a tweet reads “the US is obviously hurtling into a serious “gender critical” movement” and frankly i have no idea how we’re supposed to combat it given that nobody who isn’t trans seems to notice or care”
it is replied to with this thread
“Aight Imma spit real quick and hope my FBI agent doesn’t turn my phone off /j Let’s talk real quick.
There was a movement in Black History around the Civil Rights when there was a currently-unimaginable amount of coalition building. It is truly amazing to me that a letter from the Panthers talking about queer rights was signed by Mexican, Chinese, Black etc activists.
During that time, and the time that followed, the government dedicated themselves to wedging as much bullshit between our groups as possible. Crack. AIDS. Model Minorities. Super predators. The list goes on and on.
Every time class consciousness gets a little bit closer to being realized, shit like this comes out in full force. We see BLM being branded as ultra violent. We see gender critical movements get a flux in support. We see how disabled people are basically being euthanized.
It’s just straight facts that our government is experienced in disrupting and assaulting leftist movements. All of it is on public record. Our own country is included in the collective that had to be broken down and “readjusted” for the benefit of white supremacy and capitalism.
The good thing is that we know we’re getting closer, cuz they’re scared. The bad thing is that we loose lives and are pushed a few steps back. Trans people are more of a target than we were before, and it was already bad. Disabled people. PoC. The intersections therein.
I kinda miss the slogan “all power to all the people” Because “all the people” means EVERYONE. It’s inclusive. It implies that the work of deconstructing our isms is how we empower ourselves and are able to collect under mutual interest. All power to all the people y’all.
Anyway. Just do what you can. Just surviving is a revolutionary act. If you can do more, do so. We’ll figure this shit out somehow. END ID]
one thing white christians will certainly never understand is that every day i swallow 90% of the things i want to say about my own community because while my criticisms are valid they also can be so easily misinterpreted and become weapons in the hands of white supremacists. and that means that important, essential discussions are not happening, or they are happening behind closed doors between people who already agree with each other, never actually furthering the debate. and this doesn’t just break my heart; it makes me blind with rage and frustration because i look around me and we are running in vicious circles. and even typing out this post i am speaking around the subject. i am not overly fond of privilege discourse but it sure is a privilege to be able to loudly and brashly talk shit about your own people. even at my angriest i can’t, i choke on the words. so i just have to sit with it. all the anger and the sadness and the love
[TW for discussion of forced sterilization and racism]
So someone on Feministing (I think) finally made the connection that trans* rights and reproductive rights/abortion are both fundamentally about bodily integrity and autonomy and therefore have many intersections, and proponents of both should be working together (something I’ve been saying since day one, along with many other trans* people before me).
Well radical feminists aren’t having it. Apparently the fact eludes them that forced sterilization and forced birth are two sides of the same antichoice coin. Which brings me to my main point. This so-called “conflict of interest” has happened before (maybe more than once?). During the second wave the interests and reproductive rights of wealthy, white feminists and WoC were going in opposite directions. White women were demanding access to abortion and to voluntary sterilization without restrictions from paternalistic doctors and simultaneously WoC were struggling to: be allowed to have children, not be demonized for having children, not be forcibly sterilized (often without their knowledge or consent), and not be tested on for development of contraception or other medications. Guess who was prioritized. Exactly. There’s a history here and a lot of tension and mistrust (rightfully) still remains because rich, white women made “reproductive rights” synonymous with what they needed access to and completely avoided the fact that the right to have children is as much of a reproductive rights issue as the right to abort/not have children.
My point is we know these radical feminists hate intersectionality because they think sex-based oppression is the only thing that matters (this is racist all on its own) and we know they hate trans* people. The fact that they don’t see how important forced sterilization is now anymore than they did back then has some serious implications considering the intersection of race and trans* status. Forced sterilization affects us all but TWoC are disproportionately the victims of violence and often have an even more precarious and tenuous relationship to the medical establishment, opening them up to all kinds of violations, particularly in regards to reproductive rights. That once again forced sterilization isn’t a priority for radical feminists and reproductive rights activists is further proof of their racism and the fact that White Feminism™ is alive and well, in case you doubted it for a split second.
A decade before the historic Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, another notable meeting took place. In 1837, black and white women joined forces to challenge both slavery and patriarchy at the 1837 Anti-Slavery Convention. This little known gathering was written out of history – until now.
“And the Spirit Moved them” by Helen LaKelly Hunt details the lost radical history of America’s first feminists. Learn more via Feminist Press.
So time drew on to the War of the Ring, and the sons of Denethor grew to manhood. Boromir, five years the elder, beloved by his father, was like him in face and pride, but in little else. Rather he was a man after the sort of King Eärnur of old, taking no wife and delighting chiefly in arms; fearless and strong, but caring little for lore, save the tales of old battles.
—The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, “Appendix A: Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur”
[image description: a 3x3 moodboard. 1: the white-and-gold Horn of Gondor lying on top of a fallen tree; beneath it are a silver and gold pendant depicting the Tree of Gondor and an unsheathed sword. 2: burgundy leaves. 3: a burgundy starscape featuring the full moon and soft clouds. 4: black text on a bright yellow background reading “be kind; for everyone is fighting a hard battle” 5: Boromir from the Lord of the Rings on the background of a gay ace flag; he is depicted in a picrew as a human man with medium olive skin, green eyes, wavy black shoulder-length hair, a scar over his nose, and slight stubble on his chin; he is wearing a white and black jacket with gold trim, silver laurels in his hair, and a necklace with the pendant of a small animal’s skull; his holding a dagger and grinning. 6: black text on a white background reading “Go get it” 7: a dark blue cloudscape. 8: the hilt of a sword lying on dark blue fabric. 9: a banner depicting the Tree of Gondor flapping in the wind. end image description.]
DAY SIX: Intersectionality There is more to a person’s life than just their orientation. How does being aspec interact with a character’s other identities and experiences, such as race or disability or religion? What’s the impact of a character’s aspec identity on their gender or other orientation labels? Today is a day for exploring the intersections of the aspec experience with other aspects of identity. Secondary prompts: Connection, Relief, Friendship
Theseprompts are optional, and we are open to any aspec content whether or not you stick to our suggestions!
Please tag your posts with #aspecardaweek AND @ mention this blog @aspecardaweek so they can be easily found, and indicate if it includes any of the topics mentioned in the “tagging guidelines” of the Code of Conduct.
If your submission turns into a long post, please put what you can beneath a “Keep reading” divider. If you are posting your submission to AO3, you can add it to the event collection here.
Privileged people rarely take the voices of marginalized people seriously. Social justices spaces attempt to fix this with rules about how to respond to when marginalized people tell you that you’ve done something wrong. Like most formal descriptions of social skills, the rules don’t quite match reality. This is causing some problems that I think we could fix with a more honest conversation about how to respond to criticism.
The formal social justice rules say something like this:
You should listen to marginalized people.
When a marginalized person calls you out, don’t argue.
Believe them, apologize, and don’t do it again.
When you see others doing what you were called out for doing, call them out.
Those rules are a good approximation of some things, but they don’t actually work. It is impossible to follow them literally, in part because:
Marginalized people are not a monolith.
Marginalized people have the same range of opinions as privileged people.
When two marginalized people tell you logically incompatible things, it is impossible to act on both sets of instructions.
For instance, some women believe that abortion is a human right foundational human right for women. Some women believe that abortion is murder and an attack on women and girls.
“Listen to women” doesn’t tell you who to believe, what policy to support, or how to talk about abortion.
For instance, some women believe that religious rules about clothing liberate women from sexual objectification, other women believe that religious rules about clothing sexually objectify women.
“Listen to women” doesn’t tell you what to believe about modesty rules.
Narrowing it to “listen to women of minority faiths” doesn’t help, because women disagree about this within every faith.
When “listen to marginalized people” means “adopt a particular position”, marginalized people are treated as rhetorical props rather than real people.
Objectifying marginalized people does not create justice.
Since the rule is literally impossible to follow, no one is actually succeeding at following it. What usually ends up happening when people try is that:
One opinion gets lifted up as “the position of marginalized people”
Agreeing with that opinion is called “listen to marginalized people”
Disagreeing with that opinion is called “talking over marginalized people”
Marginalized people who disagree with that opinion are called out by privileged people for “talking over marginalized people”.
This results in a lot of fights over who is the true voice of the marginalized people.
We need an approach that is more conducive to real listening and learning.
This version of the rule also leaves us open to sabotage:
There are a lot of people who don’t want us to be able to talk to each other and build effective coalitions.
Some of them are using the language of call-outs to undermine everyone who emerges as an effective progressive leader.
They say that they are marginalized people, and make up lies about leaders.
Or they say things that are technically true, but taken out of context in deliberately misleading ways.
The rules about shutting up and listening to marginalized people make it very difficult to contradict these lies and distortions.
(Sometimes they really are members of the marginalized groups they claim to speak for. Sometimes they’re outright lying about who they are).
(For instance, Russian intelligence agents have used social media to pretend to be marginalized Americans and spread lies about Hillary Clinton.)
The formal rule is also easily exploited by abusive people, along these lines:
An abusive person convinces their victim that they are the voice of marginalized people.
The abuser uses the rules about “when people tell you that you’re being oppressive, don’t argue” to control the victim.
Whenever the victim tries to stand up for themself, the abuser tells the victim that they’re being oppressive.
That can be a powerfully effective way to make victims in our communities feel that they have no right to resist abuse.
This can also prevent victims from getting support in basic ways.
Abusers can send victims into depression spirals by convincing them that everything that brings them pleasure is oppressive and immoral.
The abuser may also isolate the victim by telling them that it would be oppressive for them to spend time with their friends and family, try to access victim services, or call the police.
The abuser may also separate the victim from their community and natural allies by spreading baseless rumors about their supposed oppressive behavior. (Or threatening to do so).
When there are rules against questioning call outs, there are also implicit rules against taking the side of a victim when the abuser uses the language of calling out.
Rules that say some people should unconditionally defer to others are always dangerous.
The rule also lacks intersectionality:
No one experiences every form of oppression or every form of privilege.
Call-outs often involve people who are marginalized in different ways.
Often, both sides in the conflict have a point.
For instance, black men have male privilege and white women have white privilege.
If a white woman calls a black man out for sexism and he responds by calling her out for racism (or vice versa), “listened to marginalized people” isn’t a very helpful rule because they’re both marginalized.
These conversations tend to degenerate into an argument about which form of marginalization is most significant.
This prevents people involved from actually listening to each other.
In conflicts like this, it’s often the case that both sides have a legitimate point. (In ways that are often not immediately obvious.)
We need to be able to work through these conflicts without expecting simplistic rules to resolve them in advance.
This rule also tends to prevent groups centered around one form of marginalized from coming to engage with other forms of marginalization:
For instance, in some spaces, racism and sexism are known to be issues, but ableism is not.
(This can occur in any combination. Eg: There are also spaces that get ableism and sexism but not racism, and spaces that get economic justice and racism but not antisemitism, or any number of other things.)
When disabled people raise the issue of ableism in any context (social justice or otherwise), they’re likely to be shouted down and told that it’s not important.
In social justice spaces, this shouting down is often done in the name of “listening to marginalized people”.
For instance, disabled people may be told ‘you need to listen to marginalized people and de-center your issues’, carrying the implication that ableism is less important than other forms of oppression.
(This happens to *every* marginalized group in some context or other.)
If we want real intersectional solidarity, we need to have space for ongoing conflicts that are not simple to resolve.
Tl;dr “Shut up and listen to marginalized people” isn’t quite the right rule, because it objectifies marginalized people, leaves us open to sabotage, enables abuse, and prevents us from working through conflicts in a substantive way. We need to do better by each other, and start listening for real.
Now that it’s 2017 can we finally stop using mental illness as an excuse to be bad people Like no it’s not okay to deflect claims of racism, homophobia, or transphobia because it makes you feel bad. Guess what makes me feel bad? When people hate me for being lgbt or not being white. Guess who also has mental illnesses? Lgbt and non white people. Guess what you can be? Mentally ill and also not bigoted. Like its perplexing to me, as somebody who has an abuser who constantly hides behind their illness, and as somebody who is very much ill themselves, that this shit is still even a topic of discussion. It’s everybody’s personal responsibility to not be bigoted people because it hurts other people when we are. Even if it can be hard to challenge your pre conceived notions and inherent bigotry when you are mentally ill you should do so anyway because when you don’t you are HURTING people. And no, it’s not acceptable to cover your ears to criticism like that because it makes you feel bad. Being a bad person should make you feel bad and being part of a GOOD person is learning how to handle that and learn from it rather than lash out or force your own ignorance. Idk I’m just real tired of how people recently love to, when confronted with racism/homophobia/etc. say “seeing this #discourse makes me feel unsafe i have anxiety and depression i have to take care of myself” bitch me too and it felt awful and made me hate myself to be called out on dumb shit i said in the past but I realize that not confronting that will only hurt everybody involved If you really cant take whatever discourse you blog about stop blogging about it, at the very least
American legal Professor, Kimberlé Crenshaw, is one of the original theorists of intersectionality. She used intersectionality as a way to show that Black women in the USA experience multiple inequalities. Writing in 1989, Professor Crenshaw showed that industrial law treated racial and sexual discrimination as distinct experiences. She showed that Black women experience both racism and sexism simultaneously, and so the impact of each is compounded. Professor Patricia Hill Collins and other theorists have shown that, without using this term specifically, people in the Global South have used intersectionality as an analytical tool since at least the 1800s, to grapple with the complexity of discrimination. In Australia, we look to the works of Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson, such as her book Talkin’ Up to the White Woman, which examines how White feminist research has established authority through mobilising whiteness and enacting power over Aborginal women. Intersectionality is not an identity, but rather a way to understand power relations and social inequality, by looking at the interconnections of social division, such as race, gender, disability, sexuality and class. Our panel today will examine the intersections of race, gender and socioeconomics which impact the work by Aboriginal healthcare workers; how social norms of whiteness and anti-blackness are playing out during the pandemic; and how intersectionality can help shine a light on gender and sexual violence under social isolation.
Panellists
Karl Briscoe is a proud Kuku Yalanji man from Mossman – Daintree area of Far North Queensland and has worked for over 18 years in the health sector at various levels of government and non-government including local, state and national levels. He is currently the CEO of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Worker Association (NATSIHWA).
Professor Karen Farquharson is Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences and Professor of Sociology at the University of Melbourne. Her research is focused on the sociology of ‘race’ and racism, ethnicity, and diversity, particularly in the contexts of media and sport. Her recent work has looked at how organisations manage diversity including organisational opportunities for and barriers to increasing diversity. Karen is co-author of three books including Qualitative Social Research: Contemporary Methods for the Digital Age (2016) and co-editor of three collections, most recently Australian Media and the Politics of Belonging (2018) and Relating Worlds of Racism: Dehumanisation, Belonging, and the Normativity of European Whiteness (2018).
Dr Nilmini Fernando is a Sri Lankan Australian scholar of Postcolonial/Black Feminisms. Her Doctoral research theorized Postcolonial Asylum in the Irish settler colonial context through an intersectional analysis of gendered racism and state power at the asylum/migration nexus. As a practice-based scholar at WIRE Women’s Information Melbourne, Nilmini’s focus has been to critique race-evasive mainstream identity-based applications of intersectionality and develop a Critical Intersectionality Praxis model for the Australian context. She is currently a Research Fellow on the Breaking the Racial Silence’ project at Griffith University. Her publications include The Discursive Violence of Postcolonial Asylum 2017), Financial Abuse in the family violence context, (WIRE 2018) and forthcoming in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, and Journal of Intercultural studies
Díme coreanas como fotos que la recuerdan de su mamá.
Dices coreana y significa excepción, tumba de chinas rotas, fantasma morena, plano como ukiyo-e. Cuando tus vecines te necesitan, queride, no quieren la teoría. Necesita tu voz, sin excusas.
Tengo una hanbok sobre mi armario, rosa y floja como pulmón. Lloramos juntas, invisibles, en silencio.
Say coriander fresh from the branch, parse it.
Say Koran, five prayers. The memory of mothers.
Say core of the issue: Sexism. Class. Say the worms and the women they gnaw.
What else is there to say?
It’s another rough week in America. I wrote this piece for my friend today, inspired by listening to her experiences over the past few days. She has graciously given me her permission to do so. Be good to yourselves and each other. Listen to your AAPI neighbors and support them in the ways they ask for. Love to you all.
I think the worst thing to come out of the #BLM protest was the complete ignorance of black women’s victomhood in terms of police brutality. Conversations of police brutality should ALWAYS include black women in tandem with black men.
Black women are in a very unique situation where even as women, we’re percieved as threats. The safety of “womanhood” isn’t ever guaranteed for black women, not against the police.
Remember intersectionality when talking about police brutality. Black lives matter should always consider black women’s lives as well.
TERFs don’t want to save trans men and AFAB nonbinarys who don’t look like GNC women.
The want to detransition us, force us to accept our “role” as women, make us proud of the parts of ourselves that often make us the most uncomfortable in our own skin.
If the trans person in question is white, they want to use our wombs to produce more white babies. Because don’t forget, you can never part the racist from the sexist.
And if someone’s too far gone, if they’re too loud and brash and wield their words like a baseball bat. If they can’t be silenced, then they want to kill us. Demean us, dehumanize us, use us as a warning to younger, closeted trans people.
Look at them. Look at what testosterone has done to their bodies, the personalities, their souls. You don’t want to be like that, do you?
TERFs say the want to save us. They don’t.
They want to kill us.
y'all have exactly 0 experience w radfem ideology and it shows
Telling this to a former non-TERF borderline radfem is honestly hilarious~
So you agree? You have no experience with actual radical feminism
“borderline radfem” lmao
@happysadyoyo Your post is so completely wrong about radical feminism that I am certain you were never a “non-TERF borderline radfem”, this lie doesn’t take. We are left-wing and our feminism is logically intersectional, in the original and true definition of the word, coined by black feminist and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw. “TERF” is a word you use against such a broad range of people (but, what a surprise, all women !) that I have no doubt there’s women in there that are indeed racist and agreeing with this white supremacist fantasy of birthing white babies, however they are not feminists and even less radical feminists (you know the RF in the acronym), I can’t believe we even have to say that. It’s as if talking to toddlers, trying to explain to them basic facts, that’s how uneducated you are about this movement.
Radical feminism is also known for its anti-natalism but sure do talk about how we want to “use our (trans men) wombs” for racist reasons. We advocate for the right for women to get an abortion if they want it, no exception, this includes trans men of course (I’m sure you know that, since we’re demonized for saying that trans men and women share the same biology, are female). All of your pamphlet is ridiculous if you care to read even just ten per cent of anything we write/say). Wanting to kill you ?! False. I’m going to surprise you tonight but wow we even want trans people to be treated equally to everyone else and not be discriminated when it comes to work/ housing/medical care, etc. “Look at their soul”, we don’t even believe in the religious concept of a soul, that’s something you people from the gender crowd believe in toughly though.
Why do you think it’s so bad that we want to “make (you) proud of the parts of (y)ourselves that often make us the most uncomfortable in our own skin.” Many of us were dysphoric ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with feeling better, with healing. We don’t want to force that on you though, this is something only you can do, in your own pace. There’s no “role” inherent to being a woman (you did put the word role yourself in quote, so why continuing the sentence ? Was this a spark of clarity about woman not being a role ?) femininity is the role and as feminists we criticise gender/gender roles. The term “gender critical” may help you to see that, this is if you choose to not be intellectually dishonest.
I will finish with this : I’m a radical feminist and I came across trans men heavily brainwashed by porn and bdsm who are on this very website indulging in a “kink” of forced detransition. I didn’t linger but it seems to be a growing community since I’ve noticed a good number of them in a short amount of time in these “nsfw” circles. Like any of my feminist sisters I could recognise that as self-harm, self-hatred, not authentic, unhealthy, and I did send a few messages about how they shouldn’t force themselves to detransition. Such thing should come from a place of healing, like I said, not because you were forced by someone else or because you now think “god didn’t intend you to be trans but to follow your feminine essence” or whatever religious sexist nonsense the detransitioners who did it for religious reasons are on. If anything any of what these trans men wrote about their “fantasy” of forced detransition (mind you, they can be very active trans activists all the while doing that) was sad and honestly enraging. It comes with sense there was a big layer of sexism in these posts, wanting to be reduced to a subservient place, to be used by men, to have no authority on their own body, etc, and some are so brainwashed by the “culture” of these porn-addicted spaces that they’re getting closer and closer to doing it.
Do you really think we would be in favour of that ?! Everything in this type of behaviour screams “needs therapy”, a real one, which is exactly the most “extreme” solution we push for. Radical feminists don’t want to harm trans men and non-binary identifying females, we recognise an experience, a pain, more and more our own, and being honest about it as feminist women does not equal any of the word you tried to put together here.
As first-time director, Anna Rose Holmer is in an elite group. Her movie, “The Fits,” about an 11-year-old tomboy trying to fit in, was one of the fewer than 1% of submitted featuresSundance Film Festival programmers chose last year, an acceptance rate tougher than that of an Ivy League college. She received some of the best reviews of the festival, and secured a distribution deal, a manager and an agent.
And yet, amid this success, Holmer, 31, now faces what is possibly the greatest barrier to a sustainable career as a filmmaker – her second movie.
We are horrified by the Trump administration’s treatment of trans and gender nonconforming people. Please reach out to your trans friends and family this week.
