throughout history. It's nuts.

#foz answers things #gender #feminism #biological essentialism #history #sociology

[sandu7174]

Men and Women Are the Same.

🤍Reblogs are appreciated!🤍

Some of you may be wondering: “What? Men and women are the same? That’s not entirely true.” But it is. Let me explain.

Most people believe that to be a woman is to have female sex organs, developed breasts, little body hair, high-pitched voice, wide hips, more estrogen than testosterone and XX chromosomes and that to be a man is to have male sex organs, no breasts, moderate to large amount of body hair, deep voice, narrow hips, more testosterone and estrogen and XY chromosomes, to name a few key features. And even though most men and women exhibit their respective typical gendered traits, it’s not the case for everyone.

This is proven by the existence of intersex and transgender people, which also proves that neither sex nor gender is binary. There are plenty of women (cis and trans) who have one or more of the traits exhibited by the typical man and vice versa. There are also plenty of people who blur the lines between what a typical biological male is and what a typical biological female is, be it that they were born with certain ambiguous traits (intersexuality) or got them later in life (medical transition). And even though certain types of traits are associated with a certain gender, the fact that those same traits can be found in people of other genders means that those differences are irrelevant. With regard to equality and dignity, those differences would be irrelevant either way.

Don’t get me wrong, when I say that men and women are the same, I do not mean that everyone should be or is bisexual and nonbinary or whatever. I am not here to dictate people’s personal sexual and romantic preferences and gender identities. I also don’t mean that everyone should receive the exact same resources regardless of their sex or gender, I don’t think cis men should be going to see a gynaecologist or that cis women should be getting a prostate exam etc. What I actually mean when I say that men and women are the same is that we shouldn’t decide how we treat someone based on their sex or gender. Even though there are a lot of cultural and societal complications when it comes to sex and gender, it doesn’t justify unequal treatment of people.

Including nipples. Which is what my artwork emphasizes. Topfreedom is an important part of the feminist movement that is often ignored and brushed away like it is somehow irrational and unnecessary. What REALLY is irrational and unnecessary is the fact that cisgender men can have bigger breasts than many cis women (see: fat men and gynecomastia), and yet those same cis women are still the ones who get censored, sexualised, banned and harassed simply for daring to do what men have been doing for 100 years, and that PROVES that topfree inequality is actually not about breasts at all; it’s about misogyny and oppression.

There certainly are some physical differences when we compare the average man and the average woman (note: AVERAGE, many people are not average); hormonal differences, cultural differences, genital differences etc. But when we look past all that onto the actually meaningful difference? There is none. Gender is a social construct, and while that doesn’t mean that gender doesn’t exist (it evidently does exist as a social construct in our society in which social constructs reside), it does mean that gender is completely and utterly meaningless. It has no purpose other than to let us identify ourselves within arbitrary standards. And it’s often used as an excuse to harass and oppress people, which is what sexism is.

The breasts of female-presenting people are not sexual organs. They’re just not. They develop to feed babies, and that’s it. Men looked at female breasts and decided they were sexually explicit, leading to the widespread practice of treating female nipples as taboo. That’s not right! It’s cruel and it doesn’t reflect the idea of what a fair society is at all.

It’s time we fight back and spread the joyful, powerful and freeing message of gender diversity, inclusivity and equality.

#artists on tumblr #topfreedom #feminism #intersectional feminism #gender equality #topfree equality #topfree art #digital art #nonbinary artist #krita art #krita #drawn with krita #oc #made with krita #krita illustration #small artist #small art blog #small art account #summer #beach

[intersex-questions]

In terms of sex, could someone identify as female and intersex? I’m AFAB and wasn’t born with ambiguous genitalia. I got diagnosed with PCOS a couple months ago at age 21, but I’ve had symptoms since puberty. Doctors love to gaslight for years lol. I’ve always had much more body hair and facial hair than most women, hormonal acne, very irregular and painful periods, I don’t ovulate most of the time, and I have ovarian cysts. I think I have an intersex experience but I also grew up being told I was female and that’s usually what I write on medical forms. I think my clitoris is a bit big, but other than that, my vulva and vagina look normal. Is it possible to be intersex and female?

Of course! Intersex is not a gender (although for some people, it may be how they define their gender), nor is it one specific sex. Intersex is simply a spectrum of sex that an individual can be on. Some people think intersex is like a "third" sex, that their is male, female, and intersex. But that's a misconception! Intersex has a wide range of variations, and every single person's experience with being intersex is going to be different. Someone might have a completely "normal " looking vulva and/or vagina and still be intersex. Someone might have a completely "normal" looking penis and still be intersex.

The way I and many others define intersex is somewhere along these lines: An umbrella term to describe individuals who have sex characteristics naturally found in their body that do not fit the societal standard of a traditional standard of a male or female body. These sex characteristics can include but aren't limited to: abnormal puberty, fertility, genitalia, and/hormonal levels.

I have an ask that goes into depth about what "counts" as intersex here.

But basically, sex characteristics doesn't just mean your sex (like your vulva). It can refer to secondary sex characteristics like: body hair, muscle mass/fat distribution, voice pitch, facial hair, and more.

If I was ignoring the fact that you had PCOS, I would immediately say that what you describe sounds like being intersex to me. You show signs of hyperandrogenism ("excess" androgens/masculinizing sex hormones), hirsutism ("excess" body hair beyond what's considered the "standard"), hormonal acne, clitoromegaly (large clitoris) as well as irregular periods.

If I'm accounting for the fact you have PCOS, you just are intersex. The vast majority of intersex people consider PCOS an inherently intersex condition, or, at the least, a condition that can be inherently intersex with symptoms like the ones you describe. The main people saying that PCOS isn't intersex are doctors and perisex people, because counting PCOS as inherently intersex would make the percentage of the population that's intersex go up SIGNIFICANTLY. I believe PCOS is inherently intersex, so I am biased when answering this. But even if one doesn't, most intersex people agree that PCOS can be intersex when symptoms like hyperandrogenism are present. The only people I have ever seen say that intersex requires ambiguous genitalia are perisex people. The intersex community, considering they are intersex, know and understand that being intersex isn't limited to primary sex characteristics.

To go back to your question, yes, you can identify as both female and intersex! You can identify your sex as female and your sex as intersex. You can identify your gender as female and your sex/gender as intersex. Some intersex people who are like you might consider their sex intersex, but others might not! It's an individual choice. People who identify as intersex women, including intersex cis women, absolutely exist and are a large amount of the intersex population.

If you feel the intersex label and community is right for you, you are welcome here. I would consider you inherently intersex because of your PCOS and the symptoms of your PCOS. I hope this helps some!

#asks #Anonymous #pcos

[hard--headed--woman]

i hate to break it to you, but you aren't actually a feminist if you refuse to include trans and intersex people in your activism, you're just a terf. it's really great that you call people ignorant when you won't even acknowledge that words and their definitions change with time. the definition of the word lesbian has changed because we know that gender doesn't always exist within a binary. NOT ONLY THAT, but trans people have been around for forever, dude. it's insane that people like you still exist within our community.

but i don't think that that is even the worst thing. just from skimming your blog, it's glaringly obvious that you are completely uneducated when it comes to the topics you like to preach about, and your opinions are based upon bias and prejudice rather than actual facts-- and, of course, basic human empathy and compassion are both things that exist. you should try them.

anyways, i do have an actual question for you. you say that biological sex is a neutral reality, and your genitals help determine your sexuality to some degree, right? i'm just going off of your pinned post, where you say that lesbians can't have dicks. my question is, what would you call an intersex lesbian? or someone who identifies as a gay man, but is intersex?

also, i'm curious about your response to the previous ask you answered. maybe if you could explain the ignorance in that post, we may understand your point of view a little more, and i'm being sincere when i say that. it's not your job to educate any of us, and i'm not saying you have to, but you might get less hate if you actually explain why you think the way you do.

It's not your job to educate me, a lesbian feminist, on what lesbianism and feminism mean. Go read some books because you are only saying bullshit. I would get less hate if you people were less hateful, pathetic and stupid. But you are just proving me right. Have a good day.

#anon #asks

[windwardstar]

Fandom really really really needs to get with the program that trans mascs exist as like both a concept in the first place and the as like real people who actually exist

How the fuck. Do people. Think. Trans men don't count as mpreg?!? It's the one scenario that is actually not only possible in real life but happens regularly!

And. If. Your first??? Explanation for why a guy could have a vagina is that it's omegaverse? Or magic? Or that in an au of Mulan where a girl dresses up as a guy... but the canon character is a guy... you jump to omegaverse rather than Trans guy. That is literally the easiest explanation here.

Like. Please. I.m begging you. Realize trans mascs exist.

Also while I'm at it. Where are the trans people in omegaverse stories????? Like this is supposedly a genre for deconstructing gender and playing with it but it really just seems like a way to dive headfirst into biologic essentialism and completely ignore that trans people exist? (Because trans tags and omegaverse tags seem to have like no overlap.) (Although the intersex tag sees plenty of use with omegaverse but I'm guessing that is a fetishistic hot mess given the other rampant problems I've noticed and general awareness that intersex topics aren't handled well by society in general)

Like. Idk. I just. The fact trans men and mascs are just like apparently lower on the thoughts that occur to writers for why a "girl" would be dressed as a guy, why a guy could be pregnant or have a vagina than magic or gender essentialism: the au. Is just.

#monday trans ramble #even though it's thursday #i am going to scream. well i am shouting into the void here #but you get my point #i think once i am in waiting for people.to read tje first chapter of the trans fic stage #ill write up some trends i noticed about my dive into the trans character tags and also a curious search i did #because like idk there was some really really interesting trends there that i had. a ton of thoughts on #i am now debating reblogging the post that sparked this in a hey did you consider trans guy character bc that wa smy first thought #but that feels like would be a dick move after this post

[happysadyoyo]

So I made a comment on reddit where I started to sorta derail and I think the information is good enough to share here and in the trans tags for people not understanding wtf is up with all us “transandrophobia truthers.” 

This isn’t a particularly nuanced post. I left out how racism and ethnicity ties into trans men’s lives and “male privilege.” I think that’s an important part of the conversation and I’ll follow up with that in a reblog down the line. 

Anyway, context. I follow r/nottheonion, which posts actual headlines that sound like they should belong on The Onion, a popular satire news website that has an unfortunate record of their worst and most unbelievable headlines coming true. The particular headline here?

J.K. Rowling's new book, about a transphobe who faces wrath online, raises eyebrows

I’ve included the comment that I replied to for further context:

Reddit User: Did [JKR] ever say anything about trans men? I've only seen nasty things about trans women from her.

Me: Oh yeah. Reread the manifesto. About half of all explicit trans hatred is that trans men are women and girls trying to escape the perceived shackles of societal womanhood. I did a word by word breakdown of her manifesto because I got tired of being told (mainly by women) that JKR hadn't talked about trans men at all.

Plus let's not forget she showed her colors commenting on gender neutral language surrounding menstruation and pregnancy. Something that by and large does not effect trans women.

TERFs generally treat trans men, AFAB nonbinary folks, and CAFAB intersex folks as brainwashed and confused by the patriarchy and the people encouraging them to transition. They see using HRT as poisoning ourselves (T being poison is sadly such a common talking point in trans circles that I've seen young cis boys become scared of their own puberty) and top surgery as mutilation. They like to take pictures of barely healed phalloplasty scars to scare people too (nvm the fact that again, bottom surgery for men is under discussed in trans and even trans masc circles! People don't even know you can even get the necessary tools to get an erection or the other options besides phalloplasty!)

For the above group that are "too far gone" for TERFs to scare back into the closet, we are seen as monsters and gender traitors. They actively want us dead so we can't influence younger folks with our existence.

Oh and this isn't touching on corrective rape from TERFs. At all.

And as you can see there's a lot of leakage from general radfem ideology that leaks into mainstream and intersectional feminism. It's unfortunate because already trans masc folks are one of the most invisible groups in the trans community (the only other group I would consider more invisible are AMAB nonbinary folks, especially if they're not feminine and/or like masculinity). Trans men statistics are horrifically erased because they get recategorized as women.

A lot of trans men choose to disengage and "go stealth" because there's a lot of tangled up self loathing and reactivity towards masculinity in feminist, esp queer feminist circles. Of course, this leads to misconceptions like trans men have an easier time transitioning and have male privilege and completely ignores that a lot of trans masc folks can't or don't want to go stealth. And it ignores how conditional this male privilege actually is.

I'm also ignoring here how a lot of trans men disengage with queer spaces because of how unfriendly it can be. There's a variety of reasons, from people assuming they're straight (or actually being straight) to the general hostility that can be felt in the undercurrents in most gen queer feminist spaces.

This isn't to say that trans women don't have it worse. Hyper visibility and hyper invisibility are just two sides of the same coin at the end of the day, and this toxic mindset around men and masculinity hurts trans women just as much, if in different ways. But I hate seeing the hatred TERFs spew at trans men getting boiled down to nothing more than infantilization. Because while yes that is a lot of it and it's not something trans women get a lot of (because they're seen as men, so violent and dangerous and predatory), there's so much more and it's all just as bad as what women are getting day in and day out from TERFs.

To end on a more humorous note, my favorite instances of TERFs getting owned are when they're shown a celebrity photo and say "oh that's definitely a man" when... Nope. Just a woman. Showing they can't actually tell who is and isn't transgender

#transandrophobia #transphobia #transgender #harry potter #JK Rowling #jkr #jkr discourse #transmisogyny #anti jkr #anti rowling #to be revisted at a later date

[w0rped-moss]

I love it when transphobes are like “I’m an intellectual!! It’s just common sense!!”

First, if you knew ANYTHING you’d know that common sense is bullshit and a fucking lie. Common sense says a ball of paper in a vacuum will fall slower than a bowling ball. And that’s completely wrong. Common sense says that you can’t get sunburns in the winter and that’s when the WORST sunburns happen! Common sense is just a collection of prejudices, logical fallacies, and incomplete or inaccurate information.

Second, there’s always the stupid argument that’s like “it’s just elementary school biology” like bitch. did elementary school teach you about organelles. the intricacies of mitosis and meiosis. Even in hight school that shit is watered down so much that it’s inaccurate. The world is complicated. Get over it.

Third, being an intellectual doesn’t mean needless cruelty. In fact, if you were an actual intellectual, you’d know that basic compassion and kindness is the basis of human society and the way that human society EXISTS in the first place.

Fourth, disregarding all that common sense is bullshit stuff, common sense is also to just. shut the fuck up and be nice. Going back to something that transphobes might understand, in kindergarten, people are taught to think before they speak. Is what you have to say true? Is it helpful? Is it inspiring? Is it necessary? Is it kind? And literally nothing you have to say is true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, or kind.

Fifth, why do we have to make the world revolve around your opinions? If you think there are only men and women and those terms aren’t flexible at all, you’re ignoring intersex people, which make up around 1% of the population. Which if you’re stupid, that’s 80 million people. And that’s not even counting trans people, but let’s just assume that 1% of the population is ALL intersex and ALL trans people (it’s more than that). At least, you want around 80 million people to have a worse life. You and everyone you know make up a far far smaller percentage of the population. If you and everyone you know we’re to disappear off the face of the earth (which is what you want for trans people), there would be around. 79.9 million less people effected by that if every trans person where to disappear. You and everyone you know are a much smaller percentage of people. Why the fuck should we make everything revolve around your idiotic prejudice?

[trans-axolotl]

I posted 4,836 times in 2022

805 posts created (17%)

4,031 posts reblogged (83%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@ mechanicalsatanical

@ ferngineering

@ librarycards

@ mushroomcaphat

I tagged 1,806 of my posts in 2022

#personal - 639 posts

#asks - 88 posts

#actuallyintersex - 58 posts

#antipsych - 34 posts

#antipsychiatry - 33 posts

#described in alt text - 30 posts

#intersex - 26 posts

#undescribed - 26 posts

#vent - 25 posts

#mad pride - 24 posts

Longest Tag: 118 characters

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My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

what the mayor of new york is doing with psych hospitalization is not a new application of the way psych wards are used--psych survivors know this and we've been talking about it for decades the way that involuntary hospitalization is used as a form of social control, and the power and danger that a mental illness diagnosis holds. what is frightening about the way the mayor is talking about this is the way he is giving this quiet rhetoric legitimacy and a voice. psych professionals have been using involuntary hospitalization as a form of incarceration for a long fucking time, and as psych survivors know, you can get hospitalized involuntarily for Many things beyond just "being a danger to yourself or others." what's making me nervous right now is that this likely will lead to more interactions between police and homeless people where police feel emboldened to enforce even more options of incarceration. I think it is important to understand that New York is not the only place doing this and in fact this is the way involuntary hospitalization generally operates. New york is not an aberration: the whole system is intended to work like this and is completely fucked, which is why we need to be fighting for psych abolition and building in mad liberation to our understanding of prison abolition.

3,890 notes - Posted November 29, 2022

#4

how many times are intersex people going to have to remind you all to stop throwing us under the bus. when i see dyadic trans people say shit like “no kids are ever prescribed hormones/have surgery” you’re ignoring the hundreds of intersex kids every year who are forced into “normalizing treatments” because the idea of letting kids exist outside the sex binary is something doctors refuse to let happen. doctors and legislators are both incredibly interested in controlling our bodily autonomy as both trans and intersex people—they don’t want any of us to have the freedom to live authentically as ourselves. for trans people, that shows up like restricting access to gender affirming care. for intersex people, that looks like non consensual surgery and hormones that is often times used almost like conversion therapy, especially if you’re both trans and intersex. y’all CANNOT forget about us when you’re calling out transphobia, because I promise you that the transphobes have not forgot about us, as almost every single transphobic bill about restricting gender affirming care in the United States has also left explicit provisions to ensure that intersex genital mutilation and nonconsensual hormone therapy can continue. Dyadic trans people, you really should be able to understand why doctors denying people the ability to live as their authentic self without coercion is a problem, and you all NEED to stop acting like our fights for bodily autonomy are in conflict when in reality, it is two sides of the same coin.

okay to reblog

3,912 notes - Posted October 11, 2022

#3

doctors have a interest in “curing” intersex children. that is the main and oftentimes only purpose of intersex medical treatments, to “cure” a problem that doesn’t exist. I think this is best understood with the larger framework of the ideology of cure: the medical industrial complex is set up in a way where cure is defined as eradication and prioritized above all else, and things that disabled people might want or need (accessibility, freedom from pain, political power) are dismissed as insignificant unless they help promote cure. The ideology of cure is part of the reason why we are sold prenatal genetic testing for Down Syndrome and eugenic abortion, why we are sold skin lightening creams, why the diet industry exists, why homosexuality was in the DSM: the ideology of cure is a deeply, deeply ableist, racist, oppressive structure that is integral to the way the medical industrial complex operates. And the ideology of cure is why intersex medical abuse exists. 

Most “treatments” that make up the standard of care are treating cosmetic issues rather than legitmate, life threatening issues like salt wasting crisis. And even the treatments that provide life saving care are often wrapped up with other interventions that provide no benefit and are focused on “normalization.” Look at any of the rhetoric that doctors use in their research studies and private letters: they blatently admit that most interventions have no necessary function besides normalization, and are very clear on their racist, ableist, homophobic, standards for “normal.” As an intersex person, when you go to the doctor to try to get the help you might want (having some type of stable hormone levels, addressing anemia, dealing with adrenal crisis), much of the time you are also coerced or blatently forced into other treatments such as hair removal and nonconsensual hormone therapy. The first concern of doctors is usually trying to make you as dyadic as possible, whether or not you’ve expressed interest in those treatments. The medical industrial complex does not want intersex people to exist, and as a result there is a whole industry and people who have built careers off of surgically and hormonally trying to force intersex people to be as close to dyadic as possible, nevermind the harm this causes to us. 

Intersexism does not exist in isolation: much of the stated reasoning behind intersex medical intervention is to prevent children from growing up to be gay or trans. The only intersex adult considered acceptable is one who is able to have heterosexual sex, have biological children, and who is gender conforming. None of this is hidden: I have had all these things said to me by my doctors, and much medical literature is very blatent about their reasoning for things like sudden hormonal intervention and surgery. (Look up anything about dilators and intersex children to see how bad this gets--major content warning for child sexual abuse.) Much of intersex medical experimentation is tied to the incredibly violent, antiblack history of medical experimentation in gynecology. Things like the hirituism scale often use explicitly racist language to discuss body hair, and white supremacist beauty standards are embraced by doctors in the way that they suggest treatment. Intersex bodies are seen as a threat by doctors, in many ways because we challenge the status quo by existing naturally: to let us grow up healthy would be to admit that biological sex is a social construct, and would prevent them from trying to shape us into their ideal, white, heterosexual, cisgender, compliant as-close-to-dyadic-as-possible adult. 

Intersex medical abuse is particularly violent and blatent, but it is not an anamoly in the way that the medical industrial complex works. All disabled people are fucked over by the ideology of cure, not just intersex people. And part of this violence is the way intersex people are encouraged not to identify as disabled. The medical industrial complex is happy to label us disordered, sure--but not disabled. That is very intentional: they want us to buy into the idea that we need to be cure-eradicated, but don’t want us to feel any type of community, solidarity, or political power. Disabled community is fucking powerful, and intersex people having access to this type of community is such a threat to intersexism. Having access to our own self-identification, advocacy, and autonomy, directly challeneges the ideology of cure that wants us to label ourselves as disordered in a way that only the medical industrial complex can “fix.”

Intersex people do not need to be cured. And in order for us to actually fight against the violent harms that we are facing, we need to understand why they are happening and who else these systems of power are harming. Intersex medical abuse needs to be understood not just as a one-off issue of doctors abusing power, but rather as a prominent example of the harms that the medical industrial complex causes by being oriented around cure. 

Okay to reblog by anyone, and here’s some sources if you want to learn more: 

Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure by Eli Clare

List of Academic Studies about intersex medical abuse

4,444 notes - Posted April 24, 2022

#2

and here is the thing. all psych wards are bad. every single one. I don’t think there is such a thing as a good psych ward—I’m willing to believe that there are some good people who work in psych wards, who have good intentions, and who might end up helping some people. but the psych ward as a whole? There are no good psych wards. The structure of a psych ward inherently prevents it from being good. Even if you personally think you had a good experience in a psych ward, most likely what that means is that the abusive practices weren’t used on you. But those things are still there. even if you weren’t put into solitary confinement, it is extremely likely that your psych ward still had a room for that. even if you weren’t drugged without your consent, it is very likely other people were being drugged without consent!! even if you weren’t strip searched, or tied to your bed, or starved…it is VERY likely that your psych ward has protocols for all these things and regularly does them to many people who come through the ward! And it is vital to think about how your race, class, and other identities affected your experience before making broad claims about things “never happening” in psych wards.

Psych wards are inherently violent, oppressive, and unethical based solely on the fact that they are a form of incarceration, but even beyond that? If a psych ward is committed to enforcing compliance and incarceration, it is going to have some of those abusive measures that I listed above, and that is going to be standard protocol. Even if there are good people working in a psych ward, their reach is going to be limited—the power of the institution means that they constantly have to weigh the decision to break the rules and help someone, or to follow violent protocols. Most clinicians and staff will choose not to lose their job and even if they find it personally distasteful, will still choose to enable these types of violence. Good people on the inside are not able to fundamentally change the reality of what psych wards are and what they can do.

I strongly believe that people who say they have good experiences are the outlier and also are likely to be white and rich. Even if people don’t think that their experience was abusive, a lot of people generally find it boring, unhelpful, and mediocre. And so, so many people are experiencing abuse in a daily fucking basis in these places. Even if there are individuals who manage to escape the worst of a psych ward, the fact that the psych ward has the power, structure, and protocol to do these things to anyone is a problem.

4,941 notes - Posted May 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

like i think that psych wards are fundamentally violent because the process of incarceration is fundamentally violent. even if it’s just for a few days, a few weeks, a month--it is still violent to be locked up, deprived of community, and legally unable to say no to what happens to you in there. and in the United States, I think the voluntary/involuntary designations are really useless, because how can there be meaningful consent if you can consent to go in but can’t consent to leave? how can there really be meaningful consent when your options are “you decide to go to the psych ward or we force you to go to the psych ward.” And if you do go in voluntarily, the threat of involuntary commitment is always there and is often weaponized by doctors to get you to do what you want. I cannot count the amount of times me and fellow patients were told that if we didn’t agree to something, they’d just go to court and make us do it anyway.

i see people talking sometimes, about how not all psych wards are bad. when they say that they mean that not all psych wards are abusive, use solitary confinement, physical restraints, drugging without consent, or use strip searchs. But I really think people need to understand that it is not just those horrifically abusive things that make a psych ward violent; the whole fucking practice of incarceration makes a psych ward violent in a very real sense. 

9,134 notes - Posted January 29, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[beaopalmoon]

lordy, what a busy week. i’m covering kim’s shifts so i’ll have some overtime hours.

this new manager managed to push another employee’s buttons to the point that they quit. they’re the only other non-cis employee, and she made a stink about refusing to call them by their preferred name, so after that, the GM told me today that she’s going to talk to her, and if she doesn’t promise to change how she talks to and about us, she’s got to go.

i’ve known that the GM was going to talk to her on wednesday. i had to go in the store earlier for unrelated reasons, and the GM approached me to talk about all this. i told her that i would like to come in before the end of her shift so that i can hear what the details are, and she asked if i would like to talk to this new manager with her. considering we’ve only spoken once, and it was all about the job, i said yes.

i’m very willing to try to talk reason in to someone that has a bigoted perspective if they’re at least willing to be civil, because i know that people like this only care about minority groups if someone in their social circle is of a particular demographic. that this lady wants to burn bridges immediately is concerning, but i would rather give her a chance to change before i demand that we not work on the same shifts or threaten to quit.

i’m not a confrontational person at all. i’m not one to immediately label someone that could be ignorant or ill informed an *ist or a *phobe until they’re presented with facts and continue to behave poorly.

my situation is an abnormal one too, but i hope that it gives this manager the perspective to better understand anyone that doesnt conform to cisgender expectations. because i’m intersex, i have physical and psychological sex ambiguity that has motivated me to pursue transitioning for my health and safety, and for some cis people, that makes sense, and has the possibility to open them up to the idea of not making assumptions about other trans ppl.

sooo tomorrow will be Interesting.

THAT SAID... there are a few coworkers i have that still slip up when referring to me. they nearly always correct themselves, and now that my voice has started dropping, its less frequent. i’m okay with that because they always call me Gregg, and though they knew my legal name, they have since forgotten it.

all the same, they’ve been extremely kind and supportive of me through this.

i had considered asking a few ppl that i got along with well what they thought about me and trans people in general, but i definitely dont have to worry about that now. if this manager has done one good thing, her bullshit has given me complete trust in the staff.

i even feel more comfortable talking to my parents about this now. they’ve been worried about me as i came out and started taking testosterone, but they have never been rude about it. now, because i’ve told them about this clown and how she’s negatively impacting people, i have had the chance to explain to them that i am no less their daughter, i’m just also their son too.

they never made me feel like i couldn’t do what i wanted to because of my sex, i was allowed to express myself however i wanted as i grew up, but my mom was concerned that she would be made to feel bad if she talked about how or who i was when i was a child by upsetting me with the name or pronouns i used to have.

i got to reassure her that i’m still her child. telling her that if anything, i would compare my feelings on my gender to how the native americans had two-spirit people. because of her heritage, she seemed most comforted by that idea, and otherwise lamented that it was a shame that i felt that i have to present strictly as a man to feel safe, and not just be allowed to exist as i naturally am. i completely agree! i think anyone that may relate to me should not be harassed and shoe-horned in to one presentation or the other!

however, i do still take testosterone for my health, because estrogen/progesterone actively make me feel ill and i do need some manner of hormone supplement in order to function. so the longer i am on this medication, the more i will appear and present as masculine.

it’s been a huge relief to be able to say all this to my parents and have them not feel as much like i’m pressuring them to get me. instead they feel like i’m giving context to why this issue at work is taking more of my free time, and that i am fully comfortable talking about what’s on my mind and what’s going on in my life with them.

AND i have therapy and an appointment with my gender health specialist next week, so there’s gonna be SO MUCH to talk about!!

#bap

[nightcoremoon]

I don’t understand the “there’s only 2 genders” argument

like I get saying “I THINK there’s only 2” and like admitting you’re a fuckin idiot brainwashed by european colonialism and white supremacy, and asking wtf people mean by saying there’s multiple. I get where the base of ignorance comes from. but also like. googles fuckin free

ten times a day I wonder various questions and google them. like, oh wow I didn’t know hall & oates did what I want HOO HOO, HOO HOO until I googled “who sang the song that goes like that”. doesn’t mean that I can say NO FUCK YOU TOTO SANG THAT SONG EAT SHIT AND SUCK MY DICK. because I would be wrong and dumb and also an asshole to people who love H&O and also people who know music history truth.

or you can… ask someone?

I mean an ounce of research will tell you dozens of cultures around the world have at least 3-5 gender identities. an ounce of research will tell you about the prevalence of intersex individuals shattering the sex binary. an ounce of research will tell you all the fucked up ways that everything you think you know about chromosomes is completely wrong. problem is people are academically lazy nowadays. maybe if school was a fuckin algorithm we could actually educate people but no. idiots are comforted by their low effort sponging.

anyway regardless of all that, if someone says “I don’t feel like I’m a boy or a girl” and there’s thousands nay millions of people who also say that, that’s inalienable truth right fuckin there that uuuuhhhh maybe there are people who aren’t actually boys or girls. maybe there are people who are both. maybe there are people who are one sometimes and the other other times. the fact that nonbinary people fuckin exist at all is pretty definitive proof that maybe they actually exist. Hm?

like imagine if tomorrow you saw a dog stand up on its hind legs, put on a pair of glasses, and start talking to you in perfect [insert the language you speak here]. you’d think huh that’s weird, then go on your merry way continuing to say “you know dogs don’t actually talk”. but then you go in town and there’s dozens of walking talking dogs. you continue to say nah that’s stupid dogs don’t talk. you walk up to a talking dog and say fuck you stop talking because dogs don’t talk but the dog is still fucking talking. are you an idiot?

of course I don’t mean to compare nonbinary people to dogs. it’s an allegory. how about ice cream? you think vanilla and chocolate is the only flavor. you walk around town and hear people talking about strawberry. FUCK YOU THERE ARE ONLY TWO FLAVORS, THAT FLAVOR DOESNT EXIST, SHUT UP. then somebody hands you a box of neopolitan and you smack it out of their hands and say NO FUCK YOU THERES ONLY TWO FLAVORS YOU FUCKING SJW. then suddenly spumoni and butter pecan and black cherry and cookie dough and all sorts of flavors start opening up to you. Damn bro I actually like this allegory way better. genders are like ice cream flavors. there’s a potential infinity.

and nonbinary genders exist. they exist because they exist. even if they’re “made up”. luke skywalker was made up but that doesn’t mean he isn’t real. it doesn’t mean he hasn’t entered the cultural consciousness. even if voidgender or spacegender or foxgender or whatever didn’t exist at some point in time, the fact that it was created by somebody to describe themselves inherently gives it life. nonbinary people are the alchemists of the cultural consciousness as far as gender is concerned. and if you can’t wrap your tiny head around that, you’re gonna get left behind by civilized society.

TL;DR you’re a fucking moron if you still ascribe to the gender binary

and now I want some ice cream

[baphometsss]

Friendly reminder that:

No one in the trans community honestly thinks feminists should stop talking about issues regarding reproductive health and rights. We are just trying to be included in the conversation, which will only benefit more people, instead of just cis women

The existence of trans people is not unnatural, for nature is full of irregularities and grey areas--and these irregularities are, in fact, the key to evolution. Treating nature as if it is strictly binary and rigid and never changes is to ignore the essence of nature

Sex is not a binary, it is a spectrum, and there are as many intersex people as there are with red hair -- but even if they were not this common, intersex people also deserve a voice in this conversation

Anyone who uses trans accessibilty to harm others by pretending to be trans isn’t trans. Trans people should not be scapegoated by having our rights denied due to the actions of others

Bathroom bills have been proven to be completely unenforcable and ineffective when they have been implemented, therefore it is a pointless battle

Abusers don’t give a shit about a sign on the door and most of the assaults on women by men in public bathrooms is done by cis men in typically masculine clothing anyway

Biological essentialism is harmful to women. There is nothing about reducing the definition of a woman to ‘walking vagina’ that helps women

Biological essentialism also undermines reproductive rights because anti-choice/pro-life proponents also use biological essentialism to defend the ‘life’ of an unborn foetus

Transitioning saves lives, and this statement is not a way to ‘silence’ anybody. The suicide rate of trans people is extremely high compared to other groups. This is an undeniable fact that has been proven in every study that’s been done

What trans people do with our bodies is not up for debate, because trans bodies don’t belong to anyone but trans people.

Trans people don’t have to ask feminists for rights. We have rights because we’re human, and there’s no one that can take that away from us. We’re not ‘asking nicely’. We’re refusing to put up with having them denied.

Not to hark on about TERF talking points, but I don’t think ‘no-platforming’ is an option anymore. People are obviously platforming them anyway, especially here in the UK, so here’s some ammo to shut them down when/if you need it.

Shutting down the arguments they bring up may not do anything to change their minds, but it does change minds.

#/ #// #/// #//// #///// #terfs / #assault / #suicide / #transphobia /

[transmisogyny-explained]

A rare post from me that isn’t actually about transmisogyny, but I felt the need to rant/vent about an adjacent issue that’s been bugging me. Don’t expect this to be 100% coherent.

It’s kind of annoying and honestly a little upsetting when perisex people outright dismiss the possible utility of (C)ASAB terminology with no real explanation for why they deem them useless terms. Part of the reason why sex assignment terminology matters to begin with is because the vast, vast majority of intersex people are forcibly, violently assigned to one category or the other, regardless of our actual sexual characteristics. Being forced to “comply” with these assignments makes up a huge chunk of what the oppression we face even is.

Obviously, perisex people are also assigned a sex at birth, but how these assignments are enforced is very different when you take into account the ableism that’s often deeply intertwined with perisexism as well as the overall medicalization of our very existence. Saying that CASAB terminology should be scrapped because “it’s just a new gender binary” or “it’s just a way to ask someone what’s in their pants” or what-have-you actively deprives intersex people of terms that so many of us find useful in talking about our experiences. You can’t pretend like intersex people don’t face the reality of being forced to comply with an artificial sexual binary by calling our terminology useless or harmful because “sex isn’t a binary” (or whatever ridiculous excuses you come up with) when the fact of that binary being artificial and systematically enforced is what produces perisexism. You can’t pretend like being violently forced into a gendered box from the moment we’re born has no further ramifications on our lives and doesn’t deserve to be talked about.

And when you complain about that, about how “it’s just a new way to ask someone what’s in their pants,” you’re talking about other perisex people. It’s you all who conflate CAMAB with “has a penis” and CAFAB with “has a vagina.” It’s you all who only see the letters M or F and completely ignore the whole coercively assigned at birth part. Perisex trans people especially should be able to understand the significance of being assigned something you’re not and how much that affects the rest of your life, yet you all continually fail at distinguishing between the statements “I was coercively assigned female at birth” and “I am a ~biological female~.” If you can understand how made-up concepts like money and gender can have a material affect on people’s lives, why can’t you understand that for sex assignment as well?

And it’s so insidious to pretend like you’re doing it for the “benefit” of intersex people. Yes, we know sex isn’t binary — we’re the ones whose very existence disproves that. You don’t need to sex-splain to us all the reasons why categorizing people as “male” or “female” doesn’t make sense when we’re the ones who fundamentally do not fit those categories.

And that’s not even getting into the fact that CASAB is only one facet of gender assignment and intersex people are sometimes socially (but still violently and coercively) assigned a different gender later in life by the perisex people around us. Treating the phrase “assigned at birth” as synonymous with “assigned forever” is just another way which perisex people misuse and water down our terms.

And it’s just so annoying how, because perisex people chose to do that — misuse and redefine our terms to basically be synonymous with the pericissexist ideals of “biologically male” and “biologically female,” to the point where they may as well be functionally useless — intersex people are the ones who have to pay for it. It’s not our fault that you continue to have an extremely perisexist understanding of biology which leads you to twist and warp our words into your own version of “binary sex” because you refuse to listen to intersex people when we talk about how that binary is violently forced onto us. You did this to our terms and now you’re saying that doing away with those terms altogether is “beneficial” to us? That’s your idea of allyship? God.

#perisexism #interphobia #ask to tag .

[dirk-has-rabies]

Gender variance and it's link with neurodivergency

Okay so this is it going to be another long one

All quotes will be sourced with a link to the scientific journal I took it from

Okay Tumblr, let's talk gender (I know, your favorite topic) my preface on why this topic matters to me is: I'm autistic ( diagnosed moderate to severe autism) I'm nonbinary trans ( in a way that most non-autistic people don't understand and actually look down on)  and I went to college for gender study ( Mostly for intersex studies but a lot of my research was around non-binary and trans identities) I will be using the term autism as pants when I have experience with however when ADHD is part of the study I will use ND which stands for neurodivergent and yes this is going to be about xenogenders and neopronouns.

autism can affect gender the same way autism can affect literally every part of an identity. a big thing about having autism is the fact that it completely can change how you view personhood and time and object permanence and gender and literally all types of socially constructed ideas. let me also say hear that just because Society creates and enforces an idea does it mean that it doesn't exist to all people it just me that there is no nature law saying that it's real and the “rules” for these ideas can change and delete and create as time and Society evolves and changes.  gender is one of those constructs.

Now I'll take it by you reading this you know what transgender people are  (if you don't understand what a trans person is send me an ask and I'll type you up a pretty little essay lmao,  or Google it but that's a scary thought sense literally any Source or website can come up on Google including biased websites so be careful I guess LOL) anyway to be super basic trans people are anyone who doesn't identify as the gender they were assigned at Birth (yes that includes non-binary people I could do a whole nother essay about that shit how y'all keep spreading trying to separate non-binary people from the trans umbrella)  some people don't like to use the label and that is totally fine by the way.

now autistic people to view the world in a way differently than allistic (neurotypical) ppl do.  we don't take everything people teach us at 100% fact and we tend to question everything and demand proof and evidence for things before we can set it as a fact in our brains. This leads to why a lot of autistic people are atheist (although a lot of religions and this is not bashing on religious people at all I am actually a Jewish convert)  this questioning leads to a lot of social constructs being ignored or not understood At All by a lot of autistic people and personally I think that's a good thing.  allistics take everything their parents and teachers and schools teach them as fact until someone else says something and then they pick which ones to believe. autistic people study and research and learn about a topic before forming an opinion and while this may lead to them studying and believing very biased material and spitting it out as fact it can also lead them to try and Discover it is real by themselves.

because of this autistic people are more question their gender or not fall in a binary way at all as the concept of gender makes no sense to a lot of us. “ if gender is a construct then autistic people who are less aware of social norms are less likely to develop a typical gender identity”

no really look: “ children and teens with autism spectrum disorder ASD or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder ADHD  are much more likely to express a wish to be the opposite sex compared with their typical developing peers” That was posted in 2014. we have been saying this stuff forever but no one wants to listen. the thing is gender variance (being not cisgender or at least questioning it)  has always been closely hand-in-hand with autistic and ADHD people I'm even the doctor who did that study understood right away that it all made sense the whole time: “ Dr. Strang said they were initially surprised to find an overrepresentation of gender variance among children with ADHD. However, they later realized that prior studies have shown increased levels of disruptive behavior and other behavioral problems among young people with gender variance”  SEE YOURE NOT WEIRD YOURE JUST YOU AND YOURE NOT ALONE IN THIS!!

5% autistic people who did the study were trans or questioning. it was also equal between the Sexes fun fact. that may not seem like a lot till you realize that the national average is only .7% that's literally over 700% higher than the national average. That's so many! and that's just in America.

 in Holland there was a study in 2010 “ nearly 8% of the more than 200 Children and adolescents referred to a clinic for gender dysphoria also came up positive on a assessment for ASD” they weren't even testing for ADHD so the numbers could be even higher!

now I want to talk about a  certain section of the trans umbrella that a lot of autistic people fall under called the non-binary umbrella. non-binary means anything that isn't just male or just female. it is not one third gender and non-binary doesn't mean that you don't have a gender. just clearing that up since cis people keep spreading that. non-binary is an umbrella term for any of the infinite genders you could use or create. now this is where I'm going to lose a bunch of you and that's okay because you don't have to understand our brains or emotions To respect us as real people. not many allistics can understand how we see and think and relate to things and that's okay you don't have to understand everything but just reading about this could be so much closer to respecting us for Who We Are from you've ever been and that's better than being against us just for existing.

now you might have heard of my Mutual Lars who was harassed  by transmeds for using the term Autigender (I was going to link them but if it gets traction I don't want them to get any hate)  since a lot of people roll their eyes at that  and treated them disgustingly for using a term that 100% applied correctly.  Autigender  is described as " a neurogender which can only be understood in the context of being autistic or when one's autism greatly affects one's gender or how one experiences gender. Autigender is not autism as a gender, but rather is a gender that is so heavily influenced by autism that one's autism and one's experience of gender cannot be unlinked.” Now tell me that doesn't sound a lot like this entire essay I've been working on with full sources…..

xenogenders and neopronouns are a big argument point on whether or not people “believe” in non binary genders but a big part of those genders is that they originated from ND communities and are ways that we can try to describe what gender means us in a way that cis or even allistic trans people just can't comprehend or ever understand. Same with MOGAI genders or sexualities. A lot of these are created as a way to somehow describe an indescribable relationship with gender that is so personal you really cant explain it to anyone who isnt literally the same as you.

Even in studies done with trans autistic people a large amount of them dont even fall on a yes or no of having a gender at all and fall in some weird inbetween where you KINDA have a gender but its not a gender in the sense that others say it is but its also too much of a gender so say youre agender. And this is the kind of stuff that confuses allistic trans people and makes them think nonbinary genders are making stuff up for attention, which isnt true at all we just cant explain what it feels like to BE a trans autistic person to anyone who doesnt ALREADY know how it feels.

In this study out of the ppl questioned almost HALF of the autistic trans individuals had a “Sense of identity revolving around interests” meaning their gender and identity was more based off what they liked rather than boy or girl. That makes ppl with stuff like vampgender or pupgender make a lot more sense now doesnt it? We see that even in the study: “My sense of identity is fluid, just as my sense of gender is fluid […] The only constant identity that runs through my life as a thread is ‘dancer.’ This is more important to me than gender, name or any other identifying features… even more important than mother. I wouldn't admit that in the NT world as when I have, I have been corrected (after all Mother is supposed to be my primary identification, right?!) but I feel that I can admit that here. (Taylor)” and an agreement from another saying “Mine is Artist. Thank you, Taylor. (Jessie)” now dont you think if they grew up with terms like artistgender or dancergender they would just YOINK those up right away????

In fact “An absence of a sense of gender or being unsure of how their gender should “feel” was another common report” because as ive said before in this post AUTISTIC PEOPLE DONT SEE GENDER THE WAY ALLISTIC PEOPLE SEE IT. therefore we wont use the same terms or have the same identities nor could we explain it to anyone who doesnt already understand or question the same way! Participants even offered up quotes such as “As a child and even now, I don't ‘feel’ like a gender, I feel like myself and for the most part I am constantly trying to figure out what that means for me (Betty)” and also “I don't feel like a particular gender I'm not even sure what a gender should feel like (Helen)”

Now i know this isnt going to change everyones minds on this stuff but i can only hope that it at least helped people feel like theyre not broken and not alone in their feelings about this. You dont have to follow allistic rules. You dont have to stop searching inside for who you really wanna be. And you dont have to pick or choose terms forever because just as you grow and evolve so may your terms. Its okay to not know what or who you are and its okay to identify as nonhuman things or as your interests because what you love and what you do is a big part of who you are and shapes you everyday. Its not a bad thing! Just please everyone, treat ppl with respect and if you dont understand something that doesnt make it bad or wrong it just means its not for you. And thats okay.

#autism #actuallyautistic #trans #nonbinary #xenogenders #neopronouns #lgbtq #adhd #nuerodivergent #gender identity

[qqueenofhades]

Some additional points about that grave find in Finland that you may or may not find interesting. And that may or may not be dated, because I studied history 20 years ago. That said, I'm not sure if 1000 years ago is firmly middle-ages in this context? At least back in my uni days, they told us that here middle ages got going slowly during 1100's and 1200's when Sweden started converting the population to Christianity and the prehistorical era gradually ended. Maybe they teach differently now.

More about the grave. I don't know why The Guardian would talk about Vikings in this context at all, because the erstwhile population of current day Finland is not considered to have been Vikings, afaik. They were similarly warlike, and the graves from that era have a lot of weapons, and they certainly encountered Vikings, but they never participated in the raiding, and isn't that what makes Vikings Vikings? Their language and religion was also different. But anyway. I don't mean to correct you because the larger point stands. When I saw the headline in a Finnish news paper about that grave and traditional gender roles my first thought was, well, maybe the gender roles hadn't become traditional then yet. Just some additional context, which could be illuminating or could be totally dated.

I did the stupid thing and sent you asks about the Suontaka burial before reading the Cambridge article about it: I'm reading it now, and my comments seem fairly useless. Feel free to ignore with extreme prejudice. We're in agreement on the guardian article.

Aha, well, we all make mistakes from time to time, so no worries! However, since you do touch on a few points that I would like to discuss, I'm going to go ahead and answer, whether for you or anyone else who might find it useful. (It's the teacher in me, I'm afraid.)

First, I have to say that I had a definite "eeegh" moment at the idea that the eleventh/twelfth century isn't "medieval" in Finland just because it (at least prior to the Baltic/Northern crusades, if we're considering them to begin with the Wendish Crusade in 1147) wasn't yet fully Christianized. Scholars pretty universally accept "medieval history" as referring to the time period between 500--1500 CE (the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance). These, of course, are horribly Eurocentric frames of reference, but there you have it. Any event or culture taking place within that span of dates, no matter where in the world it is or what its socio-political circumstances may be, is medieval. We have to call out the pernicious equivalence of "medieval" with "Western Christian European," since that seems to be the underlying assumption. This is also what makes people mistakenly think that the medieval world (which, y'know, was just as big as it is now) is exclusively about white Christian Europe, and that no other global regions have a medieval history. Either way, the eleventh/twelfth century is actually closer to the end of the medieval era than it is to the start. I'm certainly not suggesting that you were consciously implying this; I have no trouble believing that that is indeed how they taught it twenty years ago. But yeah, the idea that still-largely-pagan eleventh-century Finland couldn't be "medieval" until it's Christian is definitely not the case as understood now.

The idea that anywhere in eleventh-century Europe is still "prehistorical" in any sense of the word is likewise a little baffling, tbh. Once more, it associates "history" only with "Christianity," and that would get quite a bit of pushback if included in a paper on medieval studies today. That is what also annoys me deeply when I see people describing the pre-Columbian Americas as "prehistoric" (read: pre-white-people-historic). If the chief marker of "history" is "written history," sure, there is a very narrow pedagogical argument to be made that these societies don't have narratives or chronicles in the standard historiographical sense. But also, uh, European colonialism and conquest destroyed vast swathes of records that we have never been able to read, understand, or even access, because they're just not there anymore. There is ample evidence that the ancient (and I do mean ANCIENT, up to thousands of years BCE) and early-to-late-medieval Mesoamerican societies had complex systems of writing, astronomy, calendar-keeping, and other history-recording practices, right up until 1492. There are something like four (FOUR) pre-Columbian Mayan scrolls still in existence, out of probably thousands and thousands, because the Spanish destroyed the rest. So "prehistoric," unless you're literally referring to the Stone Age, is never a politically neutral word or a word to use uncritically...

...and speaking of the Stone Age, we actually have histories for that too! Or rather (iirc) the Ice Age, because for example, Aboriginal Australians transmit their history orally and require each new generation to memorize it, word for word, exactly as taught to them. Some of these histories stretch back over ten thousand years, which means that we actually have first-person accounts of life during the end of the Ice Age, and scientists recently discovered that these traditional narratives accurately reflected the archaeological and geological record of Australia during the time period in question. (Indigenous people know what they're talking about and should be listened to, example number 85,000.) Of course, the Western-white-supremacist model of historiography calls these just "legends" or "myths" or "folktales" rather than history, because I guess not writing it down in a chronicle as a monk in a European Christian monastery in the year 1015 or whatever doesn't qualify as history for some people. (I don't have strong opinions about this or anything. Welp.)

I likewise don't know why the Guardian article brought up the Vikings, aside from the fact that they were quoting someone who explicitly used the Vikings in a hypothetical scenario about "traditional gender roles." This person expressed surprise that an intersex person living in a medieval Scandinavian society could rise to a high social role, by citing the widespread belief that "Vikings" were all dedicated to being very manly at all times and nobody with feminine qualities/feminine-coded social power could rule over them. I don't know if this was just a bad phrasing (plus, it obviously overlooks the often-egalitarian nature of medieval Scandinavian societies and plays into the favored white supremacist stereotype of the Vikings as some Master Aryan Race Where Men Were Men, etc) or what, but yeah, it's wrong across the board. Viking is the name of an occupation, not an ethnicity. It comes from the word wicing, meaning "seafarer" or "sea raider," and referred only to those guys who went out on their longships and stole a lot of stuff from their neighbors, most notably in the eighth to eleventh centuries. Their families back at home were part of the exact same society and benefited from those raids, but strictly speaking, they weren't vikings. We use the word "Viking" to describe any member of a medieval Scandinavian society, but it's similar to describing everyone living in the eighteenth-century Caribbean, no matter who they were or their social status or ethnic background, as "pirates," which is obviously inaccurate.

As you correctly point out, the Finns aren't considered quite the same as the Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes (as anyone can tell from looking at their written language; N/D/S are mutually intelligible and derive from the same linguistic family, while Finnish is COMPLETELY different and comes from an altogether separate branch of the tree) and therefore it's even more baffling that the person quoted in the Guardian article would cite them as an example of a "Viking" society. Likewise as you note, the whole phrase "traditional gender roles" is intensely problematic in most contexts, and especially here. It assumes that modern Western ideals of sex and gender have been static and unchanging throughout history, and that means that we tend to read our own (biased) assumptions onto the historical record and then get surprised when, shock of shock, they don't fit. The burial at Suontaka seems to have been of a biologically intersex person (i.e. someone with Klinefelter syndrome), but this is also the case when it comes to people assigned the usual male or female at birth, without any complicating genetic conditions. I'm working on a book review for an entire edited volume that discusses the intense gender-fluidity and proto-transgenderism in some medieval saints' lives, and how obviously the fact that they have been held up as a holy example, while explicitly subverting the so-called Traditional Gender Roles of the Middle Ages, means that it was (and is) a lot more complicated than shallow stereotypes and Bad Medievalism would have it.

Anyway, this is long enough (especially considering that you graciously offered me the chance to ignore it) so I think we'll stop here for now. But yes, there you have it. :)

#history #ancient history #medieval history #queer history #anonymous #ask

[happysadyoyo]

I'm sorry I'm even asking, but what on Earth does "transandrophobia truther" even mean. Really poking the beehive with that one, but I've been drowning in the "radfem kool-aid" to borrow your very succinct phrasing, so I might as well, fuck it. - Yours sincerely: a very tired and confused trans man who hasn't been on Tumblr for a while. I'd send this off anon, don't give too much of a shit, but Karen has a reach greater than God it seems.

Basically, "transandrophobia truther" was coined by a person who decided a bunch of trans men loosely associated with a dude called Saint (who initially coined the term transandrophobia) were all bad, white, meanie TMEs who hate trans women despite several of the names belonging to POC trans people and many of the blogs explicitly supporting trans women as well as men and nonbinary identities. All because we want to talk about the issues trans masc people face and call a spade a spade when they're being a fucking idiot.

Let's break this down further...

Saint is considered an Awful Person because someone leaked screenshots from his password protected smut blog. He had been engaging in some squicky kinks that the person who leaked the screenshots decided meant he hated trans women and lesbians (despite all interactions being consensual mind you). They also label him a racist because he had been talking about omegaverse shit with the shorthand "abo", which apparently is also a slur against aboriginal tribes. Because you know, acronyms and shorthand can only mean one thing.

Anyway, this has kicked off a harassment campaign that's apparently lasted for months, and this blog eventually curated a "block list" with pretty much anyone who might've interacted with Saint or other people that's been victim to the harassment perpetuated and continued by two people.

This block list was apparently only supposed to be used by this person's followers, but it alerted every single person on the list through the @ system and of course was spread around. They also have been accepting additional names from anons and the like without apparently doing much background checking so. Yanno. Sure.

The term transandrophobia was created as an alternative to transmisandry in an effort to allow trans men to discuss the unique challenges that trans men face as trans men. Sort of the opposite side of the same coin from transmisogyny if you will (the coin is transphobia, but the metaphor breaks down when you remember intersex and nonbinary people are included in the umbrella as well. lol rip poetic language).

People protested transmisandry because it connected with misandry, which people (who argue against trans men having language to talk and make block lists because one person decided to force their followers to look at squicky kinks) don't believe exists (my feelings on misandry are far more complicated than what can be got into here without a massive derail). Transandrophobia is a step away from misandry, but since it was coined by Saint, people are using that as an excuse to shoot it down.

It's an excuse because elsewhere you find hints of their true intent: not allowing trans men and masc people the language to speak about their issues at all. First, there's the absolute asinine complaint that it's "basically the same thing as transmisogyny," like... okay, yes. They complain it's ripping off transmisogyny like transmisogyny isn't a ripoff of misogyny so. Whatever on that. Then you have people saying we should just use the word transphobia instead, completely ignoring the fact we're wanting to talk about issues that specifically face trans men and people who identify as trans masc. Shit like that.

Then you have the people who believe that trans women are the most oppressed and thus men should never have a say. This is rooted in radfem rhetoric, as with the advent of second wave feminism, one of the main schools of thought was that a radical (lol) shift away from men... wait let's not go so far back for now. That's another massive derail.

Anyway, there's a strong undercurrent of man hating that's been lurking around in feminism since second wave feminism. It's been evident through ideologies like lesbian separatism (see, gold star lesbians and how lesbians often treat bi women) and the "wombyn" movement that I in particular noticed in 2013 on tumblr -- I still believe TERF ideology against trans women is rooted in this explicit anti-man movement, but it was just under people's radar until trans women came more in the spotlight.

This man hating is even within trans circles, as you will often see trans women and femme people declaring T being a poison, hating their manhood and men in general, etc. It's understandable given their transition that they'd feel this way, but it's done in front of and oftentimes to trans men and masc aligned folks as well (re: the one poor trans boy who was talking to a girl and got told T was a poison in a gen chat. The girl apologized but claimed she was right. So this was both in a gen space but directly to a trans boy).

I also have a pet theory about how men are expected to be quiet in feminist spaces, and a lot of trans men and masc folks have grown up understanding the social struggle of women so it's easier for us to sit down and shut up, etc, etc but I won't get into that here cause that's it for explaining how radfem is everywhere let's move onto

TME/TMA mean Transmisogyny Exempt and Transmisogyny Affected. I won't get into the linguistics or where these terms originate, though I think it's from baeddel discourse --

baeddels being a group of trans women who mistakenly believe baeddel is a slur against trans women (and conveniently push out femme men and intersex people from the discussion) and started to "reclaim" the term, becoming extremely cultlike, narrowminded, and man-hating themselves, ending when the core group defended a rapist who had assaulted another member of the core group though there are people who identify with baeddels today

-- while TME/TMA might have its merits in a very limited context, it's become a way to say "trans women (TMA)" and "everyone else (TME)". This is incredibly stupid as it just creates another binary where trans women are the Most Oppressed but it locks the terms down so that they can't even be used properly (a cis woman getting beat up for using the woman's bathroom is, in that moment TMA. But she's not always TMA so...).

Soooo... because Saint is labelled a "bad man," transandrophobia becomes a really convenient scapegoat to try and push trans men from another word they can use to describe their unique situation in life.

But really, they don't want men to have language to speak about the things that hurt them.

Because in their minds men always have privilege... because they think every man is white, able-bodied, neurotypical, financially well-off and/or stable, passes perfectly, and never ends up in a situation where they must either out themselves and/or be forced off their HRT for some reason.

They think the pushback they are receiving is coming from above them (because we're men, so we're automatically above women), but it's not. It's a lateral push because at the end of the day... the world sees us as they do trans women. They don't see woman or man or person. They see trans.

And it's upsetting honestly that they don't understand that.

#transandrophobia

[despite-everything]

Nobody said sex is the only aspect involved in oppression, that's your strawman. Human sex is binary unless you've figured out how to reproduce beyond a sperm fertilizing an ovum. Don't do people with intersex conditions wrong like this just because you romanticize white western gender roles.

I’m fascinated that you simultaneously argue that human sex is binary while saying that I’m “do[ing] people with intersex conditions wrong”. Do you not see how your entire message is hypocritical? My entire point was that human sex is NOT binary, which you would understand if you took a human genetics course. I know it can be a bit confusing to understand the way that DNA and chromosomes actually work in the real world, but if you plan to attend college/are attending, I’d totally recommend taking a course or two. If not, there’s plenty of online resources, even if they don’t go quite as in-depth. 

If you want to argue that sex is binary and is due to XX and XY, then you’re ignoring intersex people. If you think that “egg producer” and “sperm producer” is entirely binary then you don’t understand the human body.

“Women are oppressed because of their female biology” is quite literally the thing that prompted me to respond. It’s not the only aspect involved in oppression, but the whole TERF bullshit ideology rests on white supremacy (particularly the idea of there only being “two genders/sexes”, which in of itself is a white and Western viewpoint). 

In what way am I “romanticizing western gender roles”??? There is absolutely none of that in my post, nor my life, not to mention the fact that I myself am non-binary. I exist OUTSIDE of the Western gender binary, that is an acutal example of REJECTING Western gender roles. Now I can forgive if you only saw my pronouns and are of the belief that pronouns do not equal gender (because they don’t, they’re just a part of presentation). But from where I’m standing, I see that regardless of what you did, you decided you knew my gender and my sex better than I did. And that’s bullshit. Mind your fucking business.

My entire point was that human sex is not binary. It just isn’t. And yes, women do face unique forms of oppression. And yes, many of these women are born with genitalia that “matches” the Western idea of womanhood. But arguing that this is the primary driver behind oppression (which is the whole central idea of TERF-dom) is not only based on Western ideals, but is also complete bullshit in terms of biological sex. Also, isn’t it a little hypocritical of TERFs to reduce women down to their biology and form beliefs about what women “should” be based on their bodies? Doesn’t that sound a little bit like, you know, the patriarchy?

#ugh I wish people knew how to read #and think #terf mention #mine #asks #Anonymous