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capricorn-season · 8 months

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10 JUNE 2020

J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues

Warning: The below content is not appropriate for children. Please check with an adult before you read this page.

This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.

For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.

My interest in trans issues pre-dated Maya’s case by almost two years, during which I followed the debate around the concept of gender identity closely. I’ve met trans people, and read sundry books, blogs and articles by trans people, gender specialists, intersex people, psychologists, safeguarding experts, social workers and doctors, and followed the discourse online and in traditional media. On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself, but on another, it’s intensely personal, as I’m about to explain.

All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.

Months later, I compounded my accidental ‘like’ crime by following Magdalen Berns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing. However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises, dots were joined in the heads of twitter trans activists, and the level of social media abuse increased.

I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.

What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.

I’d stepped back from Twitter for many months both before and after tweeting support for Maya, because I knew it was doing nothing good for my mental health. I only returned because I wanted to share a free children’s book during the pandemic. Immediately, activists who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people swarmed back into my timeline, assuming a right to police my speech, accuse me of hatred, call me misogynistic slurs and, above all – as every woman involved in this debate will know – TERF.

If you didn’t already know – and why should you? – ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.

But accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who’re cowering before the tactics of the playground. ‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’ What next, they’ll say you’ve got fleas? Speaking as a biological woman, a lot of people in positions of power really need to grow a pair (which is doubtless literally possible, according to the kind of people who argue that clownfish prove humans aren’t a dimorphic species).

So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

Firstly, I have a charitable trust that focuses on alleviating social deprivation in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on women and children. Among other things, my trust supports projects for female prisoners and for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women. It’s been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is having (or is likely to have, if all its demands are met) a significant impact on many of the causes I support, because it’s pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.

The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.

Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’

Her paper caused a furore. She was accused of bias and of spreading misinformation about transgender people, subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work. The journal took the paper offline and re-reviewed it before republishing it. However, her career took a similar hit to that suffered by Maya Forstater. Lisa Littman had dared challenge one of the central tenets of trans activism, which is that a person’s gender identity is innate, like sexual orientation. Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.

The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an article explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England) psychiatrist Marcus Evans stated that claims that children will kill themselves if not permitted to transition do not ‘align substantially with any robust data or studies in this area. Nor do they align with the cases I have encountered over decades as a psychotherapist.’

The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people. The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.

When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’

As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it’s fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.

I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.

We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced. Back in the 80s, I imagined that my future daughters, should I have any, would have it far better than I ever did, but between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, I believe things have got significantly worse for girls. Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.

I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much. It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.

But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.

Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

I’ve been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit and remember. I also feel protective of my daughter from my first marriage. I didn’t want to claim sole ownership of a story that belongs to her, too. However, a short while ago, I asked her how she’d feel if I were publicly honest about that part of my life, and she encouraged me to go ahead.

I’m mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who’ve been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces.

I managed to escape my first violent marriage with some difficulty, but I’m now married to a truly good and principled man, safe and secure in ways I never in a million years expected to be. However, the scars left by violence and sexual assault don’t disappear, no matter how loved you are, and no matter how much money you’ve made. My perennial jumpiness is a family joke – and even I know it’s funny – but I pray my daughters never have the same reasons I do for hating sudden loud noises, or finding people behind me when I haven’t heard them approaching.

If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.

I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one. To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they’d drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.

Late on Saturday evening, scrolling through children’s pictures before I went to bed, I forgot the first rule of Twitter – never, ever expect a nuanced conversation – and reacted to what I felt was degrading language about women. I spoke up about the importance of sex and have been paying the price ever since. I was transphobic, I was a cunt, a bitch, a TERF, I deserved cancelling, punching and death. You are Voldemort said one person, clearly feeling this was the only language I’d understand.

It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags – because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter – scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow. There’s joy, relief and safety in conformity. As Simone de Beauvoir also wrote, “… without a doubt it is more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one’s liberation; the dead, too, are better suited to the earth than the living.”

Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories. They’re afraid of doxxing, of losing their jobs or their livelihoods, and of violence.

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces. Polls show those women are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.

The one thing that gives me hope is that the women who can protest and organise, are doing so, and they have some truly decent men and trans people alongside them. Political parties seeking to appease the loudest voices in this debate are ignoring women’s concerns at their peril. In the UK, women are reaching out to each other across party lines, concerned about the erosion of their hard-won rights and widespread intimidation. None of the gender critical women I’ve talked to hates trans people; on the contrary. Many of them became interested in this issue in the first place out of concern for trans youth, and they’re hugely sympathetic towards trans adults who simply want to live their lives, but who’re facing a backlash for a brand of activism they don’t endorse. The supreme irony is that the attempt to silence women with the word ‘TERF’ may have pushed more young women towards radical feminism than the movement’s seen in decades.

The last thing I want to say is this. I haven’t written this essay in the hope that anybody will get out a violin for me, not even a teeny-weeny one. I’m extraordinarily fortunate; I’m a survivor, certainly not a victim. I’ve only mentioned my past because, like every other human being on this planet, I have a complex backstory, which shapes my fears, my interests and my opinions. I never forget that inner complexity when I’m creating a fictional character and I certainly never forget it when it comes to trans people.

All I’m asking – all I want – is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.

#women #gender critical #jk rowling #text #artículo

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hmsindecision · 2 months

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I hope one day you realize how horrid bigotry is, and can look back on these days with shame and embarrassment, but also with pride how one became a better person. When the people who want to oppress us are done with trans people they'll go after bisexuality next, then lesbians and gays, then women. We need to stand together or they will push us back into the 1700s.

In order to become an adult you need to release this “us vs. them”, black and white, dichotomous vision of the world. It doesn’t exist. There is no cohesive “they” that I must bond with any ally I can in order to resist.

Do you really think that I have gone any period of time without suffering from systemic homophobia and misogyny? Do you really think that I am sitting from a place of privilege looking down at people who are “one rung below me on the oppression ladder”? What a childish way of thinking.

A large proportion of the homophobia and misogyny that I have experienced has been from people who identified themselves as on the left, as trans, and whose values in some ways align with my own. That really sucks. It really sucks that I have been verbally berated and called slurs by both conservatives and trans people alike. Those who believe that performatively being homophobic or anti-lesbian to me have varied values, religions, creed, and political beliefs. They are a deeply heterozygous group. People approaching my short haired wife to ask her for her pronouns and therefore implying that she is improperly signaling womanhood are the most frequent gender police I encounter.

Why is it that I must accept things like being called names for being exclusively same sex attracted? I by should I accept that because other people have been targeted by the same people who have targeted me?

Why is it my womanly duty to provide solidarity with people who tell me I deserve to be raped, beaten, my career destroyed, my friendships rescinded…. Because I don’t ascribe to their philosophical beliefs? I don’t believe in gender as a framework to be upheld. I hold gender in the same regard as capitalism or the divine right of kings. It is a system of oppression designed to place men over women. It has had loopholes in many societies, mostly to create a third sex for homosexual men. It operates differently in different societies. But I think it’s anti-woman and anti-human. To ask me to believe that someone has an inborn gender identity/gendered spirit is like asking me to believe that corporations are people, that God chose a king, or that the world is flat. There is simply no evidence for that to be true, because it would require there to be something that makes us men or women beyond biology.

There is not. Non-biological differences between men and women are purely socialized. If it isn’t inscribed on the X or Y chromosomes, it’s something you were taught. The clothes you wear, the way you act, the things you like, they are all influenced by the society you live in. The associations of colors, toys, interests, and other things to our sex assignation is partially arbitrary and party about subjugation. Women aren’t born loving makeup any more than serfs are born loving to serve.

I believe everyone should express their vision of themselves as they please. I hate the micro labels that are now applied to all aspects of appearance because people cannot conceive of human difference. I think that even things which I consider anti-self and anti-human can be things which adults do to themselves. If you need surgery or pills, then it isn’t about identity, it’s about fantasy. I understand the necessity of fantasy in an oppressive system.

But gender isn’t just a source of oppression against women. It is also fuel to create and sustain oppressors. That is part of why the anti-feminism of the trans movement feels so comfortable to people raised in patriarchy (all of us). Because the idea that we all have a muliplicity of gender identities is also about absolving men of thousands of years of terrorism and oppression against us XX chromosome havers. Why should I assume my oppressed has good intentions because of their clothing? Because they got surgery? Does that make a trans woman any safer than any other male under patriarchy? Or is that just a safe illusion so you don’t have to deal with the reality?

Even your trajectory in this ask—you think they started with trans people, then bi people are next? How are they going to go after bi people without going after gay people? Unless you mean just angry social opinions as opposed to systemic oppression? Then women last? Literally what fucking planet do you live on? I’m assuming you are American based on… this ask lmao… but…

They have already come for women. Abortion is illegal in many places. Rape is such a constant that we can’t even meaningfully address it. Teen girls are killing themselves over male violence just into puberty. Famous rapists and abusers are constantly fawned over. In my state, DV services are so taxed with women that last year they turned down over 50,000 asks for shelter in the statewide network.

50,000.

And my local LGBTQ community center has a ban of events that say they are for lesbians, or even AFAB people. Did you ever think that maybe *you* need to start showing some solidarity?

When it comes down to it, men always, always choose each other.

I’m doing the most radical thing I can think of, and choosing women every time.

I don’t hate you. But you sure are good at falling for propoganda. Are you wasting your time fighting feminists because it’s easier to attack women than to stand up to your oppressors?

I’m very proud of myself and the woman that I am, and the activism I do (which.. is not on tumblr). I hope you can find the things that make you deeply proud of yourself as an individual, and that you live in accordance with your own values.

#feminism #gender theory

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the-land-of-women · 1 year

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Since next to no one who is criticising and labelling jkr as a bigot has actually read what she said I’m gonna paste her essay from 2020 here:

“This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.

So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

#jk rowling #jkr #j.k. rowling #joanne rowling #terf #j.k rowling

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baroquespiral · 5 months

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hello. i saw a video featuring aella then saw your twitter through it. i immediately stopped watching the video as i do not agree with many of their takes, but i would like to understand them without watching a video about kinks through the lens of the political compass. could you possibly explain what gender maximalizing is, what a gynocratic traditionalist is, and what the sphere you operate in is called? Thank you. (there was an article when i looked it up but im not going on medium)

wait what video with Aella am I in lol. anyway most of the things in my Twitter bio are at least partly a bit, do not represent any kind of relevant external movement or phenomenon, and you are not going to find explained anywhere else anyway so. "gender optimizationist" is a kind of contrarian response to the formerly popular position of "gender nihilism", a framework that tried to decentre the discourse of innate identity in justifying/accounting for gender fluidity, transition etc. by basically adopting the maximally deflationist position that gender is entirely an ideological construct covering material oppressive systems but letting people identify & do whatever they want with it is truer to the premise of its abolition than restricting specific behaviours and identities as actually existing "gender". I actually do find this useful to bring up when TERFs claim stuff like "trans people believe in innate gendered souls or what role you fit determines your gender" etc. but still think it concedes too much so my own position of "gender optimization" is like, gender is real at least insofar as something we consciously construct, people's identities aren't less objective than their historical origins and we can and should continue the project of shaping and rebuilding it until we make it something that can accommodate the maximum of everyone possible (and leave exits for people who don't want it)

"gynocratic traditionalism" is not entirely compatible with this and while I didn't take either completely seriously I used to struggle with this more before I got into Thelema and clarified my spirituality & ontology in a lot of ways. for completely personal poetic/psychosexual reasons I was simultaneously inclined to read gender as actually real in a metaphysical/spiritual sense, albeit one that doesn't map to biology or patriarchal gender roles and mostly derives from reading The White Goddess by Robert Graves way too young. almost nobody remembers it now but that book was part of the broader "matriarchal antiquity" trend, a huge influence on Wicca and the New Ageier side of second wave feminism, and argues that the original religious/magickal tradition was the essentially henotheistic worship of a Great Goddess of life, death and nature, who was self-sufficient but produced for her own pleasure a secondary male god who dies and resurrects with the agricultural cycle. human gender is then a reflection of this higher metaphysical order, with woman as the superior term in the hierarchy, and the "warrior" dimensions of masculinity being descended from a form of sacrificial kingship ritually representing the life-death cycle of the Goddess' lover. I'd basically argue the "gender optimizationist" position relative to left queer theory but this relative to right-wing mythopoeic traditionalist accounts of gender, which as an intensely capital-R Romantic personality I did at least get the appeal of and offered it as a "feminist" alternative to. people like RFH have kinda picked up the baton of that now although I have some obvious issues with her framings. I used "gynocratic" instead of matriarchal bc one of the interesting things about Graves' version of this hypothesis is it doesn't actually focus on motherhood and reproduction as much as the wombyn TERF stuff; for instance instead of the more famous Wiccan "maiden/mother/crone" formulation for the Goddess' three aspects he uses "maiden/nymph/crone", implying that the default adulthood stage wasn't necessarily settling down and popping out babies but a freewheeling sexuality where reproduction was an individual choice supported by the community, controlled by abortifacents etc. should probably clarify that, after quite a bit of going back and forth on it and my Twitter presence was designed to be plausibly deniable in either direction, I am pretty much a low-Kinsey bisexual cis guy who socialized into predominantly queer, especially trans spaces mostly just due to neurodivergence and general nonconformity. a lot of my weird gender politics is subtly in dialogue with MonetizeYourCat-era Tumblr stuff (imo the more honest version of today's mainstream heteropessimism) about whether it's even possible or ethical to exist as that you didn't mention them but just to have on record re: the other stuff in the bio, "presuppositional leftist" applies the idea of presuppositional apologetics to my left commitments in the sense that they're not premised on any descriptive claim about reality but rather presuppositions of why politics would even matter to me in the first place, and "Canadian materialist" is a joke on Canadian idealism. my Substack bio is more up to date with where I'm at now but I like keeping the Twitter one around bc every now and then someone has a really funny reaction to it I don't really have a "sphere I operate in" so much as I float around the edges of different subcultures, study them and make friends with people I find interesting. currently I feel like I'm kind of in tpot, kind of in the "irony left" and kind of in parapolitics/esoteric "schizoposting". and also trying to carve out a niche in the online subcultural arts scene: my major passion project rn is my indie press and in particular our serial fiction journal (new issue coming out this month!) featuring two of my novels

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feminist-bitches-only · 1 year

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My current belief system (always subject to change) in case anyone found my blog and is wondering:

I am not a libfem

- I don’t find centering men in my feminism as empowering (ex: it is a myth that men’s mental health isn’t taken seriously while women’s is. When has women’s mental health ever been taken seriously??? We should be able to label our oppressors as men without being labeled as bigoted generalizers, as any other oppressed group is able to label their oppressors).

- Plastic surgery, makeup, and shaving are absolutely not empowering and I truly don’t believe there is any woman out there who truly deeply believes that these are simply personal choices that you would make regardless of social influence. In fact, certain plastic surgeries being considered as gender-affirming care is extremely misogynistic (ex: if you are on estrogen and grow breasts, but you’re unhappy that they are smaller than you want them to be - that is a symptom of misogyny & insurance should not be covering additional breast implants under gender-affirming care, thus enforcing the idea that something like breast size makes a woman).

- Sex-based oppression is VERY real. Thus, spaces for afab people should exist in addition to spaces for all women because of this & afab imagery is empowering to afab women and should not be shamed or called trans-exclusive - it is for the purpose of empowering afab people. Who are oppressed.

- Gender abolition is the goal. Gender has been constructed for the purpose of oppressing women, and has been clearly show to be used as a tool of oppression against trans people as well. Additionally, considering gender is constructed, it is perfectly valid for some to experience attraction based on sex vs gender.

- Gender-neutral language can sometimes borderline on offensive (but usually not as bad as radfems make it out to be). Additionally a woman’s issue can still affect people who are not women (ex: abortion access IS a woman’s issue [affects women mostly and is an issue of discussion only because it’s used as a tool to oppress women], but also affects trans men/enbies). If you would not say that poverty & underfunded schools are faced by the Black community just because there are also white people who face poverty, do not try to say that calling issues like abortion women’s issues is a problem.

- Misogyny against straight women/cis women/white women/etc. is still misogyny. While intersectionality increases the burden of oppressions, misogyny is still a very VERY real oppression that is often not even labeled - it’s just seen as part of living in this world as a woman (ex: rape, sexual harassment, and stalking are often not considered hate crimes; cunt, bitch, and slut aren’t considered slurs by the general public).

I am not a radfem

- There is literally no reason to misgender or deadname trans people. I cannot ever read posts on this site with purposeful misgendering without believing it is in bad faith (I don’t consider sex-based terminology as misgendering [it is perfectly okay for someone to have female/male biology but identify as a man/woman], but I ascribe to afab/amab terminology since it seems so be more affirming/less dysphoria-triggering to the trans community).

- Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people are non-binary. While it is completely fine for you to base your gender off your sex [ex: I am a woman because I am an adult human female], it is not okay to act as if everyone’s gender needs to be determined that way. This is a major flaw of radfem ideology - if gender is a social construct, why would people be forced into a gender identity based on their sex??? Makes no sense.

- Queer is a good, empowering term. Anything can be used as a slur, doesn’t mean people can’t identify with it. I ascribe to the belief that slur reclamation greatly decreases a slur’s power. It is perfectly okay for people to not want to put their sexualities/genders into very neat boxes. Who cares if you could get a more specific understanding of someone’s sexuality with a gay/bi label?? Why is it any of your business to get a specific reading of someone’s sexuality?

- Trying to insinuate that you know someone’s sex based on shit like their facial features is embarrassing as fuck and incredibly misogynistic. I can’t imagine the embarrassment of being anti-patriarchy to only go to a cis woman and claim they’re trans because you think their shoulders are too broad or something lmao. Or, in the case of trans women, claim you know they’re trans because of *insert feature that many cis women also have here.*

My main interest: bringing communication and building relationships between the feminist & trans rights movements. Both of these groups are fighting their own oppression and I genuinely believe that they misunderstand each other’s concerns, goals, and experiences. I think that we are stronger together and as oppressed groups, we are not each other’s enemies. We can work together to stand up to the patriarchy, without dismissing the trans experience, and stand up to the gender binary, without excluding the afab woman experience. But as oppressed groups, we need to listen to each other. Lateral oppression is not, has never been, and never will be cute. ***For this reason, you will not see me tagging posts as “radfems dni” or “tras dni” or any variance of the two. People need to be able to interact and understand each other’s thoughts and concerns to be able to bridge this gap. I will not tolerate bad-faith conversation, however.

#always feel free to ask me questions #or if you disagree with a take of mine I am always down for civil good faith discussion and am very open to changing my mind #feminist #feminism #trans rights

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unovampire · 7 months

Text

𝔙𝔞𝔪𝔭𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔰𝔪 - Yes, Grimsley is an actual vampire.

And he’s quite old! Not ancient by lore standards, but, at the age of 33, he underwent the vampiric transformation somewhere between the tail end of the Industrial Revolution, and Galar’s equivalent of the Victorian era, putting Grimsley’s true age at just under 200 years.

Over the years, he has held many different jobs, taken on various identities, played with his gender, and blended into society. For the most part, he does not struggle to live comfortably; currently, Grimsley is able to live out his days in a chateau in northern Unova, where his family owns a winery. The wine business has been in his family’s name for generations, even during the Unovan prohibition— where he played a hand in smuggling booze for the family business and running speakeasies. Truthfully, the winery allows Grimsley to ‘cover-up�� his vampiric nature, and he uses it as a gathering spot for others of sanguinary persuasion. Along with the winery, Grimsley carries on his duties as a member of the Unovan Elite Four, and occasionally can be seen dealing cards at a casino in Nimbasa City.

There are so many different ways to structure vampire lore and worldbuilding, and, in order to respect everybody’s visions, I am more than happy to accommodate others’ ideas! I do believe that there are different laws and biology for vampires depending on culture and species. Grimsley’s abilities and limitations will be unique to him, and to those related to his “flock.”

YES, he is a sanguinary vampire, which means he drinks the blood of human beings.

NO, he does not drink the blood of Pokémon or animals, this is not Twilight.

YES, he is nocturnal, and rises no earlier than 5 in the afternoon.

NO, he will not immediately succumb to death under the sun’s rays. Prolonged exposure to the sun does cause weaken him, and his Pokémon, immensely however, and causes him to age over time and look sickly. Spending time out of the sun, and taking on extra meals, helps him recover.

YES, he is undead.

NO, him biting you does not automatically turn you into a vampire. Both vampire and host must swap blood in order for a transformation to occur.

YES, he has the ability of night vision and heightened senses in order to survive as a nocturnal being.

NO, he does not transform into a million Zubats.

YES, he has favorite blood flavors! Blood type, hormone content, health and personality of the host influences the flavor.

NO, he will NOT drink the blood of those who cannot consent.

YES, he has transformed a few people into vampires before.

NO, he is not willing to transform people just by request, and will not even entertain it if the person in question is a minor, or is not sound of mind enough to make such a decision.

Grimsley does have one additional, unique ability: Luck and misfortune are able to be used as a commodity by Grimsley. Once every lunar cycle, he can take somebody’s good luck, and use it as his own. However, come the beginning of the next lunar cycle, he has to take somebody’s bad luck, and so on and so forth. This is an ability that Grimsley used a lot more in his younger years as a sanguine, but he seldom takes advantage of it now— unless, of course, there’s a high stakes black jack tournament on the line.

Who knows that Grimsley is a vampire???? Most of the Unovan league officials. It is not the most absurd thing to come out of Unova, after all. In a world full of incredible technology and magic beyond comprehension, a creature like a vampire is not such a heavily guarded secret, nor a major shock,— but the actual society supporting vampires stays strictly underground, due to some of the “illegal” means that some take in order to get drunk on blood.

#❝ ℑ𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔳𝔦𝔢𝔴 𝔚𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔄 𝔙𝔞𝔪𝔭𝔦𝔯𝔢. ❞ - Headcanon

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inthefear · 1 year

Text

courtney eaton, queer, non-binary + she/they ― hey look, it’s honey wozniak! she's twenty-five years old, she's lived in shrike heights for her entire life, and she's currently working at cupid's in shrike mall. i heard she's pretty disconnected, but i think he's so exuberant at the same time. can she make it out alive?

polaroids / conversations / inspirations / starters / scrapbook

basic information -

full name: honey bee wozniak nicknames: honey, honey bee preferred name: honey gender: non-binary, but comfortable with gendered terms pronouns: she/her and they/them, comfortable with both an equal amount sexual orientation: queer - gender and identity doesn't influence attraction. only has polyamorous/ethically non-monogamous practice date of birth: august 1st 1963 age: twenty-five zodiac: leo, believes in zodiacs family: the shrike heights commune. biological mother and father (both known to her), yet many parental figures. leaf and sonnet wozniak amongst her many siblings. occupation: working as a messenger at cupid's in shrike mall, as well as for the commune at markets hometown: shrike heights, co

background -

honey was born and raised in the commune in shrike heights.

while she's never known anything different than the lifestyle she was born into, she's always embraced it and felt complete comfort and belonging.

she was privileged enough to have so much support in her upbringing. while she knows who her biological parents are, and was raised by them, she's always looked beyond biology, and has had more than just the two parental figures to guide her in life.

honey grew up with almost complete freedom. she was a happy child, who was always always to play, explore nature, and grow and learn at her own pace.

out of the many things at her disposal there in the common, honey connected the most to the nature and the literature. she'd spend all day out in the forests and fields and by streams, and all night reading by candlelight.

when she was a young child she expressed interest in helping the older members of the commune with the markets and events they held. she wasn't the only child to do so, but either way, she was able to become involved and she always loved the work.

truthfully, honey never felt any need to stray outside of the commune. she explored the greater town of shrike, too, but she mostly resided safely within her commune.

her life was peaceful and beautifully free until the attacks begun. though she was safe in the peace of her commune, other commune members lived more affiliated with greater shrike, some of which were even hurt.

when the attacks began to get closer to home, honey didn't know how to cope with the terrible feelings that she had never experienced before. she had never been so upset, and she had never had such little control.

freedom and control were amongst the most important things in honey's life. she wasn't sure how to regain those things, but in an attempt to, she decided to stay closer to her family and those affected by the attacks.

though many think it's the worst idea, as always, those in the commune support her attempt at regaining control and her willingness to be around danger with the intent to help.

additional information -

honey is an extremely bubbly person. she's comfortable with herself and with others, and that gives her a lot of confidence, especially socially.

she's a hippie, and that's clear in both appearance and personality. she believes in free love and hopes for a peaceful world. she doesn't push her beliefs onto anyone else, but she is very open and expressive about what she feels.

she's in love and obsessed with nature. she spends almost all of her time outside, even sleeping under the stars unless the weather is too cold, rainy or snowy.

she's extremely athletic. she was never involved in any team sports, but she used to watch sport matches at the schools, and then go home and teach her siblings in the commune all of the rules of the games so that they could play, too.

honey is naturally adventurous. she's always been made to feel completely capable, so she has a lot of bravery as well as a drive to always be on some wild and fun adventure.

she has an orange cat named pumpkin, and a pet cow named sunny. they're both very attached to her, as she is them.

while working at the mall, and spending more time in town, she still lives in the commune and is dedicated to her work both there and at the markets and events they work at.

she's not sure that she can be of any help, with the killers and the attacks, but she feels better and more in control, just being closer to it all.

wanted connections -

possible connections are not limited to what is listed below. my discord dms are always open to those who wish to plot, you do not need permission from plot calls etc. to message me. responses may be slow sometimes, but i will always get back to you. i don't like talking in tumblr ims, and may miss those.

fellow animal lovers - treating animals kindly is mandatory to honey, and she'll always feel more respect for those who do the same.

fellow nature lovers - honey is always in nature, whenever she can be, so she's sure to meet those who are the same!

adventure buddies. she likes to constantly be on an adventure, especially when it's out in nature in the forests, for example.

athletic friends. people who she plays recreational sport with, or who she hikes with, or anyone else who she can burn energy with.

other people who have stalls at markets - from the commune or not!

people outside of the commune who she met when she was young, and stayed friends with. they were likely the only outside of the commune friends she had for a while!

hook ups - she's very free with her sexuality, and she often opts for hook ups and sexual relationships rather than monogamous relationships despite how strongly she feels.

crushes - either way, mutual, unrequited on either end, whether or not something comes from it depending.

co-workers or customers of cupid's. she's a good employee who cares a lot for her customers, and she definitely gets invested, if anyone tells her anything about the letters they're sending.

#shrikeintro #honey | introduction #all | introductions

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 years

Video

youtube

Andrew Doyle on Mermaids: 'Regressive, reactionary, and a danger to those they purport to help'

The rise of gender identity ideology is one of the most significant cultural shifts we've experienced in recent years.

It isn't just about accepting people for how they want to dress, what they want to call themselves, or how they want to live their lives - none of which anyone has a problem with - but rather that we should reorganize society around the concept of "gender" rather than sex.

And this has major implications for women's rights, because single sex spaces such as domestic violence refuge centers, hospitals and prisons depend first and foremost on biology. It also has major implications for gay rights which were secured through a recognition that will always be a minority of people who are attracted to members of their own sex. When you disregard biology, in other words, you disregard gay rights.

Now I've said all this before, but why does it bear repeating?

Well I'll tell you. It's because GB News is the only news channel that does so. And this isn't meant to sound triumphalist, it's just a fact and so I feel it's important to return to this issue on a regular basis. Because that media near silence most definitely needs to be broken.

There have been serious consequences to this negligence in the media. If you ask the average person what they think about the prospect of male rapists identifying as women, and then being transferred to female prisons, they mostly won't know what you're talking about. They probably won't believe it has ever happened. But it has, and in a few cases those prisoners have gone on to commit further sexual assaults.

And consider the implications for the sporting world. For a long time a small group of courageous athletes, people such as Martina Navratilova, Mara Yamauchi and Sharon Davis, have been trying to draw attention to the problem of biological males in women's sports. And they were ignored by the media, and called bigots by activists.

Kathleen stock wrote a brilliant book about how women's rights depend upon a recognition of biological sex differences, but it was only when activists hounded her out of her job at the University of Sussex that it made the news. Helen Joyce wrote a best-selling book about this issue and when I interviewed her on this program at the time of its publication, she said to me that no other news channel had invited her on to speak.

Why not? Well the truth is that most media outlets have been captured by the new quasi-religion of gender identity, and they have been unwilling to platform voices who might question this belief system. It's like the world of news media has suddenly been taken over by fanatical priests and all of a sudden we don't hear from the atheists anymore.

And this is largely down to the influence of Stonewall, a charity that used to support gay people rather than demonize them as sexual racists, as its CEO now does, and Stonewall has a policy of "no debate." Well they may as well call it "no heresy," and so it's hardly surprising that we should get radio silence from those media outlets that are under its thumb.

And although GB news is a relatively new channel, a small fish in a big pond, I can at least say that we've done our utmost to draw attention to these issues and offer a platform for those people who are speaking out.

And this week we are seeing that this silence, this journalistic negligence, this failure to enable a public discussion, has had some serious repercussions.

The trans youth charity, Mermaids, has finally come under a degree of media scrutiny this week. Better late than never, I suppose. You'll remember that Mermaids is a group that recently took LGB Alliance to court in an attempt to have it stripped of its charity status. And why? Because Mermaids takes the view that a charity that defends the interests of gay people is somehow transphobic. This isn't true of course, but gay people and feminists too have become accustomed to these kinds of slurs.

Many years ago mermaids used to offer sensible advice to the parents of children who were struggling with their gender. It would suggest a more hands-off approach, and pointed out in its literature that in most cases these feelings of gender dysphoria in childhood would be resolved naturally through puberty.

But in recent years, it has adopted the gender affirmative approach which has resulted in children being fast-tracked onto harmful medication. The majority of these children will have other issues that account for the dysphoria, as I pointed out on the show many times. The studies are absolutely clear that there is a strong correlation between gender non-conformity in youth and homosexuality in later life. So mermaids has been complicit in an ideology that seeks to fix gender non-conforming children according to heterosexual norms.

It is claimed that puberty blockers are harmless and reversible, even though evidence is clear that this is not the case. A recent investigation by The Telegraph revealed that Mermaids had encouraged breast binding for young girls without parental consent. This is a harmful practice that can lead to all sorts of medical problems, including breathing difficulties and broken ribs.

Well, the Charity Commission is now investigating Mermaids and all hell is breaking loose. This charity has been supported by major corporations. Starbucks and Wagamama have previously run campaigns in association with Mermaids, and celebrities have been falling over themselves to declare their approval.

But now tweets are being deleted, evidence erased, because it's becoming increasingly clear that Mermaids, for all that it has been perceived as being progressive, inclusive and "on the right side of history," is in fact regressive, reactionary and a danger to the very people it purports to help.

And it doesn't stop there. Over the past few days it has been revealed that one of Mermaids' trustees is an academic with a long history of writing in support of pedophilic desire. Now even the most ardent free speech absolutist must surely concede that these kind of writings should disqualify him from being a trustee of a children's charity. It's clear that Mermaids wasn't undertaking due diligence, but diligence was never the priority here. It was all about the ideology.

In the court hearing with LGB Alliance, a representative for Mermaids admitted to having not read the Cass Review. Now this was the report into The Tavistock, this is the gender pediatric clinic run by the NHS, which was found to be unsafe for vulnerable children and was shut down.

And the chair of Mermaids said in court that the Cass Review was, quote "not Mermaids' field." Not mermaid's field? The Cass Review is one of the most significant reports on the healthcare of children with gender dysphoria that has ever been produced. If this isn't Mermaids' field then perhaps they should stop sending breastbinders to kids.

Of course, many of those who supported Mermaids in the past have been conspicuously silent this week. Others have doubled down and declared that Mermaids is being targeted by anti-trans activists. But this isn't true. I've spoken to numerous critics of Mermaids and gender identity ideology more broadly, and not one of them is anti-trans.

But of course there's a lot at stake here. People eventually are going to have to admit that they supported the sterilization of children, many of whom were simply autistic or were likely to grow up gay. Many decent people have been hoodwinked into supporting this dangerous ideology and so of course they're going to find this difficult to come to terms with.

But sooner or later they're going to have to face up to reality. Too many people know about it now and the truth is getting out there. This is what JK Rowling wrote in August 2020:

"An ethical and medical scandal is brewing. I believe the time is coming when those organisations and individuals who have uncritically embraced fashionable dogma, and demonised those urging caution will have to answer for the harm they've enabled."

Just like the myth of Cassandra, these words were powerfully expressed but largely unheeded. Rowling in fact was monstered and smeared as a bigot for pointing this out, and now, two years later, people are starting to see that she was exactly right.

After the events of this week it feels like the tide is turning, but this really isn't a time for complacency. Activists aren't going to give this one up without a fight. They're too invested in their fantasies. They have convinced themselves that they have been doing good, even though the evidence now shows that they've been doing harm. They've convinced themselves that they are fighting armies of transphobic hate groups, even though these are mostly just specters of their imagination.

Their actual critics are just women, gay people and their supporters who are concerned about the erosion of their rights and the safeguarding of children. So yes, at the risk of repetition, I'm going to keep talking about this subject, because too many in the media are still silent on this issue. And believe me, this is far from over.

As will I.

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harrypotterfuryroad · 1 year

Note

ok a couple of things. i'll start with the end and work upwards.

if you believe that men can stop benefiting from male privilege by declaring themselves women then you don’t believe in male privilege

uh. what.

how are trans women benefitting from male privilege? in any way??

i'm sorry, but no matter how you slice this it doesn't make sense to me. regardless of whether you consider a trans woman a "real woman" or not based on their biology, biology isn't the reason why male privilege exists.

male privilege is a social phenomenon. if it wasn't, it would be impossible to get rid of, and the various social reforms which have given women more rights over the years could not have existed.

and if you believe that, from a social standpoint, trans women receive the same treatment as cis men, you are wrong.

i have an acute distaste for any movement systematically attempting to roll back women’s rights and gay rights

good. same here. but how do movements which support trans people systematically attempt to roll back women's rights and gay rights? the "t" in lgbt stands for transgender, after all. and i feel like the framing that empowering trans people MUST be rolling back women's rights only makes sense if you pit the two movements against each other. they can coexist.

actually, speaking of movements systematically attempting to roll back women's rights and gay rights, what about right-wing movements which are doing just that?

this one is closer to support, but it’s still unequivocally critical of him

this was the one i was referring to, and in all honesty, i should have done more research into rowling's tweets here. i don't want to discredit the nuance. but this interaction with walsh does lead me to what i think is a really important question:

does fighting against transgender rights truly support women?

i don't think so. all it does is give people one more group to discriminate against. if anything, it gives those on the alt-right, like walsh, more legitimacy. and i don't think that you, me, or rowling agree with any of the other ideas he's spewing out.

how are trans women benefitting from male privilege? in any way??

okay let me get you with the most common parallel used here: does rachel dolezal benefit from white privilege? she's not a black woman, but she said she was, and are you really going to invalidate someone's identity?

granted, this isn't the best parallel, but only because ethnicity is so much less rigidly observable than sex

biology isn't the reason why male privilege exists. male privilege is a social phenomenon.

you're sorta right but this is an incomplete thought. patriarchy/male privilege/sexism/misogyny aren't inevitable results of sex differences, but those sex differences are what those structures were built around. it's not sexist to say that males on average are taller than females, but it is sexist to say that males are better than females as a result of their height. ignoring sex differences won't fix anything though - they influence our lives in actual material ways so we can acknowledge them without ascribing moral value to them. this is the same kind of logic i was talking about with equality vs liberation - blindly saying "oh it's ok men and women are the same" without accounting for the actual differences people have to deal with doesn't really help anyone

and if you believe that, from a social standpoint, trans women receive the same treatment as cis men, you are wrong.

well they're certainly not receiving the same treatment as cis women

if anything the way trans women are treated is closer to the way gay men are treated - both are lumped together as like "doing Man wrong" or however you want to phrase it, but this is a combination of gender roles and heteronormativity, not any bias against someone's internal gender essence

but how do movements which support trans people systematically attempt to roll back women's rights and gay rights?

are you familiar with the phrase "unlearn your genital preference" or the surge in sexual assaults in women's prisons after admitting self-identified trans women or government seats designated for women going to trans women or the persistent and rampant misogyny and homophobia in trans spaces

(before you say "oh well what about the transphobia in your spaces" - the misogyny and homophobia usually takes the form of "i hate women and gays" while the "transphobia" usually takes the form of "i wish trans people would stop being so misogynistic and homophobic." there are some legitimately shitty people that i don't want to make excuses for, more on that later)

and like you can deny that it's there but that means that either you haven't run into it yet (bless your heart if that's the case) or it's so persistent that you just don't notice it anymore. it got to be too much for me to stomach, that's why i got out, and lots of people will tell you the same

the "t" in lgbt stands for transgender, after all

because somebody decided the t was there. there's no law of nature that inextricably links l g b and t. and when the t was added in 1988 it was commonly understood that the group was overwhelmingly made up of people who would otherwise fall elsewhere in lgb. gay history goes back a lot further than obergefell v hodges but you'd never know that from the way tumblr talks about it

(stonewall has been so mythologized at this point that it barely counts)

does fighting against transgender rights truly support women?

so again you're doing this thing where whether you realize it or not you're kinda framing things in a dishonest perspective. you won't be able to point to a single thing that jk rowling has said or done that constitutes "fighting against transgender rights." the word "rights" has had its definition stretched beyond usefulness - when people say "trans rights" they aren't really talking about rights in the sense of inalienable and equally distributed human rights, they just mean that trans people get what they want in some sense. the whole thing is a riff off of people similarly diluting the phrase "gay rights" back in like 2012, except that was primarily about an actual right (marriage equality). when the word gay got swapped for trans it kinda became an empty catchphrase. like, i totally agree, trans people deserve human rights, but the focus is always on using the proper pronouns and much less about like, housing and employment discrimination and stuff. with healthcare access it gets a little closer, but again the focus always pivots towards cosmetic procedures instead of access to necessary care

all it does is give people one more group to discriminate against. if anything, it gives those on the alt-right, like walsh, more legitimacy.

you're right and this is a huge problem i have with some pockets of this space. especially on twitter there's this huge contingent of people that claim to be like champions for feminism and gay rights or whatever but it's obvious that they're just there to dunk on whatever easy target comes out of trans twitter next. like yeah the ontario shop teacher was ridiculous but that's not going to be like The issue that solves this whole thing, and all it really accomplished was getting a bunch of gen x checkmarks to call each other groomers nonstop for a week. the alt-right types and their enablers always hyperfocus on individuals instead of looking at the broader trends and issues because they know their viewpoints sound bad when spelled out that way, and as long as people don't try to take in the whole picture they'll keep falling for the ragebait

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omegaverse-on-crack · 1 year

Text

Another reason you should probably think twice about biting your neighbor

Spelling: Theta

Pronunciation: Thay-ta

Biology: Theta’s possess a unique gland capable of producing any scent they choose, including mimicking scents of other genders or completely diminishing their own scent. Otherwise, they are biologically identical to Alpha’s.

Claiming: Thetas cannot be claimed but can claim most others.

Behavior: Thetas aren’t restricted by any sort of hormonal influences. While they function similarly to alphas, they don’t have the hormonal instincts of them. This, in conjunction with their unique glands, make Thetas extremely hard to spot. Alphas often unknowingly believe them to be omegas, only upon attempting to claim them to be faced with a disgruntled theta. Thetas tend to be advocates for mutual choice in the claiming process, meaning any alpha who attempts to claim them often finds themselves in a rather dire situation.

Summary:

I can smell like you better then you can.

#omegaverse #alpha and omega #alpha beta omega #crack post #alternate universe #headcanon

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capricorn-season · 11 months

Text

10 JUNE 2020

J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues

So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

#gender critical #women #jk rowling #twitter #artículo #text

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poniatowskaja · 2 years

Text

Officially, the story from the stage was that the rainbow coalition needed to stick together like glue against the anti-gender backlash currently being waged by Orbán, Putin, Erdogan and others: no queer left behind! For these self-styled strongmen, “gender”, vaguely defined, is a strategically useful symbol for everything terrible about the decadent West.

The original political target of Orbán Fidesz’s party was liberal feminism and gay rights. But with the official addition of the T to the LGB internationally in the last decade, and the sudden Western shift towards extreme policies such as self-ID and the medicalisation of trans-identified youth, not to mention the Western presentation of transactivism as a logical extension of feminism, a golden opportunity emerged to give added plausibility to Fidesz’s tale of crazy identity politics and moral corruption. Now they could juice up their disparagement of “gender” with tales of young girls being made to believe they were boys, and predatory males in women’s changing rooms. These days, I was told, the biggest focus of Orbán’s anti-gender campaign is extreme transactivist demands imported from the West and their consequences.

Inevitably a polarised situation has emerged, with both sides insisting the T be lumped together with the LG and B, for good or ill. On one side, Fidesz use the extremes of Western transactivism to justify incursions on the rights of women, gays, and the sex-non-conforming generally. And on the other, in the name of solidarity, Hungarian and Western progressives insist there is no difference between these extreme demands and more staid requests like being able to teach schoolchildren about homosexuality or demanding the right to gay marriage. Reading between the lines, testimonies at the EL*C suggested that a similar dynamic is taking place elsewhere in the former Eastern bloc. A charismatic Albanian lesbian activist, Xheni Karaj, told the conference that she had visited the UK and worked in some capacity with Stonewall towards a campaign for greater acceptance of LGBT+ parenting. Going back to Albania, the idea had got out that she wished to replace the words “mother” and “father” with “Parent 1” and “Parent 2”. In a highly conservative country such as Albania, this notion caused a huge scandal, and Karaj became the subject of severe abuse and harassment because of it. Karaj was clear on stage that she had never intended to suggest replacing the word “mother” with anything else. I believed her. But what she didn’t also say was that, only last year, Stonewall suggested doing precisely this in the UK. The idea was incendiary enough to many when made over here — let alone in a context like Albania, where religious leaders have a large influence, the family is venerated, and homophobia and misogyny is entrenched. And Albania is not the only place where the creative projects of bored rainbow bureaucrats from North London are being used to make mischief. In his annexation speech last week, Putin said “no more Parent 1 and Parent 2, only mother and father”. A few days earlier, a 2019 speech by the new Italian leader Georgia Meloni went viral on Twitter — and was retweeted not just by conservatives but also by some gender-critical feminists who seemed to assume they had found a fellow traveller. “I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother,” she complained. “No. I must be Citizen X, Gender X, Parent 1, Parent 2. I must be a number.” Sound familiar? Left-wing gender-critical lesbians like those I met in that Budapest bar are stuck in the middle of all this, a means to everyone else’s ends. The state paints them as deviant and anti-family to bash the liberals, while progressives in Hungary and their Western supporters demand that they pretend that their interests perfectly align with the rest of the rainbow. If lesbians nonetheless insist, perfectly sensibly, that female biology makes a difference to their political interests as lesbians, they are treated as somehow in league with the far-Right.

Kathleen Stock, Real feminists don’t need strongmen

#Kathleen Stock #feminism #stonewall #radfems please interact

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ironcapricorn · 3 months

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An experience that does not define my life, but is important to understand who I am

Navigating Transcendence: A Scientific and Personal Perspective

Embarking on a dual exploration of both scientific understanding and personal experience, join me on a journey through my own lens. Born with a female body but a male mind, my story intertwines with the fascinating scientific insights into the development of gender identity. This unique intersection highlights the intricate interplay between biology, identity, and the challenges faced during my formative years. I do not resonate with the ideologies pushed by one political party (that leaning more democratic), nor do I believe in bashing those whether they are democratic or republican. I am simply a guy who is living his life, trying to advance by career, and have a great life with my future girlfriend and children. The experience I am about to go into detail about isn't all that relevant in my life, but needed to be discussed due to society's misunderstanding from people who try to redefine what these entities actually mean. First, being transsexual means you have the desire to change your sex via hormones and sexual reassignment surgery. This needs to be done first by seeing a therapist for an extended period of time before starting hormones and surgery. i recommend anyone who is thinking that this applies to them to take their time even if like you have known since a young age you were born in the wrong body. So let's navigate the science.

The Neurological Basis of Gender Identity:

Scientific research using neuroimaging techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional MRI (fMRI), has shed light on the biological foundation of gender identity. Studies, including one by the European Society of Endocrinology, reveal that transgender individuals often exhibit brain structures and patterns more aligned with their gender identity than their assigned sex at birth. This suggests that gender identity is deeply rooted in the neurological framework, transcending external physical characteristics.

My personal journey reflects this scientific understanding, as I grappled with the incongruence between my brain's male identity and my body's female development from a young age (as young as age 5). Recollections of early attempts to stand while peeing and being told not too by my mother, expressing a desire for male body parts to my cousins when i was young, being bullied and women thinking I was a guy as a middle schooler, and rejecting stereotypically feminine activities from 5 into puberty point to a profound internal struggle that science now helps illuminate.

Developmental Origins of Gender Dysphoria:

Research into the developmental origins of gender dysphoria explores the influence of hormonal exposure during prenatal development on the organization of the brain. A review published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine suggests that gender identity may be established during these critical periods. In my case, the mismatch between my brain's male identity and my body's female development aligns with this developmental model, framing my experience as a manifestation of a birth defect—a term that encapsulates the complexity of transsexual identities.

Social and Environmental Factors:

While scientific insights provide a framework, the personal narrative delves into the social and environmental factors that shape the trans experience. Growing up, societal expectations and familial influences cast a shadow over my journey. Bullying in middle school compounded the challenges, harsh words and extreme Catholic beliefs hinder my ability to transition, leading to a denial of my true attractions to women and accepting my identity due to the homophobic atmosphere within my family.

Conclusion:

In navigating my identity as a transsexual man, the amalgamation of scientific knowledge and personal experience paints a comprehensive picture. The neurological basis of gender identity helps validate my experience as more than a choice but a manifestation of unique biological circumstances. The term "birth defect" offers a perspective that bridges the scientific and personal aspects of my journey, emphasizing the importance of empathy, understanding, and acceptance in our pursuit of a more inclusive society. As I build my future, my hope is that this dual exploration fosters greater understanding and support for those navigating the complex terrain of gender identity. Also, as I have gotten further into my transition the process of it has become unimportant, and simply such that I am living my life like any other straight male who wants to improve himself and be successful. This page is not for the ideology pushed in society of making this some sort of "cool thing" to do, or constantly need to be out all of the time about as this was never the point of transitioning. It is simply to live your truth, be unbothered and go about your life, and the only people who should know are your doctor and who you date.

#transsexual #male #self improvement #science #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #unpopular take #unpopular opinion #my experiences

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unpetaling · 3 months

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J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues

So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

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july-annabelle · 3 months

Text

J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues

So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

0 notes