#Doctor Who bigotry

[rjalker]

yeah, Doctor Who has a canon trans character now, cool, great, but are we gonna talk about how blatantly transmisic the "male-presenting" statement is, or are we just pretend that biological and gender essentialism is fun and cool now?

Explain to me how the Doctor as played by David Tennant is "male-presenting" without being transmisic. Go ahead and try. I'll give you a hint: you literally can't. It's literally just transmisia and biological essentialism.

And this is why the terms "female presenting" and "male presenting" have been shit since their fucking inception as labels for you to apply to other people. It's literally just misgendering people masquerading as being progressive.

Once a-fucking-gain. Just because a man is playing the Doctor does not mean the Doctor is automatically a man, any more than a woman playing the Doctor makes the Doctor automatically a woman. That's not how gender works. That's literally biological essentialism and transmsia. Do we have to have this conversation again?

Or does Doctor Who think the only trans people who exist are ones who "pass" perfectly as the gender they identify with? Do these people think all trans people magically transform into "their real body" the moment they come out as trans? Do they think nonbinary people all use she/her or he/him pronouns and "look right" for those pronouns???

So did Russel T. Davies just, decide not to hire a sensitivity writer, or what? It's 2023, there's a fucking canon trans nonbinary character in the episode. How is this much transmisia still allowed to get to the final cut???

#sigh #Doctor Who #Rjalker watches Doctor Who #Doctor Who: The Star Beast #DW spoilers #Doctor Who spoilers #transmisia #exorsexism #biological essentialism #gender essentialism #Doctor Who transmisia #Doctor Who exorsexism #Doctor Who bigotry #Doctor Who biological essentialism #Doctor Who biological essentialism 2: Electric Boogaloo #RTD2 #RTDWHO2 #RTD2spoilers #The Star Beast spoilers

[walker-lister]

i've been wanting to make a post for some time contemplating misogyny and sexism in doctor who fandom and how i genuinely think it's worth considering how it can range from aggressive to unconscious, influence readings of the show as well as perceptions of fans in fan spaces, and how the hostile and defensive atmosphere which has seemingly soaked into all of the internet now (and also real life at conventions too honestly) can both raise these issues and dismiss them, decry them and encourage them, but honestly... it all makes me really tired so this'll have to do for now

#this could also apply to a whole load of other bigotries #and probs mix together with other bigotries and develop like bacteria it's not like they're entities that never touch #not to mention beyond the fandom in the show itself as well as the press and reviewers #this is a topic that deserves a lot more care and attention but like i said i'm so tired #I would like to be more optimistic but I’m also a person dealing with stuff yet i also feel like these things need to be discussed ya know #doctor who #thirteenth doctor

[underestimated-heroine]

If every piece of fatphobia you threw around made every single fat person on earth gain a pound, would you still be reluctant to stop talking? If every time you repressed the urge to speak cruelly or preach about fat people made them lose a pound, would you be satisfied...or would it leave a void inside you?

#tw fatphobia mention #tw fatphobia #personal #i'm not actually asking. the question is rhetorical. #it is meant to illustrate that fatphobes pretend to care about peoples' health but are like most bigots simply #targeting a group it's 'okay' to hate. #and frankly any fatphobes who respond to this are getting blocked. im under no obligation to engage with #bigotry parading as 'concern for other peoples' health'. oh word youre a doctor? youre THEIR doctor? wait youre NOT?! #sounds like none of your business then. focus that energy into the cbt youll need to stop thinking of the world in terms of astrology

[winglesshopeful]

vaguely aggrivating, following someone who's advocating for a movement that, while agreeing with aspects of it, leaves you with questions and concerns, so you ask about it, making clear that you agree with many concepts stated, but also that you don't understand other concepts but want to, and instead of explaining their movement or even mentioning resources to look for, they just kinda. dodge my questions while making it out like im just some kind of idiot who "doesnt get it" and in a later post, tries to make me out to be downplaying suffering by asking genuine questions.

this is about antipsychology. terfs keep your grubby fucking mitts off my post.

#'hey the posts im seeing look like they're advocating for the abolishment of psychology as a field of study/medicine... #...and yet there are many genuine problems that ppl face that only rly can be solved thru psychology. this concerns me. can i know more? #btw have a list of things i agree abt as well as my own experiences so u know im trying to be genuine!' #and the response being #'you clearly can't understand. smths not clicking in your head. let me discredit your concerns by focusing on one thing you mentioned and... #...nothing else. also ur clearly trying to justify my abuse and ask a victim to provide alternatives to their abuse' #fuck OOOOOOOFFF. #people experiencing abuse at the hands of the mental health system is not a reason to abolish mental health systems!!! its a reason... #...to ROOT OUT ableism and bigotry on every level of the mental health system so that nuerodivergent people can receive proper care!!! #next up: local tumblr user wants to abolish fucking DOCTORS as a concept for everyone; claims abuse apologism when faced with pushback #i don't see anyone claiming physical medicine needs to be abolished bc of abuse and there is VERY much ppl who have been abused by doctors #yes. i unfollowed them. but this pissed me all the way off. #fucking touch grass. jesus.

[fatliberation]

they have a point though. you wouldn't need everyone to accommodate you if you just lost weight, but you're too lazy to stick to a healthy diet and exercise. it's that simple. I'd like to see you back up your claims, but you have no proof. you have got to stop lying to yourselves and face the facts

Must I go through this again? Fine. FINE. You guys are working my nerves today. You want to talk about facing the facts? Let's face the fucking facts.

In 2022, the US market cap of the weight loss industry was $75 billion [1, 3]. In 2021, the global market cap of the weight loss industry was estimated at $224.27 billion [2]. 

In 2020, the market shrunk by about 25%, but rebounded and then some since then [1, 3] By 2030, the global weight loss industry is expected to be valued at $405.4 billion [2]. If diets really worked, this industry would fall overnight. 

1. LaRosa, J. March 10, 2022. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Shrinks by 25% in 2020 with Pandemic, but Rebounds in 2021." Market Research Blog. 2. Staff. February 09, 2023. "[Latest] Global Weight Loss and Weight Management Market Size/Share Worth." Facts and Factors Research. 3. LaRosa, J. March 27, 2023. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Partially Recovers from the Pandemic." Market Research Blog.

Over 50 years of research conclusively demonstrates that virtually everyone who intentionally loses weight by manipulating their eating and exercise habits will regain the weight they lost within 3-5 years. And 75% will actually regain more weight than they lost [4].

4. Mann, T., Tomiyama, A.J., Westling, E., Lew, A.M., Samuels, B., Chatman, J. (2007). "Medicare’s Search For Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not The Answer." The American Psychologist, 62, 220-233. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2007.

The annual odds of a fat person attaining a so-called “normal” weight and maintaining that for 5 years is approximately 1 in 1000 [5].

5. Fildes, A., Charlton, J., Rudisill, C., Littlejohns, P., Prevost, A.T., & Gulliford, M.C. (2015). “Probability of an Obese Person Attaining Normal Body Weight: Cohort Study Using Electronic Health Records.” American Journal of Public Health, July 16, 2015: e1–e6.

Doctors became so desperate that they resorted to amputating parts of the digestive tract (bariatric surgery) in the hopes that it might finally result in long-term weight-loss. Except that doesn’t work either. [6] And it turns out it causes death [7],  addiction [8], malnutrition [9], and suicide [7].

6. Magro, Daniéla Oliviera, et al. “Long-Term Weight Regain after Gastric Bypass: A 5-Year Prospective Study - Obesity Surgery.” SpringerLink, 8 Apr. 2008. 7. Omalu, Bennet I, et al. “Death Rates and Causes of Death After Bariatric Surgery for Pennsylvania Residents, 1995 to 2004.” Jama Network, 1 Oct. 2007.  8. King, Wendy C., et al. “Prevalence of Alcohol Use Disorders Before and After Bariatric Surgery.” Jama Network, 20 June 2012.  9. Gletsu-Miller, Nana, and Breanne N. Wright. “Mineral Malnutrition Following Bariatric Surgery.” Advances In Nutrition: An International Review Journal, Sept. 2013.

Evidence suggests that repeatedly losing and gaining weight is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and altered immune function [10].

10. Tomiyama, A Janet, et al. “Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6 July 2017.

Prescribed weight loss is the leading predictor of eating disorders [11].

11. Patton, GC, et al. “Onset of Adolescent Eating Disorders: Population Based Cohort Study over 3 Years.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 20 Mar. 1999.

The idea that “obesity” is unhealthy and can cause or exacerbate illnesses is a biased misrepresentation of the scientific literature that is informed more by bigotry than credible science [12]. 

12. Medvedyuk, Stella, et al. “Ideology, Obesity and the Social Determinants of Health: A Critical Analysis of the Obesity and Health Relationship” Taylor & Francis Online, 7 June 2017.

“Obesity” has no proven causative role in the onset of any chronic condition [13, 14] and its appearance may be a protective response to the onset of numerous chronic conditions generated from currently unknown causes [15, 16, 17, 18].

13. Kahn, BB, and JS Flier. “Obesity and Insulin Resistance.” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Aug. 2000. 14. Cofield, Stacey S, et al. “Use of Causal Language in Observational Studies of Obesity and Nutrition.” Obesity Facts, 3 Dec. 2010.  15. Lavie, Carl J, et al. “Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease: Risk Factor, Paradox, and Impact of Weight Loss.” Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 26 May 2009.  16. Uretsky, Seth, et al. “Obesity Paradox in Patients with Hypertension and Coronary Artery Disease.” The American Journal of Medicine, Oct. 2007.  17. Mullen, John T, et al. “The Obesity Paradox: Body Mass Index and Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Nonbariatric General Surgery.” Annals of Surgery, July 2005. 18. Tseng, Chin-Hsiao. “Obesity Paradox: Differential Effects on Cancer and Noncancer Mortality in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.” Atherosclerosis, Jan. 2013.

Fatness was associated with only 1/3 the associated deaths that previous research estimated and being “overweight” conferred no increased risk at all, and may even be a protective factor against all-causes mortality relative to lower weight categories [19].

19. Flegal, Katherine M. “The Obesity Wars and the Education of a Researcher: A Personal Account.” Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 15 June 2021.

Studies have observed that about 30% of so-called “normal weight” people are “unhealthy” whereas about 50% of so-called “overweight” people are “healthy”. Thus, using the BMI as an indicator of health results in the misclassification of some 75 million people in the United States alone [20]. 

20. Rey-López, JP, et al. “The Prevalence of Metabolically Healthy Obesity: A Systematic Review and Critical Evaluation of the Definitions Used.” Obesity Reviews : An Official Journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 15 Oct. 2014.

While epidemiologists use BMI to calculate national obesity rates (nearly 35% for adults and 18% for kids), the distinctions can be arbitrary. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from 27.8 to 25—branding roughly 29 million Americans as fat overnight—to match international guidelines. But critics noted that those guidelines were drafted in part by the International Obesity Task Force, whose two principal funders were companies making weight loss drugs [21].

21. Butler, Kiera. “Why BMI Is a Big Fat Scam.” Mother Jones, 25 Aug. 2014. 

Body size is largely determined by genetics [22].

22. Wardle, J. Carnell, C. Haworth, R. Plomin. “Evidence for a strong genetic influence on childhood adiposity despite the force of the obesogenic environment” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol. 87, No. 2, Pages 398-404, February 2008.

Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index [23].  

23. Matheson, Eric M, et al. “Healthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Obese Individuals.” Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 25 Feb. 2012.

Weight stigma itself is deadly. Research shows that weight-based discrimination increases risk of death by 60% [24].

24. Sutin, Angela R., et al. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality .” Association for Psychological Science, 25 Sept. 2015.

Fat stigma in the medical establishment [25] and society at large arguably [26] kills more fat people than fat does [27, 28, 29].

25. Puhl, Rebecca, and Kelly D. Bronwell. “Bias, Discrimination, and Obesity.” Obesity Research, 6 Sept. 2012. 26. Engber, Daniel. “Glutton Intolerance: What If a War on Obesity Only Makes the Problem Worse?” Slate, 5 Oct. 2009.  27. Teachman, B. A., Gapinski, K. D., Brownell, K. D., Rawlins, M., & Jeyaram, S. (2003). Demonstrations of implicit anti-fat bias: The impact of providing causal information and evoking empathy. Health Psychology, 22(1), 68–78. 28. Chastain, Ragen. “So My Doctor Tried to Kill Me.” Dances With Fat, 15 Dec. 2009. 29. Sutin, Angelina R, Yannick Stephan, and Antonio Terraciano. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality.” Psychological Science, 26 Nov. 2015.

There's my "proof." Where is yours?

#inbox #fat liberation #fat acceptance #fat activism #anti fatness #anti fat bias #anti diet #resources #facts #weight science #save

[senadimell]

oof, the 1990s Agatha Christie’s Poirot is often very nice but it did NOT handle anything remotely east Asian with anything resembling tact.

#ugh ugh ugh it's played for laughs too #like not all of it's bigotry but it sure is racist #cw: racism #cw: anti-asian racism #now i'm not surprised anymore at the ridiculous market scene in turn left (doctor who / 2008) #anti-asian racism has persisted acceptably in film for way longer than it should #it's not taken as seriously by white audiences compared with anti-black racism #for example my parents are not okay with blackface in film but have no problem watching yellowface movies and see nothing wrong #re the tv show: #ew i'm honestly just like *do not ever mention china ever because you can't do it without being offensive* #and i get it. these are period pieces. but i guess i've grown accustomed to makers at least acknowledging the racism of the source #and making commentary on it or at least setting aside the most egregious parts #but here we are making broken english jokes and the audience is supposed to laugh at them?? #they're either lifting racism wholesale or worse adding it in #it's not charming

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Anna May Wong (The Thief of Bagdad, Shanghai Express)—Wong was the first Chinese American movie star, arguably the first Asian woman to make it big in American films. Though the racism of the time often forced her into stereotypical roles, awarded Asian leading roles to white actors in yellowface, and prohibited on-screen romance between actors of different races, she delivered powerful and memorable performances. When Hollywood bigotry got to be too much, she made movies in Europe. Wong was intellectually curious, a fashion icon, and a strong advocate for authentic Asian representation in cinema. And, notably for the purposes of this tournament, absolutely gorgeous.

Josephine Baker (The Siren of the Tropics, ZouZou)— Josephine Baker was an American born actress, singer, and utter icon of the period, creating the 1920s banana skirt look. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion film. She fought in the French resistance in WWII, given a Legion of Honour, as well as refusing to perform in segregated theatres in the US. She was bisexual, a fighter, and overall an absolutely incredible woman as well as being extremely attractive.

This is round 6 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Anna May Wong propaganda:

"She so so gorgeous!! Due to Hollywood racism she was pretty limited in the roles she got to play but even despite that she’s so captivating and deserves to be known as a leading lady in her own right!! When she’s on screen in Shanghai Express I can’t look away, which is saying something because Marlene Dietrich is also in that film."

"SHE IS ON THE BACK OF QUARTERS also she was very smart and able to speak multiple languages and is a fashion icon on top of the acting/singing"

"Paved the way for Asian American actresses AND TOTAL HOTTIE!!! She broke boundaries and made it her mission to smash stereotypes of Asian women in western film (at the time, they were either protrayed them as delicate and demure or scheming and evil). In 1951, she made history with her television show The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, the first-ever U.S. television show starring an Asian-American series lead (paraphrased from Wikipedia). Also, never married and rumor has it that she had an affair with Marlene Dietrich. We love a Controversial Queen!"

"She's got that Silent Era smoulder™ that I think transcends the very stereotypical roles in which she was typically cast. Also looks very hot smouldering opposite Marlene Dietrich in "Shanghai Express"; there's kiss energy there."

"Hot as hell and chronically overlooked in her time, she's truly phenomenal and absolutely stunning"

"A story of stardom unavoidably marred by Hollywood racism; Wong's early-career hype was significantly derailed by the higher-up's reluctance to have an Asian lead, and things only got worse when the Hayes code came down and she suddenly *couldn't* be shown kissing a white man--even if that white man was in yellowface. After being shoved into the Dragon Lady role one too many times, she took her career to other continents for many years. Still, she came back to America eventually, being more selective in her roles, speaking out against Asian stereotypes, and in the midst of all of this finding the time to be awarded both the title of "World's Best Dressed Woman" by Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York and an honorary doctorate by Peking University."

"Incredible beauty, incredible actress, incredible story."

"-flapper fashion ICON. look up her fits please <3 -rumors of lesbianism due to her Close Friendships with marlene dietrich & cecil cunningham, among others -leveraged her star power to criticize the racist depictions of Chinese and Asian characters in Hollywood, as well as raise money and popular support for China & Chinese refugees in the 1930s and 40s. -face card REFUSED to decline"

Josephine Baker:

Black, American-born, French dancer and singer. Phenomenal sensation, took music-halls by storm. Famous in the silent film era.

Let's talk La Revue Negre, Shuffle Along. The iconique banana outfit? But also getting a Croix de Guerre and full military honors at burial in Paris due to working with the Resistance.

She exuded sex, was a beautiful dancer, vivacious, and her silliness and humor added to her attractiveness. She looked just as good in drag too.

So I know she was more famous for other stuff than movies and her movies weren’t Hollywood but my first exposure to her was in her films so I’ve always thought of her as a film actress first and foremost. Also she was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture so I think that warrants an entry

Iconic! Just look up anything about her life. She was a fascinating woman.

#josephine baker #anna may wong #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies 6

[doccywhomst]

personally, i’d love to see a teenage or early-twenties doctor (of the who variety), and i don’t think the youth appeal is a bad thing. i want a “kid” who’s kind of an asshole, wise WAY beyond their years, confident and flippant and willfully ignorant of how they appear to others - one whose deep frustration with inequality and bigotry galvanizes them to action, and whose actions make a real difference in the universe

#sue me 🤷 #doctor who but the companion is space gramps and the doctor is an ADHD teenager with anger management issues #she’s giving an ace vibe in my mind #doctor who

[sophieinwonderland]

So while actual researchers were doing an AMA on r/tulpas, anti-endos were complaining about their doctors being pro-endos.

Spoiler: She's not on your side. Your doctor doesn't support your hate. And she has a better understanding of the underlying psychology than you.

Wow!

Imagine the sheer gall to be someone who hasn't graduated high school telling a licensed doctor that they don't have the right to talk about a mental disorder because they're "not a specialist."

To be fair, I would say the behavior in that second post does look to be a bit unprofessional... If I were stupid enough to take anything an anon there says at face value after watching anons to that blog repeatedly lie and grossly misinterpret reality to feed into their victim complexes.

But I just genuinely don't trust that they're repeating those events back accurately.

And it's just so satisfying to watch them realize that their own doctors don't support their bigotry.

So yeah...

Today we learned that Stanford University spent $50k on an fMRI study into tulpa systems that's shown significant differences in the brains of tulpamancers while their tulpas partially possess their limbs, and one of the lead researchers in this project believes interest in this phenomenon to grow.

All while anti-endos continue to complain that their own doctors are pro-endo.

Yes, today is a very good day! 😁

#syscourse #pro endo #pro endogenic #anti endogenic #anti endo #sysblr #multiplicity #plural #plurality #endogenic #systems #system #actually plural #actually a system

[starleska]

i see this opinion echoed across the Doctor Who fandom: that we really enjoyed Maestro, and love the idea of The Devil's Chord, but feel like the episode was lacking a little something in the writing department. so here's my suggestion: they shouldn't have killed off Timothy Drake 👀🎶 hear me out:

from the start, we're introduced to Timothy Drake as a deeply talented individual, and one disgruntled with his position in life. his passion and genius have been squandered, and he's been relegated to teaching his craft to disinterested schoolboys. but we learn he has a darker interest...Timothy is a scholar as well as a composer, and he decides to spice up his day by telling his pupil about the lost Devil's Chord. and then, Maestro erupts onto the scene...and they are everything that Timothy has never been able to be. Maestro is loud, and flamboyant, and unreservedly powerful: every glittering gem on their body screams you will look at me, and you will listen. and while Timothy's polite-society conditioning and time-typical bigotry are his initial response, we can tell that Maestro intrigues him. in return, Maestro doesn't just talk to Timothy, oh no. Maestro all but seduces the man, by speaking aloud all of Timothy's most private thoughts: that he's a misunderstood genius, and that it isn't his fault he never got that break. in this way Maestro manifests as a Devil figure, luring Timothy into an unspeakable Faustian bargain. here he is, wasting his life and talent and songs away in some stuffy school...when he could have so, so much more. like Maestro, he could be powerful. he could be who he wants to be. and most importantly: he could make people listen to him. i would've loved a version of The Devil's Chord where Maestro manipulates Timothy Drake into drawing out the music of others, thereby killing them, and feeding Maestro in the process. perhaps there could have been a caveat to Maestro's power: as the Essence of Music, it could be that Maestro has to operate through a living being, much like a demonic muse. not only could Timothy get all of the attention he ever wanted, finally being recognised for his musical brilliance...but he could exact revenge on those who said he'd never make it. wouldn't this have been a fascinating parallel with The Beatles? what if we'd seen an increasingly power-mad Timothy Drake, rising to stardom in an alternate timeline where everyone is devoid of musical inspiration, leaving him as the sole musical genius in the world? what if the Doctor and Ruby's horror at a devastated world included the theme of creation for creation's sake, as opposed to the manic pursuit of adoration which Timothy so clearly desires? perhaps i have lost my mind. perhaps i am reading far too much into the way Timothy looks at Maestro in the latter half of the clip above. but i think the terror of Maestro would have come through even more if they'd kept Timothy Drake around, and trapped him in a Phantom of the Paradise-esque doomed narrative with Maestro whispering in his ear and helping him take control of his destiny 🎶🔥

#do i have new Doctor Who brainpoisoning or is there something here #wouldn't it have been delicious? stardom corruption arc at the hands of the impossibly powerful chaos god of music? #wouldn't it be more interesting if that balance could be tipped by a human influenced by the way Music and fame can skew your morals? #or did i just see Maestro plucking at Timothy's bow tie and feel my brain go sideways. we may never know 🙈💖 #timaestro #timothy drake x maestro #maestro #timothy drake #the devil's chord #doctor who #doctor who spoilers #the doctor #fifteenth doctor #15th doctor #ruby sunday #dw #jinkx monsoon #jeremy limb #ncuti gatwa #millie gibson #doctor who au #starleskatalks #long post

[rjalker]

Anyways, it's 3AM now, and I'm going to bed, but before I do, I want to say one last thing.

Sincerely, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, fuck Russel T. Davies for introducing millions of cis people to "x-presenting" terminology, and in the most fucking harmful way possible too. I hate what is going to happen next in cis people's perception of trans people.

Hey cis people reading this? Do not ever, ever refer to anyone as "male presenting" "masculine presenting" "female presenting" "feminine presenting" or any other variation unless that person has explicitly asked you to beforehand. Please. If you care about trans people please erase these terms from your mind right now.

Dear trans peole reading this: The exact same thing goes for you. The Doctor as played by David Tennant is not "male-presenting" until the character fucking decides that on screen outloud. The Doctor as played by Jodie Whittaker is not "female-presenting". These are not terms you get to assign to other people, they are terms you can choose to identify with.

Do not normalize this language. It is literally just exorsexism and transmisia and misgendering pretending to be progressive. Do not legitimize that bigoted line by repeating this language. I will scream for all eternity.

#DW spoilers #Doctor Who spoilers #RTD2spoilers #The Star Beast spoilers #RTD2 #RTDWHO2 #Rjalker watches Doctor Who #Doctor Who: The Star Beast #transmisia #exorsexism #biological essentialism #gender essentialism #Doctor Who transmisia #Doctor Who exorsexism #Doctor Who bigotry #Doctor Who biological essentialism #Doctor Who biological essentialism 2: Electric Boogaloo #nonbinary #trans #transgender #Russel T Davies transmisia #Russel T Davies exorsexism #RTD transmisia #RTD exorsexism #misgendering

[odinsblog]

One About The Atmosphere: Want to change minds? Stop trying. Change the atmosphere instead.

Donald Trump in 2016 greets a screaming horde of ecstatic white christian nationalists

Minivan was a nice enough guy. He was easygoing; a happy guy with a frequently deployed smile. I don’t recall much anger from him, nor many strongly held opinions. I wouldn’t call him a philosophical type. No deep late night talks with Stove Minivan is my recollection.

This is the sort of dude I’d hang out with at a party, if there were a party we were both at, but not one with whom I’d maintain a relationship if we both graduated and then moved to different places—which I know for a fact, because that’s what happened. We drifted.

So then what happened is twelve years or so later I got on The Facebook, and Stove Minivan was there, too, and before long, we were friends again, he and I, and so were me and my other college friends, and them with him, and … look, you know the drill. It was The Facebook.

Minivan was no longer a pre-med student at a small northern liberal arts college. He was a doctor—a general care practitioner, if memory serves—in a smallish plains state town, very much like many other towns in the great plains or elsewhere in the country, I imagine.

Anyway, before long I noticed something about Minivan. Even though his feed was full of pictures of him and his lovely family, and he was smiling in them just the same as he always had in college, he was angry.

He was *enraged*

What was he angry about? The Demonrats.

Minivan was absolutely enraged about everything the Demonrats did. He also was out of his mind angry about Killary, and Obummer, the leaders of the Demonrats—or at least they were the front for the real leader of the Demonrats, who even back then I believe was George Soros.

What did the Demonrats do? Oh my heck, what *didn’t* they do? Mostly they hated America and American security and American economic strength, it seems. They engaged in corruption and bowed to foreign powers a lot. They shredded the dignity of the presidency, that’s for sure.

Minivan’s worldview wasn’t particularly coherent, if you want to know the truth.

I couldn’t help to notice that the Demonrats weren’t actually doing many of the things that Minivan thought they were doing.

And I noticed other things.

For example, I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the policies Minivan supported were directly *causing* the sorts problems that made Minivan so angry.

And I couldn’t help but notice that well-sourced information enraged him more than pretty much anything else.

There was a lot of linking to sites I’d never heard of, like Breitbart and Newsmax, and of course plenty of Fox News. There were a lot of memes. There were a lot of conspiracy theories (a big birther, was Minivan).

Some of his posts contained subtle bigotry. Most of the rest contained not-subtle bigotry. Several of them contained slogans and statements that were, very simply, neo Nazi and white supremacist memes and shibboleths.

There was a lot of commentary accompanying these posts from Minivan, who was saying shocking stuff for a small-town family doctor … the sorts of things that it seemed to me would make people not want to use this person as a doctor, or or sit next to that person on a bus.

I hadn’t heard of Alex Jones, yet, but Minivan sounded a lot like Alex Jones, word for word and beat for beat. He’d even start his posts like a right-wing radio host: Sorry folks, but you can’t even make stuff like this up—ironically, accompanying things that had been made up.

This was all pretty distressing to those of us who had known Minivan back in the day, before he had become so obsessed with Demonrats.

So, a lot of us, myself included, did exactly what The Facebook wants.

We engaged with him.

At the time my belief was, you defeated bad ideas with better ideas, by confronting the bad ideas directly with the better ideas. Debate was for changing minds. You presented your ideas, they presented theirs, you countered, they countered, eventually everybody saw the truth.

But the intention was that I’d change his mind, with facts presented logically, delivered calmly and patiently.

This was my belief.

What happened confounded me, but perhaps you can predict it.

Minivan escalated any correction, however calmly stated or bloodlessly presented, into scorched earth territory. He rejected all proofs by rejecting the source outright as irrevocably tainted by bias, or he’d spiral into non sequitur, spamming our feeds with more misinformation.

He would claim he never said things he had just said, even though the statements were still there for anybody to read, one comment earlier in the thread.

He’d claim that I said things I'd never said, as anyone foolish enough to read through our conversations could discover.

He demonstrated a complete dedication to his ignorance and anger, and a total disinterest in anything like observable truth that contradicted his grievance.

It was confounding and unfamiliar behavior to me, at the time.

At the time.

All of it was larded with grievance, a sense that people like him had never wronged anybody, and everybody else had done nothing but wrong people like him.

The bigotry and authoritarianism grew.

And all the time, on Facebook, he and his family kept smiling their perfect smiles.

I’ll admit that over time my interactions stopped being polite and bloodless, and I’m not particularly sorry for it. I told him some things about himself he seemed not to know, but which I thought really ought to be said.

I have a bit of a penchant for sarcasm, which you may have noticed.

I employed this skill, and you can feel how you want to about sarcasm, but I think it helped convey the correct posture to take toward someone who says the sorts of things Minivan was saying.

The correct posture being "you have proved yourself to be a person who should not be taken seriously, and your positions do not deserve even a modicum of respect."

I found this a more healthy message to convey about Minivan to anybody watching, and I still do.

Eventually he blocked me, and he was out of my life forever. It was the right choice, and I'm very glad he did that.

I’ve pondered the incident since, as it’s become more and more relevant to “the way things are.”

A few things had become clear over time.

Minivan was not somebody whose intentions could be trusted. He was not operating in good faith, and I believe he well knew it, because many of his favorite sources of information have written instruction books on how to engage with people in bad faith.

Minivan was not debating; he was using debate to inject his counterfactual beliefs into the discourse, which were designed to further marginalize already marginalized people while simultaneously cloaking himself in self-exonerating grievance.

More, he was exerting an active effort to not know things that could be easily known, and to demand to be convinced out of deliberate ignorance, not because he was interested in having his ideas challenged, but because he demanded a world in which he got to decide what was real.

Further still: Minivan *learned* from me. The effect of telling him he was using one or another logical fallacy was not to sharpen his reasoning, but to teach him about the existence of logical fallacies, which let him (incorrectly) accuse others of those same logical fallacies.

So Minivan was deploying the language of logic, in ways that betrayed a total lack of understanding about what those fallacies were, granted, but in ways that likely made him seem more knowledgeable and reasonable to a casual or sympathetic observer.

He learned to ape our phrases and arguments, in much the way he’d learned to ape the style of Alex Jones and all the various Breitbart and Newsmax contributors he used to inform himself.

And these days it occurs to me: I hear a lot about "groomers."

We were not changing him by engaging with him thoughtfully.

We certainly weren’t changing him by engaging with him in kind.

Rather: we were making him better at what he was doing, and we were validating his world view—to himself and others—as one that merited engagement.

And week after week on Facebook, Minivan kept smiling and smiling and getting angrier and angrier, at us and Obummer and all the other Demonrats and liberals and every member of every minority group who dared to fail to ceaselessly assure him that he was right about everything.

I don’t miss Minivan's black-hole-sun smile. I think of it as my first hint of MAGA: politically overrepresented, socially coddled people, often living outwardly happy privileged lives, while seething inwardly that other people might be getting anything, anything at all.

Indeed, soon enough, another figure would come on the scene, whose behavior matched that of Minivan almost exactly, a perfect avatar for this spirit of aggrieved bigotry and supremacy that seemed to be moving through my former friend.

And sure enough, as I saw, there were millions and millions of smiling seething people who loved him.

And that guy became president.

Nobody believed he would. And then he did.

Because Stove Minivan, it turns out, wasn’t some weird outlier.

He was part of a growing new normal, a group of people who had been offered a chance to immigrate from observable reality and enter a dark world of constant hostility, misinformation, and self-loving grievance.

It's an invitation they leapt at, to which they cling even now.

It's a constituency immune to proof, angered by equality, cheered by cruelty, who blame others for the foulness of the shallow puddle of reasoning within which they have demand to be seated, even though we can all see them fouling it themselves, every day.

And afterward, a huge number of those shocked by this development decided the proper reaction was to accommodate it, in the name of unity—a belief, it seems, grounded in the idea that what you choose to get along with isn’t as important as getting along no matter what.

I’ll finish with the question that all of Minivan’s former friends would eventually ask, whenever they gathered together long enough for the subject to arise.

"What the hell happened to Minivan?"

Here’s the answer, I think: nothing.

Nothing happened to Minivan. Nothing at all.

He was always that guy, and he always thought the things he thought.

What changed was that he was given a lot of language with which to express those ideas, and access to enough other people who thought that way too, that it created a critical mass of permission.

The permission allowed him to change his attitudes and actions, and created a lot of other people willing to accommodate and normalize his antisocial anti-reality behavior, rather than reject it out of hand.

In college you could be pretty conservative, honestly. It was a pretty conservative place. But you couldn't behave like Minivan later would.

You’d be understood to be a far-right extremist, and people would then treat you like a far-right extremist.

Which is what you'd be.

I think it just wasn't possible for Minivan to be what he later became, because the atmosphere wasn't conducive to the possibility.

But then the atmosphere changed.

If we want to change it back, it's worth thinking about how atmospheres change.

(source)

#politics #republicans #donald trump #overton window #stove minivan #authoritarianism #deplorables #trumpublicans #maga

[gay-otlc]

the people harmed by the 'save the poor confused daughters' rhetoric are trans WOMEN who are seen as the predators. if you are TME maybe shut the fuck about oppression you benefit from? 'oh no i am seen as the people who need to be protected from the evil bad transfems :(' you are the villain here

While trans women are seen as predators and the "save the poor daughters" rhetoric affects them in things like sports and bathroom bills, this ideology is specifically wielded against trans men & mascs. Because- and this may come as a shock to you- transphobes hate all of us and we are all harmed by their bigotry.

Specifically, in the post you're likely referencing, I was referring to the way TERFs are upset about people who were assigned female at birth, discovered they were attracted to women and identified as lesbians, and then transitioned into straight trans men. This isn't a made up thing. This is actually very common rhetoric.

They see trans men & mascs as lost butches. They see transmasculinity as the lesbian holocaust (which, in addition to being transandrophobic, is antisemetic as FUCK. but i won't get into that)

And this rhetoric is seen in trying to "protect" all afab children, not just lesbians. Conservatives have recently become outraged that an American Girls book marketed towards young girls, or young children perceived as girls, explained gender identity and advised readers to talk to a trusted adult if they were experiencing gender dysphoria, because a doctor could help them be more comfortable in their bodies (namely puberty blockers.)

Here are screenshots. This shit is real.

I am not seen as someone who needs to be protected from the "evil bad transfems." I am seen as a traitor to womanhood, a violent misogynist, a nazi in the so-called lesbian holocaust, a stupid girl who wants to mutilate her body and trick other girls into mutilating their bodies too.

And even if I was seen as a victim, if I was seen as a little girl who needed to be saved- that would be misgendering me. I'm not a fucking girl. It's not a privilege to be misgendered, and quite honestly it's transphobic to claim I should feel grateful that I'm getting misgendered.

Also, that's bullshit to say that I'm TME and I benefit from transmisogyny. I am not transmisogyny exempt. I have been harassed for going into a women's bathroom because I looked too masculine and the women in there thought I was an evil bad predator. So yeah, not sure how I benefited from that, considering it left me with nowhere safe to use the fucking bathroom.

You have no right to tell me I'm not harmed by transphobia. Go fuck yourself.

#transandrophobia #whooo i got an anon telling me i'm the villain for speaking out against transandrophobia! #transmasc rite of passage i think #you know what? i *had* been saying it was too long since my last anon hate. thanks anon

[decolonize-the-left]

Idk if any of y'all saw this video yet, but rn there's a tik tok going viral of of this white woman who confronted her parents bigotry on Christmas and got sent home. She's an upset mess about but not in a white savior/validate me way which I can respect.

And as always I have something to say about it.

So she says she starts a war after she reminds her parents that people are people and that she

"probably shouldn't have said anything to begin with because there's no point"

And I've seen this sentiment of "there's no point" a LOT among allies. Not just white allies to BIPOC either but with allies across the board, queer allies, ND allies, etc.

To clarify by "that sentiment" I mean the idea that your personal effort to correct, inform, or speak up on an issue is not Worth it unless it will cause a Change in the person/people you're addressing that You will be able to see reflected. Because if they won't change then you're just putting up with their vitriol, hostility, and ignorance for nothing, right? And why put up with that for nothing. You're a person with feelings and limited patience so if you're gonna experience something awful, it should be for something, right? Especially if it's someone you have to put up with see regularly like your parents.

And besties...

The point is trying. The point is challenging bigotry and ignorance wherever it exists. The point is to show bigots that their ignorance isn't tolerable. It's to show them that their bigotry isn't tolerable. And as many times as they will be harmful, you will rise to meet their challenge.

The point is to challenge bigotry because it is bigotry and there's no room for it in the future we're building.

And as awful as it feels to have your family disown, belittle, and berate you there are So Many people going through this. BIPOC, immigrants, queer folk, Muslims, etc. We know what it's like to have people who should love you treat you badly, what it's like to lose community and support. You're not alone in this feeling, you know?

But everyday we still talk to our families and communities and strangers online and we still challenge their bigotry and yeah it hurts sometimes but we do it anyway so the next generation of our community won't have to.

Because they may not be here yet but we are.

In my tribe we have this concept of 7 generations being deeply significant. Part of that belief is that you and your choices will impact the next 7 generations of your descendants. And I want to be a good ancestor. Not just to the generations of my family that don't exist yet but to yours too.

I want to be a good ancestor to family I'll never meet and the friends I'll never get to drink with.

To queer kids that never had to answer to anyone for their love, to Muslim and Black boys who never had to be mindful of the toys they played outside with, to the loud brown girls who never felt out of place, to the disabled lady up the road who is the First and only voice her doctors listen to.....None of these people exist yet, but they will as long as I'm doing what I can for them today.

And absolutely everything I do is for them. It's for the future I won't get to see. For a world I'll never get to walk on. For laughter I'll never hear.

THATS THE POINT

#society #mutual aid #ndn #direct action #indigenous #lgbt #disabled #neurodivergent #bipoc #oppression #bigots #Tumblr #leftist #activist #activism #protest #capitalism #liberal #allied #commentary #criticisms #idk

[useless-catalanfacts]

A football referee expels a coach for speaking in Catalan

Sadly this doesn't make it to most news because it's not uncommon, but I will translate this to give an idea to foreigners of the situations we have to deal with.

Yet again, another Catalan speaker has been kicked out of somewhere just because they spoke in Catalan in a Catalan-speaking country. This time, it happened in a local football camp in Petra (town in Mallorca, Balearic Islands).

While reading this story, remember that Catalan is the native language of Mallorca, and is legally recognised as a co-official language.

During a local-level football match, the football coach of the team UE Petra protested to the referee that a decision wasn't right. The referee told him "we are in Spain, Mallorca is part of Spain, not Spain part of Mallorca, and you must speak to me in Spanish". The coach continued speaking Catalan, since it's the language of the place where this is happening, and the referee proceeded to expel him. This is what the referee wrote in the match's minutes:

In the half-time, the coach [...] after perceiving my communication in Spanish and being reprimanded for addressing me with the words "this is shameful", starts speaking to me in Catalan. When I ask him to talk to me in Spanish, he continues perpetuating his dialect, where I understood some lacks of respect. Since I could not make him stop, I decide to expel him.

At the end of the minutes card, the referee wrote the reason for expelling him as "for disobeying my orders".

The other witnesses in the football match explain that the referee was very rude to the coach and never asked him politely to change to Spanish, only rudely saying "in Spanish!". Later, the referee also wrote that the coach was "perpetuating his dialect", as we have seen. Using the word "dialect" for a language that has suffered persecution, illegalization and discrimination is an extremely loaded term based on bigotry, only used by the hardcore Catalanophobes who defend that Catalan (and other discriminated languages like Basque and Galician) aren't languages because they're not important or respect-worthy enough to be a language, only a "dialect" (understood as a derogatory word).

The football club UE Petra has complained that this referee is partial and "has taken decisions, as can be seen by the wording used in the minutes, influenced on a coach using his mother tongue in the place where it has been official for centuries".

Now, a few days after the game and the UE Petra publishing a statement explaining it on their social media (you can read it here), the referee has pressed charges, claiming that she has been "threatened" when it was posted on social media. 🤦

Can you imagine if this happened to a Spanish person for speaking Spanish in Madrid? Or French in Paris, or English in London? Can you imagine if doctors threw them out for speaking Spanish in Madrid, French in Paris or English in London? Or hotels, banks, petrol stations did? If policemen identified them because speaking it was seen as lack of respect? Then why do we have to accept that it's normal when it happens to us?

You can find the statement published by this coach's football team UE Petra here (in Catalan). Some sources from newspapers who reported on it: Esport3, Ara Balears, Vilaweb.

#actualitat #català #llengua catalana #mallorca #illes balears #petra #languages #langblr #polyglot #catalan #discrimination #language rights #cultural rights #culture rights #catalanophobia #catalanofòbia #coses de la terra #spain

[darktowerdames]

These are facts. Don’t call these characters your hero or your favorite character if you don’t get what they stand for. A lot of you have more in common with the villains than the heroes. Wake up.

FOR THE UNEDUCATED.

• X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

• Black Panther is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

• Captain America literally fought nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

• The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel alliance are Anti-Fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars.

• Doctor Who was about an alien fighting for all of humanity in spite of totalitarian regimes. If you don't get that, you don't get Doctor Who.

• The Punisher isn’t meant to be a role model for police or armed forces. So much so that the writers of The Punisher made him actively speak out against it in a comic. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get The Punisher.

• Deadpool is queer. He’s pansexual. Fact. If you didn’t get that you didn’t get Deadpool.

• Star Trek is about equality for all genders, races and sexualities. As early as the mid-60s it was taking a pro-choice stance and defending women’s right to choose. One of its clearest themes is accepting different cultures and appearances and working together for peace. (It’s also anti-capitalist and pro-vegan). If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Trek.

• Superman and Wonder Woman (and a whole host of other superheroes) are immigrants. The stance of those comics is pro-immigration and pro-equality and acceptance. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Superman or Wonder Woman.

• Stan Lee said, “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” If you’re bigoted or racist, you didn’t get any of the characters Stan Lee created.

• The stories we grew up with all taught us to value other people and cultures and to treasure the differences between us. Only villains were xenophobic, or sexist, or racist, or totalitarian. I can’t understand how anyone can have missed that.

• If you’re upset that there’s a black Spider-Man, or a black Captain America, or a female Thor, or that Ms. Marvel is Muslim, or that Captain Marvel was pro-feminism or any of the other things right-wing “fans” say is “stealing their childhood” - you never got it in the first place. The things you claim are now “pandering to the lefties” were never on your side, to begin with.

If you consider yourself a fan of these things, but you still think the LGBTQ+ community is too “in your face”, or have a problem with Black Lives Matter, or want to “take the country back from immigrants”, then you’re not really a fan at all.

Geek culture isn’t suddenly left-wing... it always was.

You just grew up to be intolerant.

You became the villain in the stories you used to love.- Jamie Fay (July 30 ,2022)

#X-Men #Black Panther #Captain America #Star Wars #Dr Who #The Punisher #Deadpool #Superman #Wonder Woman #Stan Lee #Miles Morales #Sam Wilson #Kamala Khan #Ms Marvel #Captain Marvel #Carol Danvers