terra-feminarum

[terra-feminarum]

But i feel like we don't have the same level of connection with nature as women from the past.

Connection with nature is not some unachievable mystical thing that is only possible under certain circumstances. Our survival is closely tied to the nature, and damage to nature reflects on our quality of life severely. We cannot exist disconnected from nature, it's where all of our air and water are produced, where all our food grows, where all the warmth and the resources are, disconnected from nature means certain death because we'd be disconnected from all of our environment and resources. We are living from nature! It's just being shielded from our eyes. Everything you eat and breathe in and see came from nature, it's only been modified and packaged and built into looking like something separate.

If a person wants to understand or be closer to nature that is the source of everything, there's not that much standing in her way. Nature finds her way everywhere. The only thing standing in our way is lack of willingness, or lack of curiosity about it. We have resources and options to learn about everything we want.

#Connection with nature doesn't require access to some pristine old growth forest #We don't have a lot of understanding of nature nowadays #yet we are connected right now with our every cell

[terra-feminarum]

I don't have the exact numbers but someone told me today the climate impact of internet use now exceeds that of air traffic. 80 % of those emissions are from video content. One third of that is from porn.

Does anyone know if this is true? And if it is, what would be the climate impact of banning porn?

[terra-feminarum]

I feel like we need to start really pushing for hate crimes against women to actually be treated as such. It's fucking insane that a man can beat/rape/murder a woman, call her sexist slurs during the attack, and then tell the police and press that he did it because he hates women, but somehow this isn't considered a hate crime. The only reason places don't want to do it is because there's so many that it would mean like 90% of hate crime victims would be women (literally the reason the uk gave for not doing it a few years back)

It's extra crazy because wasn't it something like 80% of mass murderers have a history of harrasment and violence against women and girls? You would think it would be a no brainer to treat these crimes seriously to prevent these men from getting out and committing even more violent and horrific crimes, but that would mean treating women as people and not shock absorbers for society I guess.

[terra-feminarum]

What do you call someone who

can be given from one citizen to another

can't own property

can't vote

can be beaten without repercussions

can be raped without repercussions

does unpaid labor?

What women have survived was slavery.

#obviously this is still a reality for a lot of women #where I live it's history #but no one admits what has happened #I believe we can't heal and reclaim our power if we pretend nothing happened

[terra-feminarum]

I visit a local gender clinic every now and then due to my detransition. Today the doctor asked me why am I dressed like this if I want to be understood as a woman.

I was wearing combat boots. (They are very practical from September to June.)

I was wearing cargo pants. (My last pair lasted several years in daily use.)

I was wearing a plaid shirt. (It cost 3€ at flea market.)

I had a buzz cut. (My hair care routine takes less than five minutes every two weeks.)

Which of these things contradicts my womanhood? How much discomfort and impracticality should I endure to look like a "woman"?

#detrans #detransition #womanhood

[terra-feminarum]

This post has been reblogged lately a bit so I wanted to continue:

Things are fine. I will surely have difficult feelings regarding my detransition in the future, too, but they will pass.

I haven't been online lately because I've been too busy living. I'm hanging out with awesome women and participating in my community. Detransition is on my mind less and less. Physically I'm no different than at the time I wrote the previous post. But even though physical reality affects my situation, so many different experiences can emerge from that same physical reality. I really recommend doing physical labor to experience your body as capable and healthy. I recommend not having too many mirrors around. I recommend being open about your past. I recommend valuing connection over performance.

I don't mean detransitioners should just change their attitude and everything will be fine. I just mean experiencing loss won't ruin the rest of your life.

Usually I like to have more or less positive tone when I post about detransition. But I do admit, there are times when I don't know how to go on like this.

I know beauty doesn't matter, nor does it matter if I can blend in with "normal" people. But I don't live in a vacuum, but among other people, and I need to stay employed and I need connection with my fellow women. Life is not tumblr and sometimes I feel desperate.

I feel very aware of my differences when I'm at a zoom meeting and I see myself next to other women and I hear their voices and I hear my voice and wonder if they even understand I'm a woman. I wonder if people can understand my female masculinity (for lack of a better word) or whether they consider me the freakiest little twink they have ever seen. That's what T does to a butch, rather than make her handsome and masculine.

There is this feeling of having a nightmare and waiting to wake up, but it never happens.

Sometimes I miss my old body more than anything and I wish I could know how I might look like at this age had I not made the decisions I did. Would my breasts sag now? How my graying hair would look if I could grow it out? What my voice would be like? I don't remember my old voice.

Sometimes the grief and anxiety are so strong I don't know how to cope. But I'm alive and I just have to continue from one moment to the next, until one day I don't feel as bad, and that day always comes. When I feel the worst I try to remember what I do have, rather than what I've lost. Sometimes I try to remember so many people have to go through so much harder things than I hopefully ever will, this is such a simple problem in comparison. Returning to the basics help: I have good food on my table. I have a good roof over my head. I have good relationships with other people. Even when I'm so ashamed of myself and hate what I did to myself, I still have these things.

And when I feel the worst, I carry on out of spite. I'm not going to fade into some kind of non-existence and be quiet. I'm going to be fucking loud of what I've gone through. This shouldn't have happened. Other women shouldn't have to go through the same. On the worst days the best I can manage is to carry the body I hate as evidence. At least I can show people what misogyny can lead to.

It's not healthy and better days will always come and I will not hate myself later. Later I won't feel like a freak. But the worst days are real, too, and I need to somehow live through them.

#detrans #detransition

[terra-feminarum]

Something happened in my English class that I think perfectly sums up how so many people don't understand feminism.

At the beginning of each class, we have to talk about something in english for two minutes. This woman decided to talk about radical feminism in South Korea. She explained how feminists there decide not to date men, have sex with men, marry men and have kids with men anymore. It was very interesting and well explained, and I was happy to see another woman from my uni talking about feminism. From what I understood, she's not Korean but goes to Korea often and has a lot of radical feminists friends there.

Then another woman raises her hand and asks "don't you think these rules are a little bit tough?". I roll my eyes, but the other woman is confused. She frowns. "What rules? What are you talking about?". "I mean, the not dating men rule. Isn’t it a bit too tough?". "Well of course it's tough for the men but that's the goal isn’t? Feminism has to be a bit tough to men in order to work". She really didn't seem to understand what that other woman meant, and the other was apparently confused about it. "I mean for the women... for the Korean women. Aren't these rules too tough for Korean feminists? Isn’t there a way to help women without giving them such hard rules to follow?".

I was very annoyed (so was the woman who talked about this movement in the first place) because how can you miss the point so badly? How does she think feminism works? Does she believe some sort of higher power gives Korean women rules to follow and that they get thrown in jail if they date a man? How can you describe this movement as "rules"? They aren't rules. They would be rules if Korean women were forced to obey them, if they were punished for dating men. That's not the case. What's happening is that some women decide of their own free will to stop dating men (among other things). They don't follow any rules, they freely chose to do what they do. It's about women's freedom, about women deciding what they do with their life and body. But I guess people nowadays use this concept only to defend prostitution and makeup, without understanding it in reality, when it comes to women doing things that go against what the patriarchy wants them to do.

Anyway, I find it interesting that this woman's first conclusion was that these were rules rather than free choices. This is why many people see radical feminism as a cult; they can't understand the idea of women making their own choices if those choices defy patriarchy. They think we must be some kind of cult that brainwashes them and forces them to obey and follow complicated rules, because how else can a woman decide to stop fucking men? A free woman would never do that.

[terra-feminarum]

the way i hear a lot of detransitioners talk makes me sad. not for them but for me. because a lot of detransitioners (esp the vocal ones on this site) are women who used to be trans men. and i'm really glad they found a gender identity and expression that works for them! i just wish that in the case of the more radfemmy ones that i could like. idk. show them that as a trans woman, that liberating return to womanhood isn't an option for me.

detransitioning or "desisting" for me means a return to whatever bits of masculinity i managed to lay claim to before i realized i was trans. i don't have a femininity to return to. and in some ways i have this weird misplaced anger at detransitioners for how lucky they are, that that womanhood is their default state. in some ways i feel like my transition is a return to womanhood, the womanhood i've known was me since i was a little kid, except that i have to fight tooth and nail for every fucking inch of it. the idea of detransitioning, of just having to live with my voice and my facial hair and my penis and accept that that's the way it has to be, makes me want to hang myself. and i just wish i could make them see that.

i dont know where im going with this but i want to end it by saying that solidarity with detransitioners is incredibly important. you are still my siblings and whatever your gender and whether or not you are trans there is more that unites us than divides us

just a ramble from your friendly neighborhood tgirl

Hey. I agree with you that solidarity among all gender non-conforming people is important. I agree that a lot of radical feminists lack nuanced understanding of dysphoria or transition, too.

You have something majorly wrong though.

Respectfully, transitioning MTF is not a "return" to "womanhood." You're just happier since you allowed yourself to express more femininity/give yourself more freedom. Womanhood to you is gender-based, so it's solely based off of the performance of femininity, not biological sex. Womanhood, to you, is a group of stereotypical feminine behaviors and attributes. You feel like a woman because of femininity. Womanhood can't be about biological sex to you, because if it was, you wouldn't be a woman. And that hurts, because you're dysphoric.

What you're jealous of is that I am female, immutably, and you are female, conditionally. That's the root of the problem.

Womanhood, to me, is more about being born female and all that it encapsulates. I feel like a woman when, well, actually–I don't really think about it. I don't feel any more or less like a woman any time of the day, or when I'm doing something particular. Because I'm not performing anything. I'm not concerned with roles or stereotypes. I am, simply, female. For better or for worse. Womanhood has nothing to do with femininity. I am not feminine.

You suffer because you haven't accepted that you are male and you cannot become female. You suffer because you feel like something about you is fundamentally wrong (nothing is wrong with you!). You suffer because you haven't realized that you can live a joyful life as your birth sex if you just let go of the expectation to be masculine! Being male means nothing besides the physical form that you take up. Your problem is not really with your body, it is with society and the fucked up things they've done to you because of your feminine inclinations as a male. I am deeply sorry for that.

Detransitioning is not a "returning." When you transition, EVEN IF you detransition, there is NO going back to who you were. You will be forever changed be it by a new perspective, social changes, by hormones or surgery. Detransitioners are ostracized from all sides. Most women do not accept me as a real woman anymore. And I certainly don't have femininity to return to! I don't even like being feminine nor do I wish to be, because my womanhood is only about being female, not being feminine. My development was chemically altered bro. I am going to be like this forever. I will have more body hair, larger bone density, sharper larger facial features and brow bone, reproductive issues, enlarged clitoris, narrow pelvis, and an incredibly low voice FOREVER. I was never very feminine anyway.

I speak about dysphoria, suffering, and transition this way because I lived it. When I detransitioned, I was still dysphoric. It was not a happy reclamation of womanhood like many people imagine. No, I was scared shitless, because I knew I didn't actually wanna be a man, but I sure as shit didn't wanna be a woman. It took YEARS of difficult work to accept myself in this female body. Don't downplay the complete emotional overhaul that detransitioners go through. I felt caged, objectified, trapped by my second-class status... Until I realized that my problems with being female weren't actually about me. I just hated how society treated women.

For example, I hated my breasts. When I first grew them, I felt betrayed, like I was becoming a sexual object. I distinctly remember panicking because I was losing my freedom (I couldn't wrestle or be shirtless anymore, which was a huge deal to me). I hated my breasts because I was so conditioned by the patriarchy that I was sexually objectifying my own body. (An example of this was my mother forcing me to wear chest constraining bras because I needed to be proper and modest. I learned, in turn, that my body itself was immodest and must be hidden. There was something bad about my sexual maturation. There was something bad, needed to be hidden, about being a woman. She told me to start covering up around male family. Not even at home in my own bed was I safe.. because I was a girl.) But when I was 14, I just thought I was dysphoric, and bound my chest until my nipples would bleed and I couldn't breathe. It felt much safer.

I used to fucking hate having a vagina and wished to have a penis. I felt that my vagina, this hole inside me, was a biological vulnerability that men would exploit. I looked at my vagina with fear of sexual violence. I looked at my vagina with rage and hatred because this part of me resigned me to being victimized. I called it dysphoria. I watched straight porn (not lesbian, that just seemed like straight women moaning at each other) and wished I was the man, wished I could penetrate a woman and feel it. I just could not put myself in the place of the woman (because the woman is always faking enjoyment and normally being degraded) but I thought it was because I wanted to be a man. Porn made me feel awful about being a woman, and only encouraged my dysphoria. Society reinforces dysphoria.

I also detransitioned before I understood why I transitioned in the first place, and it took me years to understand it all.

My dysphoria didn't go away overnight and I will probably have some low level of dysphoria for years to come, but that's ok. I manage. My dysphoria is a recurring character that I know well by now. I know that feeling unsafe or sexualized or powerless or overly-vulnerable triggers my dysphoria. I avoid very feminine environments because I don't "measure up" in them, and that also makes me dysphoric. I know that taking care of my body, letting myself rest, and using logic helps me heal my dysphoria. But sometimes I still have to throw on the binder and hoodie and call it a day. Sometimes it's too much of a beast to deal with. I get it.

#detrans #detransition

[terra-feminarum]

I don't think it's talked about enough how the knowledge of women's millennia-long subjugation under patriarchy feels so incredibly demeaning and what it does to young girls self esteem when when they learn about it in school. I remember being 12 or 13 in history class learning about the Romans and how women were considered property to be passed from their father to their husband and for the first time feeling this awful and disheartening sense of humiliation and embarrassment, especially sitting there among my male pupils, being told by the male history teacher over and over throughout every single historical period that we were second-class citizens. What it must do to a girl's self esteem on a subconscious level, how it then might affect everything you say and do, not even mentioning how the misogyny in their daily lives affects them. My heart kind of broke when I realised that

#There's zero sensitivity around how women's past enslavement is discussed #I can't even imagine what it does to us

[terra-feminarum]

downside of researching folklore is the occasional reminder that oh yeah, women were the literal property of their husbands cross-culturally and could be beaten or killed at his discretion for disobedience

[terra-feminarum]

They aren't given individuality when it comes to bodies, either. Or personality.

It's almost like art depicting women isn't depicting women at all.

also I’m starting to feel like “same face syndrome” IS a way of making headless/faceless woman art. our faces communicate our subjectivity. if every artistic representation of a woman has the same (beautiful, feminized) face, the implication is that they have no internal differences either. they might as well have no faces, because the faces they’re given are almost like … masks or placeholders in a way

[terra-feminarum]

stop saying things are empowering when what you mean is they make you feel more confident about how you appear to other people

[terra-feminarum]

I don't agree. Not everything good is feminism.

It's good to take care of your needs and be gentle with yourself. It's not feminism though. We're not getting more freedom by brushing our teeth. Going to bed isn't an action that liberates women. It's good for your wellbeing, sure.

But all of your actions don't need to be feminist. If you're going through a rough spot, it's completely ok to not focus on feminism. Feminism isn't an identity. Feminism is a tool for analysis. Feminist action aims to liberate women.

Affirmations for myself:

-Brushing your teeth daily is a feminist act

-Taking showers consistently is a feminist act

-Healing your OCD is a feminist act

-Going to bed at a stable time each night is a feminist act

-Taking your medicine is a feminist act

#to be honest this kind of thinking sounds like a psyop to make a certain demographic to believe they're incapable of tangible action

[terra-feminarum]

After being bombarded by the "lesbians love women like straight men love women" narrative for my whole life, I realized: we love women like straight women love men. We are fascinated by their humanity, memorize their unique traits and preferences and keep vigilant for chances to make their lives easier. And since our objects of attraction aren't our oppressors, but other women who celebrate our personhood just the same, the dynamic is entirely different from anything straight people have going on. One wearing pants and the other wearing a skirt changes nothing.

[terra-feminarum]

reject femininity and embrace femaleness

[terra-feminarum]

in stone butch blues leslie feinberg talked abt the 3 items of women’s clothing rule where the police who raided lesbian bars wld check to see how much these women were still upholding femininity. i have never been thru that but i remember reading it + how much it resonated w me. this rule has not been expelled from our cultures mentality… i remember telling a straight woman i was considering getting a buzzcut + the 1st thing she said was ‘oh, they look great w big hoop earrings.’ there’s like a sort of balancing act where for every item of men’s clothing u’ve got to do penance thru makeup + accessories……. + its got everything to do w reassuring the person viewing you, who might feel challenged by ur shirt or jacket or jeans + so needs to be able to look down n take comfort from the pair of heels on ur feet. saddest manifestation is definitely when we internalize it– when the fear of being marked not-woman makes us wear sth we hate, just for some tie 2 femininity. the more masculine the clothing, the thicker the makeup

[terra-feminarum]

the lack of dykes n more specifically butch dykes in post apocalyptic media is bizarre bc every single lesbian i know is the most prepared person in any room n not even for survivalist reasons we do that shit for fun