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piqued-curiosity · 1 year

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Men go through some of the same trauma that women have been through. And men (especially trans men) have also been oppressed.

Men of color have been oppressed for centuries. Trans men are still being oppressed for existing, because we dare to exist and that we know our gender better than anyone ever could. Men have been sexually abused, raped, prejudiced against, have mental illnesses, are seen as weak, and so much more.

This isn’t to discredit the trauma women have gone through, of course. I’m just saying that we men have gone through trauma, nearing equal. And women have also played a part in some men’s trauma and oppression.

There’s of course toxic masculinity (which women will mock and even join in on), sexual abuse (Terry Cruise talks about this), general abuse (my abuser for years was a woman), and even now, the absolute hatred and demonizing of them.

There’s bad men out there, but also bad women. Do we kill all women? No. Do we kill all men? No! Instead, recognize that both sides have gone through trauma and start fighting to overcome it together, accept that it’s not sex that matters and instead gender (nobody cares if you got a dick or pussy I promise), and giving equal rights to people doesn’t stop at sex anyways.

Women need rights. Men need rights. And this extends to trans people.

I am not female. If this means I’m part of the ‘oppressor class’, so be it.

Great job promoting the feminist ideals that women are weak and need help from the scary strong men, and that you deserve rights unless you don’t identify with what you were born with at birth. Very progressive and what our future needs. Totally not going against what feminists actually fought for.

Men’s trauma is not the result of sex-based oppression, though, which is what we’re talking about.

Oppression men of colour face is because of racism, not sexism. We’re talking about sexism.

Oppression trans men face is because they’re gender non-conforming females, not because they’re men.

Who are men being raped, abused, and discriminated against by? Primarily men. That’s their problem to work out, not the problem of feminists.

Everything you’re talking about is irrelevant, because it’s not sex-based oppression. It can all be boiled down to “humans are often terrible to each other regardless of sex”. That’s a whole separate issue from the sex-based oppression female people experience.

“It’s not sex that matters and instead gender (nobody cares if you got a dick or pussy)”…tell that to the girls who are victims of female genital mutilation. Tell that to the women and girls who are raped during war because male soldiers saw they had vulvas. Tell that to the female babies killed by their families soon after they’re born, because their family saw the baby had a vulva. I promise you that none of these women and girls were asked for their pronouns before they experienced these horrors. They could not identify out of sex-based oppression.

I’m not going to put too much energy into responding to you, because you clearly lack any understanding of sex-based oppression, and are simply operating under the assumption that your ideology magically overrules centuries of women’s oppression being based on sex, not identity.

#at least try to think outside your own identity and ideology #asks #eagleflightdraws

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radjoy · 2 years

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i got really into learning about radical feminism over the summer and became quite a man-hater and then. i fell in love with a man. and i feel guilty with him because i still hate men and thats my least favorite thing about him, but i also feel guilty in radfem spaces because i love a man and it feels hypocritical. thoughts?

my math could be off here, but the summer ended not too long ago - how many months have you been a “man hater” & how many months have you been in love with this guy? i feel like both might be under 6. i feel like being in love might be under 3. neither of those are a very long time. just be aware of that. i personally would need more than three months to know someone well enough to declare i was in love with them, but what i think doesn’t matter. your thoughts are what matter, so try thinking about these:

“i still hate men and that’s my least favorite thing about him” let’s get more specific. you hate dating a member of your oppressor class, on principle? you hate that he’s a man because you hate having a power imbalance in an intimate relationship? because men are inherently misogynistic and he’s sexist towards you? because you’ve been socialized to give his opinion more weight than your own and you find yourself deferring to him? what about your relationship would change if you were dating a woman? are these things he can change? why hasn’t he?

these are all reasonable things to feel. the fact that you’re feeling guilty about “wronging” men in some way by being a radical feminist kind of concerns me point blank, but especially since this particular man has been a significant part of your life for less than a year. why do you think you owe it to him to pretend you don’t notice the damage his sex class has done to yours? doesn’t he owe it to you to learn about radical feminism and confront his role in society? doesn’t he owe it to you to try and understand why radfems are piv and nuclear family critical, to understand and appreciate the risks you’re taking by dating him?

if you feel guilty for having a political ideology where he is a totally equal citizen free from violence, how would you feel about asking him to move across the country because you have an amazing career opportunity? is he feeling the amount of guilt you’re feeling when his boss snaps at him and he calls her a bitch to his brother? does he think he’s betraying you when he hears his friends mocking their girlfriends? is he sending women online messages worrying about how he went to strip clubs before he met you? is he causing you more guilt and stress than he’s alleviating? is he actually improving your life?

at the end of the day, i’m a female separatist. i’ve decided that men are generally untrustworthy, that it’s kind of a crapshoot how a man will act once he thinks he’s got you trapped, and that it’s not worth building a life with someone who has a good chance of pulling a 180 on me. but this is not a conclusion i reached after 6 months of being a radfem, it was a conclusion i reached after 5 years. and my entire life experience, and the life experience of older women i connected with.

you’re operating with a lot of guilt, in general. you also sound pretty young - you have time to figure all this out. you have time to decide what your life will look like.

i would encourage you to continue reading radical feminist texts and feminist texts in general, build up your relationships with other women, talk to older/elderly women about their experience in long term relationships with men, and don’t get into any situations with this guy that you can’t get out of (like a lease). give yourself time to look at the world with the new understanding of radical feminism.

#ask

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zalrb · 2 years

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Wakanda Forever Review

I've gotten a couple of asks about my overall thoughts about the movie and then specifically what I thought of Namor so:

Things I Liked

1. The honouring of Chadwick. People who have checked in on my blog or followed my blog for a while know that I really liked Chadwick Boseman so when I found out he died ... I don't think I've ever had an emotional response to a celebrity dying really, which is to say that I reacted pretty emotionally at the news and so I really appreciated the care and time this movie took to honour his memory. He's mentioned in the dialogue consistently but in the third act of the movie, it becomes about the loss of Ramonda (which I'll get to later) and I was thinking throughout the movie, I'm surprised we haven't seen a flashback of T'Challa or a voiceover or something of Chadwick, it wasn't an annoyance, I was just surprised and then the ending came and we saw all those moments and I, and everyone in the theatre, got so emotional -- I'm even emotional writing this -- and it was perfect, it was perfect because those moments were rooted in his relationship with Shuri, it wasn't him as The Black Panther, it wasn't him as a symbol, it was him as a human, as a brother, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

2. The acting. When the first movie came out I was like, this isn't really a Marvel movie, it has nuanced and complex characters, the acting is anything but flat, and the storyline is fairly complex too and the acting in this movie was just breathtaking, you could feel the emotion of the actors, see them bring their grief to their art and it was beautiful. Ramonda and Okoye's scene especially had me like these women are powerhouses, this is fantastic.

3. Expanding to different parts of the African diaspora. The first movie was very much about the States and Wakanda and the oppression of African Americans with some vague mentions here and there of other countries, I like that they actually went to Haiti.

4. The visuals. A lot of the visuals were stunning -- I could also barely see the night shots, I don't know WHY everything has to be shot so dark now -- but what I could see was great.

5. The pacing overall had some issues, but the energy of the fight scenes were infectious.

One thing about The Woman King is that there were certainly moments that would have me hype but for the most part, I didn't get the kind of excitement I expected, everything seemed kind of matter-of-fact and almost but not exactly flat, and then watching something like Birds of Prey annoyed me because throughout it, I was like this is supposed to be a Girl Power moment I can tell and it just seems so forced but watching this was like a combination of experiencing kinetic energy that got me excited for the scene and seeing some pointed visuals that didn’t also knock me over the head with it, like when the French soldiers try to get the vibranium and the Dora Milaje stepped out of the vault and had these white men on their knees, I know exactly what's being said without it being spelled out and the energy spiked, everyone in the audience was like ayyyeeee. When Okoye, Shuri and Riri escape from the police AND mash up cop cars, there was a kinetic vibe going. When Okoye and the Talokan warrior were doing their combat it was like YES. When the Talokans killed the SEALs and got them to fall into the water, that shit was eerie and very well done.

Which brings me to Namor.

OK, so. Now we're getting into things that annoyed me.

Namor, as a character, didn't annoy me, I agreed with him. This wasn't like Killmonger where I was like, he doesn't actually want to do what he said he wants to do, from another post of mine:

I think it is made clear that he doesn’t actually intend for the oppressed to overthrow the oppressor, his intention is destruction. And no, I don’t mean “burn down the system and start from the ground up” destruction but complete and utter annihilation.

He admits as much during his final fight with T’Challa when he proclaims that the world has taken everything from him, everything he ever loved and this way they’ll be even. He speaks of arming Wakandan war dogs and the oppressed peoples of various countries but without formulating or discussing a strategy of any kind for the revolution itself or for what would happen after. He can only pronounce that Wakanda will rule over everything.

For me, it’s less about the fact that he was demanding Wakanda become the very thing he hates and more about the fact that the violence and toxicity and trauma of white supremacy broke him to the point that he couldn’t see anything outside of his own pain and rage. This is why the movie ends up agreeing with Erik’s rhetoric but not his intention. T’Challa not only faces his father and ancestors to tell them that they were wrong, he comes up with strategies and plans for Wakanda to actually reach those in need.

this was like, but he's actually right. It is established in the beginning of the movie that Western countries are trying to take Wakanda's resources i.e. the vibranium and then they find vibranium under water and try to take that too so obviously they're going to try and figure out how to get more of it, and like Namor said, it is also established historically that the West have colonized and enslaved and committed genocide for resources so a preemptive strike against these countries makes sense, the West already doing it while faking diplomacy, we're seeing how it's going to get worse, so he's not wrong to not want to essentially wait and see and Shuri scoffing and dismissing his concerns as essentially unhinged was so reductive because they’re not.

It also annoyed me that they began conflating that with the desire for personal revenge, as if to say it's different sides of the same coin and it all leads to the same result, which it doesn't.

Were there things I thought he could let go? Yes. If it's bigger than Riri and it's more about what the West will do for resources then he could've let killing her go at least from a strategic standpoint to garner good faith with Wakanda, at the very least be like we won't kill her but she must stay in your country. I thought the insistence on killing her was very clearly DON'T FORGET HE'S THE VILLAIN OF THIS MOVIE.

I saw the movie with my mom who kept being like Namor didn't have to kill Ramonda, she was really mad about that (I thought of anons because when he tells her his life story the first thing my mom said is ooooooooooh they're about to hook up) I was less mad about it on a character level and more angry about it on a writing level, it's an old and lazy trope -- the older character sacrificing themselves for a younger one and it was entirely unnecessary? I don't read the comics so I don't know if Namor eventually does end up killing Ramonda but even if it is comic book canon, that could've waited, he's clearly going to make another appearance in the next instalment or a future instalment. It just seemed so tacked on and another DON'T FORGET, HE'S THE VILLAIN tactic that I couldn't even properly process it because it just didn't feel well-constructed.

When the final battle happened between the Wakandans and the Talokans I just kept being like, I don't know you all seem extremely ill-prepared and I don't see how you could be when you're the most advanced country in the world. You didn't have any backup technology in case the Talokans did what they did which is break that sonic weapon thing? Shuri, you didn't reinforce your ship or have a backup plan when you know that they ALSO have vibranium? If it was supposed to speak to Wakanda’s inherent arrogance because they'd never really come up against an actual opponent who could match their technology and their strength, it’s repetitive because the Talokans already attacked and killed their queen or if it was supposed to speak to how Shuri was clouded by rage that she didn't really think things through, that doesn't really keep in line with her character.

And watching the whole thing, I was like, you could've been fighting the people trying to take your vibranium instead of each other and that's not the messaging I'm supposed to take from this, but really! When they were intercutting between Wakanda and Talokan and the similarities both nations shared I just kept thinking and this is why you should be allies and stop the people trying to take your shit!

And then I had questions like you're the Black Panther and the Queen of Wakanda now and you can just ... go to Haiti?

All in all I had a good time watching it, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the deeply-felt emotion of it, I enjoyed the messaging about loss and grief and family and love, but it could've been tighter.

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rametarin · 1 year

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Radfems be like

Radical Feminist: “Don’t you hate how MEN-” [completely benign behavior]

Someone Else: “What’s bad about that behavior?”

Radical Feminist: “Men shouldn’t be allowed to do that because when MEN do it, it’s bad because they’re men. AM I RIGHT LADIEEEES?”

Radical Feminist: “Don’t you hate how MEN-” [Something else that’s benign]

Somene Else: “YOU were doing that exact behavior recently!”

Radical Feminist: “It’s different. I’m allowed to do that. I’m a woman. That’s normal. Unlike when a man does it, which shouldn’t be allowed. Men doing that is bad.”

Radical Feminist: “Don’t you hate how MEN-” [Something universally annoying]

Someone Else: “This is relatable in that this behavior is something that’s annoying no matter who does it.”

Radical Feminist: “It’s annoying SPECIFICALLY because a man is doing it. He doesn’t have the right.”

Someone Else: “Women shouldn’t be tolerated doing this either.”

Radical Feminist: “You’re a pick-me girl/You’re a man, you don’t get a say, sweaty.”

Radical Feminist: “Don’t you hate how MEN-” [Behavior ‘men’ don’t do, but a certain % of the population do that happens to be men. And women, for that matter. ]

Someone Else: “Females do this exact behavior too, they just don’t do it while possessing a penis. And the behavior isn’t ubiquitous to men.”

Radical Feminist: “They do it because they’re men. When women do it it’s in retaliation to men whom are doing it because they’re men.”

Someone Else: “Can you prove that?”

Radical Feminist: “Can you prove it isn’t?

Someone Else: “You don’t get automatic benefit of the doubt because you’re female.”

Radical Feminist: “According to these statistics, men [harmful activity] all the time. If not for men, things would be peaceful and safe.”

Someone Else: “Women too.”

Radical Feminist: “Lets consult our Big Book of University Statistics! Hm hm hm. Says here, the sex of perpetrators is men, 99.8% of the time! :^) Must be because all these men just had a bad day, huh?”

Someone Else: “Feminism threw a fit unless they got to redo the criteria for how the FBI defines things so anyone doing that exact crime wasn’t considered a perpetrator of the crime unless they possessed a male gender or sex. When women did the same crime, it wasn’t considered a crime, because it was a woman doing it. If you eliminate this artificial and sexist distinction, where man-do it= crime, woman-do it= not crime, you find women comprise 40% of people known to engage in it, and women likely do it more often and aren’t caught!”

Radical Feminist: “It’s nowhere NEAR the same crime when a woman does it, so it’s not the same crime at all. :^) So. Do you have a background in this subject and degrees on the subject, like the writers of these FACTS from my book? Mm I love facts and research!!”

Radical Feminist: “Also that isn’t sexism. Sexism is discrimination against the oppressed gender. Men are oppressors, so you can’t be sexist against them. It’s not sexist or unjust to exclude men.”

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jamesmckennastudio · 2 years

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Close to the Bone Reading

I liked the readings for this week. Clear. The first one was okay. I’d never seen Thriller, so that was fun. I said in class pretty much what I have to say, but here it is best I can remember, with a few add ins.

“Conventions of horror.” I thought about this a while. What horror? Has it been this way through time? Mostly I think. What set horror apart for me is the conventions of 70s horror. That chastity thing. Then Neil said something about the tough woman who defeats the monster. So things have changed.

Tough women made me think of La Femme Nikita. Black Widow. Beneath the Surface. Annihilation. Women who can take it when men can’t is a whole genre-crossing genre. I liked the Disney villain idea. They do tend to be women. In fact I can’t think offhand of any who are men. That’s kind of sick if you think about it for more than a few seconds: all those guys making movies about guys saving women from women. Now though we have women saving themselves. And then women who save everyone else too. Progress.

Whoever brought up Fourth Wave Feminism: I liked that. Things just aren’t so clear anymore. Though whoever brought up men being victims of patriarchy too: I agree, but I feel there’s something to say about that. Oppression cuts both ways, but harm to the oppressors is really kind of their problem to sort out and keep quiet about. It has to take a back seat to that of the oppressed. Recovering oppressors have to listen and learn. I write this as a white man who grew up when none of this mattered or even existed. Everything was just fine—for me. Sometimes I feel myself wishing it were the way it was. Anyone who has to accept new limits feels this sometimes. But that’s my little pain that doesn’t matter. Like the part of my thumb that got cut off, or the damage of age: Oh well. Now it’s different. There’s not much of an up side to aging. But there is to social change. What I get in exchange is richness: having people around me who are different than I am and who show me lives I couldn’t have imagined, give to me in ways they may not even recognize; seeing people who’ve always been held down now getting a chance to speak, or even stand up, or even give the orders. Some people. Sometimes.

Zombies. It didn’t look like the bobby soxer had had sex with the werewolf/-cat; pretty sure. But she got dead anyway. Then in the same movie we have a couple that, to my mind, has clearly had sex before. And she gets saved at the last second. Things like this made me think of Jackson mostly as a messer with. The video is incoherent. Scene by scene, it’s what works right now, what will play best or best mess with people. “Wouldn’t it be cool if....” Most music videos are incoherent. Many have little or nothing to do with the song. It’s vaudeville; it’s early television: “and now this.” They don’t need to be coherent; music videos are illustrated feelings. Coherent narrative tends to get in the way. “Chandelier.” v. “Titanium.”

Vincent Price WAS horror for decades. Everybody recognized his voice. By 1982 he had long been superseded by George Romero behind the camera. BUT, messing with: a white, has-been horror standard introducing a trope taken from Black, Caribbean voodoo with foot-dragging zombies who dance.

It’s worth noting that the director, John Landis, a little before he did Thriller, was on set doing The Twilight Zone when a helicopter in the scene fall on three of the actors, killing them gruesomely. Hmmm.

My idea about inner, real self in the sexual being uncertain ground for a vampire/gay equation…debunked by Neil: I had a great idea; unfortunately it was unfounded in the text because of the historical situation. That’s what makes class fun. I don’t like to debate; and I won’t debate politics with anyone at all ever. Anymore. But picking apart a text is a game I know and like, and I love the play of smart and smarter. Whichever end I’m on.

I did like the idea of “vampire-dar” and gaydar (I really hope that’s not an offensive term now! Somebody please set me right). Bad term or not, the idea endures that some people think they can spot queer people, as in fiction some people can spot—or think they can spot—vampires. And that’s very interesting when we consider what they’re sussing out: a normal person spotting the abnormal. Like a nazi informant. That’s why I think zombies, pod people, vampires are good metaphors for societal invasions, sometimes more so than sexual politics. I was wrong about I Am Legend. Neville does die in the end, but first he asks his vampire captor to make sure the new vampire society is fair. Democratic, as it were. 1954. Cold War anxiety anyone?

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thesiriusmoon · 3 years

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Harry Potter ships I truly hate

Disclaimer: I’m not telling you who to ship and whatnot, I’m just expressing how awful these ships are to me and then explaining why.

1. Harry X Draco

Now this is coming from a former drarry stan who before, hadn’t read the books. I thought Draco ‘had no choice’ and ‘just wanted love’ until I opened my eyes and saw the character for who he really was. That is a spoiled blood supremacist who hates muggleborns, and is loved by both of his parents. Draco bullied Harry. Although Harry fought back, it was because he was the victim and had to defend himself. Harry never went out of his way to hurt Draco, but Draco did it constantly. Draco and Harry would never work because Harry hated Draco just as much as Draco did him. You could ship Harry with so many others that wouldn’t be toxic such as, Ginny, Cho, maybe Hermoine (but I prefer Romoine), maybe even Ron if you want to. (I don’t ship Harry and Cedric because the ages are too weird). It’s so obvious throughout the entire book that Harry didn’t have romantic feelings for Draco, he only ever thought he was doing bad things, seeing as he was a bad person. Harry found love in Ginny in like the fifth book? Which is when the crush started, and no one else was in the picture for him once he began dating Ginny. In conclusion, Ginny is the one he married and had children with, not Draco, because he hated him and wanted nothing to do with him as he was nothing but a bully who hated muggles and muggleborns. Seeing as Harry is a half blood, and his mother was muggleborn, why do you think Harry would turn around and be like “oh he’s just broken I’ll fix him.” And ignore everything Draco ever said about his family???? That’s such a toxic thing to think... because believe it or not, in a relationship you’re supposed to be with someone you like as a person. Just because you may find Draco attractive, that doesn’t make him a good person!! Harry would never choose Draco over anyone for that matter. If it were between Ginny or Draco to be saved, you better bet on Harry saving Ginny.

2. Hermoine X Draco

I genuinely hate this ship with my entire being. It disgusts me. This isn’t an enemies to lovers, this is literally bully X victim. Hermoine didn’t fight back, meaning Draco was the full oppressor and she was the oppressed. Draco is a blood supremacist who called Hermoine a mudblood constantly and hated her, and the feeling was mutual from Hermoine because why would anyone like their bully? Falling in love with your bully is a book trope, that doesn’t happen in real life. When Hermoine was being tortured in Malfoy Manor, Draco stood and watched because he didn’t care, meanwhile Ron, the boy Hermoine was attracted to and loved, was screaming and crying begging for him to take her place so she would be protected. That’s true love, something Hermoine and Draco will never have. I really will never understand why so many people love shipping victims with their oppressors... like do you get a sick kick out of it by babying the oppressor? Saying things like “oh he’s just unloved” or “he can change!” When none of that is true. Draco chose to be who he is, which is a blood supremacist and was loved by his family, and Hermoine chose not to ever engage with him because of his personality and attitude. Draco hated her, and everyone else like her because of their status, and overall, Hermoine just isn’t attracted to him. Hermoine is attracted to Ron and he’s the only person I can see dating Hermoine because everyone else would be a bit strange. Dramoine is unbelievably toxic, and all it does is romanticise abuse. “Oh Draco only bullied her for 7 years because he was afraid to love her.” Stfu. You’d never hurt someone you love. Draco bullied her because he thought he was ABOVE her, and she was nothing but dirt on his shoe.

3. Hermoine X Pansy

When it comes to fanon, I still don’t understand why it gets shipped because in order to do that, you have to change Pany’s entire personality to the point where it’s not even Pansy anymore. It’s just some nice girl with the same name. Because the real Pansy bullied Hermoine and made it known how much she didn’t like her. Not only that, but Pansy was head over heels for Draco. This isn’t an enemies to lovers, this is shipping the bully with the victim for some weird reason... because Hermoine didn’t fight back just like Hermoine X Draco. If they were both at each other’s throats I could see your enemies to lovers, but that’s just not what this is. If you ship them because you’re looking for a wlw ship, why not take a look at Ginny X Luna, Lavender X Parvati, or even Tonks X Fleur, rather than picking the toxic ship that would never ever work and would only hurt Hermoine. Ron Weasley exists for a reason. Again, shipping someone with their oppressor is a very weird thing to do. For example, Ron is a pureblood, but Ron wasn’t prejudice towards muggles or muggleborns, because he’s a decent and normal person. Pansy and Draco aren’t decent people, and they bullied people. Really there isn’t much else to say as all canon stuff about Pansy is about her bullying people, and encouraging people to capture Harry because SHE’S A BLOOD SUPREMACIST THAT’S ALL SHE IS. Hermoine is a strong and independent woman and would NEVER date someone prejudice like that, she has standards.

4. Lily X Snape

We have to stop with this “she can fix him” mentality, because women don’t exist to fix men. Either Snape was a good person, or a bad person. He should be able to choose that himself. Which he was actually, and he was very clearly a bad person. You can’t force someone to be attracted to another. Attraction forms on its own, and it’s something Lily never had for Snape, they were only friends. To say that Lily owed Snape something because he liked her... is so wrong and disgusting. If she doesn’t like him, she doesn’t like him and Snape should fucking move on instead of obsessing over her. But, Snape overall was a creep so you can’t say “oh he made a mistake” when that man knew EXACTLY what he was doing. Ripping Lily’s happy photograph of her with her husband and baby, and taking the letter she wrote for Sirius who Snape could pretend she did that for him. Literally disgusting. Even the friendship was toxic. When reading I realised that Snape played the victims card a lot when talking about the marauders as if he wasn’t doing WORSE thing to them. Lily knew that Snape wanted to join Voldemort, as seen in the books. ‘You and your previous little death eater friends — you see, you don’t even deny it. You don’t even deny that’s what you’re aiming to be! You can’t wait to join you-know-who, can you?” Then she says “I can’t pretend anymore, you’ve chosen your way, and I’ve chosen mine.” Lily PRETENDED that Snape wasn’t going to be a death eater because she didn’t want to believe that her own friend would hate her kind so much. Though once reality hit her she was gone and was never coming back. To ship someone who was oppressed with the oppressor is so weird and wrong, and I genuinely think you’re strange if you do that 😐. Snape already didn’t like Lily having other friends... so what does that tell you about what kind of relationship they would have? A manipulative one and an emotionally abusive one. James Potter was a pureblood, and not once did he ever bully someone for their blood status. He did things to Snape because Snape was a prejudice piece of shit and deserved it quite frankly. I would have done the exact same thing. Remember, the Potter’s were ‘blood traitors’ and Snape was a blood supremacist, of course the two aren’t going to like one another. But the difference is, Snape bullied innocent people (laughing at the fact Mary MacDonald was subdued to dark magic) and James fought back for those without voices. Getting revenge for people who couldn’t do it themselves. That’s the difference between a bully and a hero tbh. There’s no way Lily would ever date a death eater, she’s a strong woman who can make up her mind for herself rather than having people on the internet say things like “she was brainwashed!” And things like that. She became attracted and fell in love with a respectful man who would never cause her any type of emotional or physical harm.

In conclusion, I will judge you if you think shipping abusers/oppressors with their victims is ok in any way.

If you made it this far, feel free to comment or reblog with your own opinion. Just know that my opinion on these ships will never change because they’re all extremely toxic whether you like it or not. That’s just common sense. It’s canon that Draco, Pansy, and Snape were horrible people who liked to make fun of others. Fanon doesn’t mean a single thing in this because fanon isn’t real. If you have to change the entire personality of someone so they aren’t abusive... what does that tell you about their character? A lot of people do this because they like how a character looks, which is so tone deaf. If you think a victim should date their oppressor because of looks... I’m judging you heavily. If a character is wrote to be abusive, I don’t understand people do fan art of them with the people they hurt in a romantic way.

You might say I’m being over dramatic, but really it’s not that hard to understand that you shouldn’t romanticise abuse or say that oppressor X victim would make the perfect couple just because of their looks.

Would you ever ship Neville with Draco? No you wouldn’t. And it’s not for the reasons you would think. I bet if Neville was conveniently attractive (in the books, I love Matthew.) people would have shipped him with Draco despite Draco mercilessly bullying Neville for 7 years. A lot of people would have made excuses like “Draco was broken!” In order to be able to ship two attractive men together. (Which also plays into fetishisation of lgbt+ couples I think...) This fandom is rather toxic when it comes to this, and they’d rather ship a very abusive relationship with two conventionally attractive people rather than a loving one with two people that aren’t.

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nikkinick · 2 years

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wait sorry i’m genuinely so confused about this whole panphobic situation happening. like i have non-binary bisexual friends and yes, they’re attracted to both men + women but also of course non-binary people because duh, why wouldn’t they be. and the same applies to my cisgendered bisexual friends.

i’m not entirely sure how pansexuality differs from bisexuality? i’ve seen quite a few bisexual people say that those who identify as pansexual (i’ve seen it happen with my own eyes too) have attacked them for being transphobic even when they’ve stated they would date anyone regardless of gender/assigned birth.

maybe i’m missing the point and it’s flying over my head but i’ve been trying to figure this out for a while and i feel like i’m running in circles.

it all comes down to respect.

to some bi/pan people there is a significant difference between the two and that influences their chosen label. some bi people notice a difference in their attraction (a “type” if you will) between genders and cite that as their reason for their label while pan people don’t really notice much of a difference. for some there isn’t much of a difference. some people even identify as both. some people just like the flag of one better so that’s why they chose that label because to them both fit.

arguments like these make us lose sight of what matters: the person feeling at home in who they are

this is someone’s identity, we all know labels mean different things to every queer person. obviously those people you mentioned were not good people. that doesn’t mean they speak for all pan people. gatekeeping identities is literally what our oppressors do

#anon #psa

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larkandkatydid · 4 years

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I want to start my acknowledging that navigating microagressions when you struggle with social interactions is genuinely difficult because it’s a terrible consequence of unintentional rudeness; that you didn’t just violate a social norm but you accidentally caused someone harm or showed them disrespect. I struggle with this myself and I’ve had to work on being self-aware but not uncomfortably self-conscious and, for me, something that’s helped me with these pressures is understanding how much an apology can do in situations of unintentional disrespect. (I’m really indebted to Monique Morris’ work looking at white female teachers and black female students for this)And I also know that each individual interaction between two people is just that.

However, I am again seeing the argument that feminist are wrong or culturally insensitive for pointing out that men consistently talk over, interrupt or overly explain to women. This is deeply flawed. This argument is simply fancy language dressing up the argument that an oppressed class (women, all women) are lying, misinterpreting or being foolish in how they interpret the actions of their oppressors (men, all men). It imagines a silly straw man in which oversensitive “white feminists” invent sexist intentions on behalf of innocent socially inept men. It frames the feminist as a frivolous one about finishing your jokes and not part of a continuum of enforced silence that ranges from not being able to finish an anecdote to the way that men strangle and smother the women in their lives in such numbers. Or, relevantly the consistent response to women’s complaints about patterns of degrading treatment with assurances that we are making it up and being unfair to the neuro-divergent, culturally insensitive and too uncultured to relate to David Mamet’s dialogue, so we should stop talking.

Women as members of an oppressed class are well aware of the difference between snappy wordplay, social awkwardness and someone acting out the degrading belief that your speech doesn’t matter! Women absolutely, I promise you, consider the extenuating circumstances and second guess our assumptions plenty.

This argument would be seen as unacceptable about another oppressed group, at least in social justice oriented spaces. So why is it okay to accuse women of being lying, over sensitive white feminists when we point out real patterns of disrespect? I think this is an example of two concepts that Kate Manne talks about: 1)’himpathy’, the excessive empathy we express towards men who harm women and the myriad excuses we make for them and 2)the ‘tyranny of vulnerability’, which Manne describes as “ by pointing to any and every (supposedly) more vulnerable (supposed) person or creature in her vicinity to whom she might (again, supposedly) do better, and requiring her to care for them, or else risk being judged callous, even monstrous.” This pressure seems exceptionally powerful in more left wing spaces and it’s very useful is badgering women with things that are “more important” than whatever frivolous thing women are concerned with.

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gayvampyr · 2 years

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i think the thing that pisses me off the most about “not all men” is that it redirects the conversation from women and our struggles and drowns out our voices, to make us, the ones exhausted from our own oppression, perform additional emotional labor and cater to the feelings of our oppressor because they can’t stand us talking about these issues and highlighting the reality of the situation. it changes the conversation from “how can we make our world better and more equal,” “how can we work toward gender equality,” to “well men aren’t actually the bad guy here, we’re not all oppressors.” this shift allows men to remain in power with privilege over women without them actually taking any responsibility and allowing them to remain complicit in an unjust system. it doesn’t matter if *you personally* are not a misogynist, if all you can do in conversations about sexism is deflect and say “well that doesn’t apply to me,” i hate to break it to you, but you are contributing to our oppression. stop saying “not all men” and start saying “it’s too many men”.

#text post #misogyny #sexism #not interested in arguing btw #top posts

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feminist-ravings · 3 years

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Arguments Against Terfs (#1?)

"Transwomen are men appropriating womanhood" Trans women are women, obviously. But TERFS believe that biological sex is the only thing that matters and gender was created by men to oppress women. I agree that gender is a construct that many times can be harmful. But that doesn't mean we should attack people for identifying as a gender outside of their assigned sex. If we want to encourage gender not mattering in society, shouldn't we support trans identities? If you truly are for gender abolition, you should support the construct of gender expression opening up more because then there is more room for nonconformity. The abolition of gender immediately is impossible, so a slow and gradual ending of gender norms is a good thing for feminism! Gender nonconforming people and trans people should be supported, and trans people are just as valid because sex isn't the only factor in gender based oppression. A trans woman who passes as a cisgender woman definitely experiences misogyny in her day-to-day life just as much as any cis woman. A trans woman who does not "pass" as a cis woman likely experiences transphobia and trans misogyny, and trans women who don't pass are at risk of high rates of assault and murder. And yes, while trans women didn't experience the oppression of female socialization, they experience misogyny as adults and need feminism just as much as cis women. And when you deny non sex-based misogyny, you are ignoring many cis women AND trans women's reality. Think about how much misogyny we face in our daily lives as cis women that is about gender roles rather than our biology, and could also be applied to trans women as well. While there are many instances of misogyny pertaining to our biology such as restriction of reproductive rights and period shame, there are also incidents unrelated to biology such as slut shaming, sexual harassment, male abuse, dehumanization, objectification, and more that aren't exclusive to cis women. Misogyny affects us both, we should be working together. Trans women are women because they live as women and experience the world as women, and in a sense that's what it means for gender to be a contruct. For some of us, it’s assigned at birth, and for others it’s something they chose. But if woman is an oppressed class created by men, trans women certainly share our oppression.

"Trans women should not be in women's spaces." Trans women are women, and experience misogyny just as much as cis women. They need safe spaces just as much as we do. Trans women are especially vulnerable to male violence according to statistics and need access to shelters, yet are denied due to prejudice. But there is no evidence of trans women being more violent than cis women. There is no reason for trans women to not be allowed in women's spaces, because again, they are women. Trans women in women's restrooms is not a problem, and we know this for sure because trans people have always been using their preferred bathrooms, and so far society has not collapsed. There is no evidence of trans women assaulting cis women in restrooms, and certainly not of it being a reason people transition. A rapist does not need the permission of a sign to commit rape, and trans women aren't the threats here. "Puberty blockers are child abuse." Puberty blockers are only given after a long-lasting history of gender dysphoria or discomfort in your body and extensive therapy and are completely reversible because all they do is delay puberty until the child is mature enough to make a choice. No life altering decision is made yet. "Trans men are women with internalized misogyny who transitioned to avoid the struggles of womanhood." It appears to me like the reason behind many of the misconceptions TERFS have about trans people is projection. I have seen countless gender non-conforming TERFs say that they believe that if they were young during the current age of increased trans visibility they would have chosen to be a trans man to escape the oppression of womanhood. All I can think of when I see this is, "your struggles are not universal." Not everyone has the same experience as you, and you're assigning the reason YOU would have transitioned to every trans man. When you're operating under this assumption, you won't genuinely listen to their experiences because you're too busy projecting your own onto them. Trans men have a different experience to trans women. That story is for a trans man to tell, but I can say that the experience of a trans man is not transitioning to escape misogyny or because of internalized misogyny. Many trans men are infantilized treated to misogynistic stereotypes because they are trans men, and transphobic people see them as women, so transitioning certainly doesn't free you from the clutches of the patriarchy. No, being a trans man is more about feeling more comfortable living as a man than hating womanhood from what I've seen from trans men. I suggest actually listening to the voices of the people you claim to empathize with, instead of supplementing your own voice. "Women's liberation and trans liberation cannot coexist." We share the same oppressor. Trans rights are not a threat to feminism, and fighting against trans rights is not only a waste of time for feminists, it holds us back. Time and time again so-called "gender critical feminists" ally with the far-right with the sole goal of bringing down trans women, not caring that they are working with groups that actively fight against women's reproductive rights, and gay rights. Many TERFS are too blinded by their bigotry towards trans women to even do what's right for their fellow women. All in all, TERFs are pouring their energy towards the wrong group. If any TERFS happen to be hate reading, quit spending all your time harassing a virtually powerless marginalized group and work towards criticizing powerful men again, and the patriarchy. Put your righteous anger towards the right place.

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thatblondeperson · 3 years

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Hi so I'm gonna make a quick post just to go over some things in the wake of likely oncoming news.

First and foremost, I will be happy with any outcome we get for Tim unless it turns out to be queerbaiting because fuck that DC. Either go 100% for bi or gay or don't play at people's heartstrings. Commit or be burned. I myself like to headcanon Tim as bi. I think he's always been very clearly attracted to women, but that doesn't mean he can't also be attracted to men. I've shipped TimKon before and still do, just less so than my main, which brings me to the next obvious thing of note.

Yes, obviously I'm very sad that Tim and Steph broke up. More because it was mentioned in passing which I think does a disservice to their entire relationship as a whole. Where is the respect for their tenure together? I do hope we get some explanation since there was nothing going on in current continuity that predicted this and I'd rather not just have it written off as "yeah they're over, move on." I want to dig in a bit, because Tim's attitude seems like something bad happened which would have to be huge considering that they've been fine up until this point. I do not feel confident that my curiosity will be humored.

Regarding Steph, I hope she doesn't get written out. i hope she gets respect, her own stories, her own life. I want her to not just be cast aside as a nothing in Tim's life, or as cheap training wheels for this new chapter. I don't want mlm representation at the expense of misogyny because media does that a lot. Shippers on this site do this a lot. Someone can't be queer unless you effectively bury their prior relationships in a trauma filled heap of garbage. It's frustrating and I don't want her sucked into that. I believe in my heart that she would be supportive, so if Tim is gonna come out, LET ME SEE SOME DAMN SUPPORT FROM STEPH. This could change her stories too though, which I'm happy for as well. they could let her be canonly bi (not mentioning Future's End as that's BARELY Steph...) and give her some new adventures that I will be thrilled to read. But I don't want her turned into the devil of Tim's life journey. Don't make her his oppressor, don't make her the thing that held him back from happiness. She can be something that was happy for him as well, and now he has something else that makes him happy. It can be both.

My theory right now is that Tim is getting a ton of memories flooding back into his head and he's remembering old friends which is bringing up old suppressed feelings that he wasn't aware of. Bernard is in his memories and I think that's a really interesting way for them to take his. It's not making a new character or starting things out of the blue, it's very much saying HEY! We heard you. This is something people have seen in Tim for a while so maybe it was always there but he never knew it himself. Very cool move, I hope they handle it well.

My next concern is...my fic. Regardless of the outcome, gay or bi, I will post it. If he's bi, I'm not gonna have any issues, but if he's gay, I will pin a disclaimer at the top of my blog and on the fic itself. I just want to post it. I'm a slow writer, but I've been working on this piece since 2019, and I've been wanting to write it since I first got into Tim and Steph. Is it perfect? No. It's very self indulgent and angsty, but I'm proud of it, and I want to post it. With either outcome I'm afraid I'll get backlash, and I will just probably have to link them to a disclaimer. If Tim is confirmed gay, I will be heartbroken at not feeling comfortable discussing my fic with anyone. I won't be able to talk about why I've loved TimSteph for years. I won't be able to post headcanons. I won't be able to participate. I will still love them both separately, but I'll be losing the drive for my art. Those two have inspired me for years and I have list of wips and ideas that will unfortunately never be able to be published. It breaks my heart to have to abandon all of that, but it's my own fault for not writing fast enough or not feeling confident in my drawing abilities. I have been a bit selfish today in hoping that Tim is bi, and I do wholeheartedly apologize for that, but my creativity is going to halt immediately and I'll never get to do what I planned to do because I believe it would be disrespectful to continue to put out TimSteph media if Tim were gay.

More than anything, I am worried about losing friends. I won't get to have deepdives into their characters anymore with a couple people, and those deepdives have kept me going many days during quarantine. I wont get to bounce fic ideas or art ideas off of people anymore, and I'm worried that over time without TimSteph being a bit of glue, I'll lose those people. This is kind of my one big ship. I don't ship a lot of things and while it's not necessary to ship things to be happy, I like having at least one solid ship to fall back on. I don't have a backup, most of my ships are from discontinued shows and I have no desire to write or draw for them a lot of the time. I gotta shift this energy somewhere, but where? And I just do not want this lack of energy period that might come in the wake of Tim being confirmed gay, to lose me connections with the people I've gotten to know over the past couple years BECAUSE of TimSteph. I'm mourning a future that might not even come, but I can't help it. I'm afraid that I'll get left behind.

This is all very dramatic and personal, the comic today was wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm being selfish for the sake of my art and my personal relationships which overall doesn't matter in lieu of potential representation!!!!!!! Like actual tangible representation YES. There's ways that I want this to go and ways that I don't, but for the record I want to make sure it's clear: If Tim is canonically confirmed as LGBT+, I will be celebrating with everyone else. I am not here to suppress representation for the sake of a fictional ship that I enjoy. Everyone should get a chance to see themselves in a story, and Tim is a big character to make that leap with. This will hopefully be a diversity win that will make a huge impact in all big name comics going forward, not just DC comics.

#personal #timsteph #tim drake #robin iii #red robin #batfam #batfamily #dc comics #batman #batman urban legends #wednesday spoilers

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weiszklee · 3 years

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do you think the gender as a class thing is because instead of just saying the usual “class reductionism is bad”, which can definitely be true and pertinent, some people have resorted to calling every single social category a “class” without specifying how they’re redefining “class”? most of the time they're patting themselves and each other on the back for being erudite Marxists just by dropping the word to describe as many Things as possible and it doesn’t really make sense. it’s like, a new type of class reductionism where “history is propelled by class struggle” becomes “every single social conflict is class struggle and thus if there are groups of people with (even non wealth & production based) conflicting interests and an oppressor-oppressed dynamic then it must be Class"

(Regarding this post.) There probably won't be a single easy answer that works for all cases because people try to do different things when calling genders classes.

Some of it may be honest mistakes, like, people just treat genders as classes because they think that's what Marxist feminism is, instead of examining the complicated interplay of class and gender (which would be a fruitful and important endeavor, but is also much harder and requires putting actual thought into it).

Some of it might be legacy issues so to say, there was like a fad among certain 2nd wave feminists I think, to very explicitly draw the comparison: Just as the proletariat gets exploited by the bourgeoisie for the production of commodities, so do women get exploited by men for the production of children, and this relation between men and women gets painted as like the original sin of humanity, the source of all other forms of oppression, and destruction of nature, and what have you. This is a clumsy and overzealous analysis in the best of times, and it carries a lot of very ugly conclusions in its tow if you take it too seriously, which is where some of the worst excesses of radfem ideology originate.

For others this is just an easy excuse to abandon all nuance and feel smug and righteous in their black-and-white-thinking, because it allows them to say that "men as a class" are to blame for whatever issue they're discussing, and nothing you say will ever get through to them. No matter what you actually see in society, it can all be ignored except for the parts that can be phrased in the form of "men do this, women do that", with men as eternal perpetrators and women as righteous victims. It's not just that it's wrong to conflate men and women with classes like that, it also ignores that classes in a Marxist sense aren't meant as moral categories to begin with, the proletariat is supposed to not just dethrone the bourgeoisie, but to abolish classes in general, including themselves.

As I said, I'm smelling trauma issues at the source of a lot of these, especially that last one. Hating whoever traumatised you is an important step, and going a bit overboard with it and generalizing about whatever group an attacker was part of is regrettable but fairly common. This just can't be where the journey ends, because it is not a stable or productive position from which to build the rest of your life, much less a political movement.

#mine #answered

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transgenderteensurvivalguide · 3 years

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Why is it that people seem to always support trans women more than trans men?

Lee says:

If you’re part of an online forum community that is primarily transfeminine, for example, then there’s going to be a lot of resources for transfeminine people.

But if you’re part of an online forum community that is primarily transmasculine, for example, then there’s going to be a lot of resources for transmasculine people.

And just as there are particular online spaces and communities that tend to be predominated by a certain group, there are also IRL ones that are primarily transmasculine or primarily transfeminine even if they are not explicitly defined as such.

If you feel like you aren’t being supported enough in the space you’re currently in, see if you can find a community that does focus around the resources you’re looking for!

As an example- you may have noticed that the transmasculine post-op community on Tumblr is pretty small. There definitely are multiple bloggers out there, and I think I actually follow all of them, but this isn’t really a thriving hub of phalloplasty information or support, or a large community of transmasculine folks who are post-op and post-transition (Thanks, Tumblr NSFW ban!).

So instead, I seek out the spaces where the community I want to be a part of actually is gathering. Now I’m part of many different transmasculine lower surgery groups on Facebook (over 20 of em lol), I’ve attended IRL transmasculine lower surgery support group meetings in person, and now I’m in two different Zoom-based transmasculine bottom surgery support groups.

I also believe that if you want to see more of a particular thing, you should be a part of putting that thing out there! So I still maintain my transition sideblog here on Tumblr, where I will eventually document my phallo when I get stage 1 in May. And that’s how I support the transmasculine community, in my own way. So if you want to see more supportive posts for transmasculine folks, start typing!

We also have to remember that uplifting transfeminine doesn’t automatically occur at the expense of support for transmasculine people. We aren’t trying to tear each other down, so being resentful of the transfeminine community for the people who support them isn’t a good look. Transfeminine people can never have “too much” support!

I do think that there are certain spaces online that tend to focus on positivity and support for transfeminine folks, and there’s nothing wrong with that- again, yes, transfeminine people do deserve support! Transfeminine people often face the brunt of society’s violent transphobia, and it’s important that we recognize the way that trans women specifically are targeted more than other groups are.

Trans women are often hypervisible and a lot of transphobic movements are aimed at them as a result; bathroom bills because transphobes don’t want “men” in women’s bathrooms, banning trans athletes because transphobes don’t want “men” to take over women’s teams, trans people being banned from gendered homeless shelters because transphobes don’t want “men” to sleep in the same room as women, and so on. When you listen to any of these politicians who support these gross things, you’ll hear them constantly talk about the “danger” that trans women pose (while insisting on gendering them as “men” and refusing to recognize that they’re even women). Trans men aren’t even an afterthought.

Being culturally hypervisible in the media means you’re the target of a lot of hate and the recipient of a lot of support, which is all happening at the same time. On the other hand, the transmasculine community at large is less visible in the media which means we often slip under the radar as a community which of course does tie into the erasure of the community. Transmasculine people more often slip under the radar on a personal level too, because many transmasculine people are able to pass by at least 5 years on testosterone and many choose to go stealth as soon as they’re able to.

That doesn’t mean that all transmasculine people can pass or want to pass, or that transmasculine people don’t face transphobia and violence either, or that the vitriol targeting trans women doesn’t invalidate us as well or affect our rights too, or that we shouldn’t get to share our experiences or ask for support.

We can and should talk about transmasculine people’s experiences as well, and transmasculine voices shouldn’t be erased. Studies have shown that suicide attempt rate for trans boys is approximately 20.9% higher than it is for trans girls, for example, and there are many similar statistics showing that trans men struggle in many ways and face a lot of discrimination, which of course deserves acknowledgement.

Experiencing discrimination and subsequent mental health struggles isn’t something that should be glossed over, yet there are many pseduo-progressive folks in the LGBTQ/feminist communities whose posts can sometimes come across as “men are bad and trans men are men so they’re bad!” When you point out that there are plenty of marginalized men out there who need support, people are quick to say “Well, I’ll support you for being trans but I don’t need to support you because you’re a man since men have privilege and therefore perpetuate oppression!” But in the case of trans men, supporting someone for being trans is the same thing as supporting them in being a man, you can’t separate the two.

And you can spend all day talking about in what situations transmasculine people have access to male privilege and in what conditions the privilege applies and so on, but that is a separate conversation from the point here, which is everyone deserves support and that includes trans men (and gay men, and disabled men, and Black men, and Indigenous men, and Asian men, and so on).

Things like body-shaming men for having neckbeards or small penises is seen as okay even though body-shaming women for having body hair or having small breasts is recognized as misogynistic. Sometimes folks respond by saying something like “you can’t oppress your oppressor” which... makes no sense in this context. Making people feel that their bodies are bad goes against the whole body-positive feminist movement, and that’s true no matter which people you think you’re targeting.

It’s also pretty obvious that being a man doesn’t inherently make you a bad person, but a lot of the hate and anger directed at men (whether it’s posted as a joke or said seriously by someone who went through trauma) can make it difficult for trans men to recognize that they’re men because they don’t want to become the thing everyone hates.

So how do we navigate allowing marginalized people to vent about groups who have privilege without causing collateral damage to other oppressed people?

Some people have tried to solve it by saying “I hate only cis men, not trans men!” but then of course you’ve created a new issue which is the arbitrary distinguishment between a cis man and a trans man. A trans man can be just as misogynistic as a cis man, and being trans doesn’t mean anything about who you are as a person, all it says is something about the gender you were assigned when you were born.

When you say that you only hate cis men, you’re implying that you don’t hate trans men because you think they’re different than cis men in some way in their thoughts/behavior/actions which is a transphobic assumption.

Or you’re saying you know that trans men and cis men can be identical in their thoughts/behavior/actions because they’re all men, so the reason you don’t hate trans men is ... ?? because they had certain genitals at birth (which they may not have anymore) ?? And that’s also transphobic because it’s saying you hate people solely because of their bodies which they can’t always control or change and implies having a particular type of body is morally wrong somehow or that your body makes you a bad person.

When someone makes a point of telling a trans man that they hate men, it’s sometimes a deliberate transphobic tactic used to make the person feel like having a male gender identity is inherently bad and makes you bad because it’s who you are, so the only way to become a good person is to not be a man which means not being transgender. And this is some how TERFs try and convince trans teens who were AFAB to re-identify as women instead of embracing being men. It’s hard to embrace being something that people have told you is problematic so people try to repress their feelings and ignore who they are.

Yet folks who don’t say “I hate all men” and instead say “the patriarchy sucks but it’s okay to be a man and not all men are bad” have found that statement controversial too.

Even that phrase, “not all men,” is a red flag because it’s primarily used by the “men’s rights” folks who try and defend their misogyny and push their anti-feminist agenda while denying the ways that they personally benefit from the system. All men benefit from the system of patriarchy if they are recognized as men by the system, but that doesn’t mean every individual man is personally responsible for actively perpetuating oppression or that every man is a bad person.

So when someone points out the ways that men are taught to hate themselves by people who are constantly bashing on men in hurtful ways, or the struggles that men face (even if they aren’t struggles unique to men), there are people who just freak out because they think that acknowledging this is in some way trying to say that men can’t be oppressors, or that pointing it out is somehow delegitimizing women’s experiences or part of a pushback against women’s rights because the MRAs have tried to stake a claim over the entire topic.

So any nuanced conversation about ways that we actually can support men and break down oppression and uplift marginalized folks has been silenced because this toxic group has dominated the conversation and nobody wants to accidentally seem like they support those things, so they don’t support anything that focuses on men at all.

Similarly, when someone posts about something that affects trans men people (usually cis people TBH) often will respond with “trans women have it worse with that issue, and everything else too!” which isn’t a helpful response because while it’s important to recognize the way that trans women face multiple axes of oppression, uplifting trans women in a way that makes it impossible for another marginalized group to have a conversation doesn’t help anyone. It’s okay for some posts to not be about or for trans women without starting to play the Oppression Olympics games because transmasculine people also need support and space and allowing transmasculine people to talk about their experiences doesn’t mean that transfeminine people are being ignored.

All that being said, I would argue that people definitely don’t always support trans women more than trans men, and I wouldn’t even say that people usually do so. It very much depends on the space you’re in. While I do believe that there are a lot of positivity/supportive posts about trans women on Tumblr, this is, in many ways, a direct reaction to counter the large volume of hate that’s also actively being directed at trans women on Tumblr. And while there are plenty of “love trans women!” posts, there is also an issue with the lack of practical resources and material support for trans women because most of the content does not go beyond the surface level heart-emoji type post.

So in what I’ve noticed on Tumblr specifically (as this varies depending on the platform you’re using and the space you’re in), there can be more vocal (aka performative) support for trans women but it mostly tends to focus on their identities saying they’re valid women and so on but doesn’t give them much information or material support or anything else that I would deem a useful resource, whereas there might be less support for trans men in terms of “gender identity positivity for being male” but there’s more practical resources and information that they can use to aid in their transition.

Again, whatever you do, don’t complain that transfeminine people have too much support- that’s not the same thing as saying that you’d like more support for trans men struggling with X issue.

And yes, while we do have many things in common, there are some differences in the struggles the community faces and the experiences we have, and it’s okay to want to talk with other folks who are going through the same thing. That doesn’t mean that you don’t care about transfeminine people or that you think they should have a smaller platform or something, it just means you’d like support for your identity and transition (which is wholly unrelated to how much support there is or isn’t available for them).

So if you are looking for more support for trans men and feel like you aren’t getting what you need in the online or IRL spaces you’re currently moving in, you should try finding the spaces that are meant to be supportive communities for trans men and join them, whether they’re specific blogs, Facebook groups, Discord servers, or in-person/on-Zoom support groups, and also do what you can to create the support you want to see for your community!

#Lee says #not really sure what to tag this as #transphobia #discourse #suicide m #Anonymous #trans #transgender #nonbinary #lgbtq #lgbt #transgender teen survival guide #transgenderteensurvivalguide #TTSG

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kuromichad · 3 years

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different subject that’s heavy on my mind rn but since i’m already being harsh let’s get into it. i wish it wasn’t automatically presumed to be some kind of truscum attitude when someone tries to express that different parts of The Trans Community have like, different needs and different risk levels and different experiences and that we have the ability to talk over each other, harm each other, etc... like when i put it that way people generally are like ‘of course that’s true!’ but is it ever really understood in practice? a number of people (not a large enough number, but still) are able to loosely understand ‘you can be trans and transphobic’ when it’s applied to the matter of transmisogyny but when a trans person tries to express distrust of or frustration with afab nb people due to how common it is that that category of person will, despite being trans/nb, espouse bioessentialist, anti-medical-transition, radfem-adjacent if not outright cryptoterf rhetoric, suddenly ‘trans people can be transphobic’ gets applied to... the person with a complaint about transphobia.

because he’s clearly an evil truscum man! regardless of if the person making the complaint is a trans man or trans woman, oops, lol. he’s a bad person who is attacking and invalidating and totally hatecriming the heckin’ valid, equally at-risk transgender identity of “an afab woman who isn’t a woman except when she pointedly categorizes themself as a woman because being afab makes them a woman who is ‘politically aligned’ with women but she’s not an icky unwoke cis woman because they don’t like being forced into womanhood although Really When You Think About It 🤔 all women are dysphoric because obviously the pathologized medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in transgender people is something that equally applies to cis women just default existing under patriarchy 🤔, and no, equating these things totally does not imply anything reductive about or add a bizarre moral dimension to the idea of being transgender, whaaaaat, this woman who isn’t a woman doesn’t think there’s anything immoral or cowardly or misogynist or delusional about being transgender, they would never say that because THEY’RE transgender, except when she feels it’s important (constantly) to make clear that she’s Still A Woman Deep Down Inherently Despite Not Identifying As One, and none of this ever has any effect on how they treat the concept, socially and politically, of people who actually wholly identify with (and possibly medically transition to) a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, be it ‘the opposite gender’ or abstaining from binary gender altogether or ‘politically aligning’ with the ‘opposite’ gender from their asab. never ever!”

and like maybe that sounds like a completely absurd and hateful strawman to you! but in that case you’re either like, lucky, or optimistic, or ignorant. i’m literally not looking at random nb people and declaring that in My Truscum Opinion they’re ‘really a woman’ just because they’re not medically transitioning or meeting some arbitrary standard of mine. i am looking at self-identified afab nb people, who most often use she/they because, y’know, words mean things, especially pronouns, so people who are willingly ‘aligned with womanhood’ typically intentionally use she/her (sorry that i guess that’s another truscum take now!!! that pronouns mean things!!! the bigender transmasc who deliberately uses exclusively he/him wants it to invoke a perception he’s comfortable with!), who actively say the things listed above (in a non-sarcastic manner).

like, the line between a person who says “i don’t claim to really not be my asab because i know no one would ever perceive me as anything else” because theyve internalized a defeatist attitude due to societal transphobia, and a person who says that because they... genuinely believe it’s impossible/ridiculous/an imposition to truly be transgender (in the traditional trans sense, beyond a vague nb disidentification with gender) and are actively contributing to the former person’s self loathing... is hard to define from a distance! i think plenty of people who are, in a sense, ‘tentative’ or like ‘playing close to home’ so to speak in their identity are ‘genuinely trans’ (whatever that may mean) and just going through a process. they might arrive at a different identity or might just eventually stop saying/believing defeatist stuff, who knows. but there are enough people saying it for the latter reason, or at least not caring if they sound that way, that it’s like, dangerous. it is actively incredibly harmful to other trans people. and it’s fucking ridiculous that it’s so difficult to criticize because you’ll always get the defense of “umm but i’m literally trans” and/or “well i’m just talking about ME, this doesn’t apply to other trans people” when it’s an attitude that very clearly seeps into their politics and the way they discuss gender.

because it’s just incredibly common for afab nb people (most typically those that go by she/they! since i’m aware that uh, i am also afab nb, but we clearly are extremely different, so that’s the best categorization i’ve got) to discuss gender in moralized terms, with the excuse of patriarchy/misogyny existing, which of course adds another difficult dimension to trying to criticize this because it gets the response of “don’t act like misandry is real” (it’s not, but being a dick still is) and “boohoo, let women complain about their oppressors” (this goes beyond ‘complaining’). a deliberate revocation of empathy/sympathy/compassion from men and projection of inherently malicious/brutish/cruel intent onto men (not solely in the justified generalizations ‘men suck/are dangerous’, but in specific interactions too) underpin a whole fucking lot of popular posts/discussions online, whether they’re political or casual/social, and it absolutely influences how people conceptualize and feel about transness.

because ‘maleness is evil’ is still shitty politics even when you’ve slightly reframed it from the terf ‘trans women are evil because they’re Really Men and can never escape being horrific soulless brutes just as women can never escape being fragile morally superior flowers’ to the tumblr shethey “trans women who are out to me/unclockable are tolerable i guess because they’re women and women are good; anyone i personally presume to be a cis man, though, is still automatically evil, and saying trans men are Just As Bad is progressive of me, and it’s totally unrelated and apolitical that i think we should expand the concept of afab lesbianism so broadly that you can now be basically indistinguishable from trans men on literally every single level except for a declaration of ‘but i would never claim to be a man because i’m secure in the Innate Womanhood of the body i was born into, even as i medically alter that body because it causes me great gendered discomfort.’ none of this at all indicates that i feel there’s an immense moral/political gap between being an afab nb lesbian vs a straight trans man! it says nothing at all about my concept of ‘maleness’ and there’s no way this rhetoric bleeds into my perception of trans women and no way loudly talking about all this could keep trans people around me self-loathing and closeted, because i’m Literally Trans and Not A Terf!”

again, if that sounds like a hateful strawman, sorry but it’s not. i guess i’m supposed to be like ‘all of the many people ive seen saying these shitty things is an evil outlier who Doesn’t Count, and it’s not fair to the broad identity of afab shethey to not believe that every person who doesn’t outright say terfy enough things is a perfectly earnest valid accepting trans person who’s beyond criticism’ but like. this cannot be about broad validation. this can’t be about discarding all the bad apples as not really part of the group. we can’t be walking on eggshells to coddle what are essentially, in the end, Cis Feelings, because in the best cases this kind of rhetoric comes from naive people who are early and uncertain in their gender journey or whatever and are in the process of unraveling internalized transphobia, and in the easily observable worst cases these people are very literally redefining shit so that ‘actually all afab women are trans, spiritually, all afabs have dysphoria, we are all Equally oppressed by Males uh i mean cis men <3’ because, let’s be honest, they know that the moment they call themselves trans they get to say whatever they want about gender no matter how harmful it is to the rest of us. and those ideas spread like wildfire through the afab shethey “woman that’s not a woman” community that frankly greatly outnumbers other types of trans people online, because many of those people just do not have the experiences that lead you to really understand this shit and have to push back against concepts of gender that actively harm you as a trans person.

like that’s all i want to be able to say, is Things Are Different For Different Groups. and a willful ignorance of these differences leads to bad rhetoric controlling the overall discourse which gets people hurt. and even when concepts arise from it that seem positive and helpful and inclusive, in practice or in origin those ideas can still be upholding shit that gets other people hurt. like, i don’t doubt that many people are very straightforwardly happy and comfortable with an identity like ‘afab nb lesbian on testosterone’ and it would be ridiculous and hypocritical for me, ‘afab nb who wants to pass as a guy so he can comfortably wear skirts again,’ to act like that’s something that can’t or shouldn’t exist. it’s not about the identity itself, it’s about the politics that are popular within its community, and how the use of identities as moral labels with like, fucking pokemon type interactions for oppression effectiveness which directly informs the moral correctness of your every opinion and your very existence, is a shitty practice that gets people hurt and leads us to revoke empathy from each other.

like. sorry this is all over the place and long and probably still sounds evil because i haven’t thought through and disclaimered every single statement. but i’m like exhausted from living with this self-conscious guilt that maybe i’ve turned into a horrible evil truscum misogynist etc etc due to feeling upset by this seemingly inescapable approach to gender in lgbt/online circles that like, actively harms me, because when i vent with my friends all the stuff i’ve tried to explain here gets condensed down to referencing ‘she/theys’ as a category and that feels mean and generalizing and i genuinely dislike generalizations but the dread i feel about that category gets proven right way too often. it’s just like. this is not truscum this is not misgendering this is not misogyny. this is not about me decreeing that all transmascs have to be manly enough or dysphoric enough and all nbs have to be neatly agender and androgynous or something, i’m especially not saying that nb gender isn’t real lmao or even that it’s automatically wrong to partially identify with your asab; this is not me saying you can only medically transition for specific traditional reasons or that you don’t get a say on anything if you aren’t medically transitioning for whatever reason, now or ever. i just. want to be allowed to be frank about how... when there’s different experiences in a community we should like. acknowledge those differences and be willing to say that sometimes people don’t know what they’re talking about or that what they’re saying is harmful. without the primary concern being whether people will feel invalidated by being told so. because these are like, real issues, that are more important than politely including everyone, because that method is just getting vulnerable people drowned out constantly.

#source on much of this: existing as a transmasc on tumblr for years and years.#i stopped identifying as any sort of 'woman-aligned' pretty much right before the ridiculous 'all afabs are dysphoric' stuff #but it sure did still make me hate myself and feel like a silly cowardly ugly little girl for wanting to transition!#and back when i WAS a she/they i definitely was falling for 'men are bad maleness is bad always inherently :)' rhetoric #not in the modern form outlined above but in the like. brainlessly parroted from 'baeddel tumblr' form #which was still like 'you can escape being a Bad Person by either becoming or admitting you are a girl :)'#and the only acknowledgment of trans men in this ideology was like. 'well i guess they feel like they have to do that :\'#'too bad for them. im not saying they shouldnt transition but you know. men suck though <3'#it was bad for me it was bad for other people so im saying from experience. Fucking cut it out! the end

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