Trans Politics, Trans Activism, also 'rolling is this transphobic?' thread

I think it is time to separate the discussion, and leave the Trans/Genderqueer/Agender/Questioning thread as a space set aside *for* trans/queer/questioning people (cis people are welcome on that thread! It's not a 'no boys' situation, but I think it's better to allow that space to continue be trans-led and focused on trans, nonbinary, questioning and genderfull ILX0rs, rather than trans issues in general, because it's exhausting for trans people to have to be 'all transphobia discourse all the time'.)

So we should create a wider thread for discussion of trans issues, transphobia, politics etc.

This subject is intensely emotional for a lot of people, so please try to be respectful and thoughtful. Genuine questions of 'is this transphobic, can we talk a little deeper about how and why?' are OK. General 'let me play devil's advocate with your life' discourse is really not OK.

A note on language: cis and trans are not slurs, they are descriptors, but we should all be careful of making assumptions. (Yes, I include myself in that.) I'm going to respectfully ask people to think carefully about use of the other common trans activism acronym in terms of accuracy and specificity - if in doubt, spell it out, in fact, spelling it out is good practice in general. If people or groups or ideas are trans-exclusive, then let's talk about and address that trans exclusion. If you mean 'trans exclusive feminism' then say 'trans exclusive feminist' - and if the person or idea is really not someone or something that can be called feminist (I'm referencing your G-L*nners here) think about whether just plain 'transphobe' or 'trans hatred' or 'trans exclusion' is a more accurate term.

Gender GP are experiencing a lot of issues with their website (don't know if this is a DDOS or if they are having too much of a good thing in terms of support) but a description of the issues here:

https://www.gendergp.com/transgender-community-urgently-needs-support-trans-healthcare-petition/

You can skip directly to their petition / open letter here:

https://www.change.org/p/transgender-healthcare-services-in-the-uk-are-broken-urgent-improvements-are-needed

(Just a reminder, do not give change dot org money if you want that money to reach the organisation you care about - if you want to donate, do so directly via trans organisations, change dot org money goes only to change dot org. They WILL try to catch you if you're not paying attention.)

Oh! I think the petition is UK only, so be mindful of that, too.

https://gal-dem.com/transphobia-sexual-violence-sound-like-a-man-hang-up-vawg-investigation/

I want to be careful not to suggest that transphobia is in any way less of a problem in America

and I suspect this may be just my perception based on the fact that Rowling has become the face of this on Twitter and in the media

but I get this sense that anti-trans politics and transphobia is a little more pitched in the UK? Or more of a high profile issue publically?

yes

I think the main problem is that it is much more acceptable within left and liberal/centrist circles. The main public faces of transphobia being ppl like Rowling, Hadley Freeman, etc. adds to that.

xpost

Probably still easier for a trans person to access specific healthcare here than in the US tho (but they're working on making it more difficult).

most distinctive about the UK situation is the extent to which influential liberals and liberal publications have been basically leading the charge and spreading stuff associated elsewhere with the religious or fascist right (and the hard right following suit has made this stuff pretty much hegemonic in UK media). there was a minor outcry recently from prominent UK liberals when biden made some minor gesture towards trans rights ("I can't believe I agree with trump..." etc)

Probably still easier for a trans person to access specific healthcare here than in the US tho (but they're working on making it more difficult).

idk how much it varies between states in the US. it's bad here and probably getting worse

Why does the UK appear more transphobic than the States? Why does that UK transphobia turn up more noticeably on the Left, among progressives and especially people who identify as feminists, in the UK?

Like everything else to do with differences between the UK and the US, it comes down to Class, and attitudes towards Class, what Class is, and how it works.

The foundational myth of the US is the American Dream, the idea that class is something fundamentally malleable, mutable, alterable that individuals can and do change over the course of their lives. That an immigrant can arrive penniless, work hard at a blue collar job, buy a house and send their children to university, at which point the family becomes middle class. Yes, in reality this is completely unattainable to most, but it is still a myth that people *believe* in deeply. In class, birth should not be destiny, to most Americans.

In the UK, class is something far more inborn, inherent, inflexible, and unalterable. The very deep British belief is that if you are born into a class, then you will die as that class, no matter how much money you gain or lose. The circumstances you were raised in, what accent you have, where you went to school, these things *matter*, both conceptually and materially, they will shape your future outcomes in life. A working class person who accumulates a lot of money will be dismissed as “jumped-up” nouveau-riche; a middle class person with a plummy accent who insists they’re working class because their grandad was a milkman will be lampooned as a fake "mockney".

At the core of Feminist thought, is the idea that sex is a Power Relation, like race, like class. Women are disadvantaged, exploited and oppressed As A Class. How you are likely to think about the class of "Women", what it means and who it contains, is likely to be heavily influenced by how you think "Class" works, whether you view it as inherently inalterable or fundamentally mutable. Do you believe that it is possible for an individual to alter their position, within a systemic power structure? If you, like much of the UK, you believe that is inherently impossible, that’s how you end up with supposed progressives who believe that transmasculine people are "jumped-up lesbians" and transfeminine people are "fakes and mockeries".

And that’s the most important thing to grasp about UK transphobia - these appalling ideas don’t just turn up in the ~Gender Crit~ feminists – they turn up among people like the UK Skeptic movement, who played a huge part in the Guardian-New Statesman axis of transphobia, people who are deeply invested in maintaining the class status quo from Helen Lewis to Kier “trans rights are just a culture war” Starmer; and also among traditional ~Working Class~ leftists who refuse to see gender as a class or a class issue, such as the Mark Fisher wing and the SWP during their rapey years. Which brings up another problem, that in the US, trans rights are unequivocally a progressive issue; in the UK left, they are often a stick to beat 'feminists' with.

The state of trans healthcare in the US vs the UK... this is complicated, because quite frankly, US trans healthcare is better because the US healthcare system is so fucked up. It’s so fragmented that it is far more open to individual healthcare providers, whether they are trans affirmative or exclusionary. Trans friends in the US keep and share lists of therapists, surgeons, HMOs, private healthcare providers etc. who *will* offer gender affirming services, and gender confirmation treatments if necessary. If you can find the money, you can find someone who will help you.

The NHS, on the other hand, is a political football. Centralised gender clinics in the UK function as a bottleneck, by design. You have to pass arbitrary tests designed and administered by cis people. In the US, trans friends share lists of doctors who will prescribe hormones; in the UK, trans friends share the exact statements you have to make to pass the gatekeepers, lying if necessary, to access care. (It is the exact situation that Sandy Stone describes 30 years ago in The Empire Strikes Back – that’s how far behind the US the UK is, in terms of trans care.) Trans people being put on waiting lists that are years long, or being told the referral time is literally "infinite" – that is a political decision coming from the current government.

In happier news, that indicates the winds may be shifting on transphobia within traditional bastions of feminism:

https://feministlibrary.co.uk/statement-on-transphobia-and-accountability/

thank you, that explains a lot, appreciate it.

I thought this was a pretty good article on the phenomenon as well from a couple years ago: https://theoutline.com/post/6536/british-feminists-media-transphobic

this fucking country

as a med student at Brighton and Sussex (i will be having my obs and gynae placements on the mentioned wards) THANK YOU!!! i've heard stuff about ward staff getting phone calls from angry old men about this and it's honestly baffling. like it's not going to affect you???

— ellen (@e_petersxx) February 10, 2021

re: fake story picked up by mutliple outlets about the trans police banning midwives from saying "mother" and "breastfeeding" on wards (non-gendered language has been recommended for people who aren't women, the press presumably thought it didn't sound dangerous enough unless they added the censorship bit)

one recurring theme in this shit is how provisions for trans men, nonbinary people and others keep getting portrayed as being done exclusively for the sake of not hurting trans women's feelings or something (this seemed to be one of JKR's contentions). it's clearly a strategic propaganda choice and related in some way to how trans men keep being identified as trans women, in public and in the press. has there been any writing on this phenomenon?

i literally couldn't sleep last night thinking about this wave of trans hostility currently sweeping across the UK, it's completely fucked up

my employer is now backing away from its relationship with Stonewall

i just literally cannot get my head around 1) why 2) why now

btw anybody who hasn't seen this Contrapoints should do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us

i feel you. between chave dappelle, the sports ban in tx, the bullshit in loudon county, it feels like the reactionaries are organized and amplifying more right now.

it makes me wonder if as a nation we genuinely accept LGB people or if we've just learned that it's not socially acceptable to discriminate against them the way it seems to be fine to do to trans people. The arguments are the same as they were in the 80s: the predatory concerns, the destabilising of family life, it's like we learned nothing.

yeah i suspect thats a major part of it. aside from terfs, its mostly the same interests (ie conservative christians/fascists) pushing these arguments and narratives. i think this is where the whole "you cant say [bigoted thing] about [marginalized group] without [non-material, superficial social repercussions] these days!!!!" complaint comes from, like this stifled antagonism that finally has a target that they can direct their reactionary hostilities towards with some greater degree of social validation.

it is odd though because in Britain a lot of this stuff is coming from a place you wouldn't necessarily expect. The Guardian isn't great but its unique selling point is its alleged left-wing perspective (comparatively, maybe, but generally lol) and to see it take such an editorial line has been confusing because it makes no sense.

it's going to be so obvious in 20 years to everyone what the right side of this argument was, the problem is that it's hurting people right now

^

If only there were actual problems in the world that people could direct their inchoate anger towards, maybe then they'd feel less harmed by the life choices of others that don't impact them in any meaningful way.

Bill 2 is 'the most transphobic bill ever proposed in Quebec,' activist says

Sorry if this isn't the right thread for this, but am I the only one who continually fucks up the right pronouns while speaking? My daughter's 12 year old friend is going by "they/them" and I keep messing up and saying "her/she". Really trying to get it right, but I'm becoming seriously concerned about my 51-year-old brain's ability at defeating my subconscious impulses.

practice! I’ve had a few people change pronouns in my life and just taking ten minutes a day to repeat to yrself a short script like “Their name is x. Their pronouns are they/them. They like x and it’s fun to hang out with them” or w/e works pretty well ime, and it doesn’t seem to occur to a lot of ppl

also gets easier the more they/thems there are in yr life, which will likely happen over time if you have 12-year-olds in yr life

also, it helps not to worry too much about it! not because it isn’t important (it is), but because the more of an anxiety you develop around it the harder it will be (again, ime). when you inevitably mess it up, correct yrself quickly and without any “oh geez it’s just so hard, I don’t know why I can’t get this, I’m so sorry” etc.

Thanks Nicole! Practicing is what I need for sure. Luckily, I’ve haven’t screwed up in front of my daughter’s friend yet and my daughter is more than happy to correct me when I do slip up. I’ll get there eventually.

I’ve had a few people change pronouns in my life and just taking ten minutes a day to repeat to yrself a short script

yeah, same ... also, what nicole says ... you will inevitably mess it up, but don't get defensive or demeaning

Open letter signed by 16,000 calls for BBC apology over trans article
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-59074096

You’d think they could have at least recapped the reason that the study is said to be flawed.

Nice to know that some “appreciations” were sent in, though, I wasn’t aware of a formal avenue for those. Maybe they should keep a running ticker of how many they get.

Fuck K4thl33n St0ck fuck K4thl33n St0ck fuck K4thl33n St0ck

the implication that “many trans women are lesbians, and many cis lesbians enjoy fucking them” is an equal statement to “all cis lesbians must be willing to fuck any given trans woman” is so deeply absurd, and the fact that so many publications treat it like a reasonable debate that must be had sucks so much.

there are people with certain physical traits who I don’t want to fuck; people have sexual preferences within a given orientation! but if I were to make a big public stink about it and imply or outright state that those traits invalidated their identity and the sexuality of the people who do, I would expect to be called out for it!

my heart aches for trans women in the UK these days, it’s bad enough dealing with this shit when it’s thousands of miles away

yeah, same ... also, what nicole says ... you will inevitably mess it up, but don't get defensive or demeaning

― sarahell, Thursday, October 28, 2021 1:39 AM bookmarkflaglink

it's just weird *how* defensive people get when they make this mistake, like, if you call a friend by the wrong name or say their last name wrong, and they correct you, you don't sit there causing a scene.

i've fucked it up, been corrected just like anybody else, it's....feedback, you apologize, correct, move on. not that I wouldn't understand why someone who has been misgendered a lot might be momentarily frustrated, but usually the correction is just a polite one and people go apeshit over it.

https://archive.md/MwYYz

uk getting very scary, they're planning to lump in trans-affirmative therapy with gay conversion therapy (as transphobes have been pushing for) and totally ban it for under 18s, also likely banning mermaids

feels like it would be a good time to start taking to the streets? the polls always seem to show that the transphobes are a vocal minority, should start taking advantage of that

Trending now in UK:
#CisISASlur

(and not trending in a "everyone is taking the piss out of it" manner)

these fucking babies don’t know what a slur is

who’s the snowflake now??

Fuck K4thl33n St0ck fuck K4thl33n St0ck fuck K4thl33n St0ck

otm and also i think sussex have handled this quite poorly

there are people with certain physical traits who I don’t want to fuck

The problem is that women are being accused of transphobia for saying this exact thing, if one of those physical traits happens to be having a penis. Here's an example from Simon H. in a post on a different thread four years ago:

Feminist Theory & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread: All Gender Identities Are Encouraged To Participate

a couple of trans comrades have outright stated that 1. sexual preference for certain/specific types of genitals are inherently transphobic

Further down in that thread, j. says they see people expressing this position as well and supposes it isn't too uncommon. It's clear that this line of thinking persists to this day -- it's easy to find very recent examples of it on Twitter. Stating the position is in itself an act of pressuring people into having sex with people they don't want to have sex with. Can we all agree that's a bad thing to do?

just to jump slightly backward to nicole and Neanderthal on pronouns upthread: yes it is new and will take practice.

But honestly it is really not that hard for well-meaning people to navigate this in a well-meaning way. As long as they're truly, y'know, well-meaning.

Currently I am navigating this because my eldest (14) is nonbinary they/them. So are many of their friends. I will likely mess up. But the guiding principle is just to... not be a dick, I guess? The people who are having the most trouble with it tend to already not be on board with the whole project. And of course if you're not on board with the whole project, your motivation to practice and be a non-dick is lessened.

For me, if I try to relate an anecdote about what Ash said to Jinx and how Sky reacted, well, I'm going to be using their names a lot more than I otherwise would. A sentence like "Jax said that Sky and Ash are going to Sky's house" both avoids misgendering, and avoids potential confusion between singular and plural.

the "not being on board" is key, if you support your trans or non-binary friends, you're not going to fly off the handle if you get corrected when you screw up. but if your viewpoint is "I'm really, really trying hard to do this bullshit for you, but as much as I love you, I think this is fucking stupid", you get angry when corrected because you think you shouldn't have to do it anyway.

dating while trans can be a gauntlet of managing different kinds of transphobia; i feel grateful to the few ppl who have been attracted to me without making me feel weird about their attraction. that's about as far as i care to have an opinion on the matter which is otherwise really dense and confusing to me

Stating the position is in itself an act of pressuring people into having sex with people they don't want to have sex with.

No. Conflating abstract discussions about ppl's preferences with coercion makes no sense to me - like if we were having a discussion about, for instance, whether it's racist not to be attracted to ppl of certain ethnicities, I think there'd definitely be ppl arguing that. Casting this as "lesbians pressured into having sex with trans women", as the BBC article did, strongly misrepresents the issue at hand - any casual reader browsing the headline will obviously interpret this as women being personally coerced into having sex, not some philosophical disagreement. Which of course is great for the gender critical crowd because their concerns all boil down to thinking trans ppl are sexually predatory anyway.

vtc, did u just not read the next sentence in my post or

cis people have long portrayed trans people as either punchlines or disgusting untouchables, often both. this absolutely informs who and who isn’t considered attractive collectively and individually.

this doesn’t mean that any given person must correctively fuck trans people, or that every person who doesn’t want to sleep with trans people is a bigot, but it does mean that we should all (trans people included, sometime especially so) examine and correct how those anti-trans biases affect our worldviews

now, if someone comes along and points this out, and someone else responds by loudly and publicly refusing to do so, rallies a bunch of cis people in support of their brave stand against being “pressured” to fuck trans people, and uses that organization to lobby against equal public services for trans people, then yes, they’re doing transphobia!

given that this is one of the main ways that anti-trans organizations have gained power and influence, and that that power and influence has led to very real material restrictions on our individual lives and collective well-being, you can perhaps forgive us for reacting to someone coming along taking the “just asking questions, let’s all be reasonable here” tone about “simply” not wanting to have sex with trans people comes off as in direct service of transphobia.

don’t want to fuck us? don’t fuck us! a billion tweets can’t make you. just keep it to yourself for god’s sake, it’s being used by more hateful people than you to hurt us.

last two posts otm

Neanderthal otm

nicole, I don't know if it helps you to hear this, but current 14-year-olds are apparently woke as fuck. I know I'm in a socially liberal bubble but still. If I were to judge by my child's school and my child's friends, everyone is either queer or queer-positive. And they appear to view trans inclusion (including respecting pronouns) as an integral part of LGBTQ+ acceptance. Their teachers and school administrations have been supportive as well.

I don't think you're in a bubble, it's just how people are as people tend to be supportive to each other. The terfs and other bigots have built bubbles for themselves.

nicole that post of yours is fucking outstanding

i'm also wowed by nicole's posts itt and elsewhere. i don't have anything of import to say about this other than i'm also mystified about 1) the timing of this wave 2) the uk axis and 3) the appeal of transphobia generally. threats to male supremacy in the u.s. i understand, but this seems different.

No. Conflating abstract discussions about ppl's preferences with coercion makes no sense to me - like if we were having a discussion about, for instance, whether it's racist not to be attracted to ppl of certain ethnicities, I think there'd definitely be ppl arguing that. Casting this as "lesbians pressured into having sex with trans women", as the BBC article did, strongly misrepresents the issue at hand - any casual reader browsing the headline will obviously interpret this as women being personally coerced into having sex, not some philosophical disagreement. Which of course is great for the gender critical crowd because their concerns all boil down to thinking trans ppl are sexually predatory anyway.

You don't think hearing people say "women who don't want to have sex with people with penises are transphobic" puts pressure on women who don't want to have sex with people with penises to have sex with people with penises? If we're talking about lesbians specifically, I think it's undeniable that this puts pressure on them; as part of the LGBT community, they would understandably care deeply about what other people in that community think about them and how other people think they feel about other members of that community.

I don't think saying "people who don't want to have sex with people of certain ethnicities are racist" puts the same kind of pressure on those people, because people who don't want to have sex with people of certain ethnicities probably don't care if other people think they're racist. Or, if they do, it's fair to put that pressure on them, because it's likely that they are motivated by racism. Whereas not wanting to have sex with people with penises is likely due to...not being sexually attracted to people with penises. And it's wrong to intentionally make someone feel bad about that.

I think the BBC headline would have been more accurate if it had said that it's not just trans women who are pressuring lesbians into having sex with trans women. Plenty of people who do this aren't trans.

Nicole, I know you don't think every person who doesn’t want to sleep with trans people is a bigot, and I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I'm talking about people who DO think that: people who think having a "sexual preference for certain/specific types of genitals" is inherently bigoted, such as the people Simon and j. mentioned in the other thread, and many people on Twitter and TikTok. These people definitely exist, and they are in the wrong. These are the people who disagree with you, and I'm saying it would be better if they felt the same way you did on this matter.

people who don't want to have sex with people of certain ethnicities probably don't care if other people think they're racist.

massive stretch here

If I were nicole, I might just repost my last post, because you have paid attention to no part of it whatsoever.

I don't think saying "people who don't want to have sex with people of certain ethnicities are racist" puts the same kind of pressure on those people, because people who don't want to have sex with people of certain ethnicities probably don't care if other people think they're racist. Or, if they do, it's fair to put that pressure on them, because it's likely that they are motivated by racism. Whereas not wanting to have sex with people with penises is likely due to...not being sexually attracted to people with penises. And it's wrong to intentionally make someone feel bad about that.

You're creating an artificial divide here where ethnicity is something you choose to be attracted to or not, while genitalia is just something you either are or are not. In fact both those preferences are molded by societal standards, from a very young age and to an extent that it's quite difficult to grasp for any "pure" attraction that could predate this. Considering how societies sexualize certain ethnicities and make others seem sexually threatening or unattractive, it's pretty safe to say that not every person who has preferences in this department "wouldn't care" what ppl thought of that or is even bigoted.

I think (to echo Nicole here) that it's important for all of us to reflect on how our preferences have been shaped this way. At the end of the day, your preferences are your preferences, and no one has to fuck anyone they don't want to. But ppl who go around making a giant noise out of how they are not attracted to group x or y are being at best insensitive and at worst pretty clearly bigoted, whether that's regarding race or the cis-trans spectrum.

(cis-trans spectrum a bad choice of words there; obv loudly proclaiming you're not attracted to cis ppl doesn't carry the same baggage, much as saying the same regarding white ppl doesn't in most parts of the globe)

You're creating an artificial divide here where ethnicity is something you choose to be attracted to or not, while genitalia is just something you either are or are not. In fact both those preferences are molded by societal standards, from a very young age and to an extent that it's quite difficult to grasp for any "pure" attraction that could predate this.

To be honest, I’m not totally sure I grasp what you’re saying here, and I’m not entirely sure if I made myself clear in the post you’re responding to. I’m not saying everyone who isn’t attracted to certain ethnicities has explicitly chosen not to be attracted to those ethnicities. But I am saying that if you realize you are not attracted to certain ethnicities, and you hear people saying people who aren’t attracted to certain ethnicities are bigoted, and this bothers you because you don’t think of yourself as bigoted, you can choose to reflect on how societal standards have shaped your preference (e.g. by making other ethnicities seem threatening), and generally this will result in the preference changing.

I think you would agree with all of that. However, you can’t equate preferences for ethnicities with preferences for genitalia just because both are influenced to some extent by societal standards. There is an actual distinction between the two, because in the case of genital preference we don’t know if the same reflection process generally results in the preference changing. While some people can change their preference, a lot of people feel very strongly that they can’t change their preference, and there’s no reason not to believe them. So putting pressure on them to change has the power to do harm. And saying genital preferences are transphobic does put pressure on lesbians to change.

it's important for all of us to reflect on how our preferences have been shaped this way

I think it's fine to say this, but this isn't what people in the BBC article were reacting to. Again, the problem is that other people are saying something different, which is that genital preferences ARE transphobic. It sounds like you don't agree that genital preferences are transphobic, but when lesbians react negatively to people telling them genital preferences are transphobic, you're saying they should keep it to themselves.

- The survey the BBC article was based on was conducted by a specifically transphobic organisation and answered by a self-selecting sample of transphobes. These are the people you are aligning yourself with.

- Conflating "social pressure to not be a bigot" with "individual pressure to sleep with someone" is textbook moral panic and completely vile.

- Why are you assuming all trans women have penises?? I know transphobes are completely obsessed with genitalia but this is very strange.

Also I feel like I should say that as a moderator I am absolutely going to ban transphobes from the board whether they get 51 FPs or not. I haven't run this by any other mods, but honestly I'd rather get stripped of my privs and yelled at by every single member of the board than let it stand.

not yelling, cheering

It is often tougher than you would think to know where someone is on the spectrum from "just asking questions", through recycling GC talking points, to outright hate. VTC is dancing just on the side where I'm furious but don't feel like action is reasonable. But I'm putting it out there that I'm not going to tolerate a whole lot of bullshit on this matter.

hear, hear

I am not sure why people think they have the right to tell other people what they should or shouldn't be attracted to, and to tell them their natural attraction is immoral (which is what they are doing, since transphobia is immoral) and/or due to a set of social conventions (which seems no different to me than saying being gay is a choice; one can choose different social conventions). I will say, as a gay man who spends a lot of time in an extremely conservative Middle Eastern country, that the arguments I am hearing from certain trans people are not very different from the one's I hear from conservative religious people who also have a problem with my genital preference.

Luckily, the trans people in my life just want to live their lives and aren't interested in telling people what to be attracted to.

no one is saying the preferences have to change upon reflection. it's fine if some cis person is ultimately sexually incompatible with a trans person they had been attracted to, even after reflection. what trans people do object to is how any suggestion that people reflect at all on how societal transphobia has shaped people's preferences, or a trans woman calling herself a lesbian, or even just "trans women are women" is then equated with sexual coercion. no one's position is "cis people have to have sex with trans people they aren't attracted to out of some ridiculous guilt", but transphobes love to twist things to present it that way in order to attack trans people.

there surely are some trans people who do indeed have extreme unnuanced 'if you have any genital preferences you are transphobic' positions but that's very much a minority position, not at all reasonable, and no one here is arguing for it, and even then it isn't the same as the transphobe's straw man of "cis people have to have sex with trans people". the bbc article is extremely bad faith & i do not trust it to be representative of anyone.

ultimately 'genital preference' discourse is just a bad faith cudgel wielded by transphobes & i don't think it's at all a useful lens to approach the issue of sexual biases against trans people.

people raising the issue of 'genital preferences' are largely either transphobes trying to suggest that trans people are coercing cis people into unwanted sex, or trans people very very clumsily attempting to express the 'preferences are shaped by society' thing (and they should be discouraged from doing so for how obviously clumsy it is!), but it's much much more often the former.

I don't disagree with you, but I think the "genital preference is transphobic" argument of the last few posts has been in response to someone upthread mentioning such takes on Twitter and TikTok where of course you do get a lot of un-nuanced takes. (Also the argument that it is transphobic to have a genital preference falls to pieces when one simply inverts the stating of the preference: instead of saying what you do prefer, you say what you don't. I don't like vaginas, whether on a man or a woman.)

And I do think that gays and lesbians are especially sensitive to these un-nuanced takes because we have had our sexualities (sometimes literally) policed our whole lives, and this just seems like another attack and from a corner where one would not expect it.

There is an actual distinction between the two, because in the case of genital preference we don’t know if the same reflection process generally results in the preference changing.

This is true of all other preferences too! Ethnicity, body shape, whatever.

It sounds like you don't agree that genital preferences are transphobic, but when lesbians react negatively to people telling them genital preferences are transphobic, you're saying they should keep it to themselves.

Consider transphobia as a societal force that impacts us all to some degree or other, as opposed to "specific bigotry from bad bad people", and I think you might start to understand what ppl are saying in the examples you cited?

Why are you assuming all trans women have penises?? I know transphobes are completely obsessed with genitalia but this is very strange.

fwiw emily that's OTM and I'm sorry for engaging w/ the debate without pushing back against that notion.

"as a gay man" my eyes nearly fell out of my head at the mention of the phrase 'genital preference' and "as a gay man" I'm familiar with gays posting 'no Asians, sorry just a preference' on their Grindr profiles and "as a gay man" I'm quite familiar that desire is always already complexly political and whenever it's presented otherwise there's always somebody on the receiving end of something and, well, look what's going on...!

Familiar* with what ? The fact? The reality? The concept? The notion? The history? I guess there's a reason my mind passed over it.

nicole at 8:08 27 Oct 21
practice! I’ve had a few people change pronouns in my life and just taking ten minutes a day to repeat to yrself a short script like “Their name is x. Their pronouns are they/them. They like x and it’s fun to hang out with them” or w/e works pretty well ime, and it doesn’t seem to occur to a lot of ppl

This is really sad and enraging.

got told to leave a women’s toilet last night (again) which was personally distressing obviously, but also like. could this country please pull it together ?!

— michael wave: gourd boy edition (@SzMarsupial) October 30, 2021

“as a gay man" my eyes nearly fell out of my head at the mention of the phrase 'genital preference' and "as a gay man" I'm familiar with gays posting 'no Asians, sorry just a preference' on their Grindr profiles and "as a gay man" I'm quite familiar that desire is always already complexly political and whenever it's presented otherwise there's always somebody on the receiving end of something and, well, look what's going on...!

― plax (ico), Sunday, October 31, 2021 9:57 AM

I don’t really understand your post, but the parallel between racial preferences doesn’t make sense. If one writes “no [x race]” that is racist because a person is of a certain race by... being part of that race. But genital preferences don’t work like that, unless you define gender by genitals, in which case you’re the transphobe. So since vaginas belong to no gender specifically, you can’t say preference for or against them is transphobic, since trans, cis, and non-binary people can all have vaginas.

if a hunky trans man were into me i'd definitely do them. that is all.

"genital preferences" are really fucking idiotic the more you think about it. but i don't think this new poster is really interested in doing that (thinking).

The more I thought about it the more I realized saying it is transphobic makes no sense. You however have not made any argument. But again please explain to me how saying "I don't like x" when x can belong to trans, cis, and NB people is transphobic. If you mean saying that "I don't like men who have x" is transphobic, that is not a genital preference. That is a genital preference plus a gender preference. But gender preferences aren't transphobic either since trans people can be any gender.

i really appreciate the posters in this thread who are not showing their ass

oh so now it's ok to have ass preferences

lmao

Lol harbl

It needs not be something as charged as trans-sexuality, but anytime you make a big thing out of sexually excluding a physical part of a person, well you are just being rude, no matter what it is. Everyone can have preferences, very few people care about them.

And woman get chastised by those same dudes for sometimes having a preference for tall men.

Anyway we can banhammer these new users who seem to just be here to be transphobes?

dating while trans can be a gauntlet of managing different kinds of transphobia; i feel grateful to the few ppl who have been attracted to me without making me feel weird about their attraction. that's about as far as i care to have an opinion on the matter which is otherwise really dense and confusing to me

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, October 29, 2021 12:45 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

reading this back, the degree to which the talking points being advocated itt by kafka_keba and VTC made me commit weird internalized transphobia on myself makes me think they're not advocating them in good faith ha ha

yah i mean idk if legitmate concerns CAPTCHA and co are sockpuppets but i could do without their poisonous sophistry either way

CAPTCHA has been posting since 2008 and mostly stayed under the radar until....this performance of theirs.

the long game

ok well the other guy literally has one post about borges wife from a couple days before arriving to offer us his 'insights' into 'genital preference'

Actually I had an account a long time ago circa when Momus used to post here and then just read the forums and then decided to get a new account. Anyway no one has actually told me why what I said was incorrect and frankly I don't think my comments are any more rude than other people's comments telling me that my natural desires are some sort of phobia.

Speaking of transphobes...

"In my defense, I used to post here when [*just picking person at random here*] the guy who famously bullied Wendy Carlos with a transphobic song did"

Ha I knew someone was going to say something like that but it was the only well-known person I could think of from that time period.

i dont know who momus is and never heard him mentioned in the time i've posted here which is way too long. but as edifying as it would be to have some cis ppl debating what is and isn't transphobic, i think you might do well to reflect that your 'arguments' have been recognised instantly by everyone else on the thread as talking points from transphobia internet (in any case, ones rebutted before you even posted by nicole) and nobody is particularly interested in being drawn into your "i dont even see gender! who's the *real* transphobe?!" nonsense, random interloper with barely developed backstory. Please do better at mangling yr bullshit into something less instantly identifiable as the same old.

I hear you, Brad, so I'm including a content warning here: continued discussion related to the BBC article follows.

These are the people you are aligning yourself with.

I can't help who does and doesn't agree with me. People with many different viewpoints feel the same way I do. If Donald Trump says the world is round, should we all say it's flat?

Conflating "social pressure to not be a bigot" with "individual pressure to sleep with someone" is textbook moral panic and completely vile.

In this case, what is being described as bigotry is not being sexually attracted to certain people, which does put pressure on individuals to sleep with people they aren't attracted to to prove (to themselves and to the community they're a part of) they aren't bigots.

Why are you assuming all trans women have penises??

I'm not assuming that at all, but most do, and we're talking about sexual preferences for certain genitalia here.

no one is saying the preferences have to change upon reflection.

Yes they are; people are saying the preferences have to change if the person doesn't want to be transphobic and be accused of transphobia.

there surely are some trans people who do indeed have extreme unnuanced 'if you have any genital preferences you are transphobic' positions but that's very much a minority position, not at all reasonable, and no one here is arguing for it

It's a minority position, but that doesn't mean it isn't significant and that many people don't hold it and express it, including prominent people within the LGBT community. Which is to say that it does still have the power to do harm.

Meanwhile, how many prominent people in the LGBT community are doing anything to counteract its effects, e.g. saying explicitly that genital preferences AREN'T transphobic? Even in this discussion, you're the only person who's come out and said that people who hold these positions are being unreasonable. In the Feminist Theory thread, everybody was instructed to FP the person who said these people are irrational and wrong. I remember seeing this and thinking it was bad, but I didn't speak up then.

I've repeatedly noted that no one here is arguing for it, and that it's something other people are doing, elsewhere. That said, in the time since you posted, map has said "'genital preferences' are really fucking idiotic," which, of course, isn't the same as saying they're transphobic, but it is derogatory of something certain people have no control over, and honestly it feels like bullying behavior when it's being said to a gay man who has just said that he has a genital preference. And yet no one else here has called it out as such.

This is true of all other preferences too! Ethnicity, body shape, whatever.

As I said, it isn't true of preference for/against certain ethnicities. Research has shown that this preference corresponds with a person's broader racism. So it follows that to the extent that racism can be unlearned, such sexual preferences can be changed. As far as I know, there isn't any research that has had any similar implications for preferences for/against certain genitals.

Consider transphobia as a societal force that impacts us all to some degree or other, as opposed to "specific bigotry from bad bad people", and I think you might start to understand what ppl are saying in the examples you cited?

It sounds like you're arguing that a certain level of transphobia is acceptable (in the sense that it can't be changed, which must be accepted), and that this is what people who say genital preferences are transphobic think. Do you have any evidence to back that up? I think most people who accuse people of transphobia do think of it as something done by bad people. In any case, you have to know that when people with genital preferences hear people say "genital preferences are transphobic," they aren't going to interpret it as "genital preferences are transphobic, but if there's nothing you can do about them, I'm not negatively judging you." They're going to assume you're calling them bad people, because you're saying they are constantly engaging in transphobia, simply by having those preferences.

Side note: I've been on ILX a long time -- since before 2008, actually, because I lurked for a while before I ever posted anything. I don't post a lot, and when I do it's mainly on ILM, but I love ILX and I think it's full of really smart, good-hearted people. My views typically line up with those of most people here, but this is one area where we disagree.

If Donald Trump says the world is round, should we all say it's flat?

oh trust me, his view on that is much more *nuanced*

xp whining/handwringing/concern-trolling about the punching-up (and any associated collateral damage) while claiming you aren't part of the punching-down is an extremely bad look FYI

"oh my god some straights might get their feelings hurt, these trans maniacs have really gone too far" RMDE

oh and let's not forget the hurt feelings of the mysterious gay poster who appeared yesterday

it's going to be so obvious in 20 years to everyone what the right side of this argument was, the problem is that it's hurting people right now

― Tracer Hand

It sounds like you're arguing that a certain level of transphobia is acceptable (in the sense that it can't be changed, which must be accepted)

vtc this is an extremely bad faith reading of what Daniel wrote

if someone calls something is a societal force that means they believe it's 'acceptable'? really this is just insultingly dim sophistry

when map said "'genital preferences' are really idiotic" i would be extremely surprised to learn that they meant anything apart from this discourse around them is idiotic. certainly your interpretation is bizarre - do you really think they were suggesting the only way to avoid being an idiot (or worse) is to grit one's teeth and find a way to get turned on by all sexual organs without fear or favour? surely not? it's silly. if you want to participate in this board, engage with the people actually on it and take a minute to actually read what they're saying. if you want to argue with other people elsewhere don't let us stop you but why don't you go to those places where they are

Meanwhile, how many prominent people in the LGBT community are doing anything to counteract its effects, e.g. saying explicitly that genital preferences AREN'T transphobic?

you can go outside and hold a sign saying "genital preferences aren't transphobic", instead of doing this. because no one wants to argue with you about what you have admitted is a minority opinion, held by how many people with any sort of power? it is a mystery. is being called a transphobe online better or worse than the actual, material effects of "trans people are trying to force me to prefer their genitals" articles appearing in the mainstream UK press every day? the world will never know.

also next time use the hidden tag instead of making a huge wall of shit with a tiny apology on top

UK discourse around trans people is the main thing that makes me feel good I'll never live there again

i dont know who momus is and never heard him mentioned in the time i've posted here which is way too long. but as edifying as it would be to have some cis ppl debating what is and isn't transphobic, i think you might do well to reflect that your 'arguments' have been recognised instantly by everyone else on the thread as talking points from transphobia internet (in any case, ones rebutted before you even posted by nicole) and nobody is particularly interested in being drawn into your "i dont even see gender! who's the *real* transphobe?!" nonsense, random interloper with barely developed backstory. Please do better at mangling yr bullshit into something less instantly identifiable as the same old.

― plax (ico), Monday, November 1, 2021 11:18 PM

I don't see how nicole's points rebut mine because I agree with nicole. As I said above, it is towards the blanket statements found among social media and some posts in this thread ( i e "genital preferences' are really idiotic") that is problematic. To suggest I don't see gender, when I have spent so much of my life in a place where gender differences are often extreme and forced, is absurd and not based on what I have said.

you can find clumsy unnuanced blanket statements on all sorts of political positions on social media but the main reason this particular position has gotten so much attention is because transphobes have found use in weaponising it as an anti-trans propaganda tool. like i very much understand the issues people have with how it comes across, why people get so defensive in response, and have agreed that it's not at all a helpful lens to discuss the issues it's trying to. i lived through tumblr, i've seen so much worse clumsy trans discourse than this but this is what's gotten the attention.

i haven't seen any evidence that the most bad faith unnuanced reading of the 'genital preferences are transphobic' position is at all the one many people actually hold though. like being charitable i would expect most trans people taking that line to be clumsily trying to make a point about how sexual preferences are shaped by a transphobic society. a minority probably would defend 'if you have any genital preferences you are personally a transphobe' (& i agree that's unreasonable) but it's still a stretch to take that to mean 'trans people want people who aren't attracted to them to have sex with them out of obligation'. again i understand how it can be interpreted that way though and i agree it's a totally unhelpful phrase.

even how many prominent people in the trans community are actually saying 'genital preferences are transphobic' (regardless of what they mean if pushed to clarify)? a few minor figures on twitter? this thing has become really overblown because again, it's become very useful as an anti-trans propaganda tool. i'd strongly advise people to please go find better things to do than get mad because some minority of a minority have made clumsy & dumb political statements on twitter.

By August 10th 2020 it was revealed by GC activist Suzy Ireson on her Facebook that she had been posting these stickers up on the Torquay sea front where they had been found by other gender critical activists who pulled them down believing them to be real. pic.twitter.com/46vt7F8xF8

— Mallory Moore (@Chican3ry) October 27, 2021

fwiw here's an example of transphobes admitting to being the ones putting up stickers with 'genital preferences are transphobic' as an intentional false flag.

what is being described as bigotry is not being sexually attracted to certain people

- has anyone *actually* personally called you transphobic because you're not sexually attracted to certain people?
- was the person who called you a bigot someone you otherwise respected?
- have you suffered personal or physical or professional consequences?

because otherwise i get the sense that this is rhetorical for you, in which case i would suggest chilling out until it actually has anything to do with you

i mean it's possible that people will criticize your comedy show and it's possible that you will get flag posted off this site, but there are no gangs of trans thugs coming for you

If you're worried about being forced to have sex with a trans person it might be worth examining why you are worried about a non-existent threat involving a minority group routinely the target of moral panics. As things stand, nobody is saying that being attracted to any specific person is transphobic, however when you arrive spouting terminologies ('genital preference') with no anchor in anything except anti-trans culture war stuff (maybe you think that the phrase is an artifact of gay liberation, it isn't) it makes people less inclined from the get-go to engage in some how-many-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin dialogues about what is and isn't transphobia, particularly with those who seem primarily motivated by the right to be able to publicly express 'preferences' that luridly draw attention to intimate parts of other people's bodies in a deeply othering way. Why aren't more lgbt leaders affirming the legitimate concerns of anti-trans hate groups quoted in BBC articles? Its a mystery! Similarly its a mystery why the offence taken by (my count) three (3) gay men on this thread to being invoked as being at-odds with trans people (through this reductive and rude framing) is so easily ignored, yet conversely the anxieties and worries of new poster kafka keba (interests: borges, specific genitals) are to be treated to delicately in order not to be accused of "bullying behaviour." I'm not that old but im old enough to remember very similar rhetorical devices used to disseminate exactly the same kind of subliminal nastiness about gay men so forgive me if my reaction to their deployment here is with a similar disgust as I have for all your reactionary forebears. Try not to keep dragging your squalid bullshit in here.

It's a minority position, but that doesn't mean it isn't significant and that many people don't hold it and express it, including prominent people within the LGBT community.

a) that is kind of what minority position means?
b) "doesn't mean many people don't hold it and express it, including prominent people within the LGBT community" - this seems to be saying that in an infinite multiverse, there might be one where prominent people within the LGBT community hold and express it, which is a rather weak claim?
c) If it's this universe, good, we're getting somewhere - name names. If they're prominent, that should be pretty easy, right?

Research has shown that this preference corresponds with a person's broader racism.

"Research" is doing a whole lot of work for you there; seems to me there's been a few studies with very small sample sizes and I don't think you can seriously put that forth as enough to make it an accepted scientific fact.

It sounds like you're arguing that a certain level of transphobia is acceptable (in the sense that it can't be changed, which must be accepted), and that this is what people who say genital preferences are transphobic think. Do you have any evidence to back that up? I think most people who accuse people of transphobia do think of it as something done by bad people. In any case, you have to know that when people with genital preferences hear people say "genital preferences are transphobic," they aren't going to interpret it as "genital preferences are transphobic, but if there's nothing you can do about them, I'm not negatively judging you." They're going to assume you're calling them bad people, because you're saying they are constantly engaging in transphobia, simply by having those preferences.

This is exactly the kind of frustration that is felt whenever an oppressed group talks about any kind of systemic inequality; it is not ABOUT the individual behaviours of members outside that group, and discussing it in abstract, systemic terms is not about doing an evaluation of the moral value of specific individuals. If they indeed choose to interpret it that way, well, that's on them.

with no anchor in anything except anti-trans culture war stuff

going to anticipate the rebuttal from those just asking questions and point out that it's not totally invented by the transphobes, 'genital preferences are transphobic' as a phrase did originate from trans community discourse & there's just enough of a grain of truth there that it hasn't totally disappeared (+ the defensive reaction to it gets proponents of it defensive back) but it's really not a widely held position. it's a messy conversation trans communities have been having for ages and most of us are pretty sick of that particular framing, especially now that transphobes are very prominently weaponising it as propaganda.

even the fucking bbc article could only find a single trans person of minor prominence who directly said 'genital preferences are transphobic', and she still offered more nuance beyond that phrase.

also the BBC article made no effort whatsoever to distinguish between trans women and ppl with penises, which you'd think the defenders here would be up in arms about

"going to anticipate the rebuttal from those just asking questions and point out that it's not totally invented by the transphobes, 'genital preferences are transphobic' as a phrase did originate from trans community discourse & there's just enough of a grain of truth there that it hasn't totally disappeared" yes agreed, a key feature of moral panics and culture war bullshit is that there is always just enough of a grain of truth to amplify and develop into the various insinuations that have attached to this discourse and been disseminated by the question askers

As things stand, nobody is saying that being attracted to any specific person is transphobic, however when you arrive spouting terminologies ('genital preference') with no anchor in anything except anti-trans culture war stuff (maybe you think that the phrase is an artifact of gay liberation, it isn't) it makes people less inclined from the get-go to engage in some how-many-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin dialogues about what is and isn't transphobia, particularly with those who seem primarily motivated by the right to be able to publicly express 'preferences' that luridly draw attention to intimate parts of other people's bodies in a deeply othering way.

this is well-put and what i meant by "genital preferences are idiotic." you are attracted to someone. the first thing on your check-off list is not to reach in and feel their genitals? unless it is, i guess, in which case you're a weird asshole.

and i would also clarify that it isn't that "genitals don't matter," it's that "sexual pleasure does not conform to some notion of genital-a vs genital-b". if that's your mindset, then you aren't a very good lover to begin with and tbh everyone, cis or trans, is better off without your services!

yah only the dreariest and least sexy gays come out with this genital preference bullshit

The last two posts are why I can't take the arguments against what I've said seriously!

then leave

While I'm no fan of a pile-on and some of the dismissive language towards the doubtless well-meaning VTC and k_k doesn't sit right with me, I feel it's worth saying that the emotive force of imposing penises on women who prefer vaginas (which is the whole strawtrans nonsense the BBC are trying to push) is somewhat greater than the emotive force of imposing vaginas on men who prefer penises, and so your (k_k's) own preferences are not so relevant.

What I will say is that if women who prefer vaginas are being pressured by their social groups to have sex with people who have penises (of any gender), on pain of being accused of bigotry or being ostracised, then of course this is coercion of a sort. The trouble is that this basically never happens, and the vast majority of trans women would abhor the thought of it, so the BBC is essentially constructing a demon.

ufo's excellent posts are very much worth rereading if any confusion persists.

tl;dr: genital preferences matter but more to women, no need to pile on, also never post to ILE

why do all these people keep insisting on having sex with me

i've told them a million times

neither vtc or kk are 'well meaning' they are trolls peddling really foul 'legitimate concerns'. and "I feel it's worth saying that the emotive force of imposing penises on women who prefer vaginas is somewhat greater than the emotive force of imposing vaginas on men who prefer penises" is a really stupid thing to say.

The last two posts are why I can't take the arguments against what I've said seriously!

― kafka_keba, Tuesday, 2 November 2021 11:52 (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes youve destroyed us all with facts and logic now stop posting here

the emotive force of getting struck by lightning is huge, definitely deserves long articles about the pros and cons based on a survey of 80 people who are worried about getting struck by it

look you all laugh but i can't even walk down the street without trans women trying to force me into bed, take me seriously

The emotive force of being struck by lightning IS huge, but it basically never happens. It's a good analogy! The BBC (and The Times etc) are basically going around on a cloudy day screaming LIGHTNING

its true that trans womens bodies are more stigmatised and subject to more prurient discussion in our culture but the only victims of that are trans women

i really want to see this movie - Little Girl (2020)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akSaVMmOZgc

it was only playing for like a week at the Institut Francais in West London which is crazy to me

Ahhh Tracer my heart

i know!!

I've also felt a little bad trying to read this thread and learn because I don't think vtc and kk are necessarily trying to troll (malicious intent), is it not more likely they're susceptible to misleading data, faulty reasoning, fallacies etc? That being said I do otherwise appreciate the insightful posts here.

I understand the concern but it's important to remember that, whether held in earnest or with malicious intent, these views are the latest talking point the UK media establishment has glommed on to in order to make trans people as marginalised and vilified as possible.

And when they come so fluently from a new poster who has literally one previous post, that's an awful lot of good faith to ask of people sick of this nonsense

Well, I guess that's the distinction... have they been mislead or are they here to mislead? I'm here to learn and I would hope they would be willing to do so as well.

Massive T/W!

while you were having the conversation above, here's what a woman quoted in the BBC article was posting online

Cade is very explicitly calling for trans women to be murdered pic.twitter.com/wHf5QQhRWi

— SANDWORM (@christapeterso) November 2, 2021

That is vile vile stuff.

I don't understand what most of those accusations are even about, although I suspect a Q-ish propaganda machine has been ginning up lurid accusations that aren't being covered in the US in the same way.

Jesus.

Well, I guess that's the distinction... have they been mislead or are they here to mislead? I'm here to learn and I would hope they would be willing to do so as well.

― Evan, Tuesday, November 2, 2021 11:40 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Everyone at one point has been mislead about trans realities. That’s why we live in a transphobic world, piling on and weaponising someone’s sexuality against itself is not going to help anyone be better people.

Also let’s stop assuming people are perfectly aware of UK transphobic points. Some people are not from the UK, others would rather not deal with that sort of stuff.

i mean i only ever hear of this being brought up when it’s a cudgel to hit trans ppl with, i think it’s easy to be aware of the social dynamics of a talking point even if you’re not from transphobe island

Also let’s stop assuming people are perfectly aware of UK transphobic points. Some people are not from the UK, others would rather not deal with that sort of stuff.

― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 2 November 2021 18:02 (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes absolutely, although anyone who has read this thread has now been introduced to this particular line in its most conventional iteration by our new genital preferring concern havers

I don't really have much to add to this conversation beyond support to people who are just trying to live their lives.

I don't know if that's the best way to express that but I want to respect how people identify and refer to them in the manner they prefer, mostly because that feels like Being Polite 101 and it's baffling to me that that isn't everyone's baseline

I apologize for not putting my last post in hidden text. I honestly forgot that was an option. I tried to add many line breaks after the content warning, but apparently ILX doesn't allow that.

CW: more discussion related to the BBC article

whining/handwringing/concern-trolling about the punching-up (and any associated collateral damage)

Emphasis mine. I'm not going to respond to this here; just wanted to let it stand on its own.

that is kind of what minority position means?

"Minority position" just means less than half of people hold it. Doesn't mean it's not important. Here are a couple of people who are part of this minority:

Ryan John Butcher, head of news at PinkNews:

my friend, that’s literally the dictionary definition of transphobia

— ryan john butcher (@ryanjohnbutcher) May 22, 2020

Dr. Veronica Ivy, first transgender world track cycling champion, published in NBC News, Vice, and The Economist, featured on CNN:

You: "I like dick"

Girl with dick says 'Hey, wanna date?'
"Oh...no...I only like dick on guys"

Guy responds to date ad: 'Sup girl'
...guy has a vagina
"Oh, sorry, I only like guys with dicks"

Both cases trans people are left in the cold. 'Genital preferences' are transphobic.

— Dr. Veronica Ivy (@SportIsARight) September 30, 2019

And as far as how often these kinds of things are happening, even if something happens very rarely, that doesn't mean it isn't important either. (For what it's worth, re: Tracer's comment above, there are tons of articles about people getting struck by lightning. The Guardian had a long piece about lightning strike survivors earlier this year.)

One good thing that could happen at this point would be for PinkNews and Stonewall to publish guidance saying genital preferences aren't transphobic and no one should say they are, whether in publicly visible discussions or (especially) on a personal level as a means of shaming someone into having sex. PN and Stonewall wouldn't even have to say that this HAS happened; all they would have to say is "DON'T do this," which shouldn't be controversial. And, of course, this guidance should be directed at everyone, not just trans people. If they wanted, they could even frame it as "The BBC article was a bad article. It goes without saying that genital preferences aren't transphobic..." etc. This is a solution that seeks to answer ufo's concerns about this conversation inside and outside of trans communities, as well as minimize "collateral damage."

I'll stop posting on this thread now.

Ugh, can't believe I screwed up the hidden text formatting there. Really sorry.

ryan john butcher was responding to someone who was talking about people being called "transphobic for not accepting lesbians with penises or men with vaginas." which is a gigantic stretch to conflate with the "trans people want cis people to be obliged to have sex with them" position, especially since "trans women cannot call themselves lesbians", "lesbians cannot have penises" etc. are quite common transphobe positions.

veronica ivy is indeed the single trans person of some prominence from the bbc article who directly said "genital preferences are transphobic" and i don't really agree with her overall position, the broader point about how preferences are shaped by society is fine but it seems pretty clear that not everyone's sexuality works that way. but her being wrong about that is just her being wrong about that & not evidence of anyone trying to coerce cis people into having sex with them.

"Minority position" just means less than half of people hold it. Doesn't mean it's not important.

it's not even close to half. you haven't at all demonstrated it is important, even with your caveat about rare things being able to be important. you can dig up goofy fringe positions from all sorts of minorities if you really want to cause a moral panic, the media's been doing it forever. looking forward to the moral panics about people saying "everyone is a little bisexual" next.

One good thing that could happen at this point would be for PinkNews and Stonewall to publish guidance saying genital preferences aren't transphobic and no one should say they are, whether in publicly visible discussions or (especially) on a personal level as a means of shaming someone into having sex

trans people are capable of having those conversations on our own and top-down interventions into this very dumb discourse like that would do nothing helpful & only probably attract more attention from transphobes "oh so you admit there is a problem with TRANS WOMEN FORCING PEOPLE TO HAVE SEX WITH THEM" etc. stonewall and pinknews are hardly the heads of the trans community.

come on lol

And as far as how often these kinds of things are happening, even if something happens very rarely, that doesn't mean it isn't important either.

Just want clarify that I was responding to imago’s “basically never happens” post here, where, based on his follow-up post, “basically never happens” should be taken to mean “happens very rarely.” I suggest people read his post with that in mind.

Absolutely bizarre understanding of Stonewall and pink news in that post. Why on earth would trans people take their definition of what is and isn't transphobic from an organisation that, despite taking it's name from a political event that trans people were crucial to, refused to campaign on their behalf for most of the period of its existence. The answer is they don't, these things are supposed to work the other way around as UFO points out, the organisation learns from the communities it represents, even in the case of mainstream, liberal organisations like Stonewall.

But yes there will always be some element of truth to moral panics and some fringe extreme and or attention seeking positions - a situation further heightened by the algorithm's appetite for delicious controversy to generate engagement. what a moral panic does is to connect those dots, exaggerate them, persevere with every fatuous debunked story without missing a beat, elevate the testimonies of bad actors, invite a conspiracy of dupes and grifters to superheat to boiling point a few weird isolated incidents (some YouTuber said 'genital preferences' are transphobic (actually more nuanced than that but ok) and a workshop for trans people about difficulties dating and being trans happened ten years ago and we can wildly speculate about its content) are represented in a hysterical and distorted way with the result of calling for action from the group who are targeted by it and ultimately putting the burden of proof on them to find ways to show that they are not in fact degenerates and predators. Anyone who has been targeted by this bullshit also knows that it is never-ending, those that come for you like this will only be further emboldened and will call for more and repeated action of this kind where you are forced again and again to repudiate any political assertions in the name of distancing yourself from zealous smear campaigns and complying. This "I'm not trying to force cis lesbians to have sex with me" t shirt has people asking a lot of questions, essentially. That's the goal of these talking points, to provoke and mischaracterise and ultimately insinuate nastier stuff with ever diminishing burdens of proof for the wild claims but more increasingly stringent ones on the embattled targets. You can quite clearly see all these principles at work in the BBC article that began this discussion.

Really striking to me how explicit most of the sources in the BBC article are about thinking trans women are men and considering "transgenderism" a menace in and of itself. Not just Lily Cade either. Impossible to view it as anything as in anything but bad faith no matter where you fall down on this genital discussion.

CW


Feel like I should address ufo’s comment on the Ryan John Butcher tweet, because I was definitely willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that, but this exchange, further down in the thread, made me feel that my interpretation is correct:

you seem to have a really strange obsession with other people’s genitals

— ryan john butcher (@ryanjohnbutcher) May 22, 2020

why are we supposed to care about these tweets

i don’t read any kind of malice or sexual pressure in them, just maybe an unwillingness to deal with a fuckin weirdo who brings up trans boogeypeople in the replies to a fuckin unrelated tweet. that’s the full context. i would be as annoyed

oh i guess he was trolling the lgb alliance

whose bio is transphobic

We promote the rights of lesbians, bisexuals & gay men, as recognised by biological sex. #SexNotGender.

it's just so weird that literally everybody i see on that side of the argument is a transphobe

"we have finally created a LGB organization that does not include trans people at all, why would you accuse us of being bigots"

yes exactly, this to me seems like a confused and not especially fluent attempt(by a cis gay man?) to articulate why the language and ploys used by an anti trans organisation are transphobic. Quite clearly the final diagnosis is correct here as the lgb alliance is a hate group which claims to campaign 'on behalf of LGB people' but does nothing of the sort even as a fig leaf and is instead concerned with trying to position trans people as fundamentally antagonistic to other queer people and, as their quotes in the above BBC article make clear, worse.

Sara Ahmed talks about how:

"the “gender critical” feminist landscape is littered with phrases like sex is real, sex not gender, we need to ask what they are doing. Let’s call them catch phrases, words or expressions that are used repeatedly and conveniently to represent or characterize a person, group, idea, or point of view. These phrases are a way of signalling an allegiance to a political movement that has its primarily velocity, it seems, in a virtual space. They are relatively new ways of using old terms. Nevertheless, despite being relatively new, to encounter these phrases is to be given a snap shot of a history. To start to try and make sense of them by starting with them, would be like turning up in the middle of a conversation, hearing a reaction, and not knowing what came before that provoked a reaction."

The full article is worth reading ( https://feministkilljoys.com/2021/10/31/gender-critical-gender-conservative/ ) but its worth elaborating that one of the key ways these talking points work is to provoke particular kinds of responses that are easily misconstrued through a kind of bait and switch tactic. The LGB alliance here is engaging a certain kind of provocation by using strong dogwhistle language around 'genital preference' to invite refutations to the entanglements of suggestion and elision that are embedded in those talking points, the next move its to innocently point to the overly emphatic response to an 'innocent' and 'reasonable' suggestion of 'common sense.' These kind of simplistic but vexed statements are very popular in culture wars in general and specifically with transphobes for the useful way that they can erase antagonistic context to this end.

these posts by CAPTCHA remind me of someone I knew who would always say things like "I'm sure everybody will call me a TERF...." and then proceeded to recite TERF-talking points while insinuating they were not one.

I'll stop posting on this thread now.

― Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Thursday, 4 November 2021 00:38 (fourteen hours ago) link

Feel free to stop any time now.

admonishing someone who is directly supporting a transphobic hate group & elsewhere in the replies defines homosexuality as only being about same-"biological sex" attraction for being weird & obsessed with genitals is not at all objectionable

like this is very clear that captcha is determined to read everything in the worst faith possible

BBC removed the Lily Cade quotes and added:

We have updated this article, published last week, to remove a contribution from one individual in light of comments she has published on blog posts in recent days, which we have been able to verify.

We acknowledge that an admission of inappropriate behaviour by the same contributor should have been included in the original article.

"Inappropriate behaviour" is one way of describing rape accusations, I guess.

How strange to find that these totally legitimate concerns are being propagated in this reasonable form by individuals who are quite demonstrably motivated by wild hatred

"Inappropriate behaviour" is one way of describing rape accusations, I guess.

Not even just accusations, she has admitted to sexual harassment and assault. Honestly, despite the very low expectations I had, I'm still shocked that this wasn't enough for them to take the whole article down.

i think the article reporting statistical findings from a small internet survey by a hate group is well in breach of their accuracy guidelines too and bizarre they have found fit to defend it given in the past they have declined to report on a high profile BMJ article due to questions about its validity.

i've read a lot of deluded transphobic rants in my time but very few that have built up to "yes i am a rapist," pretty impressive

plax i hope you resubmit your complaint as what i’ve seen of it is very well worded.

“I know someone that walked out the other day over the article. I know someone else that left a couple of months ago. I know about eight trans people that left the organisation in the past 12 months because they don’t believe that the BBC is impartial anymore,” said one current BBC employee on the call.

some pretty shocking accounts there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4buJMMiwcg

That's about the size of it.

uk people, this is an incredible doc:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000xh73/storyville-petite-fille

texas activism. they are taking donations.

https://www.transtexas.org

^ only in the US tho, so get on it American ilxors

aww one of my former students works for TENT. they’re a great org.

The author is having quite a weekend (I won’t link to her tl but here’s some of who she’s been talking with & apparently following now I guess?)

JK Rowling sending love to the UK Campaign director for one of the world's largest anti LGBT anti women's rights religious pressure groups.

Heartwarming. https://t.co/fPRvvT3xtn

— Mallory Moore🏴 (@Chican3ry) March 12, 2022

Anti-trans troll Matt Walsh is after the transgender health clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center — specifically its healthcare for trans adolescents. And all it's taken is a few tweets by him to get our governor and state attorney general to launch "an investigation" into what everyone knows is by far the best hospital in the state. Ugly shit.

https://www.wsmv.com/2022/09/21/gov-lee-claims-against-vanderbilt-transgender-health-clinic-warrants-thorough-investigation/

Matt Walsh is seriously one of the worst human beings alive, and if there was literally any decency in the world, he would get mowed down by a semi-truck.

he use to be just a pathetic blogger, now he's actually putting people in crosshairs.

He is awfully fixated on other people's identities.

so i guess there's a couple interlocking problems here, let's break them down

1. youtube platforms matt walsh

this guy is huge, he's all over youtube with pretty overt hate speech, and youtube is absolutely fine with this. because of monopoly capitalism it's not like most of us have any viable alternatives for video streaming. this also limits the pressure people who are, like, against genocide of trans folks can exert on youtube.

2. republican control of tn

the republican party nationally has made perpetrating bigotry against trans people a key plank of their 2022 platform. i argue with friends sometimes whether they really want us dead or whether they're just killing us in a cynical ploy for votes. i mean we're just as dead either way, it's kind of a "do angels shit" debate (for the record, i'll say that yes, angels absolutely do shit).

i'd feel better about all of this if i had the feeling anybody in a position of power was taking any of this remotely seriously. this is not a difficult problem to deal with. matt walsh could be gone tomorrow. one day he will be gone, just like fuckin' milo is gone, just like kiwifarms is gone, and the threat level trans people face on a daily basis will be significantly de-escalated. boy, a fuck of a lot of us sure do wind up dying by the time anybody in power is willing to acknowledge the threat.

when somebody acts it _will_ be youtube, i'm pretty confident. this isn't because youtube are any more principled than people in nominal positions of power, but at this point the united states as a polity is basically a post-democratic necrostate. this both (1) prevents official institutions of power from taking any steps against fairly openly genocidal policies being autocratically enacted on a state level (who wants to be america's anthony eden?) and (2) gives corporate institutions unusually wide latitude to do what they want without fear of punitive government action against them.

if you're wondering how all this winds up affecting actual trans people, this world is Hell and i want to die.

(of course, my experience is only anecdotal. i am _unusually_ privileged. most trans people don't have it quite so good as me.)

Ugh, now Vanderbilt has taken down the entire website for its transgender health clinic. This is the leading transgender clinic in the whole state. At the moment it's just a 404.

Yet another sham investigation by GOP politicians based on some dumb cuntbeard's Twitter shit posts

At this point why even pretend to do an investigation. Just say "we heard y'all were doing this", it's basically the same thing and you have more time to drink beer and beat off to Golan-Globus flicks after.

Ugh . This is so fucked. Guessing the site being down is probably hateful internet trolls DDOSing it or something.

Nah that can't be it. Wouldn't look like that if it was.

Perhaps they're trying to avoid people calling and clogging up the phone lines/sending hateful emails. But coming at a real cost to patients at the moment.

My guess is the lawyers said to take it all down until they could review everything. Walsh quoted from a video posted on the website, where a doctor said that the clinic had actually been profitable for the hospital, so it had good institutional support. That of course has been spun into (per a chyron for Walsh's appearance on Tucker Carlson tonight) "Vanderbilt Ghouls Castrate Kids for Big Profit."

Walsh and Rufo and that whole ilk really are the very worst people.

i don't know how to explain how i feel when shit like this goes down. sickened, of course, but you know, there aren't enough _words_ for all the different sorts of disgust i've felt over the past couple of years. i'm gonna try it. a taxonomy of disgust, if you will.

i mean, there's the obvious level. tennessee republicans are going to shut down a medical clinic providing life-saving healthcare to kids on the basis of lies which were completely made up by a grifter. that to me is like... baseline. that's ordinary disgust. that's the level of disgust i feel getting out of bed in the morning.

more disgusting, to me, is how obvious and inevitable this all is. frankly it's more surprising to me that anybody, kids or adults, was able to get any sort of trans affirming healthcare in tennessee at all. they have a fucking bathroom bill, for god's sake! they past a bill making it illegal for trans people to fucking take a dump in their state, which is ironic considering how much effort they've put into turning their entire state into one enormous shithole. given that i as a trans person am legally barred from using toilets in their state, i can't find it within me to be terribly surprised that they're not going to refill my estrogen scrip either.

so let's get to next-level disgust, how many of y'all remember that happening? like, this isn't a call-out, i'm not disgusted at any of you _personally_, it's more the situation. six months ago tennessee passed a draconian law making it effectively illegal for me to micturate in public restrooms within their fair state and gee, you know, it's a busy year i guess. so here we are _again_ with a draconian anti-trans policy put into place by a regime that's pretty much openly genocidal against trans people and what does it affect?

i mean, for god's sake, do y'all have any idea how terrifying _airports_ are for a lot of us? i'm middle-aged and i have friends who fly for work and you know, i guess it's fine, we get booked on our connecting flight through dallas or SLC and jesus christ it's terrifying. one of my friends, christ, she's still traumatized, she was flying out of fucking _SFO_ last week and they decided to choose for for one of those fun full-body scans. it was brutal, dehumanizing, intensely traumatic, and you know that's just _normal_, that's just _part of being trans_. this is flying from _one of the most trans-positive cities in the world_ to _another of the most trans-positive cities in the world_. i mean if we don't let TSA intensely scrutinize trans people's genitals on a whim, doesn't that mean the terrorists win?

but you know, it's not like any of this is anything _new_. and that - again, i'm not calling anybody out personally. nothing that the people who are actively advocating for anti-trans genocide are doing is anything that wasn't considered _normal and ordinary_ 25 years ago. and i don't mean by _cis people_, i mean _i_ considered it normal and ordinary. the victims, you see, the ones who suffer most, they're not the patients. they're the ones who aren't getting a chance to _be_ patients. once you get to vanderbilt, you got a pretty good idea who you are and what you need. if you can't get it from vanderbilt, well, there are other places that can help. ending the Transsexual Menace isn't as simple as denying us care. you have to keep us from _existing_. and the way that was done 25 years ago? that doesn't _work_ anymore. we _were_ all that ignorant 25 years ago, nearly all of us, and now only about, you know, half of us are.

and that, that, is the final layer of disgust, the cherry stone on top of the faeces-cake. they're just killing these kids out of sheer malice, really. it's not going to gain them anything. they're not going to Defeat the Transgender Agenda. they're making a pile of dead kids just for the hell of it, as far as I can figure out.

well, i guess if i don't like that i should vote for the democrats this november, right? that's my option?

This week I heard The Guardian referred to as TERF daily is that a widespread perspective? I only pick it up for the review sections anyway.

yes - the guardian was/is pretty much the vanguard of UK/anglo terfism along with other british liberal outlets. i think there has been some mild pushback from guardian-US but not enough

(it took explicit right wingers longer to adopt specifically terf rhetoric but they're running with it obsessively now making liberal/terf and christian/tory/fascist transphobia increasingly indistinguishable - not sure how useful such distinctions are except that the right wingers tend to be positions of political power while the liberals are concentrated in media). in the UK at least trans people have almost no defenders in media and politics outside the "hard left" (i.e. semi-mainstream activists and commentators who are slightly to the left of acceptable liberal opinion) and not even reliably there (where it's limited and so often blase that it's hard to shake the feeling of many cis leftists only *opposing* terfs to "own the libs" - a perverse mostly UK-specific phenomenon I think)

i don't follow these issues as much as i should because the coverage is a reliable way to trigger suicidal ideation (an intended effect - sometimes i think spite is keeping me alive)

i think there has been some mild pushback from guardian-US but not enough

they published a letter condemning the uk guardian's transphobia a few years back & are quite pro-trans in their coverage. guardian australia is quite good on trans issues too, neither has any time for even both sides nonsense let alone the fairly aggressive transphobia of the uk guardian. both are very thankfully editorially independent of their parent

now making liberal/terf and christian/tory/fascist transphobia increasingly indistinguishable

yeah it's not particularly useful & hasn't been for years - there's the occasional one who's truly coming at their transphobia from an oldschool radfem perspective and has actual left-wing credentials of some sort but they're so few and far between & are either happy to throw in with the right anyway or are now just spending their time throwing an ineffectual tantrum about how no one at all agrees with them

pretty much every mainstream uk media outlet is fairly transphobic to some degree, the guardian has just been especially pernicious because it's had columnists who've had transphobia as a weird pet issue for decades & are largely responsible for giving transphobia its liberal respectability in the uk

i mean that's the really fucked up thing, for all the performative cruelty on display in tennessee, things are just as bad in the uk right now, maybe worse. in the uk, you don't _need_ to have someone like matt walsh going through all that hue and cry to shut down trans-affirming care, because nobody can get it.

some years ago, i heard an american liberal say that they thought abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare". i've since had opportunity at length to consider the implications of that statement, understand what it looks like in practice.

the state of gender care in the uk today looks, well, a lot like it did 20 years ago, when people in the us looked with envy at the uk as one of the "best countries in the world" when it comes to care. you think you're trans? great, get on the waiting list to be evaluated at a gender identity clinic. it's covered through the nhs. the wait time, last i heard a couple years back (like left, i haven't exactly been keeping close tabs on the ongoing genocide for self-care reasons), was a couple years. that's to be _evaluated_. that doesn't _actually_ get you on hrt.

they're not saying you _can't_ get care, like the republicans are. they just have to be _sure_. they have to be _absolutely sure_ because these drugs are, you know, they're _very dangerous drugs_. i mean we're not talking about aspirin here, we're talking about _chemical castration_.

matt walsh didn't make up that term. that's genuinely how medical experts described HRT a quarter century ago. it was a "real-life test", an _ordeal_ trans people had to go through in order to get The Surgery. you couldn't prescribe it lightly.

i mean that's where the shit-for-brains republicans in tennessee are coming from, that's why they treat _puberty blockers_ as comparable to _genital reconstruction surgery_. that's what they were _taught_. that's what we were all fucking _taught_.

"chemical castration". are you fucking kidding me? spironalactone, that's the bullshit they promote on fox news as being effective against covid. (it's not effective against covid.)

denying trans people care relies on meticulously maintained information control, an _enforced state of ignorance_. what that looks like in the UK, if you're a major media outlet, if you're the Guardian or the BBC, it's really fucking easy. you just Teach the Controversy. Trans people: ordinary people, or harbingers of a sinister plot against women? We report, you decide.

you all remember, that was fox news's slogan. they were _effective_, though! absolutely devastatingly effective. right now fox news are sort of at "iraqi information minister" levels of propaganda, everything is on fire and nobody cares, just say whatever shit will get anyone, anyone at all, to desperately keep hanging on to your every word.

now, how effective would it be if _every major media outlet in the country_ reported exactly like fox news did? that's the only way it works. there can be no alternatives. you want to know about trans people? ok! want to see a serial killer, or a pathetic joke? those are your options. both sides! you get to see both sides of the trans experience!

the fucked up thing is that matt walsh doesn't know how much he's doing to keep us _alive_ right now. how much he's doing to fuel our _rage_. like david byrne said. the burning keeps me alive. all of the shit people like matt walsh is saying now? that was stuff i _believed_, genuinely _believed_ about myself. five years ago, not 25, five years ago.

i don't know what the people who hate us think is going to happen. i had a friend who was at a panel with a republican congressperson talking about some issue related to her job, not a trans issue at all, and the congressman spent the whole hour just staring at her with these burning eyes of hatred. i'm sorry, but that shit is hilarious to me. like, their rage (which is a very, very different thing from my rage) is only going to cause one of us to spontaneously combust, and it's not going to be me. it's gratifying. it really is, sometimes it's the only thing that makes my life worthwhile, how much just _existing_ fucks up these assholes. i don't have to do anything, i don't have to say anything, all i have to do is _exist_ and these dumb motherfuckers get all red in the face. i mean there's always the possibility that one of them might get so mad they shoot me dead on the spot, might go dan white on me, but you know what? nothing i can do about that. you go for it, big man. see how that works out for you.

because before they came along, all of this shit was stuff i was doing _to myself_, and it is so, so much of a relief to be able to offload that burden to utter pieces of shit like them.

and in the uk, it's not like that. in the uk, advocating for anti-trans genocide is _respectable_, just like it used to be. i was listening to this fascinating interview with the author torrey peters on the "gender reveal" podcast, she was talking about her tour promoting her novel _detransition baby_, and she was doing major media outlets in the us, all over the place, and in the uk, it was much more small-press stuff, niche stuff. trans people doing stuff that's... i mean, if i say "zines", i don't mean that as a criticism, i don't mean that it's unprofessional, i mean there's a lot more DIY spirit, that you're dealing with people who are very clearly on the _outside_ of things.

see, the great thing about being in a place like tennessee? it might cost you everything, but it's a lot easier to _get out_ than it is to get out of the uk. i had a couple friends in, not tennessee, but south carolina, and they both did that. they got out, and their lives aren't great, but they're _alive_, they're getting life-saving treatment. they exist. things aren't so easy as that over in the UK.

I self-referred to my local gender identity clinic the other week. I'm expecting to get seen in about 2027

There's also this

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3adva3/liz-truss-scotland-gender-identity

I live in Scotland so this is concerning

Liz Truss, who used to be the Equalities Minister, has been saying that trans women are not women (Sunak also said this during the leadership race). She's either unaware of the fact that legally trans women most definitely are women or she's chosen to disregard it. I think the latter is more likely

Some cracking posts there by the way Kate

paolo, left - either y'all on 77? there's things i have to say that i don't feel totally comfortable saying on a public board.

one recommendation i will make, blanket recommendation to anyone who's questioning: try and get yourself involved in community. local if you have one, online if not. the absolute hardest thing is feeling like you're alone. one of the main reasons i'm doing so poorly right now is because i've had to disengage from community. (also one of the reasons i'm just fuckin' pouring trans mom energy all over this thread, tbh.)

the complicating factor is that not all community is healthy community! turns out fucked up traumatized people tend to form fucked up communities, but people still sometimes cling to the "t4t" utopian ideal where if you put a bunch of us in a room together we'll do great things because we all _understand_ each other. we do _understand_ each other, in ways that cis people don't! it's not enough to make for a healthy community, though.

but you need community. one of the things that i learned very quickly once i transitioned is that nobody does terribly well on their own.

I'm sorry to hear you're not doing so well. And I'm not on 77, what is it?

I'm not super involved in the community but I do have one fairly good trans pal and I know other trans people I can chat to as well, so I'm not totally isolated here

Have noticed recently that disabled toilets in a few places have now got Gender Neutral Toilet notes on the door. So not sure if this is a step in the right direction or a tokenist gesture. Seeing it in the Arts Centre here and wondering now if it was something the LGBTQ collective currently exhibiting insisted on and therefore was necessary for the gallery. Will see if it lasts longer than the exhibition.
Will be a bit creepy if it doesn't.

regular practice is to be all mysterious and not say what 77 is, but fuck it, trans folks suffer enough because nobody told us things that really would have benefited us to know. private board for regulars, subject to mod approval. here's the thread to request access.

Request Access to 77 Borad

Huh, who knew? I'll see if they'll let me in

stevolende re: toilets - this is definitely a good thing. the toilet police are one of the most terrifying things trans people deal with - we're just in here trying to pee but we gotta worry about giving us the third degree about whether we have the right to piss where we're pissing or if we're like trying to be creepers and like no literally we're just trying to pee. that was the one thing i insisted my work do when i transitioned - just put in a couple gender-neutral restrooms.

i guess it's possible for the centre to rip down the signs after the exhibition, if they never want to show work by queer artists again, haha. that's a real good long-term strategy for an arts centre.

its now notably permanent like as of today or since i9 last looked,. an actual solid sign like

piece of paper with message printed replaced by metal sign

Goddammit now a local institution that I really love — a park and nature center — appears to have canceled an all-ages Halloween-themed drag show because the local bigot brigade (most of whom I'm sure have never even been to the place) spread it around social media and peppered them with emails accusing them of enabling pedophiles etc. I'm still trying to get the full story, but this is a place that I would expect/hope to have a little backbone. The trans moral panic is in high gear in Tennessee.

god this is just sickening

literally everybody that rolls over without resistance just enables these groups even further

Exactly what I have been telling some local officials this morning. More than I usually say to them in my reporter role, but I'm not going to just sit back and document the bigotry, the stakes feel too high. We know what happens when vulnerable groups are demonized, it's always bad.

this is a great example of why all queer people have a common interest and a common cause. before bigots started falsely claiming trans people to be pedos and "groomers" they were saying it about cis gay people, and given the slightest excuse they'll say it again. drag isn't at all the same as being trans - there are trans drag queens and drag kings, but there are plenty of cis people who do drag as well - and now "trans panic" is being used as an excuse to erase _them_ as well. bigots don't have _reason_ to know the difference between cis drag queens and trans people - they hate us all. there's no lgb without the t.

and mothra, thanks for working to get the 411 on what's going on here. if we know who to fight, we will fight :)

Absolutely, the trans panic is an updating and narrowcasting of anti-queer panic more broadly, which has become slightly harder to sell politically even in East Tennessee. And I don't mean to imply all drag performers are transgender. But right, the panic doesn't care about those distinctions, it's just using "grooming" and "child abuse" as a cudgel against queer people in general. In the long and sorry tradition of socio-political scapegoating, obviously.

Fuck those people. The overwhelming majority of abusers of children are cis, "straight" men.

i'd put it more directly than that. transphobia is child abuse. promoting "christian values" is child abuse. of course it's a halloween show. christians burned joan of arc at the stake for being queer and then turned around and made her a saint. queerness and "witchcraft" are inseparable. the whole moral panic about that kid who played dungeons and dragons and then disappeared? james dallas egbert iii? he was _queer_. he disappeared trying to get away from his wildly homophobic surroundings. same reason he was playing d&d in the first place. died later of suicide, btw.

i strongly recommend the visual novel "we know the devil". can't recommend it highly enough.

I vividly remember that case. It happened just around the time I started playing D&D. Even then, the prevailing explanation struck me as completely improbable.

it took me surprisingly long for me to figure out how completely queer-coded D&D and role-playing games in general are. i guess if there's any consolation i'm far from alone in that...

https://i.redd.it/trjvcveye5u71.png

Well, sure. RPGs permit you to create a new identity--or explore your existing one.

right, and _yet_ it took _some of us_ 40 fucking years...

oh well.

the "grooming" rhetoric is so fucking backwards and fucked up. nobody ever _told_ me i was trans. i never _told_ anybody else they were trans. it's the prime fucking directive, and we don't have it because of _them_. it's because it's not _necessary_. there's no fucking _point_. sometimes earlier on i used to complain, christ, it was so fucking obvious, why didn't anybody _tell me_, but even then, i knew the answer. if anybody tried, i wouldn't accept it. i'd shoot back with "how do you know that? how can you possibly know that?" the entire basis of queer identity is that you can know yourself better than anybody else can. they're the ones pulling this fucking martin loring shit on people, spending all of this time and effort trying to convince us all that we _can't_ or _shouldn't_ be queer.

all i ever needed for myself, all i ever give to anyone else, is _permission_. as soon as i felt like i was _allowed_ to be queer, i fucking jumped at it, because it is so much better than anything being cishet ever had to offer me. oh, this could break up my marriage, cost me my career, alienate me from my family and friends? i mean, yes, that all sucks, but on the other hand, I GET TO EXIST. colonialist European ideology did a surprisingly successful job for a while coopting us into our own self-erasure, but as that particular strategy is not delivering the results it used to, i'm not entirely surprised that its advocates are taking more... _overt_ measures.

https://t.co/V1BCBZpvpP pic.twitter.com/vRhRzCs5iy

— CozyGuy SantaPost (@PetriClub) November 8, 2022

Mr. Gad "Size Queen" Saad

never heard of this bloke but "He is known for applying evolutionary psychology to marketing and consumer behaviour" is one of the more cursed sentences I've read on wikipedia

the only Gad Sa(a)d that I will acknowledge
https://imgur.com/a/a1PLgtD

also someone smarter than me needs to unpack the power these people invest in the phallus. blood and terf podcast has done some good work on this. I get the sense that he really had to hold himself back from describing the colour of his hypothetical invasive phallus as well

xxp

oops

https://i.imgur.com/HnyXYIf.jpg

who's that

jesus effing christ am I glad I deleted my Twitter account. The stressor of ***being trans*** on there and having this firehose full of shit shoved down your throat every day is just too much. I don't know how other people do it, I really don't.

sometimes it feels good to be hated and feared by all the worst people in the world but then you remember they have actual power

xp

Left, it's actor Josh Gad from when he was feeling sad.

thank you if he's not bad I hope he's less sad now

xp fundamentally they see us as threatening and destabilising on an ontological level as well as socially and politically. their world is absolutely incompatible with one in which we exist; we're an glitch in the system to be eliminated by all means necessary. I hate their world - it's boring and ugly and small and built on torture and blood sacrifice - if I die with it I'll die happy

a lot of this feels like liberalism running up against its contradictions in an endless hall of mirrors, constantly misapprehending its violence as that of others, those unreasonable ones who refuse to respect our way of doing things so have voided the contract so to speak and are excluded from whatever basic rights it was supposed to provide

(how many prominent islamophobes of the past decades have since expanded their repertoire to target trans people too? and I wonder what kathleen stock thinks about the hijab)

people get handwavey about the colonial roots of transphobia (which are real and deep) and I'm no different but so much of this feels like the most basic colonial projection applied to an ostensibly new problem- i.e. we need to murder/enslave/"save" these people because they're savages - for example they don't respect our gender norms and seem to live for things that aren't reducible or conducive to being reduced to a cold instrumental logic - this means they're against god/nature/science/reason and we need to break them as a people - let's say it's for their own good because the real reasons might make us feel bad about what we're doing

Extraordinary this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou_xvXJJk7k

Made it one second into that

not enough money in the world to get me to click that. I know who those people are and they all wish me harm. That's all I need to know.

The interesting thing to take from that video, which may or may not come as a surprise, is the extent to which British TERFdom is being funded by US right wing orgs. Which is relevant because these ppl all claim to be pro-choice, pro-gay rights feminists.

They all suck, no exceptions.

xp, yeah there's very much a blissfully ignorant "I will team with the leopards on this particular topic, but surely they won't turn around and eat my face, right?" going on with UK Terves.

I'm kinda reminded of the allegiance between anti-porn feminists and the Christian Right in America back in the 70s /80s. The issues are obviously very different, but the willingness of such groups to align themselves with the far right is, sadly, nothing new.

Yes, I think the alliance between TERFs and right wingers is a public thing, and if you'd ask them they'd probably talk about tactical necessities and fighting the bigger enemy first and etc.

But what was new to me was finding out how often notable voices on the UK terf scene are directly funded by right wing orgs - this imo takes them out of Useful Idiot territory and into bad faith/grifter territory.

Not that their ideology would be any less hideous if it was in good faith ofc.

xp I wouldn't say the issues are *very* different- most of the anti-porn/sex worker radfems were terfish (dworkin less so than others) and are still a presence in contemporary movement- and terfs have always treated sex workers much like they do trans women (unsurprising considering the number of trans sex workers and the challenge both groups pose to bourgeois cis white womanhood's claim to hegemony over feminism) i.e. calling for state and/or vigilante violence against them (burchill calling for "prostitutes" to be shot for betraying "women" is one of the more telling and explicit examples)

sidenote those radfems made appalling choices in their tactics, targets, and collaborators, and willingly or not helped set the stage for where we are now, which means their better critiques and insights got lost and are still largely unaddressed in contemporary feminism - except, maybe ironically, from work-abolitonist sex workers who reject both criminalisation and (neo)liberal (sex-)work-as-empowerment bullshit as well as calling out the dworkinesque misogyny-disguised-as-critique-of-such rhetoric of "used holes" etc that is still as rampant and unchallenged among terfs/swerfs as it is among men

Ugh, Oklahoma: https://erininthemorn.substack.com/p/oklahoma-could-force-trans-people

A terrifying new bill was released late Wednesday night in Oklahoma that would ban gender affirming care for a huge number people. Oklahoma SB129 would ban gender affirming care under the age of 26 years old. Gen Z would be entirely banned from gender affirming care under this bill. This prospect is terrifying because Gen Z has been the most open about transitioning and a bill like this would medically detransition a huge portion of Oklahoma’s transgender population.

Good article from Parker Molloy on David French's hiring by the NYT: https://www.readtpa.com/p/david-french-nyt-anti-lgbtq

Yeah that is by far the worst thing about French. Well, that and his abortion stance. (The irony if you can call it that is that a lot of French's critics on the right routinely brand him as being pro-LGBTQ because he one time said he didn't think drag queen story hours should be illegal.)

it's good and no criticism of the writer or the piece but it's such a fucking drag that articles like this need to include so much hedging and qualification (whether out of legal or professional necessity or just well earned caution) and will *still* be taken as vile slander and abuse by the enemy, who meanwhile gets endless money and kudos for pissing all over everyone

seems like the nyt is going the guardian route right down to the firing and hiring practices. can't say i'm surprised, the alleged trans-positivity of american liberalism always looked extremely perfunctory and politically opportunistic and internally conflicted from a distance, i'm sure many are as relieved to jettison it as they were their tepid semi-support for BLM

I made the mistake of reading three comments from purportedly gay/lesbian/lib posters on this piece.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/opinion/lgbtq-rights-activism-alabama.html#commentsContainer

hard to tell the conservative trolls from the gay ladder kickers these days

Quite an episode. A Terf gave a speech quoting "The Big Lie".

Some attempts to say the anti-trans activist quoting Mein Kampf is actually criticising Nazism, but she helpfully turns up in the replies to clarify that she was simply giving Hitler appropriate credit for an idea that she believes is correct. https://t.co/mnmlAzwjhu

— Dave (@MediocreDave) January 16, 2023

That so many people believe that Trump won the election is testament to the power of his hypnotic suggestions. He primed them to support him becoming president for life. How he did this is set out in ‘Comply with Me: Trump’s Hypnosis Toolkit Exposed’. pic.twitter.com/g3oBSQugzK

— Lisa Morgan (@futureseeing) November 9, 2020

lol

Didn't pull this out but yeah..

imagine pulling out The Big Lie in an argument and failing to understand that Hitler wasn't talking about himself, he was accusing Jewish people of using "the big lie".

Great idea mentioning Hitler in the first place.

yeah it always goes well

🚨🚨 TONIGHT 🚨🚨

Especially important to turn out if you're cis.

We'll be there throughout. DM us if you want to find us, and let us know if you have any particular welfare needs.

Love and solidarity ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 pic.twitter.com/fYAowCP1qv

— Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants (@lgsmigrants) January 18, 2023

Glasgow is also having a Trans Rights protest on Saturday at 11am at Buchanan Galleries

xposted from the US politics thread, a great piece by Tom Scocca on US media's transphobic turn: https://popula.com/2023/01/29/the-worst-thing-we-read-this-week-why-is-the-new-york-times-so-obsessed-with-trans-kids/

A fabulous piece. I linked it in the politics thread.

yeah I saw that! Hopefully this gets attention. He did a great job of linking it to the earlier media panic over cancel culture (as well as the Times' past bullshit crusades)

The Times has been homophobic going back to the 70s. Jeet Heer dug up some examples of them saying the exact same things about homosexuality that they are now saying about trans issues.

It's especially galling to me because the Times was the first place I ever worked with a trans coworker — Donna Cartwright. She used to come and do overtime shifts in our department sometimes.

https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/zk51vh06v

speaking of the times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/theater/tonys-justin-david-sullivan-and-juliet.html

That's a great Popula article, it really nails Jesse Singal

…you’ll see that mere discomfort with the way you are “supposed” to act or dress as a boy or girl, and a desire to act or dress differently, means you’re trans (if you want to be), even if you don’t have gender dysphoria. Sure enough, a lot of people, particularly young ones, seem to come out as trans much more to make a statement about their desire to transgress gender boundaries than because they are suffering serious anguish at having a (fe)male body or being seen by others as (fe)male.

Some of these people aren't even miserable!

luv 2 tell other people what 2 do

thanks for that pamela paul editorial nyt, you just killed a couple more of my friends

hi btw

Hi Kate. Been pretty depressing over here on Shitty Transphobe Island lately. I didn't want to update this thread just with bad shit so didn't post about it, but Brianna Ghey has been weighing heavy on my mind. Everything sucks.

Turned on the radio the other day and caught a BBC News bit about Sturgeon's resignation. And of course the first of two completely impartial talking heads they spoke is a raving terf. Of fucking course. I wanted to punch my radio.

hi Kate, it is good to see you around again <3

sorry about the world and everything

Tennessee is fast-tracking its ban on gender-affirming care for minors, already passed the state Senate and basically assured to pass the House next week. I covered a rally against that and our criminalizing-drag bill organized earlier this week by our local pride group — it had good turnout, lots of spirit and anger, but at the moment in this state we're decisively headed backward on all LGBTQ rights. Don't see it turning around any time soon. Feels grim.

I was at a vigil in Glasgow for Brianna Ghey tonight and the turn-out was a lot higher than I (or seemingly the organisers) expected. Which is good - it sends out the message of support and love we need to send out - but I can't believe in 2023 we still have to do this stuff, that "let people exist as their authentic selves" is now seen as a political position and not just a basic tenent of human existence.

I'm afraid "let people exist as their authentic selves" has been a political position for a long-ass time. Much too long, I agree.

the murder itself has really fucked up my sense of safety too. I'm not trans, but I am a gay man and I'm not exactly the type who can or even bothers to try to mask it in my mannerisms etc. I've learned when to police myself - to know the kind of environments I'm not welcome in, to know when to adapt my behaviours, even when to deepen my voice and be careful with my language. I know not to walk home alone at night with headphones on because I'm possibly a target. I know to text my friends when I get home. I'm sure women, POC, etc have similar experiences about feeling like potential "targets." Nobody ever actively sits you down to teach you these things - you learn them instinctively, as a measure of precaution to protect yourself. There's direct bigotry, but we live in the shadow of ambient bigotry - the knowledge that the potential to be assaulted and attacked is always present and you can never really be 100% certain it won't happen to you. What has happened to Ghey - ie being attacked, in broad daylight, for simply existing - feels like a confirmation of the possiblity of those worst fears coming true. It's fucking terrifying.

That's not to say this is about me at all - I have so much more privilege than anyone in the trans community has today. But it makes those abstract fears feel so much more real. And if it's messing me up, I can only imagine how awful, how frightening, and how depressing it must be to want to simply exist as a trans individual in a world where your identity is literally attacked to the point of murder.

It’s really been a bad fucking week for it.

I saw this, just now, and this feels like something, even if it isn’t.

For Brianna ❤️

Taken far too young. Our club and town sends our condolences to her loved ones pic.twitter.com/wbwRgzzegG

— Warrington Wolves (@WarringtonRLFC) February 16, 2023

I appreciate people who can form cogent and thoughtful and responsible thoughts about this when I'm just struggling to suppress violent feelings about the british establishment the entire time

This kind of thing is relentless in the British media:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/11/west-busy-woke-rights-combat-russia-life-frontline/

A Ukrainian soldier has warned the West is too busy fighting for transgender and feminist rights when they should be preparing for the threat of Russia invading countries beyond Ukraine.

"Today it’s Ukraine. Tomorrow it’s Poland, Germany. We’ve already destroyed more planes than the British Army has in total and Russia keeps fighting," said Artem, 32, who is just about to join his brigade stationed in Bahkmut.

Adding: "If you will not help Ukraine now, you will fight Russia in five years. If you’re thinking about human rights, transgender, feminists you’re not thinking about your country."

"If you’re thinking about human rights, transgender, feminists you’re not thinking about your country."

is quite the sentence.

Glad to see Artem from Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and the Daily Telegraph agree on that one.

I know the telegraph's rep but wow

The Telegraph has gone completely culture wars batshit in the last few years.

It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible https://t.co/e8aZ5CSrhi pic.twitter.com/2wq3dBnI7Q

— The Onion (@TheOnion) February 17, 2023

“ A Ukrainian soldier has warned the West is too busy fighting for transgender and feminist rights“

He will be so relieved when he finds out the West spends no time at all fighting for these

Glinner is absolutely furious about The Onion right now, so job done there.

lol

Man Cries Over Onion

“Man”

The only actual funny thing he’s done in years is “thanks, another man”. I genuinely use that one all the time even though I’m not a man. Classic although not as he intended it.

Actually, I tell a lie. This was funny too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwVxMJcQDWM

I feel boxedjoy’s post very much, although this part wasn’t my experience:

Nobody ever actively sits you down to teach you these things - you learn them instinctively, as a measure of precaution to protect yourself.

My parents, and the parents of every African-American I know, sat us down at an early age and told us that we were not safe in America and that vigilance was going to be instrumental to our ability to flourish as adults.

I have gotten much more exposure to/information about what happened to Ghey from Twitter than I have from any mainstream US media outlet, which I suppose makes some amount of sense from a regional standpoint combined with the insane number of mass shootings we allow. It’s all terrible though, all of us deserve a much better world than the one we currently have and it’s demoralizing to realize how much some people want things to be like this.

I saw this, from the sister of a trans girl who took her own life after being denied care (the situation in the UK is really horrendous in large part due to constant and vicious lobbying to deny access and also aimed squarely at the rollback of existing rights).

we’re right to name the political conditions of Brianna’s death, and any attempt to paint that as ghoulish or opportunistic is unbelievably cruel. when Alice died my mum was talking about posting her ashes to Rosie Duffield within days

— kate litman (@kate_Iit) February 14, 2023

DJP massively otm, heartbreaking but necessary post

I was at the Brianna vigil on Thursday night outside the department of education and what impressed me was all the young LGBT people I saw there, just these sweet, gawky, nervous kids who were figuring out who they wanted to be and how they wanted to dress, I just wished that when I was 17 I'd known some people like that, the years may have been a bit less lonely. I wouldn't interact with any of them now of course, last thing they need is a middle-age owl man in a suit talking to them, but just seeing them / hearing so many them gave me some hope for the future.

My uni students, many of whom are trans or otherwise queer (art school), give me great hope.

Thanks, all. This thread has lifted me.

Ah, talking of the youth of today - my local started running a casual 'hang out and talk books' book club and half of the members are early-20s queerkids. They're proper adults and that but now that I am super old I feel very protective and proud of them. I also feel like I now have a space where I'm allowed to be queer again, despite always being read as cishet (I am much clearer in my identity as a bi/pan non-binary person these days even if the massive guilt of not being queer enough is still present).

one of the things I really wish had existed when I was 14-17 was a physical local space for LGBT+ teens to hang out in. I mean, yeah it was good to be able to go online and meet people, and the unders disco I went to was a safe space for me to kiss people of the same gender, but that was only three hours on a Saturday evening. I would have loved somewhere where I could have went with the lad I was "dating" and just hang out, holding hands, not worrying about being seen and judged by my peers or even worse "adults." I was always under the impression that LGBT+ Youth Programmes were about activism and visibility and really all I wanted was: a place that didn't have windows.

I don't know if DJP's experience re: being sat down and warned, is better or worse. It's tragic and disgusting that we live in a world where this has to be done but at least you were prepared and equipped for the practical reality of life, I guess? I'd like to know more how that conversation went, if you're happy to say more about it. Was it a general, "this world is bad, be prepared?" or were there more specific examples of behaviours to mask, places to avoid, etc? I say nobody ever sat me down and told me "these things" - I'm referring as much to practical stuff as much as the overall principles I use to maintain personal safety.

one of the things I really wish had existed when I was 14-17 was a physical local space for LGBT+ teens to hang out in. I mean, yeah it was good to be able to go online and meet people, and the unders disco I went to was a safe space for me to kiss people of the same gender, but that was only three hours on a Saturday evening. I would have loved somewhere where I could have went with the lad I was "dating" and just hang out, holding hands, not worrying about being seen and judged by my peers or even worse "adults."

I wish an older person -- queer or straight -- had sat 16-year-old me down to explain the tangle of feelings. If I had had it sorted in high school, college would've been a better place.

xp this will cover some of it, I'd guess (tho ILX code will probably mangle the URL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_talk_(racism_in_the_United_States)

I wish an older person -- queer or straight -- had sat 16-year-old me down to explain the tangle of feelings. If I had had it sorted in high school, college would've been a better place.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

of course, when we do that we get called "groomers". few things make me angrier than this lie. i see these kids who have been taught to hate themselves, who are hated by their own _parents_, their own _family_, and if i tell them that it's ok for them to be who they are, whoever they are, that they're not broken or sick but they're worthy of love and kindness, the response to that is for these vicious people who don't even love their own children to call me a "groomer", to say that what i'm doing is "social contagion". people who do this _disgust_ me. i have no other word for it.

My first thought after my post, "Well, that's not happening in Florida now!"

Agreed with Kate and Alfred OTM— I really do believe that if my parents had believed me and treated me with love and respect the first time I came out to them, at age 14, I would be a much more well-adjusted person and would have avoided a lot of pain and confusion of my late teenage and early adult years. That so many of these articles completely deny the *fact* that teenagers are individuals who are in tune with their feelings and thoughts around sex, gender, and etc, is completely bonkers to me.

I'm an ally at my school and spend some Monday lunchtimes in the magnificent babble and lunacy of the assigned safe space for queer and trans kids. In a school of 1400 kids, the room is usually full of around 40 kids, at a guess? As a straight bloke, I'm never *quite* sure what my role is. One, for sure, is to get laughed at for being so straight and square and old and white and I'm 100% here for that, but mostly I just circulate and talk about music, books, films, comedy and whatever the hell comes up.

To speak to Alfred's point, I mean, I'm never going to be precisely what anyone needs, but other than the golden rule of being a decent human being, some guidance and training as to what to say would be so useful. School don't offer anything and anyway, maybe I should just stfu, accept the limits of my role and just be around if anyone needs anything.

Xp this should absolutely go without saying but ftr, in my experience and as tabes says, these are some of the most self-aware, articulate, emotionally intelligent kids I ever get to talk to.

Being a decent human being who listens is often all they need, Chinaski. Hugs.

I'm here for it (the decent human being bit. And the hugs).

one of the things I really wish had existed when I was 14-17 was a physical local space for LGBT+ teens to hang out in.

this is really important; in fact, there are no places for teens of any stripe to hangout where I live. cafes all close early, there are no youth clubs, kids just hang out in the park at night which inevitably leads to robberies and people getting jumped and beaten.

I know it's a hard thing for allies to wrap their heads around, sometimes. We just don't get things that other people take for granted. I guess that would be my advice. Try not to take things for granted. A lot of things that are normal and ordinary for you are things we've never had, things we desperately crave. Community. Kindness. Being treated like normal human beings.

And I'll say this, it's not just kids who need this stuff. It's a hard thing for me to explain to people who aren't here, even though we're all fucked up and healthy community is hard for us, how important it has been for me to not be alone. I transitioned in PDX because I _could_.

And they call that "social contagion" I guess. Everybody who knew me before, the first thing they notice is how much _happier_ I am, how much of a positive difference transition has made on my life, and people are afraid of it like it's some disease. It baffles me.

Posted on the "posts you had a second thought" thread in response to something, posting it here, too:

"I probably should have clarified: one of the things that's constantly being thrown into anti-trans rhetoric is that kids are confused and are being unduly influenced/"groomed" by adults, which implies that kids are unaware and have no agency in regards to their own feelings and thoughts around the most intimate aspects of their lives.

But I was told CONSTANTLY as a teenager that I couldn't *possibly* know that I was gay, and all that this did was turn me into a closet-case anorexic who moved from eating disorders to uninhibited drug and alcohol abuse. I had to come out THREE TIMES, for the final time at the age of 23. I lost years of emotional and interpersonal development around intimacy and relationships, and only entered a more healthy relationship stage in my mid-30s under the threat of my own mortality.

The absolute disregard, disrespect, and delegitimization of teenagers' thoughts and feelings is a huge part of anti-lgbtq+ rhetoric, and when so-called "liberals" repeat these sorts of talking points, they're merely showing that they, too, don't actually care about children or the sanctity of life or their professed politics, but only about reinforcing cis heteropatriarchal power structures."

Thanks for posting it here.

As I may have said, my eldest child is an enby teenager who is the absolute light of my life. I also have hope for the youths.

I spent much of this weekend volunteering at a color guard event with 400 or 500 teenagers. I strive to keep appropriate distance while respecting the people with whom I interact, but: per my casual observations there are a heck of a lot of trans folx here, and also pretty universal respect and inclusion. In this realm at least. A good sign, I hope - for Sky and for their peers.

They're making the world they want to live in and I think that's awesome.

The intelligence, compassion, and ability to think their way through the complexity of matters of gender and sexuality that I regularly see my (queer and non-queer) university-aged students display definitely gives me hope, but I still see a lot of queer twentysomethings struggling with a lot of the same crap that I did 20+ years ago, which is less encouraging. What really blows my mind is that my 13-year-old niece already has a few queer friends--including one trans kid--and just how normal (for lack of a better word) all this stuff is to them. A few years ago my niece even made my husband and I "Pride cupcakes" for June.

Anyway, it should go without saying that anyone who fights these developments, or tolerates those who do, are truly the worst trash on earth.

just for the record, i am very much in favor of dreaming the culture forward by all means necessary and it is heartening how much the baseline has moved... though the rapidity of that shift seems to be sparking the current flurry of freakout from trans/homophobes seeing the world change faster than they can handle. Nina's advice about "going slow" still applies.

I signed the NYT Letter, but credit where it's due, this piece is good at laying out how the wave of anti-trans legislation is affecting families of trans kids:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/18/opinion/trans-gender-missouri.html

though the rapidity of that shift seems to be sparking the current flurry of freakout from trans/homophobes seeing the world change faster than they can handle.

respectfully disagree, the personal lives of trans people have such little impact on the daily lives of cis people, you have to go out of your way to be transphobic.

no, you're right. more accurate framing would be "political media depiction of that shift seems to be sparking" etc

There's a lot of hard work going on right now to make sure being transphobic isn't such a niche interest.

What I'm seeing of it in the U.S. may or may not be different than the political/cultural path it's taken in the U.K. It seems to me that here it's mostly being used as a way to resuscitate the broad anti-LGBTQ agenda that took a serious hit with the Obergefell decision and general growing public acceptance of queer people (as measured by opinion surveys etc). For a few years it was hard to get any traction with anti-gay legislation, and North Carolina got so much shit for its bathroom bill that other states kind of backed off temporarily. But by focusing on kids specifically and riding the coattails of LibsofTikTok and Matt Walsh, they've found a way to recycle all the old pedophile/coming-for-your-kids gay-bashing that had become harder to sell.

Which is to say, it very much is a specifically anti-trans/transphobic agenda, but it's also a stalking horse for the anti-gay culture war that has been right-wing bread and butter for decades.

I'd love to disinter the Atwood-influenced memo suggesting to shift the fight from "anti-gay" to "protecting your kids."

Yeah, and that's always been the rallying cry going back to Anita Bryant's Save Our Children. It just became politically difficult to sell as more and more people knew more and more gay people. But reframing from "gays are pedos" to "trans people and drag queens are pedos" has more currency because fewer people know trans people or have even seen a drag show.

they've found a way to recycle all the old pedophile/coming-for-your-kids gay-bashing that had become harder to sell.

this is how I see it and why it seems so absurd because I remember it the first time around ... but it's also scary af because it's happening again

There’s a long list of stuff the right has tried to protect your kids from over the decades:

Drugs
Rock lyrics
Mixed race pregnancies
Demonic possession
Liberal professors
Rainbow parties
Choosing to be gay
Mask wearing
Online schooling
The Knockout Game
White slavery at Ikea
Pronouns

Must be hard to remain ever vigilant

there’s also the LGB Alliance/Gays Against Groomers bullshit to try to sell the idea that reasonable gay people understand that trans rights are totally different from gay rights, and it’s just a weird coincidence that you can do find-and-replace for the scare tactics of 30 years ago.

Also of course anyone who knows any actual teenagers in the 2020s knows that they are far and away the most queer-accepting age group on the planet. Both of my kids have many classmates in their Tennessee public schools who are gay, trans or nonbinary (and fwiw my own oldest kid identifies as asexual, which he's found a lot of reassurance in as a guy on the autism spectrum). So the idea that these are the kids being "protected" by a bunch of pearl-clutching Baptists is as funny as it is infuriating.

It does give hope that being said!

When I told my younger son, who was in middle school at the time, about the Florida "Don't Say Gay" bill for elementary schoolers, he snorted and said, "Well those kids are gonna be confused when they get to middle school and a quarter of the kids are gay or trans." (I think he was exaggerating the number, but it showed his sense of things.)

I hoped for one day without thinking about Don't Say Gay

(Not your fault, tips! Florida sucks)

Yeah tipsy every teenager I know is essentially saying "thanks but no thanks about all this alleged 'protection,' and also shut the fuck up about swimming, because no actual young person gives a single shit about your sudden valiant efforts to use the intEgriTy of sPoRts as a Trojan horse for toxic bullshit."

Sorry Aflred! We're not far behind you, our governor totally wants to be DeSantis' bff.

And yeah, on the State of the Teens, a lot of this is anecdotal but I've heard from friends who have exposure to evangelical culture that even there there's a movement of younger Christians against the culture war stuff. But I'm sure there are still plenty of true believers being molded out there.

https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-s-exclusive-interview-with-j-k-rowling-1850141221

They’re pulling zero punches and it’s great.

White slavery at Ikea

i missed this one

This is doomy, per Tannehill's norm (her Twitter bio literally says "Harbinger of doom"). But even if she's hyperbolic, she's not wrong about what's going on. Trans hate is the point of the spear.

Something that is missing from the discussion of all of this is that MTGs rationale for why there should be a "national divorce" is "sick and disgusting woke culture issues." 1/n https://t.co/Q6TwlLBVOG

— Brynn Tannehill (@BrynnTannehill) February 23, 2023

Okay so kinda weird story, but I'm not kidding about this and I am kinda embarrassed 1/?https://t.co/zZmqcwV6zv

— Sophie ✨ From ✨Mars (@sophie_frm_mars) February 27, 2023

Ugh. I love how the offended lady is all self-congratulatory about how well she handled things right up until she thought somebody said the word "penis." Like, "Here I am being all open-minded but the trans weirdo just couldn't help throwing their dick in my face!"

Sorry but anyone who becomes a Tory councillor at age 22 is the biggest weirdo in any story. To be honest though, my main thought on reading that story was why are there so many pubs called The Marquis of Granby?

... mind you, I've only just read the tweet and wtf?!?!?

I’m glad if young tories tell u

Ugh. I love how the offended lady is all self-congratulatory about how well she handled things right up until she thought somebody said the word "penis." Like, "Here I am being all open-minded but the trans weirdo just couldn't help throwing their dick in my face!"

I feel like there is something missing in the story she's telling

You mean like how appearing in the Daily Mail as a victim of the culture wars will get her noticed and help her political career?

yeah I looked at her twitter for a while and the zeal with which she's pursuing this (e.g., @ing JKR) is not surprising but awfully telling

These are the transphobic women calling cis female trans allies handmaids and “pick-me’s” if I’m not mistaken?

lol at the idea that she misheard "wipe my hands on my pants" as "wipe my hands on my penis"

It was apparently "wipe my hands on my jeans," so maybe easier to mis-hear, but COME ON.

It's just so telling of the phobic obsession with trans people's body parts. As if it's trans people walking around thinking about their genitalia all day instead of bigots. (And a direct descendant of the age-old homophobic obsession with how gay and lesbian sexual mechanics. "I don't even know what goes where!" "Who's the man?" etc etc)

Saying you were going to wipe your hands on your pants would elicit some funny looks in the UK!

Even if she had said "wipe my hands on my penis", that's a very weird thing to say but honestly not a very threatening one. Trying to imagine a burly man saying it while indicating his cock and seeing if I would be intimidated, but I keep giggling instead.

The whole thing is so pearls-clutchingly prudish as well. The word "penis" must not be uttered in a women's toilet, ever. IT IS SACRED WOMAN'S SPACE, NO PEEN ALLOWED.

Yeah I always wonder wtf these people do in bathrooms, becz ime it's basically just get in, do your natural excretory business (which is p much the same regardless of your genitals), wash your hands (ideally), and gtfo. Also, as a guy who uses guy bathrooms, guys in bathrooms do not just, like, walk around with their dicks hanging out. That's not a thing. We also don't talk about our dicks. We don't talk much at all in the toilet!

Also, I've been in men's rooms in clubs etc where women were using the toilets. It's not really that big a deal.

At my local Starbucks patrons use the bathrooms indiscriminately, even the MAGA ones.

even the MAGA bathrooms!

I'm going to wipe my hands on my Grande

yeah lots of restaurants and bars in Montreal have non-gendered bathrooms, usually with stalls and a communal sink area: inclusive and saves space for the establishment, is obviously the future, would happily never use another stall-less urinal in my life

and emily. otm, the way UK transphobes fixate on bathrooms and prisons is almost parodically Victorian (no surprise in the US they're trying to make headway with sports)

I mean, if anyone had a penis that was made of fluffy terry cloth...I still wouldn't expect them to use it to dry their hands.

grats to suzy eddie izzard on her new name

Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2023/03/17/52722/graham_linehan_turned_down_%C2%A3200k_to_take_his_name_off_the_father_ted_musical

the 2nd part of that Chortle piece where they speak to him is actually insane; has anyone ever had less self-awareness than GL? He deserves 1000 x more shit than he has already had.

He said: ‘I thought this would be over in a few months and someone would step in. I really did think as soon as people heard what’s been happening to children, all my friends, satirists, comedians, progressives, people who marched against the Iraq war, lesbians, gay men, they’d all come rushing to my aid.

‘And no one turned up. Just no one turned up. All I got was dirty looks, people ghosting me.

‘I have met people, people I’ve worked with — big names — and begged them to become involved. Begged them. Please just say, "Graham Linehan is right," or "Graham Linehan has some important contributions to make on this," anything that makes it sound as though I’m doing this for anything other than recreational cruelty.

‘That’s how I’m portrayed. Like a recreational sadist. And none of them will stand up for me.’

i love it when people _almost_ seem to be self-aware

Probably took offense at being considered merely "recreational."

I'm sure I could Google and find objectionable things about Gov. Tim Walz, but this is good to see and hear.

MN Gov. @Tim_Walz: "The trans community is as terrified as they've ever been. [...] We have to be much more aggressive about making sure that folks are protected." https://t.co/B2cEJIipof pic.twitter.com/C97QWWclK1

— The Hill (@thehill) March 18, 2023

what minnesota is doing is a Very Good Thing. it's a real frustration for me that more people aren't recognizing what trans people are going through... there _are_ trans refugees right now, a _lot_ of trans refugees. trans people are facing genocide, and one of the things that concerns me the most is that most cis people don't seem to be taking it _seriously_. no one gives a thought to having their professional conference in texas or florida, taking a vacation there, _moving_ there. people who, like, have _children_. i mean, what the fuck are they thinking? do they really believe that it couldn't be _their_ child?

every week i see someone new up here in pdx, and a lot of times they're living on the street, because living on the street here is safer than living _anywhere_ in texas or florida or kentucky or... and then i see my co-workers complaining about all the homeless people, about how they don't feel "safe". _they_ don't feel safe? they have the fucking _gall_ to tell me that, to my _face_?

i don't know the practical effect of minnesota's law, but gov. walz's action makes me feel... that at least some cis people fucking _understand_ what we're going through, what the transphobes are _doing_ to us. because i'll tell you i don't get that feeling a lot from democratic party leaders.

Oh that is lovely. Often I don't even open this thread when I see it's been bumped because it's just too grim but it's so nice to see a cis person standing up for us lot like that. Ofc it's depressing that a politician treating us like human beings is very much the exception and noteworthy. Still warms the cockles though

Wouldn't it be great if a politician in the UK was to speak about trans people like that??? It would be amazing, can you imagine??

feeling hard for you paolo :(

Erin Reed has been documenting on twitter the arguments put forth with the various bills going through state legislatures in the US restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth (or in some cases even adults, which is the next goal for them) or denying health care coverage, even private health care, as in Florida today. Her threads have been very moving to read, and it’s all so shocking.

I take back what I said on 77 - Ohio is now as bad as Tennessee et al. : https://thebuckeyeflame.com/2023/03/20/an-ohio-republican-rep-just-introduced-legislation-to-designate-a-new-lgbtq-related-day-and-yes-of-course-its-bad/

^ fuck.

FL also hearing a bill which just added an amendment which would gradually discontinue care to any minor who is already receiving transition drugs

No idea if it passes, and will be challenged in court even so, might even get blocked, but it doesn't matter. The cruelty is the point. Always is and always will be.

All these politicians should receive daily harassment for the rest of their lives

Also I'm so very sorry Eliza :(

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/65051900

There it is - a complete ban on trans women in athletics.

i listened to seb coe on the today programme this morning just totally evading even the soft questions justin webb put to him.

i just read about the iowa laws. my heart is just breaking. it is so hard for me to understand the thought process. it takes a lot of work to draft and pass a bill! they want trans students, probably already bullied, to use the wrong bathroom. can you imagine being one of these students, and setting foot into one of these spaces? how the fuck is that a “safe space”? a bunch of dickhead boys sitting there waiting for you?

"You really don't get that the session is over."

Senator Megan Hunt says they will filibuster everything, even progressive bills put forward, if Nebraska moves forward with its attempt to ban gender affirming care for trans youth.

This is fight.pic.twitter.com/8F0ApJxMZn

— Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) March 24, 2023

she's amazing

Wow!

i don't want to talk negative shit right now. here is an instagram account for pictures of trans trucks.

https://www.instagram.com/transgendertrucks/

I am so weary:

The New York Times has left no stone unturned in its quest to crack down on staffers who signed an open letter last month criticizing the paper’s trans coverage.

After weeks of hauling staffers who signed it into meetings with high-level editors Carolyn Ryan and Marc Lacey—meetings described to Confider as intimidating “tongue-lashing” sessions—management sent written warnings to around 20 staffers, accusing them of conspiring against the paper and endangering their co-workers.

“Your colleagues whose work was criticized in the letter, some by name, have carried out their work in a fair-minded, sensitive, and journalistically sound fashion,” Ryan and Lacey wrote in the letters sent earlier this month, according to a copy obtained and reviewed by Confider. “They have endured attacks and threats as a result of the letter. By signing, you have not only amplified that campaign but endorsed it, too. That is harmful to them personally and to our reputation for providing quality, independent journalism.”

The warning memos, which were put on March 9 into each employee’s personnel file, came after hundreds of Times staffers and contributors claimed in their open letter that the paper “treated gender diversity with an eerily familiar mix of pseudoscience and euphemistic, charged language.” The open letter was a point of contention within the staff union itself, as dozens of reporters signed a separate letter lashing their colleagues’ “fundamental misunderstanding of our responsibilities as journalists.”

if only ya cared about the people you're endangering, NYT

sad lol at the idea that it was the letter that harmed "our reputation for providing quality, independent journalism."

ok serious time i do wanna say the megan hunt thing makes me _very happy_, i was gonna write up this whole big piece about it but no spoons and if i don't say things the exact perfect way i'm afraid people will come down on me for it.

at this point i don't really feel like anything i say to cis people matters. i feel like we're at the point where it ought to be pretty clear what's going on here. there's an anti-trans genocide going on, and the new york times is in favor. it doesn't matter what i do or say - what matters is what cis people do or say. how far are our allies gonna go to keep us from getting killed?

megan hunt is in a better position than most to protect trans kids, but damn if she's not a good role model. to me, her response, that's what i'd like to see from _every_ ally. if someone is trying to hurt trans kids - don't talk to me, i don't know you. if you want something from me, you're not getting it. if you need something from me, you're not getting it. trans kids are in danger, and _nothing else happens_ until that ends.

i don't actually expect that from anyone else. megan hunt, you know, she's fighting for her literal child. most other people probably _aren't_ going to go that far. those who are willing to often aren't able to. (i gotta say that in my book, the nyt union is a fucking rinky dink piece of shit excuse for a union given that the times is still being printed.) overall, though, the farther someone is willing and able to go in our defense (absent i should make it clear LITERAL PHYSICAL VIOLENCE please don't kill anybody to protect trans people thank you), the more it helps to keep us from getting killed.

mic drop

JFC.. I don't want to give these assholes any more attention, but:

“I came to the conclusion years ago that the trans movement is the greatest evil our country faces,” the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh wrote on Tuesday. “I only become more and more sure of this fact with each passing day, and more and more determined to oppose it until my last breath.” Walsh has 1.5 million followers on Twitter, and, by the time of publication, this tweet was liked more than 31,000 times, and viewed 2.8 million times.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9ppz/nashville-shooting-marjorie-taylor-greene-matt-walsh-anti-trans

He's fucking toxic. And he's living here in our state, and our Legislature is basically taking marching orders from him. It's amazing and awful how much influence these right-wing social media dickheads have. I'm not sure most people even realize it.

he was a much more marginal figure pre-Trump. I mean, he had ample readership, but he was more or less known for being clowned in a meme response ("You're a blogger"). out of all of the talking heads, he would have been one of the lowest on my list that I'd have expected to jump to this level of prominence.

I guess he's about to speak on a campus tomorrow? it's supposed to have ample protest - I am just praying those protesting stay safe.

If nature could hasten his last breath that would be great.

otm

i've sat with it for a while and i guess i am feeling like... i need to write something where cis people can read it. and y'all are the only cis people i talk to aside from my co-workers. the way i frame things when talking to them is a little bit different. anybody here who's not cis - i apologize for putting this here. i know the toll Discourse takes on so many of us.

my hope is that by limiting my engagement to this obscure little corner of the public internet i can... limit the possible harm i might do here. hopefully taking a couple days to work through my most immediate emotions helps as well.

a lot of the stuff taken out of context to... portray us as terrorists are ideas that i legitimately endorse. an article i glanced over contained a tweet referring to the shooter as a "demonic tr-nny". and my take on that is that hey, i'd kind of like to be a demonic (censored), no fair making that look like a bad thing by applying it to some fucked up mass killer. i mean some of the things they're talking about as evidence that we're terrorists... things like "trans day of vengeance", you know, i call TDoV "trans day of vengeance". my girlfriend calls it "trans day of violence". we are pissed off and a lot of us (not me) are armed, with the goal of being able to provide for our own collective self-defense.

and we are all shocked and horrified by what this person did, and more aware of it than we are of the endless other mass shootings that are routine in america because we have to be. because we know that this will be used to support the already-in-progress genocide against trans people, and that a certain number of people will... will be _convinced_ by these lies.

the horror to me, the underlying horror, is that a number of people are _willing to believe that trans people think child murder is justifiable_. all of this rhetoric, calling us "groomers" and "terrorists", it's a concerted effort to portray us as inhuman. i have friends whose _parents_ call them "groomers". that's just incredibly sick and fucked up. and you know what, before last year, _nobody_ called us that. not a one.

i feel like... i need, for my own sake, to express my _particular horror_ of child murder, not because i feel the need to defend myself as a trans person, but because _as a trans person_ i am uniquely horrified by child murder.

these people who want us dead, they see this as an act of _trans_ violence against Good Christian Kids, against _cis_ kids. and i don't see that. i see my friends, my friends who were raised in conservative christian school just like the ones those kids who were murdered went to. my friends were mormons, hare krishna, homeschooled, spent their childhoods as missionaries overseas, grew up only watching veggietales. the people the shooter killed are kids who were _just like my friends_.

which is the stupidest thing about trans genocide, the stupidest thing about all of these people who want to exterminate us. you think it hasn't been tried? you think for all of history, you fuckers haven't been trying it? i mean, if it was just people like me they wanted to kill, that would be one thing, but these evil motherfuckers are _murdering their own fucking children_, just as surely and just as sadistically as that fucked up murderer did on monday.

i am horrified by child murder. i am horrified by child abuse. and when i see the things that the people who want us dead call us... shit, all of us know how abuse works. damn near every last fucking one of us has seen it, knows the cycle. you accuse your victims of the things _you_ want to do, maybe even the things you're _already_ doing.

the ideology of vengeance the tennessee killer was putting into action was sick and twisted. i'm familiar with it. i've heard it before.

"Happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.

Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks."

The word of the LORD. Thanks be to God.

Of course, they didn't read _that_ part of Psalm 137 in the Church I went to, the Church where we all _knew_ which priest not to be alone with. Nah, whenever you hear that one, it's usually the first three verses, maybe the first six. Never verses 7-9.

And there's something I have to be very careful, very careful where I say it. I hate Christianity. The Church I was raised in, the billion-person Roman Catholic Church? Yeah, I think they're evil. My experience with that religion is one big fucking child abuse cult. Me personally? No, not me personally. Not _directly_. My friend Ken - and I say his name only because he's passed on, because he can no longer speak for himself. Over and over again, there's this fucking culture of silence, and as I learned when I was young, the one thing I learned that _wasn't_ wrong, Silence = Death.

They covered it up, and when the victims got too loud for them to ignore, when there were too many of them to silence, they came up with this "expert", this asshole named Paul McHugh, this board certified psychiatrist who made up this entire syndrome specifically to discredit abuse victims. Called it "False Memory Syndrome". Made it up the same way Ray Blanchard made up autogynephilia to discredit trans women. And before he did that, Paul McHugh, what did he do? In 1979, he shut down the gender surgery program at Johns Hopkins, the best gender surgery program in the _world_. The 1980s, the 1990s, they were dark ages for trans people. My childhood. It was a dark age. Just as 2023 is a dark age, compared to 2019. And Paul McHugh, he was one of the harbingers.

The person who killed those kids on Monday... I don't know who they are. The reporting is muddled and misrepresentation is rife. Cis, trans, their name, I don't know any of this stuff. If they said they were trans, they are trans. But what they did... that is not vengeance. That is not demonic. That is not the way of me, the way of any of my friends. What that person did was _their_ way. The Christian way of doing things.*

Always. The Christians have always hated queers, have always sought to destroy queers, have always _lied_ about us. One of the cornerstones of the trans rights movement is an early '90s pamphlet by Leslie Feinberg, "Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come". Leslie talks about this, talks about Joan of Arc, who was hailed as the savior of France and then was put to death as a heretic. Heresy, and what heresy? She insisted that God spoke to her, that God told her to dress as a man. And for this they put her to death, they put her to death and then they canonized her as the "maid of Orleans". Christianity has been a force for good in many cases, many of the subjugated, many of the subaltern. It has been aid and succor and an encouragement towards liberation, as well as a force of repression.

Not for queers. Never for queers. Christianity has only wanted one thing of queers - our extermination. To seize not even their _enemy's_ infants, but _their own_, and dash them against the rocks. And then they make up lies, they make up lies and blame us. Fabricate ideas like "Satanic Ritual Abuse". My experience with ritual child abuse has nothing to do with Satan.

* yeah I know it's cultural appropriation of Hebrew scripture, I got no beef with Judaism, the harm here, I believe, comes specifically from its use in a _Christian_ cultural context.

❤

And golly, I never even got to Matt Walsh. Again, Matt Walsh... I'm not even mad at Matt Walsh personally. This, again... I don't hate conservatives half as much as I hate liberals. Because Matt Walsh, honestly, how is this man any different from Fred Phelps? How at all? Only in this: He is treated as _legitimate_. Not just "legitimate" - the people of the Anglosphere don't hear our voice, they hear _his_. Open a private window, go on Youtube, search for "transgender". Who are you going to see? Matt Walsh. Abigail Shrier. You want trans representation? Oh, of course, we have that, here's fucking BLAIRE WHITE. That's what people are learning. And you want to know why our parents call us "groomers"?

And maybe it's respectable, maybe liberals can think well of themselves if they say "oh, it's Fox News", and it _is_ Fox News, certainly, but it's not _just_ Fox News. It's YouTube. It's the New York Times. It's the Guardian, the BBC. His voice is heard. He's the one who's important. Trans voices? You want to hear trans voices? Jessie Gender made a four hour YouTube video calling out Matt Walsh's lies. She worked for months on it. It was immediately taken down due to "terms of service violations". The message is clear. Matt Walsh can lie with impunity, and if we attempt to tell the truth, these same outlets that promote Walsh's genocidal agenda keep us silent.

Before 2022 I never heard shit about Matt Walsh. He was a nobody. Suddenly he's everywhere. Suddenly everybody is listening to him. And me? I'm not disgusted with Matt Walsh. He's the same as he's always been. I'm disgusted with the people who have made it so that I have to _know his fucking name_. These are the people I hate. If I am killed, it's _those people_, it's the people at the NYT and the BBC and YouTube - _they_ are the ones you should look at when you want to know "why".

I have reinstalled Twitter to respond to this story and make sure my voice is fully heard. I am Casey.

My real name is Alex but my mom decided it would be best to hide it for anonymity. But this is my story, not hers. This is not the free press’s story. https://t.co/Okx47IGmtL

— 💙October💛 (@SleepyOktobur) April 4, 2023

This whole situation is fucked up. Case manager largely lied when they blew the whistle to begin with, now this "journalist" has presented a distorted story that comes solely from the patient's mom and basically told the child "fuck you".

didn't know emily yoffe was one of these awful people, fuck her

Cosigned

yoffe has a long history of defending accused rapists (https://jezebel.com/emily-yoffe-is-back-on-her-bullshit-heres-what-an-alleg-1837679900) so it's no surprise she's now working for weiss's propaganda rag

the kid's mom is now in her replies, and still absolutely refusing to hear what her child is saying. all this is just extremely sad and heartbreaking.

when I was 16, all I worried about was passing classes and not screwing up badly in choir class. this poor child has spent the entire day trying to refute a transphobic ABOUT them that was written without their consent or input. amidst people shouting transphobia at them, including their own mother.

just heartbreaking, but Alex and their supporters are very inspiring with how they pushed back on this today.

will never understand why a parent would intentionally hurt their child like this. I don't mean that in the naive sense - lots of parents of trans children do it daily. but in the "why are you doing this, please stop!" sense.

it’s harrowing

Jezebel's got it!

https://jezebel.com/gender-fluid-teen-pushes-back-against-false-viral-story-1850301057?

will never understand why a parent would intentionally hurt their child like this. I don't mean that in the naive sense - lots of parents of trans children do it daily. but in the "why are you doing this, please stop!" sense.

― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal)

one of the things that's most shocking to me about, not just being in trans community, but about the last year in particular, is how many parents just plain _do not love_ their children. it really is this universal assumption that everybody has and there's a lot of pressure, really, for parents to claim that this is the case. but when you actually talk to people about their parents, not just trans people but people in general, a lot of times it just doesn't hold up.

and i think you see this in its most extreme form when you look at parents of trans people, not just, i mean, parents who call their kids "groomers"... if you love your child, you don't call them a fucking "groomer". that shocked me when i first heard about it, that anybody would do that to their own child, but it's commonplace now. or, you know, i've had friends, their parents tell them they belong in death camps.

but it really isn't just that, we see some of the most extreme manifestations of it. and the truth is a lot of it is, with parenthood there's no real standard, no reciprocal expectation. in christianity, you know, the standard is that children who disobey their parents should be put to death, but there's just no concept of something like "parental abuse", the same way the christian bible condemns to death "men who wear women's clothing" but actively condones sexual assault.

my feeling is that... you know, it's just like with trump, there's a sense of both aberration and culmination. normative, acceptable behavior is fucked up and has been for a long time. it's normal and common for parents to abuse their children and for them to not be held accountable for it in any meaningful way. and parents are so oblivious that... one of the things that really opened my eyes to how endemic this is, there's this great series by issendai, "down the rabbit hole". and i don't... i don't even use the word "narcissist" but it's pretty normal for certain parents, including one of mine, to display behavior that... correlates pretty strongly with traits generally associated with narcissism.

anyway here's the link to "down the rabbit hole".

https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/index.html

woke up to this whole manufactured brouhaha this morning, WTF??

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/kid-rock-bud-light-woke-trans-protest-dylan-mulvaney-1234709445/

hey not to turn this too much from specifically trans issues, but as someone whose parents would say they loved me but consistently threw me to the wolves, this has been something i've been thinking about and noticing for a long time. i'll just say that family is cover for incredible amounts of inflicted pain, more than most people either realize or would care to admit to.

xp to kate, that's a fantastic post that gets to some of the most common dymanics between parents and children and some of the cultural and historical reasons for them. if you've experienced it yourself and you start seeing enough of it all around you, you might start to relate to polemics about the nuclear family like this one: https://www.versobooks.com/products/2890-abolish-the-family. or dj sprinkles / terre thaemlitz who has written some similar things.

the kid's mom is now in her replies, and still absolutely refusing to hear what her child is saying. all this is just extremely sad and heartbreaking.

― Roz, Wednesday, 5 April 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Really jaw dropping.

xp again to Kate, that link is ... *phew*.. too much for me right now, but it might be really valuable for me at a later time. thanks for sharing.

Can’t find a YouTube link for this song, maybe a little relevant to the most recent discussion of family

https://open.spotify.com/track/0v0OLQRwhWZt0xRXR3up74?si=i2_33texQHSZzIKDgRiXaQ

It's really easy to clown on Kid Rock and all the other snowflake righties on their reaction to the Bud Light cans, but I'm not going to lie and say the implicit threat of violence directly towards trans people in that video doesn't frighten me.

there's not much to laugh about. it's all terrifying.

<3 to Eliza and rushomancy

I hope Spuds McKenzie is safe

i mean there's so much to despair all over but it just sucks so much that so much of america is processing trans rights through the lens of youth sports, which is such a fucked up and stupid culture in itself

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/kansas-lawmakers-poised-override-veto-trans-athletes-98384354

guessing the US is going to have more refugees leaving the country than entering it this year

So weird that all of a sudden society is supposed to structure itself around, uh, (checks notes) the integrity of competitive swimming.

Which would make sense if any significant portion of civil society in the last ten thousand years had competitive swimming as an organizing principle.

It's so very convenient that this concern surfaces now (no pun intended).

Like maybe when justice and empathy are better enshrined in public policy, I can give a fuck about who gets to play lacrosse or whatever

These are the same people who have railed against Title IX since it was enacted. They don't give a shit about girls' sports, or about girls, for that matter. They just need some marginalized group to marginalize further.

guessing the US is going to have more refugees leaving the country than entering it this year

― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal)

i thought about leaving the country in 2016 when i was still a Really Good Ally(tm) but you know what, that's not... i mean most of us don't have the resources to do that. when we work, we're working, you know, front desk stuff, it's not like other countries are chomping at the bit to welcome us with open arms.

i think i've talked about this before but what you're _already_ seeing are internal refugees. people who can get out are getting out, even if it means living on the street. because the other thing is that certain places in america are... kind of the best places in the world for trans people right now. i genuinely believe that. the pac nw cities are good, and berlin is apparently good, and anywhere else, you know, you take your chances.

regarding the whole sports thing stacy cay had a good tweet about this over a year ago: "If a trans woman became the world champion in bubble blowing you'd hear some shit about male saliva density and lip stiffness".

the stuff about family trauma i... have probably a lot more to say about it but not on a public board.

They just need some marginalized group to marginalize further.

Yeah I have had this thought about the procession of hated out groups — over the past 10 years I've watched my state legislators be extremely concerned about a.) "Sharia law" (we hate Muslims), b.) the "immigrant caravan" (we hate Latinos), c.) Syrian refugees (hey, we hate Muslims again), d.) "critical race theory" (we hate Black people), e.) girls sports (we hate trans people), f.) children's medical care (we hate trans kids), g.) trans people (we hate trans people), h.) drag shows (we hate LGBTQ people in general).

The nice thing is they never run out, because if one issue loses steam for whatever reason you can always cycle back around. It really is just a permanent bully mentality, always looking for somebody easy to beat up.

because the other thing is that certain places in america are... kind of the best places in the world for trans people right now. i genuinely believe that. the pac nw cities are good, and berlin is apparently good, and anywhere else, you know, you take your chances.

New Jersey can be expensive (don't even try to live in Jersey City), and this may seem odd coming from someone who just left, but I would absolutely advise someone looking for a state to take shelter in to consider it.

Tipsy otm

they never run out, because if one issue loses steam for whatever reason you can always cycle back around

Like there are seriously people who are exercised about maple syrup branding.

When innocent people just trying to exist are being killed.

Seriously. Syrup?

New Jersey can be expensive (don't even try to live in Jersey City), and this may seem odd coming from someone who just left, but I would absolutely advise someone looking for a state to take shelter in to consider it.

― but also fuck you (unperson)

i mean you're probably right! my memories of growing up in morris county aren't exactly super fantastic, but it was a long-ass time ago now. it's gotta be better than, like, indiana.

the main thing though for me is.. again, a lot of people look at the pac nw and start screaming "social contagion" and for me another word for that is _community_

so much of the stuff i have gone through in the past, and so much of what i see people going through now, is built around the idea of isolation, the idea of keeping us apart from each other. the thing with me, why i never shut up about this stuff, is that i've just never really gotten over the absolute _wonder_ of discovering that all of this stuff that i felt and thought i couldn't ever possibly tell anybody, that i'm not alone in it.

and the internet helped me a lot to understand that it's not just me, that there are lots of people all over the world who have experiences which... are _different_ from mine, but are closer to what i've been through than i ever thought possible. but really, what's made the most difference in my day to day life, what made transition possible for me and what keeps me going now, is just living in a place where _being trans is totally normal_. safety isn't an absolute thing by any means, but any sense of danger i have is... more removed than i think i'd have if i still lived in indiana. the violent hatred and all that, it keeps me up at night, but i'm not afraid to leave my house. that's a weird distinction to make, it wasn't... a distinction i was particularly equipped to understand in the Before Time, but it's an important one to me.

Like there are seriously people who are exercised about maple syrup branding.

When innocent people just trying to exist are being killed.

Seriously. Syrup?

― the importance of being urdu (Ye Mad Puffin)

tbqh i feel like it still makes more sense than starting a war over my dick

hey not to turn this too much from specifically trans issues, but as someone whose parents would say they loved me but consistently threw me to the wolves, this has been something i've been thinking about and noticing for a long time. i'll just say that family is cover for incredible amounts of inflicted pain, more than most people either realize or would care to admit to.

xp to kate, that's a fantastic post that gets to some of the most common dymanics between parents and children and some of the cultural and historical reasons for them. if you've experienced it yourself and you start seeing enough of it all around you, you might start to relate to polemics about the nuclear family like this one: https://www.versobooks.com/products/2890-abolish-the-family🕸🕸. or dj sprinkles / terre thaemlitz who has written some similar things.

ugh, thx for the info

from a friend in Portland OR

"I thought living in Portland would protect us. I thought that the scary stuff was happening (waves arm) over *there*. Alas, I was wrong. This week, some parents apparently learned there is a non-binary kid in the second grade. They were so terribly upset at the idea that an 8yo, 61lb child, who loves baking, making handmade doll houses out of duct tape and cardboard, playing d&d with their sibling and being held until they fall asleep was coming to school each day as themself that they felt entitled and compelled to DO something.
This child, who at barely 4, was nearly incapacitated with worry and anxiety as they asked “would it hurt your feelings if I told you I am JUST they/them and NOT she/her?”. This child who never once has complained about being misgendered by adults, but instead shrugs and says “Lots of grown ups have never known a they/them. It takes time to learn new things”. This child who does their sibling’s chores with them sometimes so they can all reap the rewards of a week well done. This child who loves to eat apple slices in bed. This child who LIVES to see other people feel loved, seen, appreciated, comfortable.
These ADULTS were so upset and intimidated by this tiny peaceful child that they raised their voices to other adults. They disrupted the peace of a family evening, they disrupted the learning environment of a school day, they sent their children to school emboldened to corner and intimidate a child younger than themselves.
Thankfully, the levies held and my most tender and perceptive child has no idea the things that went down around them this week. They don’t know that their sister honestly weighed her ability to physically fight a clutch of older boys. They don’t know how many hours I have spent on the phone or writing emails or leaning on my own friends for safe space to process this. They are blissfully unaware and singularly focused on their upcoming first soccer game today. They are so excited to play with their friends. They have no idea the army of families and teachers and school and church leaders who have been made aware and are linking arms around them. Eliza is precious to many of us but Eliza is also just a kid. A tiny, brave, soft, funny, sushi loving, detail remembering, creative, cuddly, audiobook obsessed kid who just wants to be. There is no political agenda here. There is no statement or motive aside from Eliza being Eliza. Safe, happy, alive.
If you think its not happening absolutely everywhere, you, like me, are wrong. If you think there is ANY place for a child to be in the at-large community and also be immune from this hate and bullshit, you are wrong. As much as I want to buy a boat and set sail to everywhere else, I see these moments as a chance for others to join this revolution. This is a chance for people to practice standing up and speaking up and looking out for others. This is a chance for people to arm themselves with the love they feel for a soft and silly child and stand up to fascism and hate.
It takes time and practice to learn to be brave and to put others ahead of yourself. As much as we were raised to believe it is the fundamental good within us all, it is a skill. Courage, resistance, integrity…all require tremendous practice. This is a moment to practice. This is a moment for others to practice. A moment for families to consider how they will talk about this stuff with their children and teach them the ethics of everyday life. Do I wish I could have lived a long happy life only observing this shit from afar and waxing philosophical about it? You fucking bet. But am a humbled to see the people lining up to love my tiny kid? Absolutely."

i'm in portland, or and i had that same moment last month. i'm pissed about it. i'm really pissed.

but i also had a great weekend here, for the record, going to a great local convention with lots of trans and queer and neurodiverse and disabled people in a space that was welcoming and accommodating to all of us, and five years ago, people tell me, it wasn't like that. i'm really happy and grateful for that, for seeing this sea change in so many places.

emergency genocide

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/government-politics-issues/2023-04-13/emergency-rules-limiting-transgender-care-in-missouri-set-to-take-effect-this-month

i was reading albert glasser's autobiography last night (yes, this is the sort of thing i do in my leisure time) and i was struck by this passage:

My Dad was working on a job fixing some rain gutters, when suddenly the word went out that the Cossacks were killing the Jews in a nearby village ! My dad and all the other men in the area would drop what they were doing, grab their guns which they always kept handy and go running as fast as they could to help out! When they got there and my Dad saw the dead bodys in the streets and the wounded trying to defend themselves, then he got REAL MAD !!

i quote this not to make any sort of direct comparison - i don't think such things are genuinely possible or helpful - but because, for me, it sort of encapsulates the difficulty i face in trying to explain how i feel about things like what's happening in missouri. i guess you could say it makes me REAL MAD, in roughly the same sense that albert glasser's dad was REAL MAD !!

there is a terf cunt wearing a sandwich board with a megaphone and a film crew currently parading around in front of SOAS trying to engage with members of the public, apparently an Internet person called b*llboard chr*s.

I was late on my way somewhere so couldn't do anything more than flip him off as I passed, hopefully a sinkhole will open up somewhere.

Oh great, the one week I’m away and can’t go down there with a big bucket of suck to chuck at him…

The campaign of cruelty continues:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed one of the most draconian bathroom bills in the country into law on Wednesday, subjecting anyone in the state over the age of 18 to criminal trespassing charges if they don’t use the public bathroom that matches the sex they were assigned at birth.

The new law, which DeSantis signed just weeks before he is widely expected to announce his 2024 presidential run, applies to government buildings, schools, colleges and detention centers. A previous draft had included private businesses such as restaurants and gas stations.

Fully expect DeSantis to outlaw men urinating while sitting next

and what are the enforcement measures? looking up someone's birth certificate because they took a leak at the library?

steely flan (suzy) at 6:58 17 May 23

Oh great, the one week I’m away and can’t go down there with a big bucket of suck to chuck at him…

The only place I received any resistance in London today was, of course, a university.

This is University College London. I’ll have some footage up in a day or two. pic.twitter.com/fuIoa2Vgsf

— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) May 17, 2023

billboardchris.com... not billboardcrhis.org?

That means he's trying to profit off this somehow

Damn autocorrect, that obviously should have been SICK.

ugh this idiot is from vancouver and i happened to observe his public meltdown as it unfolded on his company’s facebook profile. he started off by buying jlo billboards around here and then crystallized into this deranged professional provocateur terf. CBC mentioned him without any context in an article about a trans rally and linked to his twitter account (where he among other things doxed a transgender activist) and i got them to change it to something more appropriate.

on behalf of vancouver i would like to apologize for this asshole.

lol jkr billboards, not jlo

jlo billboards a much better investment ofc

ugh this idiot is from vancouver and i happened to observe his public meltdown as it unfolded on his company’s facebook profile. he started off by buying jlo billboards around here and then crystallized into this deranged professional provocateur terf. CBC mentioned him without any context in an article about a trans rally and linked to his twitter account (where he among other things doxed a transgender activist) and i got them to change it to something more appropriate.

on behalf of vancouver i would like to apologize for this asshole.

― scanner darkly

ahhhh, as someone in pdx it's pretty clear to me that said asshole doesn't represent vancouver bc. a certain percentage of people are just fucking batshit crazy.

i wish it was true but he isn’t a one off idiot (just the most ridiculous one), and my understanding is his schtick was the result of him hanging out with some local terfs (at least it provided for some mild entertainment in the form of infighting caused by some of them distancing themselves from his persona and the tactics he chose).

also there is a pretty well established anti LGBTQ2S machine sponsored by money flowing from the ultra conservative metro vancouver suburbs.

i wish it was true but he isn’t a one off idiot (just the most ridiculous one), and my understanding is his schtick was the result of him hanging out with some local terfs (at least it provided for some mild entertainment in the form of infighting caused by some of them distancing themselves from his persona and the tactics he chose).

also there is a pretty well established anti LGBTQ2S machine sponsored by money flowing from the ultra conservative metro vancouver suburbs.

― scanner darkly

ahhh that's disappointing, one of the hardest things about the current, ah, extinction burst is seeing how far transphobia is reaching into places where it just doesn't belong. there is a transphobia machine here and it does have impact on people's lives.

thankfully there is a very strong and vocal opposition as well.

here is a good write-up on the ass-hole if you're curious: https://www.antihate.ca/chris_elston_bc_man_taking_anti_trans_hate_tour_across_canada

god it really is all about the grift with these scum

https://www.newsweek.com/boycott-target-beats-taylor-swift-itunes-1803423

That said...

Despite cheers from some conservatives, iTunes sales numbers are considered a dated metric for tracking the success of music, since most modern consumers prefer the use of streaming services to buying digital songs. Songs with overt conservative political themes have regularly reached to upper ranks of the iTunes charts, as older audiences tend to be more likely to buy songs, and only a relatively small number of consumers need to do so in order to impact chart performance.

Yeah, the article does much to undercut the headline

If it also undercuts the sense of “accomplishment,” then that’s at least worth it

good article, lame headline. also, "the debate" on the sidebar. any media outlet that is still pushing the "debate" narrative, well... i mean, i don't think i need to say anything more at this point, honestly.

Newsweek is a weird and unpredictable publication these days. The headline and content being at odds seems par for the course. Could reflect conflicting internal agendas, could reflect total incompetence, who can even say.

Meanwhile, a local trans activist in my town is part of a federal anti-discrimination suit: https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/05/26/lawsuit-tennessee-employee-health-insurance-plan-discriminates-against-transgender-enrollees/

Got some heavy hitters on the legal team, led by the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. Another case like it in North Carolina led to a judge's order to change the state plan to cover gender-affirming care. That's still under appeal. I assume all of this is headed to the Supreme Court.

Newsweek is a weird and unpredictable publication these days. The headline and content being at odds seems par for the course. Could reflect conflicting internal agendas, could reflect total incompetence, who can even say.

It's not the same magazine as the one that went by that name when you were a kid

https://dianeravitch.net/2020/10/25/the-new-republic-newsweek-has-turned-into-a-zombie-magazine/

so what you're saying is that magazines with overt conservative political themes are more prevalent, as older audiences tend to be more likely to buy magazines?

Oh yeah, I know all about Newsweek's "evolution." But even at that — or because of it — it can have things from clashing ideological perspectives. I assume it's because they have so few actual employees or contributors now that there's not a ton of quality control, no real editorial coherence, and the biggest goal anyway is obviously click-baiting for whatever sad little ad revenue they can generate.

Happy Under No Circumstances Look At Any Comment Threads On Social Media Month!

^^^truer words were never spoken.

pic.twitter.com/M9YnIZxyUI

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) June 1, 2023

also would be REAL NICE if the judge who promised a quick ruling on whether to impose an emergency injunction on some of the recent anti-trans laws passed in FL (in Doe v Ladapo) would fucking rule soon.

Clinton-appointed judge.

This isn't politics, exactly, but a nice essay a good friend of mine wrote about parenting her trans daughter: https://www.hellogloria.com/essays/parenting-trans-teenagers

that's really cool! stories like these are a lot of what keeps me going in these times. thanks for sharing.

The DeSantis of the East... this one is not just about minors, but adults as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/24/vladimir-putin-signs-law-banning-gender-changes-in-russia

xxp that's so lovely :)

I gotta say, it's so nice to see some more positive trans stories on this thread, which is of course mainly full of negative shit about being trans. now of course i do realise that being trans can be very hard indeed but i just want to point out that it can also be absolutely fucking marvellous. since i started my transition i've been happier than i ever have in my life.

I just wanted to point this out because so much of the media coverage of trans issues is so fucking grim - when we're not being attacked the focus is on how awful it is being trans - off the top of my head i can't think of a single piece in the national uk media about trans joy, dunno what it's like in other countries. and again i do realise that there are a lot of ways that life is hard for trans people in a way that it just isn't for cis people, but also being trans is really awesome too :) and i just wanted to point this out because i suspect that a lot of cis people who don't know many trans people don't really get to hear that side of things

right, like, to anyone who reads enough of my posts it's pretty obvious that i'm having a rough time of it right now, and being trans is part of it, but not in the way people think. pre-transition my entire life was kind of centered around me hating myself and thinking of myself as disgusting and worthless, and that kind of thing just doesn't _work_ anymore. i'm being put in this position where i kind of have to learn to like and respect myself and i'm extremely pissy about that.

i do talk a lot about the trans genocide and it is, in fact, very bad and people need to take it seriously and out of all the trans people in the world i'm one of the ones who is probably _least_ at risk from it. the most serious problems i have are a lot more personal and specific than genocide, and none of them are caused by my being trans. well, except for how fucking hard it is for me to get cypionate. i mean i'm sure valerate is fine, but i'm doing _great_ on cypionate and it pisses me off that nobody's fucking making it.

So the Miss Italia beauty pageant has banned trans competitors, stating that entrants must be "female from birth"...and in protest, a bunch of transmen have enrolled to compete.

Trovo geniale che le persone #trans FtM si stiano iscrivendo a #MissItalia avendo come sesso assegnato alla nascita quello femminile. È un vero e proprio atto politico di protesta e visibilità, non scontato o dovuto, che centra il punto rispetto alle affermazioni di #Mirigliani.

— Gianmarco Capogna 🏳️‍🌈 (@gmarcoc) July 22, 2023

Translation: "I find it brilliant that people #trans FtM are enrolling in #MissItalia having female as their sex assigned at birth. It is a real political act of protest and visibility, not taken for granted or due, which hits the mark with respect to the statements of #Mirigliani."

Just popping in to note that the online edition of the Daily Telegraph has Graham Linehan performing stand up outside the Scottish Parliament as the main story in the News Section... and in the Scotland section... and in the Arts section... and in the Culture Wars section (yes, they have a Culture Wars section)... the exact same story with the exact same photograph.

A new-ish acquaintance– I am organizing a reading for her— just had this published. CW: SI, conversion therapy.

https://www.thecut.com/article/what-i-learned-in-conversion-therapy.html

Thanks for sharing table. Indianapolis is... not a great place to be trans. I'm glad your acquaintance made it through.

on consideration, "i'm sorry i told you your queer child is going to hell, my wife has cancer" is the single most hoosier statement i have ever heard in my life. the only way it could be more hoosier is if it was immediately followed up with "so, you going to the pitch-in next week?"

Great, if not surprising, insight into the "conversion therapy" experience. The article felt like it ended too abruptly.

Is there a particular reason that "trans folk" is so often used, as opposed to "trans people"? I can see how "folks" is clearly preferable to, say, "ladies and gentlemen" as a term of plural address, but I've never understood if there was a political or other reason for "trans folk" being so prevalent.

tbc, I have no objection to the term*, I'm just curious if I'm missing something!

*well, I do sometimes think the non-use of "people" feels a little othering, but afaict this wasn't imposed on trans people from the outside (I could very well be wrong about that)

no clue, i didn't know it was used that often. i say it myself but i'm scottish so tend to say folk instead of people :)

I guess "persons" has more focus on the individuality, and "people" more on group / majority, and "folks" has a casual vague all-encompassing "whatever you are" about it that makes it trendy in all contexts right now.

also transes sounds like shit

and people has that annoying extra syllable

it's just the somewhat corny language of online queer communities, not sure there's a whole lot more to it than that

lotta folks and yall out there and as a tennessean it makes me feel at home except when they get deployed passive aggressively like "some of yall really don't get (x)" idk i'm kind of like, it's a term of endearment don't fuck it up

Thanks for the responses! I also advocate for wider adoption of “y’all”

"Y'all" is easy. Try advocating for the broader adoption of "youse."

been using "y'all" for a few years, only got a snarky joke from my boss about going southern.

lotta folks and yall out there and as a tennessean it makes me feel at home except when they get deployed passive aggressively like "some of yall really don't get (x)" idk i'm kind of like, it's a term of endearment don't fuck it up

― Tracer Hand

can "all yall" be used to refer to "some of yall"?

i kept y'all after leaving kentucky in '03, i just think it's a good word, i'm delighted to see it gain more popular currency.

Take it one step further and go with "yinz".

West of Scotland has "youse".

... often rendered as "yiz/yeez".

Yiz as a plural pronoun is found most notably in the Philadelphia area and Delaware Valley (including Southern New Jersey), especially among working-class communities.

“yiz/“yous” also work in Ireland (with some regional variation as to what the vowel is). “Folks” is recommended as an inclusive alternative to “guys” in my (large, American) company.

been using "y'all" for a few years, only got a snarky joke from my boss about going southern.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 29 August 2023 14:20 (three hours ago) link

how much further south can you go though!

la gente

I've lived in Tennessee long enough that I use y'all unselfconsciously in certain settings. Not any time it would seem fake-folksy tho. I also use "folks" a fair amount, I think it's warmer and friendlier than "people."

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about addressing a group as either "people" or "folks" (or y'all, yinz, youse, or, the most inclusive of them all, tout le monde for that matter).

The usages that made me wonder about this were things like: "The organizers changed their recruitment plan and now the conference is much more diverse. This year there were way more people of color, disabled people, trans folk..."; in that kind of context it struck me as possibly deliberate, but I couldn't guess why, and now that I was overthinking it, I started to wonder if it was not-good. But as ufo said, it does seem like a turn of phrase that arose organically and has stuck without necessarily having any larger import.

for a while i think "folx" got used a lot in queer spaces, i think it's just language being language tbh

So I saw a meme excerpting a FOIA act document about Leslie Feinberg, and it kind of confused me. It said "As of April, 1974, FEINBERG had apparently shaved off her beard and was beginning to dress in a more feminine manner and to assume the appearance of a girl." The meme was about the FBI in 1974 respecting a trans person's pronouns, but I'm reading it going like "Wait, Leslie Feinberg was _MTF_?" I had to look it up to confirm. Applying categories like "MTF" or "FTM" Feinberg is, I think, missing an essential point about hir life and experience, but zie was not, in fact, AMAB.

Transphobes: I CAN ALWAYS TELL! FBI in 1974: Apparently have no idea what Leslie Feinberg's AGAB was. Although to be fair, this is the same FBI that spent three years trying to find offensive language in "Louie Louie" and completely failed to notice that the drummer yells "Fuck!" at one point during the song.

Here's a piece about it from Dr. Amanda Weimer at the National Archives:

https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2023/06/20/leslie-feinberg-the-fbi-and-gender-pronouns/

youtube just showed me a trailer for "G3nd3r Tr4nsf0rm4tion: The Unt0ld R34lities" ...WTF???

The MSN homepage on my new laptop kept showing me transphobic content aggregated from various sites. Titles like "school board member shuts down trans "woman" who was protesting recent decision" or some similar shit.

whatever the documentary about I guarantee that "untold" is false advertising

xxp I'm just seeing this but it's really telling and I think every trans man online today has frequently had the queasily validating experience of being told by terrible people that they will always be men. it reminds me of people spreading rumours about Wendy Carlos being (in cis logic) "secretly a woman pretending to be a man" which was more right than they knew

if there's an option not to see headlines I'll take it but some apps/sites/devices don't give you that

it's hard to say anything new about the media at this point

The documentary is anti-trans specifically talking about the indoctrination of kids, it's got a really long trailer. I was very surprised to see it (unrelated to themes in an innocent comedy video it followed when in incognito mode)

always best to browse youtube with an adblocker on, that way you never see any trailers or shit

well yeah, I was more surprised to learn about the existence of the thing overall vs. being upset about the ad. Mentioned the context of the encounter cause it implies it's being advertised same as any netflix doc or movie trailer?

yeah I have no idea how youtube decides what ads to show and what not, but the few times I've had to use it without a blocker I've been horrified at some of the shit I've seen. It's clearly not based on any affinity scores I've built up for certain kinds of content. LIke nothing about any profile that's been created by any data mining companies would lead anyone to believe I'd be a prime candidate for right-wing nonsense and yet I will see it if I don't block it.

well yeah, I was more surprised to learn about the existence of the thing overall vs. being upset about the ad. Mentioned the context of the encounter cause it implies it's being advertised same as any netflix doc or movie trailer?

― Evan

i've talked about this in the past, but yes, my experience has led me to conclude that youtube _does_ systemically promote transphobia. transphobic media, such as matt walsh, is what comes up when you search for trans content, and content supporting trans rights doesn't. this has been going on for years and years now. and what can any of us actually do about it? i watch shit on youtube. it's the hegemon. i have all kinds of add-ons installed to that it doesn't recommend me videos at all. this minimizes the personal harm browsing youtube causes me, but it does nothing to address the systemic issue, which is that youtube is one of the major media outlets spreading anti-trans bigotry. they _could_ keep this from happening, but they aren't. instead, they profit from transphobia.

just in case any of y'all are wondering why i'm anti-capitalist.

the few times I've had to use it without a blocker I've been horrified at some of the shit I've seen

I keep youtube history turned off so my browsing doesn't affect what gets listed and there is always shit like "jordan peterson destroys a feminist" or whatever showing there.

Yup - watch any feminist content and you'll be served ebdless clips of dudes DESTROYING feminism, doubt it works the other way around.

I know someone who works at YouTube, I should ask her what the thinking is internally there, because I imagine there are people who are exasperated with how this algorithm works (or doesn't work).

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/25/eternal-90s-stars-cancel-full-band-reunion-over-reported-trans-rights-clash

Yup - watch any feminist content and you'll be served ebdless clips of dudes DESTROYING feminism, doubt it works the other way around.

― Daniel_Rf, Saturday, September 16, 2023 3:10 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sounds a lot like it just feeds you things with the same keywords tbh, aside from other variables it uses to brainlessly lump content together with the same subjects.

Well that's the thing, is the dude watching his Rogan DESTROYS feminism videos getting pro feminist videos served to him by the algorithm? It seems not.

Maybe! Why not? They also probably love to hate-watch that stuff so maybe they're even clicking on it.

In fact, the more they see that stuff in their feed, the more they believe it's "invading" the lives of normal people and kids so I'm sure that feeds their narrative too. "It's everywhere, we can't escape this stuff! We gotta do something!"

Well all I can say is this a phenomenon I've seen a lot amongst ppl who watch yt and are into progressive causes but I've never ever heard of alt right dudes noting the same, which is strange because much of the internet seems dedicated to chronicling everything these ppl say, doubly so if there's schadenfreude to be had. I know this is hardly scientific evidence.

I think there are probably a lot of reasons why, for one: I'd bet pro-feminism videos are much less likely to put the word "FEMINISM" in their thumbnails and descriptions etc, than a video that is all about "ANTI FEMINISM". Also takedown video essays are a pretty popular youtube format, and the people that like that sort of content are looking for people to put things like FEMINISM and twitter discourse in its place. So the demographic for a popular video type is disproportionately on THAT side of the debate. It's just not an equal landscape for both sides.

I think there are probably a lot of reasons why, for one: I'd bet pro-feminism videos are much less likely to put the word "FEMINISM" in their thumbnails and descriptions etc, than a video that is all about "ANTI FEMINISM". Also takedown video essays are a pretty popular youtube format, and the people that like that sort of content are looking for people to put things like FEMINISM and twitter discourse in its place. So the demographic for a popular video type is disproportionately on THAT side of the debate. It's just not an equal landscape for both sides.

― Evan

i mean these are all interesting ideas and if the data to back them up were available i'd definitely consider them

i have an interesting idea! maybe youtube, being a capitalist/corporatist entity, has decided that joe rogan and matt walsh synergize with their business model more readily than feminist, queer, and trans voices do, and therefore they tend to promote rogan and walsh more than they do queer and trans voices.

you know who synergizes really well with youtube's business model, on the left? vaush. that's who.

I was reading one of my favorite blogs today, one I read pretty regularly. I won't say which one it is, only that the person who updates the blog is someone I like and respect a lot, someone I've personally learned a lot about music from. What I'm saying here isn't any sort of a judgement on them or their blog. I only mention because somebody might recognize the source and take it as some sort of judgement. It isn't.

Anyway, I ran across this quote from Will Hermes' 2011 book _Love Goes to Buildings on Fire_:

The Waldorf-Astoria was the epitome of uptown, up-tight, upper-crust New York; whoever agreed to give the ballroom over to the Dolls and their wasted fans was either clueless or wickedly subversive. By midnight, a thousand-some freaks of various stripes were packed into the ballroom entryway, pressing against doors that were supposed to have opened at 11:00. Tempers flared, doors were smashed, and someone lit a stink bomb in the hotel lobby in protest. Security guards admitted a portion of the mob but hundreds were turned away. Arthur Bell described the scene as “Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange and Joel Grey in Cabaret by the dozens, chains and hoods, silver buttocks, scarlet breasts, dildoed noses,” with old-school trannies washing down demerol capsules with swigs of whiskey.

I'm not actually interested in the question of whether or not this is transphobic. Some trans people might say it is, some people might vehemently insist it isn't. I genuinely don't care whether or not making a reference to "old-school trannies" in a book published back in 2011 is transphobic or not. What I care about is this:

Speaking as a future old-school tranny, please don't romanticize me like this when I'm gone. I'm incredibly happy with who I am and what I've accomplished. My life is amazing. I've seen and experienced all sorts of strange and wonderful things. That said, it's really stressful, the way a lot of people treat us. It's hard, and some of the things I've seen people do that might seem glamorous from the outside... a lot of it is just how some of us cope with all of the shit we go through. For me personally, that kind of thing isn't something glamorous, isn't something to aspire to. I personally have coped with trauma in my life in some pretty unhealthy ways. By all means, celebrate me. Please, celebrate me, I'm fairly awesome. However, when I deal with all of the shit I've been through by doing shit that's, well, kind of fucked up? Please don't celebrate that. I don't think it's worth celebrating.

As usual, I'm just speaking for me. Other people are going to have their own takes on this issue. :)

maybe not quite the same thing but I feel like a certain type of cis person can fetishise us, not in a chasery type way but in an 'oh you trans people are so cool and so brave and so interesting!' type way, like we're some kind of fascinating alien species who are also super inspirational. it's rather patronising

I really don't like it when people tell me I'm brave for transitioning. I know they mean well and I appreciate that, it's good they realise that this is not easy. but also the use of the word 'brave' implies that it's something that I chose to do, that I had the option not to transition but that I went ahead with it anyway because I'm so fucking brave. I didn't choose this, when I realised I was trans I tried to suppress it for a bit but you can only do that for so long. I don't want to sound overdramatic here but when someone realises they're trans it's often a case of transition or die

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADGr6swyCto

here is a song i like by a trans woman who lives in my town

yeah i've long hated being called brave... i talk about it a fair bit. like, yeah, transition has been hard, a lot of what i've been through is hard, watching what happens to a lot of my friends is hard. all of the stuff i was afraid of... most of it has happened, but it wasn't like how i thought it would be. it wasn't like that at all.

sometimes i think "i wish someone had told me", but i'm not always sure what i mean by that. if someone had told me i was a girl in 1996, what would that have meant to me? i have friends who've known, who've known all their lives, and they envy me for not knowing, and i envy them for knowing, and we're both, probably, being very silly.

no, today, what i wish someone had told me is how _easy_ it would be. i think i've mentioned this before as well... one time, i was talking to an Old-School Trans Woman (because I _respect_ her as a _person_ I will not use the word Will Hermes uses about her) and said to her, God, that's amazing, how did you manage to do that?" And she said "How did you manage to _not_ do it?"

and for me it was just that i really didn't have a choice, didn't really have the opportunity. and maybe when it comes to being told how easy it is... i don't know. maybe that would have been enough to give me the opportunity earlier than i had it.

well, it doesn't matter. if people want to call me "brave", they don't really know how it is for me, but i guess that's ok too. i wish people understood better, i'll always wish people understood better, but the truth is i'm getting my wish.

-

i'm gonna segue, actually, into what i came here to post. i've decided i'm gonna start staying logged in when i search for things on youtube. i do a lot of searching in private windows because i don't trust google, i want them to know as little about me as possible. i have a couple plugins installed that keep youtube from recommending me videos, but i don't have them installed on every device i browse the web from. last night i was browsing my subs... my subscriptions, my youtube subscriptions... and it starts recommending me videos that actually sound interesting. one called "the incel to trans pipeline". oh god i can tell from the thumbnail, it's about that manga. i've read that manga. look. i'll get back to that video.

the point is i can tell from the cultural signifiers whether a video is going to be hostile to me. this video is posted by someone whose avatar is a cartoon of a girl with cat ears and a choker. i'm not expecting this person to go all matt walsh on me.

so anyway, after that i'm rabbitholing, i'm looking to see if anybody has uploaded a video of that time fred rogers appeared on a soviet children's show in the perestroika era. so i search something like "fred rogers soviet children's show" in a fresh private window and what i get is... well, i get his 1969 speech before congress, you search fred rogers _anything_ and that's what you're gonna get. after that, though, there are a bunch of clips saying "here's what mr. rogers thought about transgenderism!"

and again, cultural signifiers. terms like "transgenderism" and "gender ideology" aren't terms that people who _aren't_ anti-trans bigots tend to use when talking about us. that's not a video i'm going to click on.

it gets back to... i was talking elsewhere, i think it was a politics thread that i happened to click on, about how i work hard to avoid "digital self-harm". it's not something i can entirely avoid - risk mitigation. that's why i block youtube recommendations. because there's a high likelihood that it will at some point recommend videos that, just by looking at their thumbnails, kind of make my day worse. not in an extreme way or anything like that, just in terms of, you know _allostatic load_.

i think pretty well of mr. rogers. i watched his show as a kid, and i liked it a lot. i feel like he taught me some pretty good values. he was a kind, caring man who cared about children. and apparently in 1980 or whenever he thought trans women were men.

does that ruin my childhood? does that ruin my opinion of mr. rogers? no, not really. i mean, look, the bar for 1980s children television, i set it real, real low. if mr. rogers thought trans women were men, fine. did he regularly have young boys appear on the show, make them wear dresses, and mock and humiliate them for it? no? well, he _sails_ above that bar, then. the show i watched most when i was 8 _doesn't_ clear that bar.

in the abstract, damn near everyone in 1980 thought trans women were men. it's certainly possible that fred rogers would have been an exception, since he was an exceptional man, but it's not something i'd assume about him. i didn't, though, i didn't want to be confronted with someone telling me "hey, mr. rogers in 1980 thought you were a man." it makes my day worse.

it's not even an actual argument, is it? like, even if you're going to make a poor logical argument based on "hey here's this celebrity who agrees with me", the man has been dead since 2003. is anybody really going to change their mind based on this fact? what with all of the other arguments for and against my existence out there, i can't really consider that this information would make any sort of difference.

it's true that when i'm wrong, i do tend to seek out, even need, constant validation to reinforce my false belief, and i guess that same principle would apply to trans people. you know, it's probably not about me, their constantly sharing and perpetuating every even slightly transphobic thing they can find on youtube.

i don't actually care about them, though, i'm not interested in looking at things from the bigot's perspective. from my perspective, youtube is constantly promoting transphobia to people who use the site, and i use the site, and my goal is therefore to mitigate my exposure to transphobic propaganda. i just have to not think about the probability that lots of other people, trans and cis alike, are regularly exposed to transphobic propaganda. radical acceptance. that's what i need to employ here, radical acceptance.

so i stay logged in, and even here, you know, i still have to work to not engage in digital self-harm. mia mulder uploaded a three hour video about how capitalism is bad, and i'm sure it's a fantastic video, mia mulder makes fantastic videos, but i already know capitalism is bad, and spending three hours confronting that fact has a high likelihood of constituting digital self-harm.

that video about the "incel to trans pipeline" by a creator i don't know? i recognize that thumbnail. it's that One Manga. see that's the other thing about mitigating self-harm is that sometimes shit just WHAM hits you where you don't expect and you don't realize it for three days later. and that was how it was with that manga. this sort of stuff is why content warnings are a thing... it's about being _informed_. that's the big issue with social media, is that shit comes up and hits you and you're not expecting it, and it just hits way the fuck harder.

anyway if you're watching that video, and i've started, and it's great, it talks about the people who TOTALLY AREN'T TRANS but just transition because being a guy sucks and if the only way not to be a shitty guy is to be a girl than they'll take hormones and pretend to be trans, which is stupid but actually being a girl is awesome and come to think of it they've always wanted to be a girl but they're NOT TRANS OR ANYTHING they're just doing this because they're tired of how bad their life as a guy sucks. BUT watch out about that manga, if it's the one i'm thinking about, it fucking HITS.

anyway i guess i'm doing a lot of writing this week

I thought "transmaxxing" was about incels transitioning because they think women have it easier and they could be available to other incels for sex because they would still think like incels and not like "femoids." Bleh. I know way too much about this kind of thing.

I thought "transmaxxing" was about incels transitioning because they think women have it easier and they could be available to other incels for sex because they would still think like incels and not like "femoids." Bleh. I know way too much about this kind of thing.

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo

yeah maybe that's it, i didn't see the whole video. i'm with ceicocat (who posted the video i'm referring to), i do think the whole phenomenon is pretty funny. taking estrogen, transitioning to own the libs, i mean, it's not the worst thing one can possibly do. especially given how many of them wind up experiencing profound gender euphoria and joy while living as a girl even though they're totally _really_ incels disguising themselves as trans women. if that's what they say, sure, i'll accept that, even if it does sound suspiciously similar to imposter syndrome.

i've heard people say enough things about gender by this point that whatever people say about themselves, i accept it. self-determination is important to me. whatever it is people say they are, i generally don't see any reason to not believe them and respect them for who they say they are. i figure they know themselves better than i can know them. (so much for the intolerant left!)

is "transmaxxing" transphobic? i don't know, maybe. just like that will hermes quote, i don't particularly care. i got more important stuff to worry about, personally. a lot of the most transphobic people are trans themselves. trans people get internalized transphobia and sometimes they externalize it. if anybody at all took "incel transmaxxers" seriously i'd probably be more concerned.

if i was going to start looking for flaws in their "logic" i guess i could start with the fact that the term "incel" was coined by someone who was, as far as i know, a cis woman, but basically that's trivia. i'm not a prescriptivist, i'm a descriptivist; what language means depends on how it's used. if most of these incels think only _men_ can be incels, well, i guess they're right. it's not an identity i'm interested in claiming, partly because i'm asexual, i don't have sex because i don't want to have sex, and partly because... incel? eww, gross, who would want to be one of _those_? if identifying as an incel is more important to someone than identifying as a trans woman, i'm not gonna argue with them.

and that's the thing i see a lot... a lot of people won't identify as trans because they have another identity that's more important to them. a lot of people, it's really important to them that they characterize their relationship to gender as a "sexual fetish". i had a lot of trouble with this for a long time, but mostly it was because that was the normative narrative. the idea was that if an AMAB experienced sexual arousal while wearing women's clothing, they were a man with a sexual fetish and categorically not a trans woman. this was a frankly pseudoscientific idea called "autogynephilia" promoted by a guy named ray blanchard. the major problem with this framing is that it turns out that cis women sometimes experience sexual arousal while wearing women's clothing, particularly clothing designed to enhance the sexual attractiveness of the person wearing it. in fact, as far as i can tell, this sort of thing is apparently _normal_. I guess you could classify it as a fetish. i remember when i was young, oral sex was classified as a fetish. maybe it still is in some corners - i don't know.

-

i still remember this conversation i had once with someone who had some questions about their gender identity and wanted to talk to me about it. he said i'm not trans, i'm an autogynephiliac, i just have a fetish. after some thought, i told them, look, my understanding is that autogynephilia isn't an actual thing. if you think it is and you have it, ok, fine, as long as you don't treat any of the rest of us like that's something we have, as long as you recognize that a lot of trans women find that term offensive and that by no means should you ever tell a trans woman that you think they're an autogynephiliac. he was fine with that! he was fine with me saying "you can be an autogynephiliac as long as you're the only one in the whole wide world". people who are questioning their gender so often have these ideas where they feel like they get to be the lone exception, everybody _else_ is really trans, it's just _them personally_ who is a fake and a fraud.

sometimes people want a real trans person to tell them they're really trans, and i will not do that. ever. it's not up to me. the only person who can determine that is them. what i will do is say look, if you say you are, you are. i'm not going to question that. all of those things that you were told kept you from being Really Trans, none of them actually do. you have full permission at any time to be trans, but you don't have to be. that's what a trans person told me, when i was questioning, and i was like "oh ok cool, i'm trans then, thanks", but it's not that easy for some people, it's not enough for them to hear "be trans if you want to be, don't be trans if you want to be, it's not up to me."

with this person, i figured we had an understanding - i'm trans, he's an autogynephiliac who doesn't want to be trans, we're good. except three days later he came back to me and kept questioning:

"ok i want to be a woman but i like being ripped, that means i can't really be a woman, right?"
"i mean lots of women are ripped, you're not going to have as much muscle strength if you take estrogen but it doesn't mean you can't be ripped"

"ok but i dressed as a woman for weeks on end and i really liked it and it didn't feel sexual at all, does that mean i have to be a trans woman?"
"no, you don't have to be unless you want to be"

just for weeks on end he was trying to argue with me, and it must have been super frustrating for him because i wouldn't argue with him. i just kept repeating the same thing - he could be trans if he wanted to be, but he didn't have to be. i don't understand why he kept talking to me about it. he said he wasn't trans, he didn't want to be trans, and that was fine by me. i finally had to say to him look, i got nothing more to tell you. as far as i know he's still out there, doing his autogynephilia thing.

-

compared to that, i mean, the transmaxxers are pretty straightforward. see, one of the core tenets they have - that they can take hormones and transition socially and _not change_, stay the "incels" they are - my experience is that it doesn't work out that way. i understand being afraid of change. i was afraid of change when i transitioned, i was afraid of losing my essential self. i told people when i came out, look, just because i'm dressing differently and taking hormones, i'm not going to be like a totally different person or anything, i'm still going to be me, i'm just going to look different.

in retrospect that was... an oversimplification. the truth is that we change all the time, and a lot of how we change is based on how we behave. you can act your way into a new way of thinking, as they put it in AA - not only can you, but you _will_ wind up doing so, in my experience, whether you want to or not. kurt vonnegut in mother night keeps saying "we are who we pretend to be", and he's _almost_ right. we change all the time, and we change based on what we do and say. maybe ironic nazis start out being ironic and just become real because they spend all of their time acting like nazis. i don't think they were necessarily "real nazis all along".

i mean i haven't _stopped_ being the person i was. i've just gone through experiences that have changed me a lot. some of it's the hormones, but probably most of it isn't. people treat me differently, for good and for ill. enough people call me "brave" and i just quit arguing. ok, you say i'm brave, fine, i'm brave. i don't think i'm brave, but i don't think i'm a weak coward like i used to believe, either.

i didn't transition to become a better person. i didn't _want_ to become a better person. it's just that i put myself in a situation where i kind of _had_ to work to become a better person. i think these "transmaxxers" are putting themselves in the same situation. i mean, the thing about an incel identity is... you don't just have to not _have sex_, you have to continually work to make yourself into a person who is not safe to love. you can _do_ that while taking drugs that make you feel euphoric, happy, and fulfilled, but it's really fucking hard. i wasn't able to manage it, even though i tried super hard to, i tried really hard to reconcile my essential self-image as someone who was bad and dangerous with the love and respect other people showed towards me, with the love and respect i increasingly felt for myself. ceicocat observes the same phenomenon, the same sort of dialectic process, in the writings of self-identified "transmaxxers". i'm here for that!

it's not unprecedented! if you look at how contrapoints started, she started trying to, basically, convert incels, and in the process... in the process she changed. she's still changing, as far as i know. we all are. i think she's given up on trying to change incels by this point, which i think is wise. the incels will change if and when they're ready.

transmaxxing is a new one to me

I know in chan culture there is the phenomenon of male incels "practicing" their romantic and sexual moves on femme-presenting but I'm-not-trans-because-trans-people-don't-exist incels. the guys see it as easier than interacting with "women" because they're actually just interacting with "men". it is a space for gender deviance within a deeply reactionary (trans)misogynist patriarchal culture but I can't imagine it's a great space to inhabit - I'd feel much worse for them if they didn't pretty much all subscribe to and enforce the ambient fascism of chan culture.

the lack of cis women during the white settlement of the american west created opportunities (economic and otherwise) for trans-like expressions of gender among people who sold sex. there was a whole other level going on with the feminisation of chinese men and the number of non-cis-female sex workers from chinese backgrounds in that time and place but I'm even less qualified to unpack all that - it's worth noting for intersectional reasons as a reminder of how racialisation and gendering and economics are basically inseparable a lot of the time.

the white femme "men" of 4chan tend to express their gender through imitating racist orientalist stereotypes of japanese "girls" although they're as dedicated to white supremacy as the men who fetishize them.

in both of these cases I have no idea how appropriate the word trans is to describe these phenomena - I tend to think it's not quite right in most cases but it's not totally unrelated to transness either

I'm not sure if I had an actual point there or if it's just a bunch of vaguely related thoughts but that's ADHD for you

i think you should watch ceicocat's video, left! i think it's a good video.

ok, i went and watched the video i was talking about

the manga wasn't the manga i thought it was, it was a different one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAA1XtDOuH8

i agree with ceicocat on most things

at this point she's more on the "is x trans?" wagon than i am, though

i kind of agree with her larger point - labels just get in the way sometimes. they're tools. the label is less important than what i _do_ with it.

i don't decide what labels people put on me, though i guess i can limit their ability to do so. what matters to me is not whether Shūzō Oshimi is trans or has gender dysphoria or anything like that. he's unhappy, unhappy with being a man. if you're unhappy with who you are, you know, try something different. people don't, they're afraid, like i was afraid.

i was afraid of a couple of things. i was afraid that it wouldn't... _work_, that it wouldn't _fix_ me. and i was right. it didn't fix me. i understand that fear, but... it wasn't a useful question. people who are thinking about gender shit, a lot of times we get confused and ask questions that don't help. "will this fix me?" isn't the important question. the important question is "why did i think i was broken?" i wasn't. i wasn't ever broken.

and the sad thing is that's what so many of the "gender critical" crowd will _say_, will say "there's nothing wrong with you", and i understand that now. they didn't help me understand that. my experience with gender transition helped me understand that. there's nothing wrong with me, and that _includes my desire to change_. that's what they don't get. it's like when the priests when i was young said there was nothing wrong with _being_ gay, there was just something wrong with _doing gay shit_. a statement like that is hypocritical and incoherent. "queer" isn't an abstract concept. was i born queer? no idea. doesn't matter. i can tell you for sure, though, i have acted myself into queerness, and that is a _good thing_.

but i was afraid of it. that's the second thing i was afraid of. i was afraid that i would _like_ it. that whole bit in the video where ceicocat talks about the autogynephilia thing... why is _liking your body_, sexually, such a taboo? why is it a _fetish_? what on _earth_ is wrong with that?

sexual desire, though, that wasn't the fear... the fear was that i would like it so much that i would have to _change_. and again, i was right. by changing, i put myself in a world of pain, but also i got myself out of a world of pain. i feel like i traded up.

that transmaxxing manifesto at the beginning, the way it starts. "the male gender is broken." i hear so many people saying that these days and i mean... what the hell do i know? what do i know from gender? i know lots of men who are happy being men. i know lots of men for who being a man works. i don't feel like i can make a sweeping statement like that.

all i can say is that being a man didn't work _for me_. i tried really hard to be a man, and i failed, and i walked away. i'm not ashamed of that or proud of that or anything. it's just what happened. i don't think there's anything wrong with me for not succeeding as a man. the male gender? idk, if someone's judging whether the male gender succeeds by the standard of "every single person born with a penis has to be happy being a man"... i think that's an unreasonably high bar. if masculinity was more inclusive, i might have been happier being a man. i might even have not transitioned. some people might see a moral judgement in that, but i don't. there's no right or wrong in that. i wasn't happy acting like a man, being treated like a man. i'm happy acting like a woman, being treated like a woman.

what do people want? do they want me to go back to acting like a man? again, that's just not a reasonable expectation for anyone to have. or do they just want me to be unhappy? i guess that's a reasonable expectation. they can't make me unhappy, but they can make it a lot more difficult for me to be happy. that's probably a reasonable goal, if that's one's goal. not much i can do or say about that one. i can't convince them that's a bad idea. all i can do is try to take care of myself, try to protect myself from people who want to hurt me.

-

oshimi. Shūzō Oshimi. here's what he says, when he talks about wanting to be a girl.

"no matter how much you look like a girl, if you've got the mindset of a man, then you're not a girl. even if a man becomes a woman, when he sees his new female body, he'll still perceive it through the eyes of male lust. and would then get further and further away from being a woman. that's not what i'd want. i want... to turn into a woman both body and mind."

and it frustrates me, when i see people saying shit like this. how do you know? you don't know. you haven't tried it. maybe it would be like that for you, because i'm not you, but i _have tried it_ and that is _not how it works_ for me, not how it _works_ for thep eople i know. you _act your way into a new way of thinking_. i don't know _how_ to have the mindset of a man. i have this body and other people see me differently, and i _see myself differently_.

and i guess... i mean, the 4tran people are stupid and absolutist and all of this language they use, it's dumb. it speaks to a fear a lot of us have. i didn't want to be an ugly woman. i thought i'd become an ugly woman if i transitioned, and i transitioned anyway, and i was wrong about that. i mean, you can look at my picture, you can see i was wrong about that.

it's hard for me to say that, though, and it's not because of the imposter syndrome. i had that for a long time, and i have less of that now. i don't feel _desirable_, but i'm absolutely an attractive woman. the people who think differently are... not people whose opinions i care about, generally.

my passing privilege, which, i'm growing to accept, is apparently exceptional, _helps_ with that. it absolutely does. i'd have a lot harder time liking myself as much as i do if i had more stereotypically male features. but.

but. the bulk of the difference is that it used to be i wasn't happy with myself. the body i lived in didn't feel like mine. and now it does. it's not a perfect body, but it's my body, and i've grown to love it. anybody who does that... to me, anybody who does that is beautiful. for whatever that's worth.

if oshimi says he isn't a woman, if he says he's a man, then i absolutely believe him. he's a man. BUT. i believe he could probably be a woman, he could _become_ a woman, _in body and mind_. probably not everybody could do that. like, i couldn't become a man, no matter how hard i tried. but i _did_ try. i tried very hard, for decades, and it didn't work. so maybe i'm wrong. maybe oshimi couldn't ever be a real woman. he's got a pretty good shot, at least, i'd say. someone who feels like oshimi does... shit, it's worth trying. i'd say.

i mean when i was an egg i was very often sad and lonely and struggled with relationships of all kinds. so i guess you could say i was an incel in that i wanted a lot more closeness/human connection than i got

i'm still kinda lonely now but in a different way. since i started transitioning i've been getting out a lot more, my social life has never been so active. however, because i feel so much more extraverted i'm not as comfortable with my own company and alone time is harder for me. i guess it's a better class of loneliness on the whole

for me i wouldn't say everybody who feels lonely and socially isolated and uncomfortable around other people is necessary an incel... personally i feel like inceldom is more of an unhealthy way in which some people choose to deal with that, one that seems to pretty much exclusively be a path open to, or chosen by, people who see themselves as cis men.

"trans" can mean all kinds of things to all sorts of people - there's the "born this way" camp and the "gender is fake" camp. i tend to look at this divide in kind of a dialectical sense, in that there's aspects of both in my gender experience. why _is_ it only people who see themselves as cis men who tend to be attracted to inceldom?

i've been watching this video called "the horror of having a body" made by someone who i guess i'm just going to assume is a cis man. and all through the comments i see posts from what i assume are cis women talking about yes, this is what it's like for me, this is what it's like to be defined by my body. there's this comment by "someonethatexists359" (on-point username):

There's a figure of a womb in our labs at school. I remmember us looking at it and one of the boys going "so women are just corpses for (bearing) children?" he probably said it impolsively without thinking about it, but it still terrifies me that this is the way some people view my body, and by extention, me.

i look at that comment and god it just cuts to the heart of patriarchy. yes, that _is_ how the people who want to control our bodies view us. either corpses for bearing children or, in my case, i guess just a corpse, a walking corpse. that's the horror. and they exempt themselves from that, their _privilege_ is that of not having to think about their bodies, not having to be defined by their bodies like we are.

and.

that's also a symptom, right? a symptom of gender dysphoria. "dissociation". a feeling of _not being connected_ to one's body. cis or not, there's this near-total binary divide, it seems. the incels have this anxiety, an anxiety which Swolesome points out very well is ultimately a product of patriarchy, of men setting standards for men's bodies, that if they don't have the physique of a "chad" that they can never meet women's standards.

it's ridiculous, a ridiculous myth, and its maintenence requires _not listening to women when we talk about what we find attractive_. one of the reasons i find myself attractive is that i look at what i'm attracted to, and what i'm attracted to is not necessarily the sort of people i see on tv. the sexiest man alive is, what... chris evans? he looks ok, i guess, but i'm more into dad bod.

what's funny is that i look back at my body in the before times, and i remember how i felt about myself, and i look good! my body looks good. i'm not gorgeous, but i'm hardly the hideous hosebeast i thought i was. there's a sort of distance i didn't have before, because at the same time i look at the pictures and i don't know who that is. that person doesn't _look_ like me. i don't recognize them as me. it's a weird, confusing feeling. anyway, my body is attractive, but i'm not as attractive as i am now because i'm not _happy_, and it's apparent that i'm not happy. i was talking to one of my friends a month or so ago and he talked about having a conversation with one of our mutual friends, back in the '90s, about how much pain i was obviously in, that i was trying to hide it but they both knew that i was hurting a lot. people who hate themselves just aren't as attractive as people who love themselves, is how i feel.

-

there's this trans narrative that a lot of people, myself included, love to hate, and it's called the 'wrong body narrative'. you see it in jan morris' 'conundrum'. the idea is that trans women are 'women trapped in men's bodies'. i can see how you could reduce the idea down to that, but it never felt like that for me. i didn't feel like a woman and my body didn't feel like a man's body. i had this brain that i liked and this body that i hated and i didn't know how to reconcile the two. when i was young i was fat, and i got bullied for being fat, and i got depressed and stopped eating and became skinny but it didn't change anything. i felt people were judging me, were laughing at me behind my back, even though they weren't. and when i got skinny i started thinking about all the clothes i'd _like_ to wear and i felt like there was no point, that i'd just look like a man in a dress. i had this body i hated and i didn't see any way to not hate it.

like, i look at those pictures from before, and i don't have the _wrong_ face. it's my face. it's just not _me_. i don't know whose face it is. and that's kind of how i felt about my body before, it was in a literal sense my body, but it wasn't _mine_. i didn't hate my body. it was ok, i guess, i guess it was nice that someone gave it to me. i just had no idea what i was supposed to _do_ with it. if someone asked me that now, if someone went up to me and was like "so i have this body, what do i _do_ with it?", i wouldn't have any idea how to answer that question. it doesn't make sense to me. it's not something i ever think about. it's like asking "how do i breathe?" it kind of comes automatically to me, i don't know what to say if you don't know how to do it.

i see so many cis guys, who i assume are cis guys, and they just don't give a shit about how they look to other people, in the same way i didn't give a shit about how i looked to other people. cis men aren't actually immune to judgement. their privilege is just that they're not _aware_ of how other people are judging them. i didn't really know how i looked when i walked around with pants so large they looked like clown pants, frayed at the bottoms because i kept stepping on them. now that i'm not one of those people, i see just how many people there are like that. and it's not just men. my ex, who's a cis woman, dressed like that, still wore worn, oversized clothes from when she was in high school twenty years later. the only difference is that people were very quick to judge her to her face, that she didn't ever have a chance to be as ignorant of her body as i was of mine.

this video i'm watching is about the horror of having a body, but for me... i have a body that's aging and breaking down and you know, at some point i'm going to die, and that just... that just means so little to me, because i wake up and i look at myself in the mirror and i just... _feel_ my body, not as in literally touching it or anything, i'm just _aware_ of the sensations in my body, not just the aches and pains but all of the ordinary stuff as well. like, these are the muscles in my arm, this is what they feel like, these are my fingers on the keyboard, this is what they feel like. it's just so amazing. it just feels _so fucking incredible_. it's not that i was in the _wrong_ body and i'm now in the _right_ body, it's that this is _my_ body. it belongs to me. it's part of who i am.

i didn't have that before. i had a meatsack that i had to drag around with me, a meatsack that i hated and wished i didn't have. it did nothing for me, gave me nothing but pain. that's how i felt.

corpses for bearing children. women are treated like corpses for bearing children. that's horrific. that people just _accept_ that, think that's _normal_, that's horrific, having to fight those people, those people in power, who treat my own body like that... it's galling. it fills me with rage. the main thing, i think, that's changed for me is now i feel like i have a body, now i feel like there's something i'm fighting for.

-

ok abigail thorn has ruined me for this body horror video. the guy making this video is talking about the philosophical concept of a hammer. he is illustrating this concept with stock footage. it's perfectly serviceable but goddamit i want to see a 360 degree panning shot of this guy holding a hammer while wearing a latex dress. this. this is the difference between how the patriarchy views men and how the patriarchy views women.

interesting post from Left

glad i made it past a minute in that video, Kate, where it was revealed they're reading from some incel manifesto ... i was seriously like wtf, this is supposed to be insightful?

Today is the 50th anniversary of the American Psychiatric Association's vote removing homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). Frank Kameny, the main advocate for depathologizing homosexuality, described it as "the day we were cured en masse by the psychiatrists".

The APA has continued to struggle to come to terms with recognzing queerness. Transness wasn't even recognized by the DSM until the DSM-III in 1980, which listed "transsexualism" as a disorder. The DSM-IV, in 1994, was the first edition to replace "transsexualism" with "gender identity disorder", which was then revised again with the DSM-V to "gender dysphoria". (I remember reading about gender identity disorder in the DSM-IV. I didn't meet the criteria. "Oh well," I said. "So much for that idea.")

As far as I know the DSM still lists "transvestism" as a disorder. Ray Blanchard was a key member of the working group which defined this "paraphilia", and incorporated the idea of "autogynephilia", a baseless and pseudoscientific idea he came up with, as one of the criteria. In response to criticism that this contributed to stigma against the trans community, Blanchard said, "How many people who make a joke about trannies consult the DSM first?"

One of my favorite movie bloggers did a review of the 1911 Louis Feuillade one-reeler "L'orgie Romaine":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SUpYd3GLlw

I was talking about the film, which covers the notorious reign of Elagabalus, with one of my friends yesterday. It's mostly... it's frustrating the way historical queerness is framed. The author isn't a Roman history nerd but does a decent job summarizing the popular conception of Elagabalus.

The popular conception is that Elagabalus was demonized for his "perversions", which he was. The popular conception is that the "perversions" in question was a reference to his having sex with men. He did have sex with men, and this was in all likelihood a major factor in his being executed.

What frustrates me is that this framing tends to ellide one of the biggest reasons Elagabalus was despised - not for homosexual acts, but for effeminate behavior.

-

Elagabalus is a figure from ancient history. Ancient historical sources are fragmentary and frequently unreliable. Mary Beard, in her lecture on Elagabalus, argues that when we are talking about Elagabalus, we're not talking about a historical figure as much as we are about a _myth_. The myth of the Bad Emperor. This means that the question, for me at least, is less "what did Elagabalus actually do", but _why_ people thought they were the Worst Emperor.

I don't know ancient Latin and don't know its approach to pronouns. I'll henceforth be attempting to refer to Elagabalus using they/them pronouns. (I might fuck up. I'm bad at pronouns.) The narrative I outlined as the "popular conception" above is, I think, fundamentally a valid one. Seeing Elagabalus as a man is fundamentally valid. The thing about myths, though, is that they're narratives, they're stories we tell. They're interpretations. The popular conception doesn't _accurately_ represent Elagabalus as an emperor. Neither, I think, does the narrative I'm giving here. I'm not telling the truth about Elagabalus. Ancient historians were interested in less than facts and more in constructing a narrative. Good Emperors. Bad Emperors. All judged by the morals standards of the writer in question.

What fascinates me about history is less "great man" history, but how people _at the time_ felt and acted. How are we different from the people of Rome in the 220s CE? How are we similar? That's what interests me. People change, _conceptually_. I've seen it in my lifetime. The idea of "transgender" identity, as we know it now, didn't exist when I was born, barely existed when I was 20. That's what interests me about history. Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis, as Ovid didn't say: "Times change, and we are changed with them."

Elagabalus' _identity_ doesn't interest me. "Homosexual", as a noun, and "transgender", as an adjective, are both anachronistic present-day constructs. Used in historical terms, they're constraints, limitations. They take something complex and make it more understandable. They also necessarily distort. They leave things out.

-

One of my favorite works of Roman literature is a poem known as "Catullus 16". It is infamous in classical studies, and was for a long time considered unprintable. This in itself is a sign of values dissonance between the late Roman Republic and more modern times. In this poem, Catullus responds to two men who have condemned his character for writing "soft" poetry. He says, in the first and last lines of the poem, "I will fuck your mouth and ass".

His poem doesn't map very well onto present-day understandings of sexual orientation. If one man accuses another of being "gay", we wouldn't necessarily consider it an affirmative defense if the accused responded with "I'll fuck you in the ass!"

In Roman culture, it wasn't _homosexual acts_ there were stigmatized. The stigma was around _bottoming_. This was an act seen as effeminate and inferior. Roman culture seems not to have had any equivalent to our contemporary concept of "topping from the bottom". Many prominent Romans are chronicled as having engaged in homosexual encounters. For a man to top was not harshly morally judged. For a man to _bottom_, however, was the worst of all evils.

-

The print of "L'orgie Romaine" I've linked to has this as the first intertitle:

"Elagabalus created an empire of female domination of the courtesans amidst whom he felt comfortable and happy"

This is a _crystal clear_ moral judgement. Elagabalus has, since shortly after the end of their reign, been viewed as the Worst of the Bad Emperors. This is what Roman culture viewed as evil in its purest form. Elagabalus felt _comfortable and happy_ among women, and these women were _dominant_.

This horror is, in fact, a key factor in Elagabalus becoming ruler in the first place. Elagabalus, like their immediate predecessors, was a teenager. 14 years old at the time they ascended to emperor. Elagabalus and their predecessors were all, per the historical record, puppets, puppets of Elagabalus' grandmother - Julia Domna. Julia Domna, of course, could not become emperor herself. She was a _woman_.

These are the fruits of patriarchy. These are the fruits of Roman culture, of imperialism, domination, conquest. These are the values that have shaped the West up until today.

What changed, between 218 and 1911? Many things. What did _not_ change was the belief that women were inferior to men. Unfit for power. Unfit, even, for _self-determination_.

Elagabalus' effeminacy was a direct threat to the supremacy of men. Patriarchy requires that manhood and womanhood be distinct. It is not relevant what those distinctions are. Those distinctions can often be utterly arbitrary. What matters is that there _are_ distinctions. Elagabalus, through their effeminate behavior, flouted the deepest moral principle of patriarchy. They lived _among women_ as a _woman_. All of the other evil acts they committed - and according to all accounts, they committed a number of very evil acts - are secondary to this greatest of all offenses.

-

Today, 112 years since 1911, these are my principles: Nobody can be said to be superior or inferior based on their sex, their gender identity, or their presentation. Sex is not gender. Gender is not _presentation_. Love is love. All of these things feel natural, true, _right_. I fear no one's judgement for holding these beliefs, for living these beliefs.

I am also a woman who feels comfortable and happy amidst effeminate people. Why is it so terrifying for me to say this aloud?

patriarchy

really great post though

I am fascinated by the roman penetration binary and wish we knew more about how gender worked in those societies- it would be so cool to know what people who weren't male roman citizens thought about sex and gender and sexuality. what was really going on in some of those mystery cults? what if anything do accusations made to discredit elite roman men tell us about how non-elites and non-romans behaved, how they were assumed or expected to behave, or what they desired?

I am fascinated by the roman penetration binary

It's not that uncommon, though, right? Isn't that how it works in some pockets of contemporary Latin American and North African/Middle Eastern societies? I feel like I've read about that in Paul Bowles. Also: prison.

Who did the penetrating vs who got penetrated obsessed the Greeks too; for damn sure the latter couldn't be an older man.

at what age was a boy/man supposed to give up anal stimulation? did they actually give it up or just pretend they did in public?

with the romans it seems like the crudest possible version of this where the entire empire comes off like a sort of violent phallic cult that needs to keep fucking but can't survive being fucked even a little

the roman empire fell because they allowed themselves to be penetrated (by goths, "immigrants", wokeness, whatever you like)

According to Foucault, sometime before marriage. xpos

the roman empire fell because they allowed themselves to be penetrated (by goths, "immigrants", wokeness, whatever you like)

― Left

no, it was because they stopped penetrating. the roman empire is only as good as its last hard-on. when a thousand years old you are, have rock-hard erections all the time you will not, hmmm?

is fascism like viagra for imperialism?

fascism is a parakeet playing jenga badly

I am fascinated by the roman penetration binary and wish we knew more about how gender worked in those societies

at what age was a boy/man supposed to give up anal stimulation? did they actually give it up or just pretend they did in public?

it's about renaissance florence but recommend michael rocke's forbidden friendships

there's some kind of issue with a transphobic... tiktok... mortician? i feel like that last sentence was generated by an ai. probably it just means i'm old. and there are lawyers involved. i don't know. tiktok is like three generations younger than me.

Idaho's trans health care ban was struck down by the courts. I had to email my boss this morning to find out how this impacts my job — like, if we have to send out letters or something. No word yet.

An interesting New York Times interview with Eddie Izzard: comedian, marathoner, aspiring politician. (Free link; I'm a subscriber.)

Thanks for the link. Holy shit @ those marathons, my god!!!

Thanks for sharing the link unperson! I'm really glad I was able to read it. There are lots of media narratives about trans people, not always positive, and paywalls frustrate me because here are all these cis people saying all this shit about us and I have no idea what it is because I don't subscribe to their newsletter.

This is good to read because it is a trans person telling her own story, and I'm in favor of that. It's also more complicated... she's being interviewed by David Marchese, a celebrity interviewer who is, to the best of my knowledge, a cis man. Also, as the end of the article notes, "This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity from two conversations."... and it's in the New York Times. My experience is that the NYT's editorial policy towards trans issues favors showing "both sides" of the "trans debate". This is in contrast to the editorial policy of the Washington Post, which from what I've read is pretty unambiguously on the side of "trans rights are human rights".

It's good for me personally to read because Izzard (who I thought was going by Suzy last I heard? But I'm not always up to date on these things) was very much a role model for me... she helped me to understand myself and accept my transness. I do want to talk about how, though, because the way Izzard describes her life in this story is very different from the way I understood Izzard when I was growing up. It's complicated and very much gets into the whole "gender as social construct" thing.

Izzard talks about having known she was trans since 5 and having come out and the article talks of her having coming out publicly as transgender in '85, but that's not how I understood it. There's a little.... I'm gonna blame the Times on this, actually. This is bad and biased framing. Now, admittedly I'm making an assumption here, but I find it _extremely unlikely_ that Izzard got up on a stage in 1985 and said "I'm transgender". No, what I heard her saying in specials like "Dressed to Kill" is that she was an "action transvestite". Which isn't the same thing as being transgender! Transvestites _can_ be transgender, or trans, or anything else. That's wasn't the understanding in '85. The word "transgender" technically existed by '85, I think, but the concept of being "transgender" as we understand it today did _not_.

It's important for me to say this because of my experience the first time I tried to come out, in 1996. I wasn't able to understand myself, much less explain myself. All I could say was what I was not. I wasn't a "transvestite" because I wasn't a man who dressed in women's clothes. I wasn't a "transsexual" because I didn't want to get my dick cut off. (Other people might frame GRS different ways. That's the way I framed GRS at the time.) I was... well, I didn't know what I was. I just kind of felt like a girl?

The way Izzard influenced me was that she challenged the framing I grew up with. Not in the '90s, but later. For a long time I thought of "transvestites" and "transsexuals" as being distinct categories with nothing to do with each other. So when I found out that Izzard, who I thought of as a "transvestite", a cisgender, heterosexual man who just liked dressing in women's clothes, actually identified as _transgender_, it was really liberating. It helped me to understand that these weren't rigid categories that defined who we were, who we were allowed to be. That wasn't until around 2019, though. It was one of the many things that helped me understand myself as trans.

The thing that is most disappointing to me is to hear that Izzard is an open defender of J.K. Rowling's statements about trans people. Izzard's statement that "I don't think J.K. Rowling is transphobic"... I don't take that as the opinion of a trans person who I happen to differ with. Her statement is an untruth. It saddens me to hear trans people who are speaking from a position of relative privilege making false statements of this sort. Rowling isn't just a transphobe. Her transphobia is causing a great deal of harm to trans people. So this I think is one of those instances where a trans person is aligning herself with transphobia. I'm always saddened to see that happen, but it's particularly painful when it's someone who has been a role model for me, who did help me to understand myself as trans.

So yesterday I happened across a reference to a Mythbusters spinoff called the "White Rabbit Project" from 2016. Turns out one of the things they talked about was a supposed plan by British intelligence to, well, trans Hitler. Yeah, apparently somebody at some point had the idea of putting E in his food and, I guess, force femming him? This is one of those things that gets described as "unbelievable but true", and for me, the jury's out on the "true" part... the only source seems to be a guy named Brian Ford, who wrote a pop history book on "World War II Secret Weapons", and doesn't provide a source for his claim. So, grain of salt on that one.

What I was more interested in is how this 2016 show would approach the legend. It's fascinating to me because nobody on the show (which was presented by the old Mythbusters build team) seemed to have any concept of the possible relevance of this to trans people. They talked about the possible effects of it and they said things like "well it could cause nausea" which is... not really a major side effect of estrogen. Nobody mentioned gender dysphoria. It was all "he'd get boobs and his weenie would stop working". It was never stated outright that the gendered assumptions underlying this idea were bullshit, but yeah, look, Hitler probably didn't start World War II because of gender dysphoria. Sounds like an absolute waste of estrogen. There were so many people in Britain who really could have used that estrogen, but noooo, _they_ can't have estrogen, only Hitler gets estrogen. Fuck you Britain.

But also like. The world has changed so much in the last EIGHT YEARS. It's fucking wild.

I have kind of come back a lot to "Stop!! Hibari-Kun!" over the, I don't know, year or less since I've become aware of it. It's this... I guess the best I could call it "ambiguously trans". I like the ambiguity in these stories, their resistance to providing clear, straightforward trans narratives. That's probably why the least interesting character in "Bokura no Hentai" for me was the girl who's just a straightforward trans girl. The character I connected more with was Parou, the more "otokonoko" character, even though I was never anything close to or resembling the "otokonoko" trope myself.

Anyway, this video on "Stop!! Hibari-Kun!" I thought was really good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=illSp1oVXzA

First off I kind of love the weird way it's structured, to where it just takes ten minutes in the middle to have someone review some of Hibari's outfits. That's so much of what makes the show for me, she has just really amazing outfits... Hibari just has just a vibrant _style_. A lot of trans wish fulfillment is just thinking about all the cute outfits that would be possible. That gets put down a lot and treated as superficial... like, it's not specific to transness... under patriarchy to be concerned with fashion whatsoever is kind of dismissed as sort of vain and image-obsessed. The sad truth is, as much as I was actively hostile towards my own appearance pre-transition, I didn't really stand out. I'm there wearing ten year old pants that just look like clown pants because I'd lost fifty pounds since I bought them, and I see plenty of cis guys out there who are just that slovenly. It's not remarkable. Male privilege is kind of a double-edged sword... as a passing trans woman in her late 40s, a lot of my passing privilege is that I have the option of not being perceived in the same sense that cis women in their 40s aren't perceived, aren't seen as _suitable objects of desire_. Which sucks because being desired is kind of personally important to me. I don't want to not be perceived - invisibility for me is about as hazardous to my health as silence - but I do at least have the option of looking _unremarkable_.

The main thing, though, that I connected with is how Pyramid Inu talks about... the cost of doing this representation that aligns so closely with present-day trans experience, of depicting with startling accuracy both how trans women _behave_ and the way trans women are for a lot of us aspirational figures, the cost of that is that the show can't ever reach narrative closure, not in that era. Kousaku can't wind up with Hibari... it's not a product of a world that can see a cis guy and a trans girl get a "happy ever after" kind of ending. It's, like, literally unimaginable. That's a lot of what transness was for me, growing up... literally unimaginable. I think that's what strikes me about these sort of amgibuously trans figures from this era... they're sort of visions of a way that transness could exist in a time where I just _couldn't_ exist as trans. It makes me feel less, I don't know, invisible. Maybe.

BTW it's a fucking tragedy that there was never a manga or anime of Guldeen: The Future Wanderer. Trans mecha directly inspired by "Stop!! Hibari-Kun!"? Oh my God that this doesn't exist is proof positive that we live in the worst timeline.

I don't think, honestly, it would be possible to remake or do a sequel to "Stop!! Hibari-Kun!" today. A lot of it is dependent on the culutural role of gender non-conformity. Because today somebody who presents and acts like Hibari does in that show and you can just say oh, wait, that's a trans woman... and as soon as you do that you have to kind of deal with the reality of what it's like being trans in 2024. One of the things that really clicks with me about "Hibari" is that it's a work that _feels_ authentically trans but is at the same time escapist fantasy. Trans escapist fantasy just isn't something that's narratively _accessible_ in 2024. It's unimaginable to me in the same way that Hibari and Kousaku winding up together was unimaginable in 1983. At the same time, it's something I really desperately need, something I'll take wherever I can find it. I think that's a lot of what draws me to "Stop!! Hibari-Kun!".

ok i know we probably have another trans thread but youtube keeps recommending me more and more niche trans-related weeb videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca5B1DxdkZw

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/01/trans-people-england-more-likely-mental-health-condition-study

i wonder why, the guardian

important to note that a majority still don't appear to have long-term mental health conditions. the stigma that trans people are just fucked-up headcases must be overcome too. these results back up the notion that under conditions where they're not treated like scum by the majority of the commentariat they'd have similar mental health patterns to the population as a whole

those seem like low rates of depression & anxiety for trans people if anything given how the uk is

No, what I heard her saying in specials like "Dressed to Kill" is that she was an "action transvestite". Which isn't the same thing as being transgender! Transvestites _can_ be transgender, or trans, or anything else. That's wasn't the understanding in '85. The word "transgender" technically existed by '85, I think, but the concept of being "transgender" as we understand it today did _not_.

You're correct - she made a big point of saying she was a tranvestite and not a transexual in his early shows! I used to know almost all of Dressed to Kill and being an executive transvestite was a huge part of it. She is going by Suzy but I also read that she doesn't mind Eddie or other pronouns since she knows that how most people have known her for decades.

*her* early shows obv whoops

those seem like low rates of depression & anxiety for trans people if anything given how the uk is

― ufo

i think that if i were in the uk i would feel a lot more pressure to... act like i wasn't mentally ill, to mask (i don't think of my autism or ADHD as "mental illnesses", i'm just borrowing the framing here). because like imago says "the stigma that trans people are just fucked-up headcases must be overcome too."

my being trans is strongly correlated with my being a fucked up headcase! for the first 40 or so years of my life i believed, because i was _taught_, that my wanting to be a woman meant there was something deeply, deeply wrong with me, that i was probably secretly a serial killer or something, and that i could never ever tell anybody about it. that shit didn't just _go away_ the second i started taking estrogen. it wasn't just like "oh i'm a girl everything's fine now and i have no problems".

and yeah UK media outlets like the guardian centering the trans "debate", the idea that it's legitimate to question the validity of my existence as a human being, that kind of thing does have a tendency to undermine a person's sense of self-worth. one of the things i struggle with is this constant pressure to be one of "the good ones". i'm not one of the "good ones" because there are no "good ones". like oh sure, being trans is fine as long as you're not also mentally ill or communist or polyamorous or kinky or, you know, _queer_ in any meaningful way. in a lot of ways that's what "passing privilege" boils down to, i have the ability to look like i'm _not obviously queer_ in certain contexts.

living in the us, in a trans-supportive environment, i have kind of a different challenge, which is communicating to people that i'm a fucked up headcase _because_ of systemic transphobia, when the assumption has historically been that the whole "trans" thing is in itself the mental illness. like i think there _is_ causation in a lot of cases, it's just the exact opposite of the direction a lot of people assume it is.

*her* early shows obv whoops

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB)

well that's the thing, it's hard to say even if it _is_ a whoops because she's "ok with any pronouns". it's one of those things where it's hard to know what that means. like in her case "preferred pronouns" are genuinely that? "preferred pronouns"? and suzy is her "preferred name". so it's ok, i guess, that the NYT does a whole profile on her and consistently calls her "eddie" even though her preferred name is suzy?

that's the thing that makes it difficult, again, all of the _pressure_ we're under. saying "oh i'm ok with any pronouns" is a great way to take some of the sting out of being misgendered. if people are gonna call you by a man's name and use male pronouns for you no matter what, you know? it's something i also saw in with, like, rachel humphreys, lou reed's partner for much of the 70s. will hermes, you know, he does his best navigating the shifting landscape of gender identities, and one of the things he points out in his prologue (which is all of his lou reed book i've actually read so far lol) that humphreys was ok with "any pronouns", and i mean, if you look at the shit people _said_ about her back then... it's not like she was in a position to say "no, i am a woman and you are going to respect that." i have the ability to be able to say that, _now_. i didn't in 1996, which is one of the big reasons i didn't transition back then.

i think you kind of see that in a lot of people who have been out as some variety of gender non-conforming for quite a long time. the stuff trans people go through now, it's often invisible to cis people and is really hard to talk about. i think there's a pretty strong likelihood that suzy has spent her whole life being called the f-slur. when people are transphobic, usually they don't call us the t-slur, they call us the f-slur. i mean, how do you deal with something like that? for a while i did the "i'm not an f-slur, i'm a dyke" thing, and now i'm like "sure, ok, i'm an f-slur, is that a problem?" (i'm "reclaiming" it but not to the extent that i'll say the actual word in ways that will make people uncomfortable!)

which is to say that while i'm horrified at suzy saying that she doesn't think j.k. rowling is transphobic, i absolutely understand where that impulse is coming from. i don't blame her for it. it is, though, especially horrifying to me, seeing a trans person caping for jkr. to me, that's a special case, that's when someone externalizes internalized transphobia. that's some of what gets contrapoints criticized from certain people within the trans community - there's specific stuff that's not wider public knowledge that makes that explicit, but again, when you look at where she came from, which is 4chan... you come up through there and you're gonna get a fuckton of internalized transphobia, you're really gonna learn to hate yourself in a way that a lot of trans people don't. and a lot of times it's people who in one way or another externalize internalized transphobia, the blaire whites, the caitlyn jenners, who are held up by cis media and cis culture as being _representative_ of us. but there are more complicated cases! richard o'brien is a positive role model for a lot of trans and gender non-conforming people, is non-binary, and they're also transphobic. contrapoints' videos, overall they've been very positive for trans people. her work has done a huge amount to promote trans acceptance. that's way more important than the occasional undercurrents of internalized transphobia in her work. those occasional undercurrents don't invalidate the tremendous things she's done to further the cause of trans rights. it's just _there_, occasionally, and sometimes it comes out in ways that hurt some of us.

like i said, suzy izzard was really influential on me, had a positive influence on me in a lot of ways. she just doesn't speak for trans people (any more than i speak for trans people) and some of the things she says are actively harmful to a lot of trans people.

I have tended to ignore her based on my hatred of british comedy and my assumption that her thing was just part of the long UK tradition of drag-as-comedy* (as distinct- in my mind at least- from drag-as-drag which may be comedic or not) which I now see was a reductive POV and that element was just a means of hiding in plain sight

*see US transphobes periodically trying and largely failing to rile up UK transphobes over the (to my mind) deeply conservative tradition of the pantomime dame (maybe worth reconsidering my perspective on this since I know nothing about this part of the culture)

the JKR thing is a very bad take but it's worth remembering how cis celebrities who have called her out have been treated in this country - in this case it would mean weeks of headlines and probably serious career consequences

those mental health stats are BS

personally I don't know of any trans or queer people who aren't headcases but I don't trust anyone who isn't a headcase in this world

No way was Izzard ever drag-as-comedy tbf.

I know that now but I made that assumption based on what people around me were saying

I have tended to ignore her based on my hatred of british comedy and my assumption that her thing was just part of the long UK tradition of drag-as-comedy* (as distinct- in my mind at least- from drag-as-drag which may be comedic or not) which I now see was a reductive POV and that element was just a means of hiding in plain sight

*see US transphobes periodically trying and largely failing to rile up UK transphobes over the (to my mind) deeply conservative tradition of the pantomime dame (maybe worth reconsidering my perspective on this since I know nothing about this part of the culture)

i mean i do think the whole tradition is interesting, there is a part of the gender non-conforming experience that is deeply conservative - i mean, just look at how many trans women come through 4chan. i do wonder, speculatively, if there is perhaps some correlation to how passing-centered one is and conservatism. a lot of times "passing" comes hand in hand with, you know, tradwifing. that's one of the reasons i was so, i'll say, ambivalent to the notion of "passing" early in transition. i didn't want to tradwife.

what i remember of izzard's stuff is that it was very "yes, i'm a transvestite, but when you think of what a "transvestite" is in your head, that's _not_ who i am". part of it is "hiding in plain sight" but part of it is that, i mean, the thing about being a "pioneer" is that a lot of the time one just has no fucking idea what one is doing. literally as far as most of us know we're just making this shit up for the first time. so izzard is out there in what we might call today "genderfuck". i mean even the fact that she's coming out there as a transvestite and _not wearing a skirt_ is kind of a mindfuck to me at the time but the genderfuck goes way beyond that.

but at the same time there's a lot of "look i'm also a basically normal person". that's still a difficult thing to me, i'm _not_ basically a normal person? but most of the shit i do is normal shit. and even when i do stuff that other people would think of as "weird", people make way too big a deal out of it. i don't want people to think of me as being "a normal person just like anyone else", but i also don't see why people would find it "weird" if i decide to go out in public wearing booty shorts and thigh-high striped socks (which i tend not to do, mostly because i'm not always up to being stared at). it's like, look, i just felt like dressing that way today! that's kind of the sense i get from izzard, she's up there on stage in tight leather pants and high-heeled boots and makeup and is like "yeah i like dressing like this, why is that a big deal".

that said i didn't, in the 90s, recognize her gender stuff as being in any way along the same spectrum as my gender stuff. a lot of it was that at the time i was interested in the more traditionally femme aspects of womanhood. looking at it now, it makes sense, like at that point she'd been publicly gender non-conforming for, i guess, a decade, and one's sense of style sort of tends to evolve over that period of time. a lot of it, i think, genuinely is a lack of lived experience. patriarchy sucks, being a woman sucks a lot of the time... at the same time, there are, like, 40 years of female gendered experiences that i've missed out on. transition isn't as simple as pushing The Button and going from a 43-year-old "man" to a 43-year-old woman. i've gotten a crash course in a lot things, good and bad.

there were all these ideas that just... wasn't any overarching conceptual understanding of them. i had a friend back in the '90s, when i was first trying to come out, who said they didn't have a gender. nowadays, that's easy for me to get, oh sure they're agender, cool, at the time, though? at the time i'm like that meme of columbo reading "gender trouble". "gender huh? see my wife got a cousin lew and she tells me lew don't have one. you ever hearda somethin' like that?" so izzard comes out and says "action transvestite" or "executive transvestite" and i come out and say "i don't know, i'm not really a transvestite and i'm not really a transsexual, i just, kind of, want to do girl shit sometimes", and it turns out those two things probably have a lot to do with each other... it wasn't something that was easy to recognize at the time.

-

when it comes to the larger notion of drag i do tend to... and this is a false binary, like a lot of binaries... differentiate between monty python-style pepperpot drag humor where it's like "ha ha, don't i look ridiculous and stupid, men wearing dresses are disgusting" and the sort of drag humor where the person has obviously put a lot of effort into it and knows how to look good. one of the things i think about with regards to "humor" is this 14th century rabbi by the name of kalonymus ben kalonymus, his big work was something called "eben bohan", which... i haven't read the whole thing, but apparently it's kind of a mix of serious pieces and more comedy bits. and there's this bit in there which is him lamenting over not having been born a woman. some critics have read this and said oh, yeah, this is one of his comedy pieces, god, that's hilarious, who would want to be a _woman_? a lot of trans people, on the other hand, particularly transfemmes, we read this and it's just like "oh my god, he fucking gets it, this is what gender dysphoria _feels_ like." and maybe it was just, you know, "satire" like people in the past have said it is, that its deep expression of gender dysphoria is just, i don't know, us reading into something that isn't there. who knows? the author has been dead for something like 700 years now. even if it is "satire" i find a lot of value and solace in being able to see someone writing 700 years ago writing something that resonates so deeply with me, with my experience of gender dysphoria.

it's not fucking "lola", is what i'm saying.

the JKR thing is a very bad take but it's worth remembering how cis celebrities who have called her out have been treated in this country - in this case it would mean weeks of headlines and probably serious career consequences

i mean she could always just have not said anything. she didn't have to call her out _or_ defend her.

personally I don't know of any trans or queer people who aren't headcases but I don't trust anyone who isn't a headcase in this world

― Left

i'll be honest my sample is skewed, there are some really good, legitimate reasons for people who are emotionally and mentally well-adjusted to, like, not actively seek out my company, haha

and also yeah the mental health people i engage with, there's a pretty common, if unspoken, understanding that a lot of "mental health" issues are caused by systemic oppression beyond our individual control. like yeah i feel like shit because people treat me like shit. that's not exactly a failure on my part, but i still gotta deal with the consequences of that.

I know that now but I made that assumption based on what people around me were saying

― Left

plus wanting to avoid media depictions of gender non-conformity that one suspects might be pretty hostile is... i mean, it's an evaluation one has to make. if i'm going to go see "the crying game" looking for an honest and sensitive portrayal of the trans experience i'm going to have a real bad time.

the news from yesterday - Cheshire Police didn't pursue Brianna Ghey's murder as a hate crime despite it being so very obviously so, and the sentencing judge made it perfectly clear in her sentencing remarks that she agreed.

ok lol anybody remember Val Venis
the 1990s wrestler with the pornstar gimmick
he's apparently now a libertarian and has decided trans people shouldn't exist. so someone bought up the domain valvenis.com and redirected it to a trans rights website, which is extra hilarious because it highlights how nobody is even slightly interested in val venis and certainly is not going to go to this guy's website
i bet gorgeous george would've said "trans rights"

Val venis
Has a small weenis

in less entertaining news tumblr's ceo's recent actions have led to a mass exodus of trans users (to cohost, i guess?):

https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/22/tumblr-ceo-publicly-spars-with-trans-user-over-account-ban-revealing-private-account-names-in-the-process/

silberling's article notes:

Tumblr is in an extended downward spiral. Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo (now TechCrunch’s parent company) for $1 billion in 2013, but the platform struggled to the point that Automattic bought Tumblr for just $3 million in 2019. Last year, Mullenweg said that the platform loses $30 million each year, and later, he reassigned the majority of Tumblr’s staff to other projects inside of Automattic. But no one on the trust and safety team was reassigned, so these moderation decisions likely weren’t impacted by the company shake-up. However, Tumblr has a bad track record for content moderation decisions, especially those involving trans people.

ok this shit is fucking wild

https://metalinjection.net/news/breakups/hardcore-band-fires-their-vocalist-for-the-most-insane-unhinged-behavior

lead singer dosed one of the other band members, sixx, with estrogen long-term so he could steal that band member's girlfriend

it, uh. didn't work. for the record.

Meanwhile, this shit isn't just in red states.

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nassau-county-banning-transgender-athletes-from-competing-at-its-facilities/

xpost Sounds like the plot of the next Daily Wire movie

xpost Sounds like the plot of the next Daily Wire movie

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes)

doesn't reflect poorly enough on trans people, for the daily wire to make it a movie they'd have to make the diego character trans

god i'm giving them ideas now aren't i

Meanwhile, this shit isn't just in red states.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra)

oh yeah, institutional transphobia has been on the rise for a while now, and it's spreading

one of the reasons focusing on the positive is so important for me is because it's... not as _visible_ as the negative

i don't know anywhere in the world _less_ transphobic in pdx, but even here, it's very much on the rise. there's more hostility. every day it's something else. cishets mostly don't know about it. it's hard even for us queer people to know about it, because a lot of the reporting on it is paywalled. yesterday, for instance, the wall street journal published an article titled "Can Warner Bros. Uncancel J.K. Rowling?" i don't have access to the article, but yasharali writes about it:

https://www.threads.net/@yasharali/post/C3ys75XxGt5/

"David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery has mounted a full-court press to woo Rowling back into the fold which includes regularly speaking to her and flying out to London to have dinner with her"

and, i mean, i'm not really in the know about media companies, but the context i've heard is that well of course zaslav is, zaslav is a scumbag, a mercenary, interested in nothing more than artificially inflating the value of WB before dumping it on someone else

which may be true, but god, name me someone in charge of a major media property who _isn't_ a mercenary scumbag?

More about that here
https://www.therowlinglibrary.com/2024/02/24/exploring-the-relationship-between-warner-bros-and-j-k-rowling-three-key-points-revealed-by-the-wall-street-journal/

depressing but not surprising. honestly, most people don't have any idea that rowling is a transphobe. it's easy to look at that and conclude that there's no negative impact to supporting transphobes. obviously i'm hardly unbiased on this issue but i do think that conclusion is based on a misread of the data. while the current hostility towards trans people _is_ dissuading at least some people from transitioning or leading to them to detransition, at the same time, large numbers of people are continuing to pursue transition, even given a fairly hostile and repressive environment.

it's the small stuff, the everyday stuff, the little kindnesses. there's the headlines and then there's the viral tiktok about the guy and his child in smalltown texas who saw a trans woman for the first time and was overwhelmed with, like, happiness. joy is a social contagion. i keep saying that because i keep _seeing_ it.

i don't pay much attention when trans people get killed, only for my own well-being, not because it's not important. i know someone did, recently, and people are being hateful, and maybe it'll keep going like that. more violence. more killing. more blaming _us_. maybe nobody will connect that back to rowling. maybe it won't affect warner bros.' bottom line. ever. they'll keep raking in the bucks and turning a blind eye to the little "side projects" their business associates have and it'll just be some insignicant minority on social media talking about "cancelling" them.

well, i'm biased. i can't imagine i'd take that bet.

idk. i got called for jury duty today and i was surprised by how many just... ordinary-looking people there were. i'm not saying that as a put-down. it's just not something i see a lot of. i know that "ordinary-looking" isn't the same as "ordinary". i don't think of anybody as being actually "ordinary". there was one lady in front of me with pink hair on one side and black hair on another and stompy boots and a pentagram badge on her bag. behind me was a goth girl, the sort who dress goth even when it's cold and they're reporting for jury duty. and then there's me, looking as ordinary as anyone else, just with a trans flag-colored horizontally striped top from target's pride collection (i'm pretty sure the gay agenda has reclaimed _all_ horizontal stripes, at this point. all horizontal stripes are gay, just like rainbows are gay, just like love is gay). me and a couple hundred people in queueing for half an hour and then being told they can go home. is anybody else there seeing their first trans person? it sounds ridiculous, for god's sake, i live in _portland_, there are _thousands_ of us. even here, though. it's easy to not notice. maybe out of those hundreds of people, someone there saw me and was happy i existed, like that guy in small-town texas. joy is a social contagion, but it's not yet a pandemic. that doesn't bother me. i haven't gotten the impression that bigots are good at controlling pandemics.

Not sure where to put this but a week or so ago I saw a listing for a club night which described itself as "LGBTQIA+ and Hetero friendly" next to the address and hours info

lol

Let me tell you a short story how I “met” @HJoyceGender and two other leaders of @SexMattersOrg in the train to Cambridge last night. I didn’t know who they were at the time but I was sitting near a middle aged lady who was typing in very big letters on her phone. So I look.. 1/

— Letters Bunchofnumbers (@dschw89) February 27, 2024

tldr; Helen Joyce caught reading Harry Potter slashfic on a train

It’s not slash. Slash is male/male. It’s extremely funny that she reads in font huge enough that it can be clearly seen by someone sitting across from her. Also, JKR quite famously hates fic of her characters. Very funny thing to happen to this awful person.

oh nooooooooooooooo are we gatekeeping slash now :(

i'm actually reading a book by an old-school usenet veteran about "yuri" and the history of it, all the battles over it and who the audience is - is "yuri" an offensive term, should it be called "shoujo-ai" ("girls love"), stuff like that

with the added layer that these arguments are mostly taking place in the anglosphere about framings of gender and sexuality from another culture

but with the _added_ added layer that these framings were in themselves borrowed from english language framings

like for instance early on the term "rezu" started to being used, but a lot of its use was kind of similar to the way the word "lezzie" used to be used - stuff sort of based on cishet ideas of "lesbianism"

which then led to Actual Lesbians(tm) adopting the term "bian" to describe themselves

and all i can think of is "With our forces combined..."

ANYWAY to follow up i have now seen the tweet where the twitter CEO outed the trans user's alternate accounts, and i won't be sharing the account names because it was a privacy violation, but the alternate account names are fucking _hilarious_ and i am here for all of them. also hilarious that this guy thought by sharing the account names he would, like, shame the user. real "charlton heston reading the lyrics to cop killer" vibes.

No no, last week it was the twitter CEO, this week it's the tumblr CEO..

when does twumblr get involved

wtf

https://x.com/bowwowgoodboy/status/1774917359590916149?s=20

So I did watch the new Lily Alexandre video and it's as always a good watch, a difficult one, but I thought the peroration was particularly good at... succintly expressing things I see around me, things that I feel a lot and don't know how to express.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CxiPdXuwgc

"With such a wide range of people committed to giving trans people a hard time, it can sometimes feel like the whole planet is conspiring against us. Nearly all the trans people I know are barely scraping by, struggling in ways they've done nothing to deserve, while the people working to intensify our struggling face no such stigma. A lot of people I know are withdrawing. A lot of them are coping in ways that worry me."

There's more to it than that. Lily's not saying that to be a doomer. I'm not a doomer either. The stuff she says after that is important. It's stuff I know, stuff I've known for a while, and it's important to be reminded of that, and since she says it, it's important for me to remind other people of that, in my own words this time.

The planet is not conspiring against us. I'm a longtime conspiracy theorist, but I wouldn't say that there's a conspiracy _against_ trans people at all. It's not really _about_ us at all. The kinds of shit people are saying about us, they could be saying it about anyone. The Jews or the Palestinians or Black people or, you know, anyone. We're not the first. I don't think we'll be the last, though I'd fucking love to be wrong about that. It's comforting in a way, knowing that it's not just us, knowing that trans people aren't alone in this, but it's also frustrating. Alexandre quotes Bari Weiss, who's Jewish, parroting flat out anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, just with the word "trans" substituted in for "Jewish".

And it's not... I mean, someone like Weiss is exceptional in a lot of ways. Not, like, everybody is going to be as blind to the reality of things as Weiss clearly is. It happens more than I'd like, though, and it's so dispiriting. I am withdrawing. I am pretty withdrawn, because it just hits me so hard whenever I see someone acting like that. I don't really want to know just how _many_ people there are who'd do the same thing, under those circumstances. And do I blame them personally? Not for the most part. Weiss, yeah, sure, I'll blame her personally. Like I said. She's exceptional. Most people? No, I don't blame them. But it breaks my heart. Every time. I can't bear to see it. Even if that's only, like, one in ten - and I think that's a pretty low estimate, one in ten - it breaks my heart.

I've said this a couple of times, but it's good to be here lately. It's good to just... talk to cis people and know that y'all have my back. That none of you are against us, that if you were, you wouldn't fucking be here, one way or another. I value that a lot. It is easy for me to feel, sometimes, that I'm in a bubble, that I live in a different world from everyone else, that it could all just come crashing in, that we could all just be _gone_, and we would be... like what frogbs said about people who died from COVID.

even now it's like these people are barely even remembered. just people who existed in some sort of "before time"

And, you know. If it's them, it could be us. It could be all of us. That scares me. I hope... I hope that fear is groundless. I still, haha, I still have a little bit of hope left, I guess. Even when I feel like I don't.

if anyone's in or near glasgow there's a protest at 6.30 today in george square. the local nhs board are due to announce a ban on hrt and blockers for trans youth

instagram.com/transprotestglasgow/

gotta say things aren't looking too great over here on terf island rn, and i can't see the situation improving any time soon :(

I feel for you. The utter bleakness is just overwhelming sometimes, particularly when it comes to things in the UK. Not that things in the US are all beer and skittles... people keep saying "2024 is an election year"... I don't know what that's supposed to mean and I don't want to know. I stopped following politics years ago... it's incredibly clear to me that whatever happens isn't up to me... at least in the US _some_ people will support us. I don't feel like I can talk about the reality of it, though, people turn away, they can't look at what's happening to us. I can't blame them. Sometimes I just, you know, feel like our lives are the abyss people avoid staring into...

Right now I can't bring myself to hope for a better world. I don't feel like... I don't feel like I have the _right_. That's just right now, though. How I feel changes a lot.

Ava I'm not going to be able to make it tonight - it was just too last minute for me, I got hit with an unexpected busy spell at work and I have a funeral tomorrow morning so I had to stay late. I'm with you there in spirit though, this is dismal.

i'm sorry for your loss, hope the funeral goes as well as possible, and thanks for your kind words