#i am the ceo of the terfs

[pastadoughie]

many people were confused about some of my previous posts, so for the sake of clarity i am condensing everything! tumblr has extremely transphobic moderation practices, often flagging completely innocent posts as explicit, solely for containing trans women in them or mentioning transgenderism. while letting untagged porn in sfw tags (ive literally seen porn tagged as "sfw agere") and blatent hatespeech, especially twards trans people (just look at the "gender critical" tag) go completely unchecked recently the CEO of tumblr had a big public hissyfit about people (rightfully) calling him transmysogenistic, going into random trans womens dms to harrass them, and saying that predstrogen saying she "hopes he explodes with hammers and then explodes again and hammers fly everywhere" is a death threat and saying he is calling the FBI on her (repeatedly misgendering her and calling her "it") and many bloggers, apon speaking out about it or even making harmless jokes (one trans woman posted a picture of a car and a hammer with the caption "reblog to scare matt" and got nuked for it) and many are very very angry (rightfully) about this whole affair and tumblr in general. if you would like to look into it i reccomend scrolling the "predstrogen" tag as she is the case most people are talking about at the moment. So, what can we do? this is clearly an ongoing issue, and, dispite having lost a lawsuit about their transphobic moderation in the past (see : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21274288-tumblr-nycchr-settlement) its clearly not gonna stop with just user complaints, as staff members are perfectly content to just go scorched earth on users who even so much as lightly poke fun at them well if you want to help you should contact the human rights commision (i will give clear details further down) ! you dont have to be in the US, nor be an adult to file, and it only takes a few minutes. this is the best and most effective method to fix this, because it hits tumblr where it hurts. human rights acencies have a lot of legal and financial power and tumblr CAN NOT just ignore them, and given that this will be the seccond time this is happening, the commisions shouldnt be playing nice anymore eaither. its really important that AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE FILE, and with different examples! while maybe your case might not be enough to prop up a lawsuit on its own, we need to prove a general trend. so every little bit counts! to respond to another question abt this ive gotten, as for what exactly to report, you should a) write about an act of discrimination youve recieved on tumblr that was eaither administered by a staff member OR that staff refused to give adequate moderation action in for example : a terf posted some blatent hatespeech targeted twards you, and you reported them, and staff looked at the issue and refused to persecute it. example 2 : you were unfairly flagged, deleted, or otherwise punished by a staff member and you are queer ( AND the post they banned you for has some kind of tie to your gender, ex : a sfw transition progress photo ) OR b) if you have not personally recieved something like that, please look for other peoples stories (THEY SHOULDNT BE HARD TO FIND, within the last couple of hours trans people have been being banned LEFT AND RIGHT for trying to speak on this. i would reccomend checking some of the tags related to what happened with predstrogen) and you should describe that incident as best as possible (be sure to disclose that you are speaking for someone else, ideally you should tell the story of someone you know, if possible.) you can also mention any reports you have made twards people posting blatent hatespeech that, opon reveiwing tumblr refused to prosecute dispite it being very obviously against terms of service. just so nobody gets confused about the filing process, im laying it out in more plain languadge!!

first you should email the SF HRC (san francisco human rights commision), at [email protected] and say something along these lines :

Hello, I am [full name] from [country or state] and I am filing a complaint against Tumblr, witch is owned by the parent company Automattic Inc. located at 60 29th St, San Francisco, CA 94110.

Tumblr has had previous issues with the NYC DHR for their moderation being unfairly biased against trans women (see : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21274288-tumblr-nycchr-settlement).

Despite a legally binding agreement with the NYC DHR, staff members still regularly harrass users based on their gender or sexual orientations. For example : on [date of most recent infraction] [describe incident] (if you are describing an incident that did not happen to you specifically, say something like) This incident involves the user [username] who I am not affiliated with (or/) who I am filing on behalf of.

I can be reached for further inquiries about this incident at [email you want to talk over] or [phone number you want to talk over]. (if you would like to be anonymous) However, In the event of legal prosecution against Automattic I would refer to be kept anonymous, where possible, in court proceedings. alternatively, you can also call the SF HRC at : 415-252-2500, you can use the above text as a starting point for this as well, next you want to fill out the form for the NYC DHR (new york city department of human rights) here : https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/about/report-discrimination.page for company you wanna put : Automattic and/or Tumblr for address you wanna put : 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 for phone number you wanna put : [phone] and for category of discrimination you can put : Discriminatory harassment and basis of discrimination you can put : Gender; Gender identity you can then use a similar script on the written section of the form. when describing a specific incident, you should attach as many screenshots and links as possible! (for links, include both a live link and an archival link, so take a capture with the internet archive and have that as an alternative, incase a staff member gets petty.) this should only take a few minutes at most, and it helps alot! you can fill this out if you are a minor, and you dont have to be a us resident, please please take the time!!! and, just to clarify because there are many posts going around that are confused about this tumblr moved offices to san francisco recently, so their main HQ is at : 60 29th St, San Francisco, CA 94110 they DO still have an office in new york city, and thats where their PREVIOUS HQ was, the address is : 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003

#art #my art #mspaint #rowens liddol guys #mspaint animations #the beast speaks #important shit #transgender #trans #predstrogen

[dreamlanddeluxe]

With tumblr’s blatant transmisogyny on the rise, I’m happy people are reblogging posts in solidarity with trans women. But please don’t let this be the beginning and end of your compassion. You can reblog all the posts in the world that say “rb if you love transfems” “rb to kill a terf” “rb to hit tumblr CEO with cars and hammers” and such, but it means close to nothing if you don’t treat the trans women in your life, both online and real life, with the kindness and respect they deserve. If you don’t know or talk with any trans women, now is a better time than ever to do some introspection and question as to why that is. I know I wouldn’t be who I am today without the transfems in my life, and I’m sure this goes for many others too. It’s the very least we can do to return the kindness.

[exploding-car-hammer]

now that i've spammed and am for sure getting fucking banned, i will talk about Matt and why what he did is fucking disgusting and horrendous

many transgender individuals have had safe for work selfies and other pictures of themselves taken down or flagged on account of being nsfw. this is blatant transphobia due to multiple reasons

1. tagging something related to transgender individuals as nsfw when it is clearly sfw helps to perpetuate the bigoted myth that being transgender is a fetish or kink

2. by censoring our existence you are actively preventing us from even trying to defend ourselves from bigotry or attempting to correct stereotypes or harmful misinformation

recently the incidents have crossed the boundary even farther than usual with the banning of predstrogen. she had the thing described above happen to her because it had been mass reported by terfs and other transphobic individuals. after having the photo taken down she made a joke about wishing the ceo of tumblr @photomatt (im for some reason not allowed to tag him anymore) wash in a car crash involving explosions and hammers. he took this joke seriously and decided to do 2 things

1. ban her because he couldn't take a joke amd he couldn't handle having his transphobia called out

2. threatened to call the fbi on her because he couldn't take a joke and couldn't handle being called out

now i don't know if you know this but organizations like the fbi don't particularly have a great history with minorities. so calling them is basically equivalent to Matt walking up to her and shooting her in the face. if the fbi was called it wouldn't be a raid or a peaceful capture, it would be an execution.

and now we move on to what is currently happening. multiple users have been banned for joking about the situation or discussing it and he's attempting to hide evidence of his actions while also lying about what happened. his defensive statements only make him look worse because of his lies and other reasons such as referring to pred as "it" (according to her bio pred uses she/him). this is extreme transphobia and it needs to be pointed out, called out, and discussed. if these things happen we could hopefully see Matt pay for his actions (there's a legitimate legal case against him btw just pointing that out).

anyways im going to be posting this to my cohost and tranfem social accounts because im probably getting banned and i would like what i said here to be preserved.

don't be quiet.

your voice is important in this situation

#photomatt #trans #transgender #lgtbtq

[pillarsalt]

hi um

I was? transmasc but recently I’ve been seeing a lot of really misogynistic sexist transphobic stuff from trans community and it’s just been totally accepted, even by other transmascs. It’s been going on for a while but recently there was a murder of a nonbinary afab person and yet the whole trans community here has been silent, instead screaming about a transfem user being banned or something? This isn’t the first time an afab trans persons suffering has been dismissed, but now right after this awful death, i see transfems making posts about how transmascs talking about their oppression are terfs.

I didn’t want to think about it but all i could think about was that it was weird how despite everyone claiming trans men have all this privilege, trans women always come first…they get the most representation, they get the fame the admiration and the opportunities, their voices are always the loudest and their problems always always come first no matter what.

But despite popular belief trans men’s issues aren’t actually less significant, in some cases we suffer far more than trans women especially in regard to sexual violence. Yet we are silenced. We are frequently left poor, we are discriminated against for our sex we are discriminated against for being trans we are discriminated against for being perceived as lesbians. Yet we are made to be silent?

Why are our voices less important than trans women’s?

And all I could think about was that this is how females are treated in every other area.

I don’t know what else to say… I tried so hard not to reach that conclusion because I don’t want to be transmysogynist but I kept coming back to it and I couldn’t find an argument against it. This is how females are treated. This is what male privilege look like. And if trans women have male privilege, then why the fuck am I sitting here letting them talk over me?

I just feel really really angry. Your a blog who I liked your art but I blocked you when I discovered you were a radfem, but I sort of had you in the back of my mind for some reason and now I feel lost and confused, and I don’t think I want to be part of the trans community anymore.

Hey anon, firstly I really appreciate your willingness to have an open discussion with me. This must be weighing on you pretty heavily.

Secondly, holy shit, you're right. While the entire website is treating this user's ban as a national travesty, I haven't seen a single person talking about Nex's murder despite how much they claim to care about trans people. That's really fucking low, and this situation does very much encapsulate the state of misogyny within the trans community.

And you're right, this IS how females are treated in every other area. Throughout history, the suffering and injustice women face is minimized, laughed at, ignored, and when we want to talk about it, we're shut down and told we're making people uncomfortable and our pain isn't that bad. And here we are again, with a female person's death outweighed by a male person's inconvenience.

The denial of sex-based oppression that permeates trans spaces is a blatant lie that can only be held together if nobody is allowed to acknowledge it, and those who do are punished. If the trans community truly stood behind what they say, discussion would be encouraged! The foundation of their movement would be backed up with facts and replicable science! But instead, they'll call you a bigot for pointing out systems of oppression you can see with your own eyes. Because if you do, transwomen's position as Most Oppressed, and therefore the final authority on what's right and wrong, collapses. You are correct when you say that it seems like transwomen always come first; I don't remember who said it first, but just look at magazine covers featuring trans people -- the transwomen are fully clothed CEOs, athletes, movie stars, but transmen mostly get on magazine covers for... being pregnant and half naked. Misogyny is built into every society on earth, and individuals simply calling themselves something else doesn't change that. And when you give male people free reign to be as misogynistic as they want without consequence, they'll grab that opportunity and hold on like their lives depend on it. The way they weaponize transmen's sex against them is indistinguishable from what 'cis' men do to 'cis' women, but if you ever speak out about it, somehow YOU'RE the one hurting THEM. They do not want transmascs to find solidarity with other female people, because then they would have to face the reality of their own place in a patriarchal world, and face the fact that there are experiences exclusive to female people and that we have the right to speak about it. I mean you see shit like this and the motives become completely transparent:

I do find it funny how hard the trans community and their allies work to prevent anyone from hearing what radfems have to say in case they "corrupt" you with mere words. A lot of the time, it's simply listening to transwomen themselves that sparks the feeling of "something's not right here" in your brain. That's what happened with me too. I'll tell you that most of us also used to be proponents of trans activism, many formerly identifying as trans too. You are seeing through manipulation, and I know it's quite shocking to realize. Even when I first started having doubts about trans rhetoric, I thought "well everyone else agrees about this, so I need to shut up and be nice about it even if I don't agree." It's an unpleasant place to be in. The cognitive dissonance is exhausting though, and it becomes impossible to ignore.

The mistreatment of transmasc people in the trans community by transfems is brutal, and It's hard to watch from the outside because I just want to say "Hey, you know you don't have to take this shit, right?" And you really don't. You are not at all a bad person for recognizing the frankly absurd amount of misogyny in the trans community. Feeling lost and confused is shitty, but it's normal for this situation. The best thing you can do is keep observing, keep reading, form your own opinions, and never let anyone tell you to shut up. Above all, prioritize yourself and your mental wellbeing. If you need to remove yourself from gender-related spaces and discussion for a while, that's totally alright. Just know you're not evil or a bigot for not blindly agreeing with everything the trans community has told you. Your opinions and experiences are worthwhile too.

#also i'm glad you like my art :) thank you #ask

[nature-nerd-sarah]

As a trans woman, news about transmisogynist hate of course upsets me and makes me feel unsafe. Although I thankfully haven't felt the full brunt of it yet, I am aware that there's a lot of women like me getting attacked both online and offline for being who we are. One of my methods of coping is looking at some anime fanart and shitposts. I like that stuff, so looking at it kind of calms me down. It's a safe space of sorts. So imagine how upset and unsafe I feel seeing the CEO of the website I use to look at those posts go on a while transmisogynist meltdown.

I guess what I'm trying to say is "fuck the TERFs, fuck the transmisogynists, fuck everyone who mass reports trans women, fuck staff, fuck bargain bin elon musk, I hope they all die in a hammer car explosion, just let me enjoy my anime fanart and shitposts in peace".

#trans #tumblr #thoughts #hammer car explosion

[doberbutts]

genuine question coming from a place of good faith: is it wrong of me to be scared for transmascs right now? the harassment of transfems by both radfems and now even tumblr staff is fucking horrendous, but im terrified that due to so much recent discourse, people are going to blame transmascs for it and hate us even more than they already do.

i genuinely do care about transfems and it’s utterly ghoulish what’s going on right now, and it needs to stop, but I can’t help but get this awful sinking feeling over how it could affect transmascs by proxy — but I’m not sure if that’s wrong of me? is it wrong to worry about, should I be focusing entirely on transfems right now? is it transmisogynistic of me to be concerned about both of these things instead of just the one? I don’t know if what I’m feeling is wrong and it’s stressing me out so badly :(

I don't think it's ever wrong to be concerned about multiple real problems at once.

I have stayed pretty quiet on this situation, mostly just adding stuff to my queue if I agree with it but not weighing in personally. Mainly the reason is that I genuinely don't know anything about the trans woman in question who all of this fuss is for. But, I have seen other trans blogs get nuked for seemingly flimsy reasons, and I have seen self-professed terfs and radfems crowing victory with the latest victims of their mass-reporting.

And I think this is a bit of a PR nightmare, but I also think this site does have a serious harassment problem the staff does not take nearly seriously enough while it also seems to punish in equal amounts blogs that get harassed AND blogs that were literally just minding their own business, with really the main similarities being that they are blogs owned by people belonging to seriously marginalized and at-risk demographics talking about controversial topics like racism and LGBT politics.

It is really quite frustrating that there are now accusations that trans mascs talking about their own oppression are behind this, when not only is there no proof behind the claim but also even without a lot of direct knowledge I am seeing a certain demographic cheering that their mass reports worked and I gotta say, that demographic largely isn't trans mascs.

I also think there is a lot of hypocrisy floating around, because some of these blogs I'm seeing mad about this latest streak of bans are also people who themselves have advocated for harassing others and mass-reporting others who simply fail the vibe check while just existing as themselves, off this website. And while those users don't have the power of the literal CEO, they're failing to see how they've contributed to the problem of this website's user culture of "send the most vile thing you can think of en mass until they break and leave and good riddance".

I say this as someone who also has been harassed by a band of people wanting to chase me off of this website. It is why I don't interact much with dogblr anymore. I have had several people who joined in that dog pile later approach me and apologize, but the damage is still done and I am not interested in engaging with a "community" so willing to tear someone apart on flimsy accusations that weren't even true. I almost killed myself that night, I had a mental break and turned off my blog completely for several days just to make it stop, and returned to see people similarly crowing with delight that they'd successfully run me off. It's happened to me, and the perpetrators were almost entirely white cisgender women, and I have been very reliably told by multiple other people that both my blackness and my transgender status were significant motivators in their poor behavior.

This also happening in the wake of yet another transgender teen killed by their peers has left me simply mentally and physically exhausted. I began involving myself more in the transgender community on here because I wanted this to stop. I wanted to help uplift my siblings and get them out of the pit before the whole thing caved in. It's feeling very hopeless right now for trans kids around the world and in the mean time it's also apparently my fault a trans woman I don't even know got banned I guess..

In any case. Hold your head up. We'll get through this, somehow. We always have. We always will.

[axolotlclown]

Alright, everyone's talking about the recent bans happening on Tumblr and I want to spell it out plain and clear for anyone lost or confused. Basically, what's happening is community guidelines are being enforced unfairly, and at times, nonsensically.

Here's what started it: a trans woman attempted to post some transition photos— one at the start of her transition and one of her now. The photos kept getting removed for "violating community guidelines." Most of us have seen this post. She kept trying to reply with the photos and every time they got removed. What community guidelines were violated was not made very clear. It seems that in the second photo, she was wearing cat ears and a fashionable choker collar. The photos may have been flagged as "fetish gear." But is that the line? Cat ears? No one can wear Hot Topic chokers anymore? How is this fetish gear if she was fully clothed? What happened?

I believe what happened was the post kept getting reported by TERFs. Tumblr infamously does not have many staff members and relies on bots and AI to scan posts for unwholesome content. With that, I am not confident that a human was involved in the original removal of these photos.

Frustrated, not just this trans woman, but multiple trans people have made posts expressing ways they hoped the CEO or Tumblr staff would cartoonishly die. For example, "I hope a piano falls on your head as you're walking out your front door." They have been banned because of this. There isn't a whole lot of weight to this decision, because clearly these users had no intention of bringing real harm to any staff members. What about the real harm and harassment that not only these trans women have experienced these past few days, but the entire trans community deals with on this app? This decision already felt like a slap to the face.

Then, the CEO threatened to get the police involved. Again, this threat holds little legal ground. These are clearly not real death threats. In order for the police to seriously consider a death threat, it has to be explicit. For example, if you make a post saying "I am going to shoot up the school tomorrow," then the police will investigate it. This is a realistic threat. If they find a gun and have reason to believe that you were actually going to shoot the school, you'll get arrested.

The CEO knows this, of course. That's not why he's made these threats. The banning of these blogs means that real staff got involved. They agree that these blogs have violated guidelines repeatedly and agreed that they should be removed. Keep in mind, the threats must have been reported multiple times as well, so there may have been more hands involved in this decision than it appears.

We have to remember that this website is full of trans people and allies. These decisions have rightfully outraged this community. The threats to involve the police were made to encourage the rest of Tumblr to stop talking about it. The problem is, we've been talking about this all along.

Society views trans people as a fetish. Over and over again we've expressed how frustrating it is that our bodies only exist in porn. Can you fathom how frustrating it is to hear that porn is allowed on this website but not cat ears? Trans people could breathe air, and we'd immediately be sexualized. It's a real world problem that is much bigger than this site.

To the Tumblr CEO and staff, you can't keep unfairly banning trans people. If you tried to ban every trans person on this site, you wouldn't have anyone willing to use it anymore. These decisions are going to cost you greatly. Please be clear about the community guidelines and enforcing them realistically moving forward.

And to my cisgender followers, please don't stop talking about this. You may have the privilege to forget about these issues, but we don't. Please keep posting about it. Please support the inevitable blogs that will be banned in the coming days because they dared to talk about it.

#thoughts of dante #tumblr #transphobia #trans #transgender #if i get banned for making the most clear and nonviolent post #please screenshot this and spread it as far as you can #i will not go down quietly #staff i will not threaten your lives #but if you push the rhetoric that threatens mine #i will happily watch this website continue to lose money #and all the layoffs that will follow #cheers!

[babydr]

Car-Hammer: In Defence of a Death Threat

Hey everyone, I fell down a rabbithole after the banning of predstrogen and I had a humor class I needed to do a presentation for a humor class. it's an analysis of the ban and the reactions to it. I figured I should post it because it really opened my eyes to the humor here on tumblr and how it was weaponized. Also I spent hella time on it.

1. Thesis

In this presentation, I am going to analyze the ban of a popular Tumblr user, Predstrogen. Through this analysis, I’ll be able to shed light on the style of humor that is unique to the website, the way that style of humor keeps communities on Tumblr safe, and the way that Tumblr’s CEO tried and failed to silence that humor by villainizing it.

That was a mouthful; now let me explain.

2. Predstrogren

Predstrogen is the username of a blogger by the name of Rita.

A few weeks ago, she posted a transition timeline, a style of post coined by trans people to show their gender transformation progress.

The post was marked as explicit, and Rita was banned.

The misidentification of posts by trans people as sexual content is actually a common occurrence on social media sites (Haimson 5-6),

but it is especially bad on Tumblr, which is ironic considering that it has actively branded itself as the queerest place on the internet. (tumblr dot com the website and app [tumblr]).

3. Matt Mullenweg

Predstrogen was a very popular blog, and this blatant example of discrimination made people frustrated. One user even reached out to the CEO of Tumblr, Matt Mullenweg, to ask him about the ban.

He made a lot of different points in his response, but most importantly in our case, he claimed that the reason Progesterone was banned was because she made threats against Tumblr staff.

Tumblr users were not happy with this response, and one of them asked for an example of a threat. Mullenweg obliged, and posted this:

4. The Threat

This did not satisfy the Tumblr audience. Mullenweg was mocked into oblivion.

But,

He is correct. This is technically a death threat. So why didn’t Tumblr users see it that way?

5. Transgender People and Humor on Tumblr

In Kahente gah-han-de Horn-Miller’s essay “IO STER IS” (yo-ster-is), she discusses the ways that First Peoples use humor.

Obviously, there is a wide gap between the plight of First Peoples and the plight of trans Tumblr users, but many of her points ring true in both cases.

Horn-Miller states that, due to the difference in world views between people groups in First Peoples humor, “What may appear to be funny to some may not be funny at all to others.” (Horn-Miller 22) This is also true for Tumblr’s trans community. The brand of humor in Rita’s “threat” is obvious to anyone who is engaged with the community, but may be incomprehensible to an “untrained eye.”

Horn-Miller also states that the humor of First Peoples is pointed, aiming to “critique, to probe the limits of [their] values and to suggest new possibilities.” (Horn-Miller 40)

This is exactly what Rita was trying to do with her “death threat.” In fact, Rita made a comment underneath the original post clarifying this:

The lack of punctuation is another Tumblr tone indication that this is a sarcastic comment. With this, Rita is clarifying that her joke was a sort of litmus test, a critique of Tumblr’s moderation standards. She was trying to see how long it would take for Tumblr to crack down on her for a joke, as the website was actively dragging its feet moderating real bad actor elements like TERFs. This brings me to my second point…

6. Keep Yourself Safe

Tumblr’s weak moderation policy has hurt trans people, but it has also bolstered anti-trans sentiment. A large community of TERF’s [Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists] thrive on the site without much moderation to keep them away. (Felts 57-58, Hairedtin 68) This has obviously generated backlash.

Take this post, which went viral shortly after Rita’s ban, for example.

This post may look simplistic, even crass, on the surface, but dismissing it as such would do it a disservice.

In her essay, “Teasing, Teaching, Tolerating”, Kristina Fagan, like Horn-Miller, examines humor in the First Peoples communities. Once again, these are vastly different communities, but certain concepts carry over. Fagan claims that the humor that First Peoples cultivate usually has multiple lessons embedded within it. It is rare, she claims, that their humor simply “demonstrates unsuitable behavior.” Instead, it explores “troublesome or contradictory areas of life.” (Fagan 31)

By examining this post through a similar lens, we can see that the humor is not simply demonstrating the unsuitable behavior of telling someone to end their life, but is instead exploring the contradictions inherent to our transphobic world.

Why is it okay for transphobes to tell trans people to kill themselves by denying their identity or their access to medical care or access to their communities [lesson 1], but it isn’t okay to tell transphobes to do the same thing [lesson 2]?

7. Keep Yourself Safe - 2

These aren’t the only lessons, though.

Let’s examine a comment made on this post by another user.

In chapter 8 of his book Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humor, Michael Billig comments on the paradoxical quality of humor as both social and anti-social. Humor can bring people together, and also maintain social order via exclusion. (Billig 22)

The transgender community understands the context of this joke, and thus finds it funny. Moreover, they can find community within this joke, knowing that everyone who finds it funny knows these same truths. The “cishet” elements, not understanding this truth, take issue with this post. Thus, they are effectively marked and driven away by what appears to them as “blatant terrorism.” In this way, the insular community can keep itself safe from outside elements that would threaten them while also outwardly mocking those elements, a defence that is necessitated by the lack of competent moderation.

8. Poor Little Mullenweg

In an attempt to portray himself as a victim, Mullenweg villainized Rita by posting her joke and deliberately misinterpreting it.

In this way, he engaged in unlaughter, a term coined by Billig in his essay. Unlaughter, Billig says, can be “itself a rhetorical presence, speaking volumes of criticism,” effectively silencing laughter. (Billig 16)

Unfortunately, this silencing attempt failed.

Billig explains, “Just as joke-tellers cannot guarantee themselves a reaction of laughter… unlaughter, cannot guarantee to silence the laughter of others… Unlaughter is a favourite target for the laughter of ridicule.” (Billig 17)

In this case, the unlaughter failed because of the context surrounding Mullenweg.

9. Poor Little Mullenweg - 2

In her essay “Comedian Mike Ward v. The Quebec Human Rights Commission”, Christelle Pare examines a defamation case against comedian Mike Ward, brought on by his jokes about a young disabled boy, Jeremy Gabriel. In Ward’s set, he goes as far as joking about drowning Gabriel.

Pare argues Ward’s case, claiming that his jokes were permissible in the context of his “dark humor standup” and that he never intended to harm Gabriel. (Pare, 122)

Rita’s defenders are engaging in a similar argument, claiming that her joke was permissible in the context of “Tumblr” humor (which I have just defined) and that she obviously had no intention to harm Mullenweg.

More importantly, the context that surrounds Rita’s joke is not one of discrimination. Mullenweg is not a disabled child; he is the millionaire CEO of Tumblr. He is not a sympathetic victim.

10. Poor Little Mullenweg - 3

Still, Mullenweg does not falter. Billig claims that “ridicule can be more hurtful than hatred.” (Billeg 19)

Mullenweg, unable to handle his ridicule, is racing towards hatred. In an attempt to weasel out from under the laughter of the Tumblr community, he has refused to engage in the criticism levied against him.

Instead, he is doubling down. So far, he’s made multiple posts smearing Rita, posted her private usernames in an attempt to shame her, and mocked other users for supporting her.

11. What Now?

Interestingly enough, a group of trans Tumblr staff made a post condemning the actions of their boss and CEO, calling them “unwarranted and harmful.” They also plainly state that the car-hammer post quote “does not meet our definition of a realistic threat of violence.” They are in on the joke. They understand what the transgender community has gone through. They end by stating their commitment to preventing harassment and encouraging trans expression on the site. (Staff)

Predstrogen’s ban was unwarranted and harmful, yes, but it was really just a small symptom of a larger system that classifies all forms of trans expression as sexual. By deliberately misinterpreting the humor that transgender communities on Tumblr cultivate and use to keep themselves safe, Mullenweg villainized a trans woman and was made a laughingstock.

By turning himself into a figure of ridicule, Tumblr users who were otherwise unsympathetic to Rita’s cause were galvanized. This is a bitter-sweet point for Rita, who spoke about her experience on another social media site. (clownkiwi) She’s glad that light is being shed on this situation, but is disgruntled that focus is squarely on Mullenweg and not the bigger issue of trans censorship on Tumblr and the internet at large. If people really cared about the censorship that trans women go through on social media sites, she claims, they would have spoken up sooner.

Even after all this, it’s still not about trans women. It’s about the cis guy in power.

#Tumblr staff #Rita #predstrogen #matt mullenweg #photomatt #transmisogyny #staff #transgender #trans rights #🚗🔨⚒️💥 #transfem rights #trans woman #transgirl #transfem #mtf trans #drama #avewy #tumblr drama

[talisidekick]

My life is on Tumblr. Not all of it, but enough. Why? Because I finally broke out of the illusion I made for myself growing up. I felt like a monster because thats how I was told to feel for feeling what I felt, and so I lied to myself until I believed I didn't feel the things I did. It was a self-made, bunker thick, mysoginistic and misandristic shell of toxicity that made me miserable for the purposes of others convenience in upholding a fantasy world of simplicity. Upon rediscovering truth and having to face all I'd lost in making unappreciated sacrifices, I started to learn how to reclaim and rebuild myself. I want to show people it's okay to be yourself. That being transgender doesn't make you inherently evil. That I, at the end of today, am human, a person, like any of you.

I've shared my thoughts, my frustrations, some of my joys, my hardships. I've made statement pieces, analysis, and even science posts. I've, on occasion, written papers on here with citations/links to my sources. I've put a sizeable amount of time and energy into letting everyone on this site into my life in some small way to combat the idolization and demonization political actors on the local, provinicial/state/territorial, national, and global stage are doing to transgender people. Because the term "transgender" is not synonymous, a thesaurical equivalent, or a replacement for the words "predator", "pedophile", "rapist", "adulterer", "monster", "assaulter", "victim", or "survivor" to name a few. It means "to identify as any gender other than the one assigned at birth". Thats it. Someone could literally decide "I'm just not the gender the doctor said I was" or "I'm not just what the doctor said I was" or " I'm just me" and that's enough. Those are people you know, love, talked to, interact with, laughed with, but maybe also argued with, had a heated discussion with, fought with, or got mad at in traffic for not using a turn signal to change lanes (we've all done it by mistake). Transgender people are just people. Capable of making mistakes, helping others, needing help, and fucking up like everyone else. We all make bad calls, and stupid decisions. We learn, we correct, we hold eachother accountable.

Logging in today to see a long-standing transgender persons blog getting nuked for the either the stupidest idle threat ever made (or so thats the official reason by the Tumblr CEO) or for simply being transgender (as other and numerous members of the public claim) has made me personally a bit wary. The way I see it, it's both. An idle threat was made to a Tumblr executive and because of the prejudice thats become common place world wide, Tumblrs CEO felt vindicated in going to the excessive lengths of full account deactivation on a transgender persons blog. It's absolutely expected to have a zero-tolerance policy on issuing threats, especially to staff. It's not okay in an online forum of supposed neutrality to utterly silence a person completely without fair warning of a Terms of Service failure and a chance to remove, redact, or re-edit a response. We ALL get heated, even myself, and do stupid things in a reactionary moment of passion. What the issue here is, is the disproportionate response. Given I and numerous other transgender people have recieved threats, those on our very lives in fact, which have gone completely ignored, why is there suddenly a zero-tolerance immediate ban policy on a threat that was, in comparison, the kind of insult you'd expect from a grumpy five-year-old?

I see why this is blowing up, because it's a clear display of power privilege. And rather than going through the established review path, as far as anyone can tell, this was a direct response. This sends, whether intentional or not, a clear message: if you're transgender, you're on thin ice here. And it's not just transgender people and queer and cisgender allies who are getting the message. The transphobes, the so called 'gender critical' crowd, the terfs, are seeing it too. That is why I'm calling for Predesterone's account, all associate blogs, be reinstantiated.

The constant misgendering, libel, misinformation, verbal violence, abuse, and conjecture transgender people of all identities face on this site without any reprocussion to those responsible has, for a long while, helped set a clear standard that users of this platform are afforded the privilege of a degree of disrespect towards marginalized groups and minorities. Ableists attack the disabled and neurodivergent, Nazi's attack Jews, Transphobes attack Transgender people, homophobes attack the gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, and racists attack people of colour with -very- little the victims of such hate can do to make it stop. The bigots know this. And this ... this is going to make it worse. Bigots are going to try and instigate harsh responses from minority groups with the intent of forcing queer people and other minority groups off Tumblr. It has already begun in the reblogs of several posts like this one directed at transgender people. Predestrogen is already getting misgendered and disrespected outside the scope of the issue. Conjecture is already being made enmasse.

I'm on Tumblr because Reddit and Twitter were too unsafe. I'm not on any other blogging sites because Tumblr has, for the moment, a supportive queer community. That can change, given this whole situation has been done in such a way that it's being interpreted on all sides as an attack on transgender people.

Tumblr has no obligation to listen to me or others, but Tumblr has always struggled to get by, and I have to ask: is one persons dumb 'threat' really the spark you want to make to get people to leave. Is becoming a truly unprofitable cesspit and hate-haven like Twitter what's desired? Because this is the exact kind of rallying cry to make if you do.

I'm adding my voice to this. Bring back predesterone, this response is out of proportion. No, the CEO does not deserve to be threatened to have hammers thrown at his car until it explodes, or whatever. The point has been made: DO NOT THREATEN TUMBLR STAFF. But neither does a long-standing account deserve to be wiped off the face of Tumblr permanently for a blog post that is so benign compared to what the average transgender site user has to deal with on a regular basis with no recourse. Someone threatened to actually shoot me, kill me, if I was walking down the sidewalk and they saw me, and that post is still up and so is the account despite being reported. It's been 2-3 months or more. If I'm expected to stomach that, you can stomach someone saying they'll throw hammers at your car from a person who in all likelyhood is paying so much into transition she can't afford to buy one tiny kids-sized hammer. The person who threatened me actually openly admits to already owning guns.

#predesterone #trans #transgender #talisidekick #talisidekick things #2slgbtqia+ #lgbtqia+ #lgbt+ #lgbtq+ #Love Every Trans Woman You Meet Before It's Too Late

[chaos-smoothie]

I am starting to feel progressively more unsafe on this site. If the ceo is nuking trans people for no apparent reason, then am I next? I've been growing scared to post trans content, because I love this site and the friends I made and I don't want my account to get nuked. This isn't a safe community until this ends. I shouldn't have to be scared or repressed because of the staff. I shouldn't have to fear that I'll be silenced for no reason other than that I was. This website is supposed to be a safe space. This website is supposed to be a break from the homophobia, and TERFS, and the fascists. This website is supposed to be a welcoming home for the minorities and the people who face prejudice everywhere else. I should not have to feel fear when I express who I am. This is a problem that originates deep in the moderation, and if the mod staff continue to pretend they're not at fault, then they are actively not only enabling, but ensuring that this website becomes an unsafe space for the lgbtqia+ community.

Behind every account they nuke for false reasons is a person. A person who is experiencing misogyny from the very ceo of this website. A person who thought they were in a safe space. A person who now no longer has that safe space. A person who has had their rights violated. A person who is facing harassment. A person with emotions, and an identity, and feelings. A person who has struggled against prejudice from society for who they are. A person the ceo of this website is actively choosing to hurt, to turn a blind eye against. A human being, just like everyone else. So what about them makes them different? What about them intimidates you? What about them makes you decide that you don't want them here? that they don't deserve their identity? If you can't handle the fact that they're different, that they are brave enough to come out to society, to be who they are, far braver than you, then you are a coward. You are the problem. Hide behind your little ban hammer, and live in fear of the ones who enjoy being who they are.

#trans #trans rights #hammer car explosion #🚗 🔨 ⚒️ 💥 #justice for predstrogen #trans rights are human rights #trans people are valid #trans people are people #respect pronouns #trangender #lgbtqia+ #lgbt pride #trans pride

[centaurself]

about the whole tumblr-photomatt-predstrogen thing

i dont care. fucking hell i just cannot bring myself to care any more

its not that i dont think i should, as a trans woman myself this is obviously something that affects me, and i know i should absolutely be rallying for my trans sisters in need

but holy fuck i just do not have the emotional bandwidth any more

i am so tired. trans people get fucked over in real life so often, theres all the shit happening in gaza, and just the news in general, that something like this happening is just. i dont have the energy to try and care

im not going to move to a place that isnt already well-established, lets be reasonable, im staying here until it dies or i die. and considering certain threats by the ceo, the former seems quite likely to be soon. so im staying until it goes down

im glad those positivity posts are helping people, and this is CLEARLY a case of conflicting access needs, but christ i dont want to be reminded of the situation everywhere i look. i know people hate me, i just want to have a space where i can post silly things, and look at other silly things

is this unethical of me? immoral? definitely. but god. i dont want to think about this any more. id rather stay here and fight the terfs just by existing. im just so tired of doing anything at all

i dont want to be actively reminded every damn day of the fact that people want me dead purely because i exist. i just want to chill, and if there are activist posts, i want them to be things i actually can do stuff about, as opposed to just a never-ending sludge of posts about how people hate me and nothings being done about it.

apparently thats too much to ask for now

#tumblr #photomatt #predstrogen

[jestinggenesis]

I think that the horrible situation with predstrogen and a lot of transmisogyny that has been brought to light (which I am in no way trying to undermine, I 100% stand with predstrogen and her deletion was unjustified and a blatant act of transmisogyny) has lead to two very vocal groups of TERFs siding with the Tumblr CEO and attacking more trans women as well as a group of people who seem to belive that no other group of queer people experience discrimination other than trans women, and I feel that both of these groups are harmful to the greater point that Tumblr staff and the CEO are very strangely bigoted transmisogynists who have a history of allowing terfs, radfems and neo-nazis to exist and harass on this site while targeting a single trans-women for seemingly no reason.

#just needed to actualize this into like words #hopefully some action comes of this whole mess against tumblr staff and moderation

[autogynocrat]

ceo matt beta energy fr

straight men find being called beta very offensive. since this website is now run by a straight man we have to accept their culture. it would violate the community guidelines to call him a beta male. but if any "people who identify as terfs" want to say that they can if they want! after all the moderation team is allegedly selective in its enforcement of the community guidelines against "people who identify as terfs". but the community guidelines apply to me since i am a trans woman. so i do not endorse any statement that could be interpreted to mean i believe the ceo of automattic is a beta male. that is up to user interpretation

[gamblingwithmyssoul]

I love this site

I love this site with my whole heart.

Tumblr is the only platform where I can just be myself, not being judged for what I like, who I am, and where I could just be myself without any outside pressure. It helped me realize things about myself, found my favorite media, and made me discover who I am, and what I probably am. At least so I thought. But this whole transmisogany thing, this whole bullshit our CEO is doing, it just makes me sad and angry. I know I probably won’t leave this fandom soon. There aren’t as many people on co-host, and I don’t know how hard it is to start a new social media platform, especially coming from a platform with isn’t the most popular already. I have hope for co-host, but I probably still be hanging here for a while before I permanently move there, unless Matt steps down.

I hope Matt steps down. That’s the only way he can redeem himself. I probably will get banned for saying this, but who the fuck cares. I hope someone else will become CEO, hell, maybe a trans woman. Maybe we don’t even need a CEO, who knows? If tumblr has any trans or gay staff, like Matt says, please speak up about this bullshit that is happening. Please change this platform for the better. Ban the TERFS and nazi’s, not the trans people.

This all sounds disjointed, but I love this site, and I don’t want it to go down like this. Fuck you Matt. Step down, please.

If anyone even cares, i’m gamblingwithmysoul on cohost

#carhammerexplosionmatt #fuck you matt #🚗🔨⚒️💥 #transgender #trans rights #fuck you staff

[doberbutts]

not the og anon who said put up or shut up but this may be what they're referring to: https://www.tumblr.com/spartanlocke/743188149900050432/photomatt-following-an-open-zionist-just-because

1: I am not friends with him nor do I follow him because he is a minor and I don't deliberately interact with minors unless they interact with me, at that point I only interact in public where everyone can see, because I'm also an at-risk demographic of false reports and I'm not about that life

2: he is the minor he's saying she sexually harassed. A scroll thru his blog reveals this. It is not hard to find. He is saying that she was in on the "hope you get impregnated with girlcock" rape anon that went around. He has not yet provided proof for this, personally I only saw trans mascs being shitheads to other trans mascs about it, at which point we (outsiders to whatever happened between them) are stuck between a rock (believe victims) and a hard place (trans women are disproportionately falsely reported for sexual misconduct).

3: the last time I scrolled thru his blog to verify claims, I saw posts from him saying that despite this he did not want her to be banned and does believe the ban was influenced by transmisogyny.

4: he also wasn't happy that the CEO is following him- also like. While I am among the people who only follow those I actively seek out and talk to, mutuals who have never said a single word to each other exist, meaning that them being mutuals is not proof of friendship.

5: Jewish people including recent converts pointing out antisemitism within a movement are not Zionists. A quick scroll of his blog reveals that he stands with Palestine, just doesn't like antisemitism. Which is fair considering he is Jewish.

6: he's pretty much constantly harassed by TERFs and TEHMs so I wouldn't call that proof of teaming up with anyone tbh

Bad example, try again.

[gacha-incels]

Hi, sorry for sending this, I'm trying to gather information on Shift UP's ideological verification of its employees, and the CEO's stance on feminism. would you happen to have sources and articles on the subject?

Thank you in advance.

sorry this is a bit late, I’ve been ill recently so I’ve had to spend my free time sleeping lol 😭

article regarding SHIFT-UP removing an artist’s work from their gacha game “Destiny Child” after she said there shouldn’t be a problem being a feminist and voiced support for the VA, Kim Jayeon, that Nexon fired for taking a photo of herself wearing a shirt that said “Girls Do Not Need A Prince”. The shirt was part of a fundraiser to help victims of domestic violence (see the npr article linked below) , the rates of which are especially high for women living in South Korea. You can note here that literally anything vaguely feminist is met with “are you megal?” (referring to the defunct website megalia) and it doesn’t even matter how she responds. This woman made some simple statements and is smeared as some feminist terrorist. tbh sometimes it’s an uphill battle trying to explain to anyone, especially on the western internet, that these women aren’t making some evil dogwhistle to the feminist illuminati when they make basic feminist statements. I’ve gotten called “terf/terf sympathizer” (???) for trying to explain that the artist Vellmori was being smeared on the western web with the term “terf” as a targeted campaign by Korean incels who know that term puts a target on your back and nothing else about it. I am of course not saying megalia was a totally unproblematic site with no ideological problems but none of these women being smeared are saying anything like “yeah the homophobia was great” they’re literally advocating for basic women’s rights. I’m also not saying “basic” in a condescending way, on the contrary I think these women are brave for speaking out and have created complex feminist ideologies and movements. “Basic” and “simple” are meant to show the absurdity in the reaction (extreme male anger, firing, censorship, etc) in relation to the original statement (molka is bad, it’s fine to be a feminist, etc).

this is an article in English regarding the VA who wore the shirt:

SHIFT-UP’s gacha game “Nikke” recently engaging in 🤏 male freakouts

article in Korean regarding this, I’ll add it but idk how “peripheral” you want to get since i don’t think it’s directly SHIFT-UP (?)

as far as more opinion pieces go, there’s this article written by an artist who was a victim of feminist ideological verification that talks about SHIFT-UP’s gacha “Nikke”

Edit- the actual post seems to have been deleted, I screenshotted and pasted the entire thing on the linked post above but idk how using this would come across since the original post is gone.

I posted some images and MTL on this post

this is a paper that goes over just some of the basics of megalia’s mirroring tactics and how it got started

If anyone has anything else specific lmk and I’ll update this post too, I hope what I’ve posted so far can be helpful

#shift up #megalia #stellar blade