By telling trans people they should learn to love their bodies and unlearn their dysphoria, you’re suggesting something incredibly similar to something that starts with “pray”, ends with “away” and involves ~fixing~ gay people.
As an aromantic trans man, I’ve seen misogyny accusations weaponized against men like me enough that I’m starting to examine every concept for how it can be used against other marginalized folks and how to shut it the fuck down when I see it.
And it worries me that people can take things like this and use them against others so easily when doing so can delegitimize real and genuine accusations for just causes. I do not want to one day see people having to question every accusation of bigotry with “okay, is the accused person a member of a marginalized group that the accuser is not?” We’re not at that point yet; let’s not get there. (Or maybe we are and I just haven’t seen it? I hope not.)
But look, misogyny is real and it’s a problem. And it’s real quick and easy for anyone who isn’t a transphobe to see the problem with “you’re not a man, you just have so much internalized misogyny that you hate yourself for being a woman,” and it’s real quick and easy for anyone who isn’t an arophobe to see the problem with “you’re just a chauvinist pig who wants to sleep around without actually caring about the women you fuck if you seriously wanna have sex without dating anyone ever.”
But do you know how anxious I am about calling out transphobia when the abortion debate comes up? Of course a bunch of cis men are doing it because they want to control women’s bodies, but they’re transphobes too. If trans people get fucked over by them banning abortions, that’s just a bonus to them! And the cis folks protesting abortion bans while forgetting that trans men and some nonbinary people can get pregnant too, they get their opportunity to perpetuate transphobia with cute little “if men could get pregnant, abortion clinics would be like Starbucks” statements that pretend we don’t exist, and if we call it out, “shut up, this is an attack on women, it’s not about how you ~identify~”. Asking to be included in the pro-choice movement is treated like an act of misogyny even though we’re affected by it too. We’re expected to either go back in the closet or shut up and let everyone pretend we don’t exist. How the fuck am I supposed to advocate for my own issues if I’m not allowed to be myself in the process?
As for being aro, well, most people don’t even know aros exist and when they find out they often resort to either hating us or just not taking any of our concerns seriously. After all, we’re invisible and to some that’s not even, like, real oppression so who cares? And the ones who hate us or don’t even know we exist think statements like “men who want to have sex with women but don’t want to date them are misogynists using women for sex” are perfectly reasonable in all situations. Trying to explain that aro allos exist and we just don’t get romantic feelings towards others while still being attracted to others sexually just gets you “is there something wrong with you” and “do you feel anything at all” and “so you don’t care about anyone”. We’re regarded as sexual predators for our orientation and descriptions of us by people who aren’t us use the most harsh language possible (“he just wants to fuck without caring about anyone”). Surely you can see how hurtful it is to claim someone is a bigot for something they did not choose and cannot control? Surely you can see the problem with saying someone is objectifying women by being attracted to them the wrong way when they can’t control that? (Didn’t talk about aroaces for this because tbh I don’t know how someone could utilize accusations of misogyny against them).
Damnit, I just… I hate that I can be accused of hating women just cause I’m trans and aro and a man. Cause I like to think I’m not a misogynist and I surround myself with people I trust to call me out. I’ve had to watch myself from internalizing this shit, the idea that by my very nature I’m contributing to the oppression of women. It’s making me wary of just how easy it is to weaponize activism against others. And I just wish we talked about this more so people could more quickly spot it and shut it the fuck down on sight.
What I’m saying is that JKR, like so many average people, very likely started off in a place of well-meaning ignorance. Then she started exploring new and different ideas being shared online. Some ideas resonated deeply with her experiences as an abuse survivor, so she began exploring them deeper. Then, wham, public backlash. Her trauma is triggered - but so is her curiosity. After all, if something she did or said set people off, maybe she’s onto something. So she starts exploring more. Starts asking more questions. And when she does this in public, there is always backlash. Meanwhile, however, in private, her new friends are telling her “See? This is proof we’re right. This is proof that the world wants us silenced, because they’re scared of the truth, and they really hate women that much.” And what do you know, what they’re telling her starts sounding more and more reasonable, especially since the outside world is becoming more and more hostile.
People keep searching for ways to argue that JK Rowling has always been a horrible person deep down as a way of explaining her recent behaviour.
But here’s the thing: that’s probably not true at all.
Pretending it is discounts the harsher, scarier truth: that even decent, well-meaning people can be radicalised by dangerous, hateful, predatory groups, and given enough time they can become truly hideous versions of their former selves.
It can happen to me. It can happen to you. It can happen to any of us, given the right mix of circumstances. And over the past few years, we’ve seen it happen to one of the most famous children’s authors of our age.
Nobody is immune.
So you’re saying that The Clown wasn’t always… outright evil?
No one is born evil
Good point, but prejudice is best installed at a young age. Why is why I assumed the said Clown was just evil since some early part of their life.
And round and round it goes, until you have a radical.
This is absolutely how radicalization works. I started out “I could never be a feminist, they hate kinksters” (yes, this was a massive oversimplification) and within, oh, i think two years? i was saying “well, i don’t like the overtones of ‘radical feminist’ but what’s so wrong with saying you’re a radical AND a feminist? we need to make sure there’s space for traumatized women who really do legitimately hate and fear men.”
When you become an extremist, you become UNRECOGNIZABLE even to YOURSELF.
This isn’t to apologise for her behaviour or rehabilitate her into some former activist who is still worthy of saving; it’s to contextualise her recent descent into TERFdom compared to her previous political stances she’s openly held. She was probably never going to be a staunch ally for equality and diversity, and yes, a lot of the HP series were very problematic in retrospect, but she could very easily have gone the other way and at the very least turned out to be less of a bigoted shitbag she is now. The fact that her politics in late 2000′s/early 2010′s were similar to so many people who are now activists and organisers for queer, BIPOC and vulnerable communities should tell us to be all the more careful about radfem ideology and transphobia in progressive spaces.
It’s comforting to say “we should have known in hindsight that she was always going to become a TERF, the early signs were all there!” but that’s also not true. We have to recognise that the toxic ideology, the active harm she chooses to participate in, was a deliberate choice; this was a path she chose to go down, not one that was pre-determined for her. It’s also an easy way to separate ourselves from being critical of radfem influence; “JKR was always a right-wing bigot and that’s why she became indoctrinated with radfem bullshit. I’m not a right-wing bigot, therefore unlike her, I will never fall for radfem bullshit.”
People who become radicalised, including those to become radfems, were not always irredeemable right-winger proto-Conservatives doomed for extremism and hatred, and that’s the point. The revisionist idea that she was always beyond salvaging erases how TERFs recruit people (especially vulnerable, impressionable people) in queer, progressive and liberal circles and how easily their dogwhistles can go undetected. The idea that JKR was already a closet right-winger from the get-go and therefore could never have been a good person is ultimately unhelpful because all it does it separate from the reality of how radfem doctrine spreads. TERFs sell their own toxic, harmful views packaged as progressive ideas as part of their strategy and that’s why their ideology is dangerous and requires constant vigilance to drive out.
it’s fascinating to see people running their mouth about radical feminism who have clearly never actually interacted with radfem theory.
so many times I’ve seen randoms online try to claim that terfs don’t really hate cis men, they just hate trans women. like,, see? this terf worked with a cis man to pass legislature to take away trans rights. clearly they respect men to some extent.
no, absolutely not. just because they’re willing to sell out in a second to stop trans rights, does not mean that they don’t fundamentally distrust/dislike “males” and want female supremacy. they think every human assigned male is entirely different from them, biologically inferior because of a lack of access to reproduction, and predisposed to anger, violence, and incapable of emotional depth.
they Other men, or rather, who they consider men.
sure, TIRFs exist and claim to have the True, Modern Radical Feminism. they use gender essentialism instead, insisting that this predisposition to abuse is tied to manhood alone, and therefore trans women are safe and trans men are not. but this does not really protect trans women, as any tie to masculinity can revoke their womanhood, and any form of gender essentialism is bad for all trans people.
not to mention that they fundamentally misunderstand radical feminism; it really isn’t supposed to work based off of traits like that. the entire ideology is based off of reproductive control, which is biological in nature. TIRFs are simply trying to make this flawed ideology work for trans people, rather than recognizing that any supremacist ideology is based in fascism. (and their entire concept of biology is wrong and colonialist but that’s another topic entirely)
back to my point, radical feminism is all about the idea that gender exists solely to oppress females, and that this, the patriarchy, is essentially a conspiracy between all males to maintain access to reproduction.
this is an absurdly simplistic, reductive take that ignores most of human history and an ounce of intersectionality (and don’t say I’m the one who stripped the intersectionality. radfems teach themselves that misogyny is worse than all forms of oppression and that male privilege almost always supersedes racism to such an extent that all males collude to maintain systemic sexism).
regardless, it’s their primary tenant. and it’s the reason trans people terrify them. we blur the lines between male and female. we represent the culmination of the erasure of the female sex.
sound anything like white supremacy to you?
..
tldr; terfs have zero respect or love for cis men, they simply sell out easily. radical feminism teaches that the patriarchy exists to give males reproductive access, and this supersedes all other oppression. they also believe all males are biologically predisposed to aggression and abuse. they hate trans women because they believe this applies to them too.
This is what I keep saying. Radical feminism is at its heart white supremacist. It imposes its own theory of biological essentialism as a universal, biological classifications rooted in idealized white womanhood, white fragility and toxic white femininity, and completely erases all the racist, ableist, classist etc. intersections of privilege. Its misandry is a grift for cis white women to rationalize themselves as the Most Oppressed while remaining classist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic and racist as shit.
Radical feminism wasn’t originally transphobic, but was fundamentally built on the exclusion of all men, equating people with systems. It was developed purely among university educated cis white women for the purpose of reclaiming their reproductive and sexual rights. All other women were mere afterthoughts to this project or considered mere extensions of themselves. This recipe for toxicity is what has now been carried to its natural conclusion.
However, I believe that radfems obsession with trans women is an outgrowth of the fact that it depends on leveraging the same white female fragility that tradfems do, by calling for protection from “mutant and predatory underclasses”. Among conservative white women, this used to be first and foremost black people, especially black women. White progressive politics can’t make a bogeyman out of race and class, but by casting masculinity as the predator and bio essentialist white womanhood as the victim, everyone who falls outside of the latter necessarily becomes a threat, especially black women and brown women, who have historically been and still continue to be systemically stripped of their womanhood. It’s not a coincidence that so many anti-trans laws penalize cis black women.
In my view, the project of radical feminism is to use bio essentialism to retain a female white supremacist power base by consistently casting themselves as both the most victimized and their saviours. It’s why radical feminism is equally oppressive to disabled, working class, queer and BIPOC people as trans folk.
mads mikkelson is refusing to condemn jk rowling just because he’s on her payroll now. like this interview is so obnoxious and it just turns into him complaining about how both sides need to be nicer and “everything is political now”
he even implies that people don’t know what they’re talking about… but also admits he didn’t read what she said, so he can’t comment on it. like…… my dude……. if you can’t comment, don’t fucking “both sides”transmisogyny
and i know since he’s been elected tumblr’s decrepit man of the year people will let it slide or be like “well at least he didn’t defend her” but just because he didn’t aggressively say he’s right doesn’t mean he didn’t passively say ‘well at least let her use her platform to say it”
Things you say when you’re totally not transphobic.
i am always sus as fuck when anyone uses the phrase “women and nonbinary people” because do they mean that? do they actually mean “and nonbinary”? or do they just mean “women and people we consider women lite but its Politically Incorrect to say that so we’ll say nonbinary instead but *wink wink*”, because 9 times outta ten its the latter
[img ID: tweet by Laurie Penny saying ‘a critic who reviewed my new book made a huge fuss about refusing to use my preferred pronouns in the review. My publishers made the mistake of politely informing the magazine. I would have warned them against it, knowing how vicious transphobes can be to LGBTQ authors.
Max Dashu has replied to this tweet saying ‘child of privilege: i’m oppressed, I’m oppressed.” Married woman: “by a lesbian, by a lesbian.” Anyway, last I looked you said they/them she/her? Tempest in a teapot, misdirection…
Second img is a screenshot of Max Dashu sharing a link to the review written by noted antisemitic conspiracy theorist andtransphobe, Julie Bindel, along with the comment: ‘sweeping half a century of feminist activism from the boards doesn’t do women’s’ liberation any favours. Neither does stanning for men’s rights to consumer sex at the expense of women.
Third image is a retweet by Max Dashu of a tweet by someone else about the GRA and the Scottish government’s impact assessment for it. Dashu has commented with two quotes (unsourced): the first is: “I am having treatment for breast cancer and I am boiling with rage. It’s incomprehensible how they can equate a woman who has had a mastectomy with a male bodied person.” The second quote is: “do not dare equate my lived experience as a woman with someone whose lived experience is as a man.” /End ID]
Anyway, if there was any doubt that Max Dashu, creator of the Suppressed Histories Archive is a terf, doubt no more.
Here’s Max taking a petty shot at author Laurie Penny for daring to have changed their pronouns from she/her and they/them in 2019, to they/them today.
Context: noted antisemitic conspiracy theorist and terf, Julie Bindel, reviewed Laurie Penny’s new book. She insisted on misgendering Penny throughout the review. Penny’s publisher reached out to The Critic (which published the review written by noted antisemitic conspiracy theorist and terf, Bindel) to correct them. Now the TERFs are mad about it.
(Hope it’s okay to stick this here, it would have taken multiple replies, but I can delete if not, just lmk). It was personal experience. She posted on her suppressed history archive page a Photo of a very famous ancient vase depiction of Achilles mourning the death of Patroclus, claiming it was the most moving depiction of woman‘s grief in antiquity, and identifying it as (iirc) Briseis. When someone asked for a reference for the vase she replied she didn’t have one, and often came across Material this way - without any attribution. Literally one reverse image search would have revealed what it was. But it’s also highly troubling that she managed to miss literally all the actual academia literature on depictions of grief in antiquity, or depictions of scenes from the Iliad, etc. That would have allowed her to identify this piece.
Plus, her feminist research into the Iliad (the topic of the post) was based on decades old books all by men, and when I asked her if she’d read any of the modern books on the Iliad written by women classicists - because there is actually quite a lot of work being done by women classicists about exactly the topics she was looking into - she stopped replying to that thread too.
Seeing how sketchy her research was when it was a topic I knew about, and seeing her ignore people pointing out modern material by women who are actually experts in the field on women in antiquity… was like, oh, okay. I cannot trust you as a source on the topics I don’t know as much about bc your research methods themselves are A Problem Here.
I‘m p sure I still have screenshots of at least parts of it if you want.
It will never not fuck me up how transwomen feel dysphoric when they wear comfy, practical clothes, go out in public with no make up, and let their body hair grow out, but don’t feel dysphoric from having or using their dicks. Like you seriously feel like dressing and grooming styles are female but female sex organs aren’t????
Well that’s clinically wrong, hell it’s fucking trans porn based politically wrong.
Holy fuck.
It’s almost like transphobes like YOU make trans people hyperaware of socially expected gender presentation, and feel self conscious and anxious when they don’t perform right.
When you’re worried about the fucking clowns coming after you because you’re doing gender wrong, of course you’re self conscious.
Also, another tally in the “terfs are so fucking obsessed about trans people’s genitals and bring them up at every fucking opportunity” column. Get a hobby, creep.
It’s insane how terfs will talk about trans women threatening them with physical and sexual violence and then in the next breath say “someone should strangle that cumstain to death” about a trans woman. Like, oh, obviously it’s okay if YOU do it but if someone else does they’re a misogynist oppressor, right?
And all those terf collections of trans offenders are a copy of the racists that have done it since forever.
They think that they’re immune to any sort of consequence or criticism because they have The Sacred Vagina. They are the Most Oppressed Ever and therefore they can say and do whatever they please and everyone else just has to bow to them.
They’re air brushing Will Thomas’s photos to the media to make him appear less of a fucking man like the dick in the front of his one piece wasn’t enough to make every woman in a square mile instantly recoil with horror because he’s a visible pervert lmao. Trans identified males stay out of women’s spaces 2022.
LOL No.
She uses a gaff so no x2.
And she’s not vanishing from her rightful place.
Male supremacist behavior. Did you have time to look up and see that they’ve filed against him for sex crimes now? Lmaoooo
Again they haven’t.
Again you’re literally lying.
Please post a link 4 this claim.
You support Will Thomas in the women’s locker room? I think you’re a pedophile. You want access to children. You’re a groomer. You want young girls exposed to male genitals without reprocussions. You are a pedophile. You don’t need to say it. Your stance and argument speaks for you, pedophile.
So bullshit accusations and no link 4 your lies.
And this was reported you right wing Pizzagating freak.
Will doesn’t legally exist.
Fucking post the link to support your claim asshole.
Report me all you want. Your stances speak for themselves. Will is already being filed against for a sex crime on account of indecent exposure. You supporting that? You support a man showing his penis to women in the women’s locker room? You want him to fight those charges when 16 women SAW HIM? I think you support sex crimes. I think anyone who reads this thread will see the same.
A man, regardless of mentall illness and estrogen, is not a woman. He does not belong in the pool. Him exposing himself to women in the lounge women’s locker room? A place he pursued to go? He is accountable for all of his actions. He is a man. Name change means nothing.
You support someone who is a sex criminal. You are a perverted individual actively wanting men to be able to go into the locker room with little girls. You’re despicable.
For all time and ever @lostelvenqueen supported Will Thomas after the charges were filed. You supported a man going into women’s spaces, exposing himself, regardless of age or who might be in there, and you cheered for it.
You’re a sick person. Get off the internet and go outside.
I’ll sleep easy tonight
So more bullshit and NO FUCKING LINK TO YOUR LIES.
All there is here is you lying and no link to any charges.
You’re a liar.
I’ve asked you several times for proof but you give us tantrums.
And you’re still abusing mental health.
NOW Put up the link with Lia being charged or admit you’re a fucking liar.
They’re a liar, but you’ll never get an admission. Terfs, like most backward conservatives, never actually have proof of their claims. They just scream that X is so, because a handful of gullible folks will always believe them because it’s what they wanna hear.
I doubt OP will sleep easy tonight as they claim, though. Too busy terrified that the Big Evil Trannies are coming to claim the sacred uterus or whatever.
If a cis person, a straight person, a gamer, a white person, or a member of another non-oppressed group asks, “Where’s MY pride parade? Where’s MY special flag? Where’s MY exclusive club?” Then they must also ask…
“Where’s my fabric patch that my people were forced to wear on their clothing during the Holocaust?”
“Where are the laws that deny me being able to adopt children, marry my partner, or freely use the public bathroom that makes me feel safest?”
“Where are the politicians and religious figures that openly murder and imprison my people?”
If none of these questions make any sense in regard to their group, then perhaps they should next ask, “Why am I trivializing the traumatic history of oppressed people trying to survive in a world that violently tries to make them disappear?”
Proceeds from the sale of this shirt and sticker are going towards helping trans women be able to take low or no cost firearms training so that they might be better able to defend themselves and their loved ones.
I know that times, are tough, but if you can afford too, I hope you might consider helping out.
Complete and utter vomit inducing privileged bullshit? Well, you’ve come to the right place. This morning, I discovered something horrific besmirching the internet:
That’s right, folks. I’m not fucking with you. THIS MONSTROSITY
REALLY AND TRULY EXISTS!
THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
I mean seriously. Look at this bullshit:
Can you fucking believe this!?
Seriously. Why do the gods torment me with this stupid, regressive pile of privileged, nonsensical bullshit!? Why?
The Fundiegelical: “You may think you’re ‘happy’ by wearing the clothing of the opposite sex, but you’re living in sin and you’re going straight to hell! Jesus loves you.”
The “Enlightened” Liberal: “But gender doesn’t even matter, because deep down, we’re all the same. So why is it such a big deal what I call you?”
The TERF: “By embracing a gender role opposite your assigned sex, you are reifying gender/privilege and thus making it that much harder for us to smash gender. I know that sounds contradictory but, if you’d been a feminist for as long as I have, you’d understand.”
The Proto-TERF:“Ofcourse I don’t have anything against trans people, but abortion/sex work/breast cancer/ovarian cancer/whatever is and has always been a women’s issue! Why do you want to take it away from women?”
The Ungendering Fetishist: “Hey, I don’t have anything against sh*m*les! I think you’re hot! I watch sh*m*le porn all the time.”
The Clueless Oppression-Olympian: “Transness is just a white/abled/Western issue, so why should I care about it?”
The Incrementalist: “Look, people just aren’t ready to accept trans folks yet. So instead of arguing about what pronouns to use for you, we should focus on something we can actually accomplish, like [insert other tenuously-related SJ cause here].”
The Genital-Focused: “I totally respect and support trans people, but I would never date one. Because ewww.”
The Broad-Stroke Painter: “I once met a trans person who was selfish/mean/creepy/bad in general, so you’re all like that and I won’t respect any of you.”
The Inveterate Essentialist: “But… you can’t be a woman, because you have a PENIS! And chromosomes! And… a PENIS!”
The What-About-Teh-Cis Whiner: “I know my refusal to call you ‘she’ hurts you, but you have to understand that your demand to call you ‘she’ hurts me, too. What about myfeelings?”
The Pig-Headed “Skeptic”: “Do you have actual evidence that you’re really a woman? No, of course you don’t, because it’s impossible by definition. No, shut up; I’m right and you’re wrong, PERIOD.”
The “Free Speech” Whiner: “Don’t you think that, in the spirit of free and open discussion, you should listen to my side of things instead of just dismissing it out of hand as ‘bigotry’?”
The Devil’s Advocate: “I’m not saying prejudice is right, but, to be fair, it is a little weird for someone to present as a woman and yet have a penis.”
The Self-Proclaimed “Ally”:“Howdare you say I’ve been cissexist? Don’t you know how very supportive I’ve been of you and your causes? Why aren’t you grateful?”
The “Edgy” Comedian: “Look, it was a joke. I’m sorry you’re too unsophisticated to understand why it’s funny; I guess I’m just too edgy for you. Maybe one day, when you grow up a little, you’ll stop trying to censor humor.”
(Hint to cis people: don’t do any of these things.)
