#being trans in THE WORLD is infuriating

[what-do-bunyips-look-like]

This crab day thing has gotten so frustrating so fast. The person who suggested it is an anti-abortion anti-feminist right wing christian transphobe. Many of the people spreading additional posts and info are ALSO anti-abortion right wing christian transphobes. Seriously. Start clicking their blogs when you see these posts. Search "abortion" and "feminism" and "trans" and "gender" and "groomer." This is really easy to confirm. But people don't give a shit because "crabs fun." okay.

And its not like people aren't aware of it at this point. Search "crab day" on tumblr and a good chunk of the results are asks saying "hey btw crab day was started by a transphobe/right wing christian." and most of those people have responded with something along the lines of "Um okay but like its a good idea though??? You guys can't even collaborate with conservatives for like a second to achieve a political goal? UGH this is why nothing ever gets done 🙄." or "Um okay but like that post had nothing to do with their political beliefs. so like its fine lol. Crab fun." Or "oh no omg im so sorry thats so gross i deleted the post but im still gonna keep reblogging all the other posts by the conservative transphobic anti abortion right wing christians whos blogs i wont check because we need to save tumblr!!!!"

Let me make this really fucking clear for those who don't get it: it doesn't matter if the post is not about their political beliefs. You and all your mutuals are reblogging them. You are making it easier for them to network and find each other. You are bringing them new followers, a bigger audience, a bigger platform and a bigger pool of people who will spread their oh so relatable non-political posts. Which will bring in more followers. And some of those new followers are going to be young dumbasses who are going to see all their posts about "groomers" and "mutilation" and the evils of porn and the horrors of abortion and how feminism actually harms women and do i need to tell you how that story ends?

You are showing that "crab fun" is way more important to you than the safety of trans tumblr users. You are giving them a bigger platform and a wider net with which to potentially harm trans people. By saying that you're not going to let their political beliefs ruin your fun, you're making it very clear that trans people are less important than your fun. And you're making it VERY fucking clear that you'd RATHER tumblr become a safe and welcoming place for anti-feminist anti-abortion right wing transphobes than give up fun crab.

You are showing that your need to throw money at a corporation is more important to you than trans tumblr users. I get where you are coming from. I do. You want tumblr to keep existing. I want tumblr to keep existing. I also want the other trans people who use this fucking platform to keep existing because frankly, they are the only reason i'm here. and if they aren't safe here and if you will throw us away just to keep tumblr shambling along a little longer then I have no fucking interest in tumblr.

"Okay but we need to save tumblr uwu!!!!" Look I'm just some dumbass and I don't know shit (and to be PERFECTLY honest, so are you), but I think this is a little more complicated than "if we raise enough money we can save the school/family farm/community centre/(insert cozy heartwarming thing that needs to be saved)!" As other smarter people have said, tumblr is operating at a yearly $30 million deficit. Thats $30 million just to break even. For one year. not become profitable. Its not a bail them out once and its all good forever situation. Tumblr is not a small message board run by volunteers who actually use donations to stay afloat. They are not a non-profit. They are not running a pledge drive. Throwing money at a corporation does not a nonprofit make. It makes you a consumer.

Your response to "tumblr making bad changes" is "give them money for making the bad changes to show that we don't like bad changes!! A reverse boycott'll show 'em!!" You sure about that??? (And some of you are calling this """""unionizing?"""" Put that word back on the shelf.) You don't know what you're doing and you're not listening to the smarter people who have tried to explain it to you. And once again, you're showing that this half baked scheme is more important to you than trans tumblr users. because crab fun.

And @everyone whos clambering over each other to "collaborate with conservatives for a good cause," we already fucking know that you love to do this shit. You are the same people who will say "yeah but theres bad people on both sides!!!" and who wont give up your Harry Potter or your Chick-Fil-A. You will throw us under the bus the SECOND it gets you something you want. Even something as stupid and small as pickle brine or a shitty videogame or fucking "crab day." And guess what. The second all your "shared goals" are accomplished and the conservatives get what they want FROM YOU??? You're going straight under that bus too.

And also, isn't it maybe a little hmmmm. SUSPICIOUS that CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS want to throw money at the site that we've been bitching and screaming at for how unfairly it censors any display of queer sexuality????? They don't have the same problems with tumblr that you do. You think that collaborating with THEM is gonna stop that? Gonna get the porn ban reversed? Gonna turn tumblr into a co-op? Gonna "unionize this bitch?" Hello????

If you must. MUST participate in this because crab oh so fun and tumblr is oh so in need of saving then for the LOVE of FUCK make your OWN POST and STOP PLATFORMING THESE PEOPLE. i don't want to hear "Oh but its a good idea it doesn't matter if a bad person came up with it separate art from the artist lol" if you're not MAKING AN ACTUAL EFFORT TO EXCLUDE THEM FROM THIS. BLOCK THEM. CHECK THEIR BLOGS. BLACKLIST THEIR URLS. ITS EASY.

and then maybe go give your $3 to an actual non-profit. or to an actual leftist independent organization. Or wikipedia. Or inaturalist. Or to one of the many hyperspecific message boards out there who are struggling along on donations from like 5 people. Or maybe, maybe, give your fucking $3 to an abortion fund or to a trans person's go fund me so they can buy food. Or to a womens shelter or a fucking homeless person or to any of the other people who anti-abotion anti-feminist right wing christian transphobes want to stop existing.

My partner is afraid to leave the house alone because people with these exact same political beliefs are in power. People are getting their HRT ripped away from them because people with these exact same political beliefs are in power. People are being forced to give birth because people with these exact same political beliefs are in power. Every day I'm ready to get the news that the state my partner is in is no longer safe and we have to figure out an escape plan. These people do REAL HARM in the REAL WORLD and their beliefs are, tbh, way more fucking insidious and mainstream and tolerated than those of TERFs.

But fun crabs are more important. okay.

#I have almost no followers here like 3 people will see this but i can't not say anything #prob gonna lose a few beloved mutuals over this screed tbh well so it goes #I'm sorry this is so aggressive i realize that some people still dont know but im VERY frustrated by the response here #I'm pinning this post and everyone who clicks on my blog to look at a cute bug has to see it #being trans on tumblr is infuriating #being trans in THE WORLD is infuriating #crab day #the crabbening #july 29 #crab week #save tumblr #anti crab day #etc etc etc #DO YOU REALIZE HOW FUCKING DISAPPOINTING IT IS TO SEE ALL THESE TAGS AND SEE HOW BIG THIS THIS HAS GOTTEN AND STILL NOONE GIVES A SHIT

[sn4kebites]

im so so so tired of the way the lgbt community treats bisexuality in general it makes me so tired

bisexuality is always measured by proxy of the other and it's so infuriating and inescapable. it's treated as heterosexuality adjacent on the basis you could end up with someone of the opposite sex and somehow inherently less queer than a label like pansexuality

your proximity to queerness will always be measured by your aesthetics even more so than anything else. never mind your work in your community, never mind your deconstructions of gender, never mind your lived experience. your bisexuality will always be a betrayal to someone. any acceptance is merely perceived but not practiced.

#void.speaks #biphobia is so fucking prevalent in lgbt spaces im so tired!!!!!!!!!! #i am so so tired lol #i have been queer my whole life. actively. i have been openly lgbt since i was 11 #i went through elementary middle and highschool dating girls in my class #i got in trouble for it #all of my best friends were trans growing up. it was just how it was #ive always been queer in the embarassing way #in the weird band kids kissing at 7am way #when i stopped identifying as pan and chose to identify as bi an before i discovered i was trans #the whole world collapsed in on me. my sense of community slowly disappeared #my entire lived experience is being lgbt and nothing else. i was never afforded the chance to have any proximity to heterosexuality #when people started to treat me like i was straight adjacent it was infuriating #i didnt get called the dslur and the f slur for you to fucking tell me im not queer enough #and for me ive never dated anyone NOT lgbt. even the men i dated were queer. no one was looking at us like we were straight #all biphobia is always just thinly veiled misogyny anyway #its so disheartening to experience vitriol from the only community i ever felt accepted by when i was ostracized by otherrs #infighting makes me tired. i wish i could say it was just online but it simply is Not #idk!!!! im over it!!!! #vent cw

[comicaurora]

I'm sorry that the terfs made their way onto your blog but it does feel good to see you support trans people. Thank you for that

Always.

I think, charitably, that the discourse going down on that post is an extrapolation and over-focus on one element of the point I was making: that for me, determining with certainty that I was cis was a rather fraught process. I was presented with many alternatives, but underlying their imposition on me was the oddly regressive idea that the things I liked, the principles I valued, the parts of myself I was proud of were not permitted of women. My whole life I got smacked with the background radiation that I couldn't like being strong because women aren't allowed to be stronger than men. I couldn't like being loud and boistrous because women aren't allowed to take up space. I couldn't be a math geek because women aren't smart. It was all deeply regressive misogyny from day one, but I started getting hit with it slathered in a fresh coat of paint - all those assumptions still held to be true, but now there was the out that I could do all those things if I just wasn't a woman.

Concluding that the underlying bioessentialist premise was wrong was very important. Absolutely none of those statements were true, and were only ever maintained by cultural saturation, goalpost-readjustment when they were actively disproven, and the occasional bout of lying with statistics to pretend they weren't just Shit All The Way Down. The core premise that certain things were only permitted of or possible for men was bullshit, and I didn't need to surrender the gender I liked best in order to play in the spaces I wanted to. I could simply exist the way I was already existing. I didn't need anything else.

The misinterpretation is the assumption that this being true of me means this is everybody's relationship with gender. I turned out to be cis, so for me, feeling that holding onto my assigned gender wasn't allowed was distressing - just another invocation of the same bioessentialist bullshit I'd been dealing with since the preschool playground. This is because misgendering is fundamentally denying that a person has the right to express themself the way they want. When aimed at me, it says I'm not performing traditional femininity well enough to deserve my pronouns. The same disrespect is the root of misgendering when aimed at trans people. "Perform your gender to my satisfaction or I will confiscate it."

The problem is, bioessentialism is 100% ingrained into the terf playbook, which is why, for instance, all their shitty talking points about trans athletes eventually boil down to "no woman can ever defeat a man in any contest because we are simply naturally weak and stupid and there is nothing we can do about it" and quite frankly nothing disgusts me more than the defeatist acceptance of the very lie that feminism is dedicated to overcoming. Instead of accepting that the paradigm of bioessentialism is a false dichotomy right from the jump, they embrace and weaponize it against the people whose existence proves the dichotomy is a lie. If gender essentialism is fundamentally false, then it is nobody's fucking business what anybody does with their gender. If the lines don't exist, nobody needs to enforce them. And yet there the terfs go, hunting down people whose lives are none of their business and trying to argue that they represent some great and terrible evil, some downfall of society made flesh, something that makes it totally correct and normal for them to spend so much time thinking about strangers' genitalia. They want this to be a noble crusade so badly they won't even examine what flag they're flying.

I love and support the trans people in my life and will always, always stand on the side of your right to exist, but alongside that, terf rhetoric especially disgusts and infuriates me because it is, at its heart, utter cowardice. The world told them they were weak and stupid and inferior and they fucking believed it. And now they think Fighting The Good Fight For Women means turning around and using the same paradigmatic weapon that hurt them to hurt the people whose existence outside the binary proves the weapon is a lie. They're the same shithead schoolyard bullies who made me believe my entire existence was foundationally wrong for years of my life and I will never, ever side with them or the shitty, cowardly rhetoric that contributed to the loneliest years of my life.

Figure out who you are and do it on purpose. Find the real source of the misery in your life and try fighting that instead of the other crabs in the bucket. Trans rights.

#asks #not aurora

[carbonemissionshater]

Reading about Camp Trans and lesbian dating events both being protested by TIMs is so infuriating. Women were not allowed in court rooms, workplaces, voting stations, schools for literally centuries. In some parts of the world, they still can’t. Girls in Nepal have to sit in menstrual huts. Women in rural India have no safe public restrooms. Women are and have been relinquished to the home for centuries, not to be seen in public. And in any of these cases there was no question who was a woman: it was adult human females.

Now that women have gotten a SLIVER of power and freedom, males are demanding our spaces. Demanding to be in our locker rooms, prisons, bathrooms, sports, rape shelters, lesbian events, women’s festivals. Everything. Suddenly, it’s not clear who’s a woman. Suddenly, anyone can be a woman.

Idc if they feel left out or have dysphoria, women should have the right to gather without males. Women shouldn’t have to relinquish female only spaces to accommodate males. TIMs maintain the right to exist anywhere else (some places they can’t wear their girl costumes but the right for males to wear dresses/makeup is not the same as women’s rights) and they do, in congress, on television, on magazines, at work, etc.

#male entitlement #male violence #radfem do interact #radical feminists please touch #women’s rights

[bimbinis]

the trouble with critiquing transandrophobia and associated tendencies as a trans man is that what it feels like is that you’re being put in the position of arguing that you’re defending yourself from accusations of Not being privileged, that you are in fact privileged, which in a discussion that is explicitly a matter of oppression olympics is automatically a theoretical lost position. how do you even express the fact that transandrophobia is an incredibly lackluster category, that not only relies on incorrect, hurtful underlying assumptions about how the oppression of other groups work, but on top of that doesn’t even actually speak truth to your actual goddamn lived experience, when you’re the very person it purports to be about, when saying “my life does not look like this bc I’m viewed as a man by society” sounds like bragging?

and because the ghost of transmedicalism yet looms high over the land perpetually haunting us all, it very quickly gets warped by transandrophobia truthers into us saying that they’re not really trans bc they don’t take hormones or men bc they don’t pass (even though to me their tendencies towards 1. transmisogyny and 2. making those godawful, out of touch positivity posts reassuring men they’re allowed to be masculine or whatever, both tendencies I frequently observed in my circle during my time as a transmed, seem just as worthy of the accusation). meanwhile they impose on us a false ubiquitous experience of living in a world where people view us as women and measure us by the standards set for women, and any oppression we experience has nothing to do with being viewed on some level as men bc you see, cis men don’t experience oppression for being men but we very much do, we’re the specialest non-toxic boys in the world who will redeem masculinity bc we’re not actually subject to true social existence as men. if you suggest you are that’s you saying that you wanna be just like a cis man which is transphobic and misogynistic bc cis men are misogynists and trans men aren’t. so stay in your lane and let us speak about your experiences for you :)

it’s just such utterly exhausting shite. and bc these people always have these insufferably woobified personas, these performatively inoffensive, “pure cinammon roll”-esque public identities, that makes it all the more infuriating when they engage in such blatant imposition of their own outlook on other people and act like they’re not doing it. but if you call them out on it and tell them to at least have the decency to own up to it they start whining that you’re a toxic male telling them to man up. these people will say to your face that everyone in your life will always view you as a woman and there’s nothing you can do about it but if you reply with “ok aiden” or smth they’ll cry that they’re being hatecrimed. deeply unserious people

#leandro's leftist rants #is this even a leftist rant. maybe i'll just change it to yet another tag for long discourse poasts

[kittyit]

the more i learn about specific genocides the more infuriated i feel about the trans movement’s co-opting of it. i just don’t understand how it can happen. i feel like the holocaust has become such a faded concept to the average person to even think of comparing it. i find it repulsive. we recently went to a talk by a local native woman about the genocide her people faced and the ongoing search for unmarked graves in america’s federal boarding schools. she shared stories and photos of little kids who had escaped and tried to make it home. just today i read an article about california’s little-known genocide during the gold rush. i’ve read the rape of nanking. and overall i know so little about the horrors of the world, past and present, even specifically in the US and i am absolutely humbled in a lifelong way by what i do know. there is no way to comprehend it. and i can’t fucking understand why trans people feel comfortable asserting they are being genocided and yes, it IS actually like the holocaust. insisting it IS actually genocide. i seriously cannot cope with it. i want to write an essay on it or for someone else to write an essay on it because i feel like i cannot stand it. it is anti-human behavior to say this shit, genuinely, it is anti human history and knowledge. it is offensive on the highest level. you can talk about human rights violations without calling it a fucking genocide. the word needs to retain meaning

#genocide is specific #i would never say we're facing a lesbian genocide or a gay genocide and will always push back if i see anyone saying that shit #how many graves can you spit on at once

[kdinjenzen]

The world is infuriating and you are unafraid to speak up about it and that is extremely admirable but despite so many things to be furious about, you don't seem like that angry a person. How do you keep from being consumed by rage at the horror permeating everything all the time?

The TLDR?

I'm a queer autistic trans woman who has been put through a tremendous amount of abuse and trauma in my life and people like me are absolutely not allowed by society to be openly furious about things without the world holding a knife to our necks and being ready to slice through it without a single thought at all.

I also do not want the world to be a dark and unforgiving place, which means that I also must ensure that my own heart is not a dark and unforgiving place. All of which takes work and an open mind to accomplish.

I spent too much of my life being manipulated and harmed by people, forced to do and participate in things out of fear that I would be further physically harmed... and even when I was not being dealt physical abuse… the things I endured hurt my heart and mind.

So I do what I can do to make things better, not blinded by toxic optimism, but fueled by an actual hope for things and people to be better and learn to create a better future.

[givemearmstopraywith]

i kknow this may not be your area of knowledge but do you know why the pope is suddenly saying this stuff re: marxism? hes always been progressive and genuine in his beliefs (same gender stuff, the lunch w the drag queens, etc.) but to outright say "we should befriend communists" is surprising to me. power play? old age? hes also a communist? idk

i was raised catholic and spend most of my time at a jesuit college! it's a complicated issue, but i'll do my best. edit: i also want to say that i am both pro-francis and generally very unhappy with the church in general, so i've tried to be as objective as i can.

pope francis is, first, argentinian, and second, a jesuit. as a south american he knows liberation theology, a marxist-based theology of the poor which developed in south america during the 1980s. because of its association with marxism liberation theology was treated with huge suspicion by the catholic church. cardinal ratzinger, later benedict xvi, wrote a fairly nasty castigation of liberation theology in the 80s- if i find it i'll link it.

this is the context, i believe, of his comments on marxism: it's not only a home ideology for francis, it's more necessary than ever in our current social climate. francis has always been what most catholics would consider a liberally minded pope, he exhibits that fabulous tenet of catholic social teaching called "the preferential option for the poor," and everything he has done during his papacy gestures to this, including his encyclical on climate change, laudato si, and his recent moves towards affirmation of gay and trans people being baptized. even his tour of canada to make formal apologies for residential schools came about for similar reasons: it wasn't perfect, but the reason there hadn't been a formal catholic apology prior to francis was because doctrine around papal infallibility dictates that a sitting pope cannot refute or roll back the statements of a previous pope: an apology for the doctrine of discovery and residential schools would have constituted admitting that a previous pope had been wrong, which is tantamount to admitting that god himself is wrong, since the pope is the representative of god and a direct descendent of the apostle peter. doing as much throws the entire church into a very negative light, but francis apologized anyway- which, again, while deeply imperfect is a huge deal within the church, certainly infuriated a lot of conservatives, even if it seems essentially inadequate to non-catholics.

francis isn't a communist, i don't think, but he is good. he's very apart from what constitutes the majority of the catholic magisterium (ordained members of the church- priests, bishops, cardinals, etc)- a kind of internal division developed after vatican ii, where on one hand you had conservatives who preferred traditionalism, the type of leaders who wanted to keep things QT with the reagan administration who was funding mass murder in nicaraugua- that is, at it's core, the primary reason why liberation theology was rejected when it first emerged, why it has been slow to gain traction in the church. ratzinger was a staunch conservative, and john paul ii was less so; leadership in the church goes through cycles where traditionalists are usually followed by more liberal-minded popes, who appreciate vatican ii for the groundbreaking and monumental achievement that it was rather than acting as if it signified a breakdown of religion.

the other thing is francis being a jesuit: i have a lot of jesuit friends, have gotten most of my theological education from jesuits, and applied to a jesuit college for my phd. jesuits are incredibly socially minded, dedicated consistently to social awareness and justice, and less inclined towards enclosure and privation from the world at large than other orders. they are also dedicated to poverty, like franciscans. the jesuit order is not perfect (they still will not allow a women's jesuit order, and they have a dismal track record of colonialism) but francis is the first jesuit pope and this is a huge deal in terms of the type of theology that his leadership embodies as a result. jesuists are not as a monolith liberal-minded and forward thinking, but they are generally more ready to adapt and evolve catholicism to meet contemporary needs rather than maintainig strict adherence to traditional views at the expense of the body of christ- that is to say, the body of all believers, or all whom god loves, which is everyone. incidentally, leonardo boff, one of the fathers of liberation theology, was also jesuit.

this is a pretty and dirty answer to your question but i hope it makes sense- essentially francis is recognizing that the needs of god's people override that of the church, because god's people are the church equally or more than the magisterium is the church, but it is the magisterium who has been preferred historically. but he has surprisingly little room in which to make moves towards this because of canon law and other doctrines. he's doing his best, though, more than i ever thought i'd see: i appreciate and love him deeply.

#replies #he almost makes me want to convert. but. no i shant <3

[the-togepi-man]

This following post is going to be very anti-religious. If that would bother you, so be it. But this is my blog, and I need to get my feelings out. I really dislike religion. I'm sure it helps some folks find meaning, but the amount of people that use it to look to a higher power and ignore those who they are sharing world with is saddening and infuriating. I am aware that many, if not all religions preach loving their fellow man. But the fact there needs to be an entity and their following to say that breaks me. How did we come so far as a species to somehow think we are better than those who are made the same way? Having to read this trans-visibility day "controversy" for being on Easter is insane. Yes there are those clearly just using it to hate monger, but there are those that genuinely believe this is some magical day where a fairy tale character came back to life, and it should be respected over real, living fucking people. Again, people are out there pushing down real, live, breathing, struggling, dreaming, loving members of their own fucking race to celebrate fiction. Those people in their lives, that see the people they know or care about prioritizing a holiday about a billion year old lie over their actual lives will feel that, and that part will live in their brain no matter how strong they are. Growing up as a gay, privalaged white man, I still feel it. I can't imagine those who have to deal with so much more than me. I've had some reasons to come to terms with morality and the fleetingness of life recently. I just want to let those know struggling internally, externally, or both- that your life is worth something to me. Worth far more to me than a magic book or some cosmic promise.

#while our paths had not connected for a very long time #i hope that those who struggle with their mental health and place in this world know they are not always alone

[foggymartin]

It's always awful to see pretentious twats on the news, but especially when they talk about things they've had no experience in. Seeing upper class, Christian men go on and on about how we should make Britian a "Christian" place again is out of this world. Seeing upper class (and let's be real, probably Christian) men talk about how people in poverty should just *work in these shitty jobs provided by our fucked government and earn minimum wage* because what are they going to do? They basically don't have a choice. Seeing *upper class christian men* talk about women's rights, gay peoples rights, people of colours rights, like it's some kind of epic tale in a book. They have no fucking idea what they're talking about, for any of it.

Christianity is a fucked religion (controversial, I know) with again, pretentious twats speaking the "words of God" which are a load of shit. Most of the time it's used as an excuse to be a homophobe or a sexist. Okay, David, why don't we follow every single rule ever put into that musty book? Why don't we tell left handed people they're going to hell? Or tell people who are mean that they're going down there? Why is it gay people? Correct me if I'm wrong, the Bible stated "man must not sleep with *boy*" and not "man must not sleep with man." You know, because pedophila feels like more of a crime then *gay people.* just a hunch. Commenting "Jesus loves you" or "find god" on any post that is someone different. An alternative person. It's so stupid. Why do you care? Follow your little religion and fucking leave us alone.

Poverty is a huge problem across the ENTIRE world, and I'm sure that speaks in volumes about how fucked up of a world we are. The fact that these people who are fighting to survive every day are being told to "just work" by people who never had to work a day in their life for shit is infuriating. Upper class people in general irritate me. I think it's the arrogance that they have. They're a bit.. Snobbish, you know? Even from just teenage girls being naive and laughing at poorer kids for not having an iPhone, to rich adults looking down on these people with such disgust. Seriously viewing these human beings as less then their pretty little £1000 poodle. What the fuck. The government taxes people - taxes the poor people who literally can't afford it if they want to eat. And just the normal people. Why not tax the rich more? People say "oh, we do tax them." Not as much? Do they need all that money? Do they really? Why can't they lend some of that "well earned" (passed down from generations) money to people who need it. I'm sure they'll live.

People on the news talk about women and gay people like they're a shit stain on a wall, but I'm sure the stain would get better rights. It's debates about women's rights to give birth, women's rights to wear what they please, women's rights to turn down a man. Literally fucking anything a woman does is shit on by society. Gay people are debated - should being trans be allowed? Is being gay a sin? Hmm, such tricky questions... Why not just let them live? People point out "oh, that school shooter was trans" or "that rapist was gay" not to say that school shootings or rape cases are bad, no no, just to shit on the LGBTQ community. Nobody points out that a school shooter was a white man. Why don't we just say "that school shooter was a horrible person who deserves to die" and not focus on the community they were a part of? Maybe mourn the lives lost instead of rejoice in the fact that you've got new things to hate the LGBTQ community for.

What a pleasant world we live in, huh? I could go on more, but I wont. I'll probably spiral into a ton of stuff about capitalism and why it should be torn to the ground.

Jesus Christ, I wrote more than intended. Happy reading

#politics #anti capitalism #anarchism #poverty #punk #uk politics #government #corrupt government #corrupt cops #christianity #anti christianity #homophobia #anti homophobia #feminism #right wing arseholes

[transenbyconfessions]

dear people who never fit their agab or felt like they were doing femininity/masculinity wrong, intersex people who have dysphoria around not fitting in with their agab or are transitioning to something else etc and feel mtm or ftf or whatever to whatever. i love you i love you i love you there are so many of us u have no idea. so many people going through the exact same thing. you have your rightful place here in the trans community i know how infuriating it is to try and navigate this place as an afterthought to dyadic people. but you are doing so much by being here and tuning in with this part of yourself. dont worry about what someone has to say about your "big scary contradictory or weird" gender! they'll never have the experiences you do with the gender binary so why does their say matter? keep your chest up!! you dont need to shout out to the world or do anything crazy if you dont want to. just hold yourself up a little more! ok?

Submitted May 15, 2023

#transgender #trans #enby #nb #nonbinary #non-binary #non binary #dysphoria #gender dysphoria #intersex

[gholateg]

The thing is, the "all bi men face zero bigotry and are privileged based on erasure" is commonly paired with the idea that only bi women face any real biphobia.

Not everyone does this, but is it any real surprise 'women are the only ones who can be victims" is here to?

I mean, that's just good ol' misandry, the staple crop of most social media. Men being victims is treated as a joke, regardless of who is abusing us, and trying to get that view to change is akin to pushing rope uphill.

It's gross that a lot of the recent upswing in treating men better is tied to trans issues, because it both invalidates those who transition into men, and doubles down on how little the world actually cares about us.

And yes it sucks, and one of our biggest issues as a bisexual community is that it's media/online presence is heavily focused on the women end.

It's downright infuriating to see the near constant "Bi women are X" posts, when both sides deal with a lot of the same issues. or that the bulk of bi-positive posts will inevitably slap -women on the end to shut us out of the party.

But I can't in good conscious leave them out of the points I make because then I'm no better then the people who I'm angry at.

We all lift together.

#bi talk #humans are kind of shit #We can't get better by pushing others down #it never sticks

[our-transgender-experiences]

This is just kind of a vent cuz I don't really feel like I can talk about this without seeming insensitive. But I am so fucking tired of getting on the internet and seeing nothing but how badly the world wants us dead.

I know I'm coming from an incredibly privileged perspective as I live in a state in the US where my rights aren't as at risk, and it breaks my heart knowing our siblings are suffering. I know that awareness is important and it's not good to turn a blind eye, but it makes it easier to become complacent, which is exactly what the transphobes want. They want us to believe there's no hope, they want us to stop fighting and give up, and the fact that it's working is infuriating.

I have to believe that it's more beneficial for the movement as a whole if I limit the amount of news I'm exposed to. As many hardships come with being trans, there are just as many joys! I want to preserve and cultivate those joys so I can share them with other trans people. I'm okay with missing a couple news headlines if it means I get to remind people that it actually doesn't suck to be alive.

Okay vent over thanks for reading ❤️

No comment here.

#transgender

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

This is cringe and annoying but i have nowhere else to go. I used to love going to ren faires and dressing up and having a good time, but im very gnc and always dress like a knight or a ranger or typically male things, not like a fairy or princess or w/e. Anyways, when i went last time, everyone asked for my pronouns, others called me HE, people stuttered and stopped when they saw me.

places like these used to feel like a safe space, like i could dress and be whoever i wanted w no judgement from conservatives bc i am gnc. But now i get so much judgement from liberals and it feels so isolating. I went home sobbing bc i realized that if im gnc in any space now, left or right, i will be seen as a man or trans and not just a female. Thinking about how girls are growing up today with this mindset, realizing that to be a girl means to be feminine, and the only gnc role models they have are going trans.

This is NOT cringe, and it is NOT annoying. Anon, it is completely understandable that you’d find this upsetting and infuriating. I really appreciate you sharing your experience, and you have my sympathy and solidarity.

I’ve had similar experiences, because of how I dress and my choices around my appearance, and I’ve found them upsetting too - either for myself, or for the people who don’t realise how narrow minded they’re being, in inflicting their assumptions on me.

I don’t know if you’ll relate to this, but part of what I find insulting is the implication that I must choose to look and act the way I do out of a desire to be different from who I am - that the only reason a woman would look and act the way I do is because she doesn’t like being a woman, or being herself. When in reality I love being a woman, and not conforming to gender roles and stereotypes, simultaneously. The idea that my motivation must be self-hatred instead of self-love is so reductive and patronising.

If you’re open to advice, I’ve found the key thing that helps me when I get this treatment is laughter. It is absurd, after all. The idea that my choice of what fabric to wrap around my clearly female body sends people into a tailspin reflects so poorly on them that all I can do is pity and laugh. Don’t let them change you though - just because they insist on seeing the world in a binary, doesn’t mean you have to make yourself fit their childish view. It’s good for them to be confronted with their incorrect assumptions - cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing. Sending love xx

[ohnoitstbskyen]

I see you being a bit more active on Tumblr, and idk if you'll read this but when you came out as aromantic - publicly, on YouTube, talking about your experiences? It made me jump on my seat. I remember I was at my friend's house when you uploaded the video and I was just staring at the screen, hearing you speak and there was something within me that felt so much happiness and relief.

You made me feel happy and safe enough - seen enough? To admit to myself that I'm in the aromantic spectrum. I've always been on the fence about it due to inner arophobia, and seeing you, someone I (parasocially) admire being what I was afraid of? It made me realize that the world is okay with aromantic people in it. With me in it.

I still think back on that video so fondly. I listen to it sometimes before going to bed, it brings me so much joy. Even as I type this there are still leftover tears of relief in my eyes. I don't know if this means anything to you from a stranger, but I needed you to know that it meant everything to me, especially as a trans man. Thank you, Skyen.

Well, I'm glad the video was helpful. I know for me it was extremely important just to hear an experience like mine articulated, to learn that I don't sit alone with myself at the tip of history, and that I don't have to invent the category of "me" all by myself.

So if it could do that for you, then I am very happy.

Truth be told I still struggle with doubt and uncertainty about that part of my identity; it's that infuriating problem of proving a negative, finding evidence of absence. "What if I just haven't met the right person yet? What if my sexuality isn't what I thought it was? What if, what if, what if..."

But the fact that other people share that experience, that they share the doubt especially... that helps. If to be "aromantic" meant to be absolutely certain of exactly what being "aromantic" is, what it feels like, and how to articulate it to other people, then I don't know that I would ever have been able to see myself in it.

My experience of it has been a long walk of doubts and second guesses, and a lot of the time I am not so much certain that I am aromantic, as I am certain that I am not any of what "romantic" is supposed to be.

If you're out there and some of those aspec labels are resonating with you, but you're full of doubt about them... hey, just know, feeling that doubt is normal. If it calls to you enough that you have to wrestle with doubt about it, that means it's worth exploring.

#tb answers #aromantic #queer #lgbtq #aromanticism #aspec pride #aspec culture

[ariestarfairy]

Gale Dekarios: A Mansplainer or a Wizardsplainer? And I am off on another Gale related topic yet again, this time it involves a small subset of individuals who believe that Gale Dekarios is a mansplainer. Yes you heard it, Gale Dekarios is a mansplainer! I know, I know I want to roll my eyes hard enough to see the back of my skull as well. Let me preface this by saying I am not here to undermine the harm that mansplaining does to the recipients, typically anyone presenting as a women or playing as a woman. Mansplaining is a real problem in the gaming, TTRPG, and LARP-ing world. As someone who identifies as a woman I know this. When you are maligned, treated like you don't understand, talked down to, objectified, or your character is side-lined as milady who is helpless or forced into certain roles with expectations, it is infuriating. I just want my female barbarian to feast on the flesh of her enemies and use their splintered bones as toothpicks without someone saying women aren't supposed to do that. Mostly it's because your woman presenting character is too masculine and dude-bro paladin needs a girlfriend to protect and do the dirt with (because that's all your character is good for, oh and maybe healing), but we are not here for it. I've seen this happen to men playing characters that are women as well, it's a disease. It sucks, you experience it enough and any time a man starts talking it can be a trigger. I get it! With that in mind I think mansplaining loses its meaning when we take it out of context and just apply it to any kind of trigger. Context matters, understanding the material matters, the lore matters. What does not matter in Baldur's Gate 3 is your character's gender. Let's be very clear, if you are playing the game through the lens of a woman and your character is also a woman and you think Gale is mansplaining to you then you need to reset your game and play it as a man. I tend to spice up my gender variety for funsies and if you are constantly playing as the gender that matches your gender identity you might just view the game through that lens. I'm also going to be real I'm a M/M slasher, I go back and play Gale and Astarion as the origin protags because Bloodweave for life baby! But I do mix it up with genders. So what happens when you are playing entirely through a singular lens, when you are a woman playing as a character that is a woman? You might look at Gale as a mansplainer, but the reality is he's running on a script and he is going to say the same thing to you if you are speaking to him as a cis-man/woman, trans-man/woman, non-binary, or if you are Astarion (okay you might get a bit of variation because it's Astarion and not Tav), but the script is still the script. Your Tav is going to get the script. Now the second part of this is that Gale is a Wizard, you know when someone is a wizz they are very good and successful at the thing they do. Okay so if you are playing as a Sorcerer or some other magically tangent class, you might think Gale is a magic snob, that you are a Sorcerer or you are also playing a character that knows magic as well and him explaining magic to you is him being condescending and talking down to you. No. Gale is a Wizard, Wizards are magically superior, their knowledge is magically superior, this is the rule not the exception. Pick up your D&D handbook, flip to the part where it talks about Wizards and it will tell you they are supreme magic users, they are scholars of the arcane, they are the mathematicians and programmers of magic. They understand it. They have the Ph.D., Sorcerers at best have their A.S., and any other class that uses magic has their H.S. Diploma or G.E.D. Sorcerers are talented magic users, but their knowledge is limited, they rely on raw potential and inherent ability. They don't have the same range because they did not go to graduate school, but they believe they are superior due to carrying a magical birthright through bloodline.

#gale dekarios #baldur's gate 3 #gale of waterdeep #mansplaining #mansplaining or wizardsplaining