#but a feminist. Standing by other bio women.

[loser-brain]

A little midnight rant (??) more of a ramble actually.

But anyway, I kept getting a lot of "Feminist" videos when they are actually Terf videos disguise as feminist videos or just flat-out Terf videos but don't want to use the word Terf because "it's a hateful thing to say." When really... no. It's not, it literally means Trans Exclusion Radical Feminist.

But anyway, I digress, my question, when did the word feminist lose its proper meaning?

There's a reason why I don't put feminist on my bio because many folks already (sadly) have come to the assumption that feminism/feminist means an all-women club aka "bio women" only.

When... no... feminism was started by women but only because in the working force women were really seen as stay-at-home wives. But because of the women's rights movement is when the law became more lenient in allowing women to work.

Feminist also means helping others such as men of different races as well to get proper jobs and payment as well. That sentence is gonna confuse someone sorry, to ramble more on what I mean. You have to understand the payment system. It's still a problem in today but way way back then, it was a lot worse. Many foreigners that came to America weren’t getting proper payment or not paid at all. But were really taken advataged at the fact they were aliens so their boss would make threats to them such as getting them deported or worse.

Because of the feminist movement, women realize they weren't the only ones getting mistreated by the system so we, feminist, would stick with them and fight a fight for equal rights. In which we won but obviously still need more work.

There is so much more history in which I can't really type all of that here because that would derail this post purpose on my question.

As a true feminist (ew, I don't like that I have to call myself a true feminist just so I don't lump myself with the falseys), knowing the history of what a feminist is... When did the word feminist lose it proper meaning?

I'm not chronically online as I use to be in my teen years (but knowing that bad habit messed up my mental and physical health). Please explain to me like I have been living under rock. Don't explain to me that undermine my intelligence (I've had people that done that to me before it's not fun) but in a way that is like high school teaching. Except take out the censoring bit. I wanna know the

✨d e t a i l s✨

#It's really late but I'm just a little tired that I kept getting a lot of terf videos disguised as feminist videos #only reason why I'm extra mad at terfs is because my sis got converted into a terf all because she heard #quote in her word the trans community been calling heterosexual couples breeders... end quote #and I'm like... no one is calling heterosexual couples breeders. The anti human life people been doin' that but like not the trans communit #if so then they aren't loud and should get their toe stub for the rest of their life. In fact anyone who dip their nose in anyone business #should get a stub toe for the rest of their life. #but I digress. It's frustrating to see my sis slowly being converted into being a terf and she even went as far as to say she is not one #but a feminist. Standing by other bio women. #it's so frustrating hearing the word feminist being use as a female only card when... no. That is not what feminist means. #but anyway. Sorry for rambling. My sis isn't really a terf... yet. She still got her values but it is frustrating hearing her be a bigot #about trans folks all because of the terf lies. and those “feminist” videos when they are not feminist videos but terf in disguise. #sorry im rambling #rant #loser brain eat a snicker

[mzminola]

This is not a perfect analogy but I am making it anyway to try to convey what being online has been like for me lately.

Seeing people say "Oh, Jews are fine, I just hate zionists!" is like seeing "Oh, women are fine, I just hate feminists!"

Zionism and feminism are both very broad socio-political movements that have changed focus over time, that ostensibly have some very basic core tenets but you really need to ask the specific person you're talking to how they personally define it to be sure.

Both have been subject to legitimate criticism, and hostile reactionary bullshit. Had waves, sub-movements, splinters, people with damn near opposite views sharing the term and people with seemingly identical views rejecting it.

You can give working, broad definitions like these:

Feminism is the belief that all people should be treated equally regardless of gender, with a focus on women's rights due to systemic oppression.

Zionism is the belief that all peoples have the right to self determination and safety, with a focus on Jewish people finding it in Israel.

You can also give different definitions! Many people give different definitions! Many people also hold these beliefs but use different names for them for various reasons.

There are self-described zionists who are jingoistic, racist, etc, and who attribute those attitudes to their zionism. Just as there are feminists who are misandrist, bio-essentialist, transphobic, homophobic, and so on, who attribute those attitudes to their feminism.

There are also incredibly selfless, compassionate activists working for positive change in the world who consider themselves zionists and feminists.

It has been very jarring to see people, who I respect, uncritically reblogging posts or headlines that use "zionists" as a stand in for "bad people", just as jarring as it would be to see them sharing things that use "feminists" that way. Especially when those posts contain easily debunked conspiracy theories that I know you'd have seen right through if the OP said "Jews" but because they said "zionists" you swallowed it whole.

I am not asking anyone to stop sharing important information, petitions, news articles, resources, and so on. I am asking you to slow down and stop spreading inflammatory language that paints a broad socio-political movement for Jewish self-determination as inherently bad. The same way I would ask you not to spread inflammatory language that paints gender equality & women's liberation as inherently bad.

If the information is important, please look for other, more neutrally worded posts. Or verify the links yourself and make a fresh post! There is no situation online in which the only way to share information must be to spread such language.

#antisemitism #being critical of zionism is not automatically antisemitic #just as criticizing the feminist movement is not inherently misogynistic #but the way a LOT of people have been talking lately...it has been indistinguishable #please slow down #being Jewish in America #and online #I have so many filters and yet I cannot escape this even in fandom spaces #''Jews control the media'' repackaged as ''zionists'' or ''the Israeli government'' has been the one I've seen the most #but there's been some outright blood libel too #and of course the usual banking bullshit #when you accept a term like this as synonymous with ''bad people'' you swallow the lies more easily! you swallow the exaggerations! #you fact check less! you reblog from psyops and bigots who've found keywords! #and it doesn't have to be this way #please stop making it be this way #editing tags to add #zionism #I think I left it off originally to stay out of the tracked tags

[lesb0]

Hey Terra <3

Is there any literature or authors, researchers that stand out to you in regard to learning about what gender or bio essentialism is? I don't have access to JSTOR though, but if there's a paper on there that you love I could try to find out how to get access to it. People seem to use bioessentialism to mean "when you think men are bad for being born men" and I'm like... umm I don't know that it means that... I would like to learn for myself. Thank you so much in advance! So grateful for your presence on here.

Hi! you can get access to jstor with any google account :-)

basically, its the conservative womens idea that a spiritual-physical female "essence" of the "feminine mystique" is a part of every female body, and womanhood can be defined by this mystery essence, like these people believe in a such a thing as a "soul". obviously every feminist wrote extensive critique against things like: "the essence of all woman is to be soft and motherly and nurturing, we sit delicately with crossed legs and walk with a sway and cry every week 🩷 women don't eat much, and never fart 😌 we all exist to have babies and we are all born with this nature"

for feminist art historians, its just not a real problem. its just a silly scapegoat that antifeminists invoke to express their outraged disgust against seeing female bodies, eggs, boobs, vulvae, menstruation, childbirth, etc, coming out of womens art studios (especially in the 70s during womanhouse)

the only real criticism is that it constitutes a super narrow view neglecting all the other things womanhood includes, like a completely masculine butch is still a woman even with no "feminine essence"

mary d. garrard wrote a really good review on the controversy: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23739358

[genderkoolaid]

"Your men's liberation isn't feminism" doesn't mean it can't be feminIST. Like. Feminism is focused on women primarily, yes - though advances towards it can advance the cause of those it's not FOCUSED on, ie men. It stands to reason that men's liberation, while FOCUSED on men, can be pro-women and have positive impacts on them despite not being its "main goal". It would be like saying "feminism isn't Black Lives Matter" as a gotcha.

And I bet people like that other anon would be just as pissed at you for either a) calling yourself BOTH a feminist and a men's liberationist, or b) calling yourself a feminist and making statements about men's liberation within it. There is no victory in squabbling over the words.

Anyways. Sorry you're dealing with more bozos.

Yeah like I DO identify as a feminist???? its just that this blog tends to be very menslib-centered, so thats what I put in the bio, but I wanted to be clear that "menslib" =/= MRA since if you aren't aware of the difference they can seem like the same thing. So many of my menslib posts specifically talk about feminism. They could not more clearly just be arguing to argue.

#m. #ask box

[molsno]

im the genderkoolaid complainer anon from earlier just saw your response- that transunity shit is soo bullshit 😭 (saying as a black person) its literally all lives matter for trans mascs. most trans men from Real Life aren't even that annoying ey're just the most insane vocal minority. i could get behind transunity if it was like uplifting trans ppl of any flavor no matter what (ex: trans mascs standing with your trans sisters when faced with transphobia/transmisogyny(noir), trans fems standing with their trans brothers when faced with transphobia/transmasc hatred then making out about it) but its just like ":/ Why are the girls getting more attention than me!!! I have it worse than them!!! [totally not bio essentialist]" It's crazy. literally most online subset of mascs. there's a reason many of the truthers r white they've never experienced or know what basic intersectionality is

I mean yeah I'm all for trans unity in the sense of sticking up for each other against transphobes and supporting each other when we're in need, but like there has to be an acknowledgement that the things we go through are not exactly the same and that there are privilege dynamics between us even as fellow trans people. I generally like to assume good faith, so I feel like some of the people who are suckered into transunitism genuinely believe that it's good-natured and don't realize that it's spearheaded by a bunch of transmisogynistic trans guys. I'd like to think that some of them can actually be shown the truth, but they need to be willing to listen to trans women first.

and yeah, you're absolutely right. I've compared it to "I'm not a feminist, I'm an egalitarian" plenty of times before but all lives matter is a great analogy too. a lot of poc have pointed out that transandrophobia truthers are mostly white, and I've definitely seen that too. it makes sense then why they all view oppression as strictly interpersonal, rather than being anything systemic.

something I've also noticed is that they use the fact that black men are portrayed as more dangerous and are thus subjected to more violence as proof that antimasculism is real. now, I'm white, and I'm fully aware that because of that I don't have the nuance to describe the causes of this phenomenon in detail, but it just seems so callous and cruel to use the violence black men face as a tool to strengthen their ideology. and in doing so, they explicitly ignore the fact that black women (and black trans women especially) are ALSO subjected to violence due to being portrayed as a threat to white cis women and white children. it's just another way that transandrophobia truthers demonstrate the biologically essentialist "afab = vulnerable, amab = dangerous" attitude that they've all internalized, which is wrong for many reasons, one of which being that afab people are only portrayed as vulnerable if they're white.

#ask #Anonymous

[r0sebutch]

ayo, for someone with he and they pronouns in their bio you just reblogged the terfiest “men are animals” shit I’ve read in a long time. i’m not gonna tell you to do anything about this bc i’m not you, but maybe terf talking points are not the most relevant things to be pushing in a time where persecution against trans people is really ramping up

hi! i’m hoping you mean well by this, so i’m going to try to respond in a way that isn’t bitchy. okay?

first of all, acknowledging misogyny as an issue isn’t a “terf thing”. in fact, feminism and trans liberation are inherently linked! either you believe in bodily autonomy and the right to choose or you don’t. standing for one and against the other is always shooting yourself in the foot- so the simple act of saying “women are societally oppressed” is not a terf talking point, but rather an actual societal fact, and ignoring it or arguing against it is harming both causes- one of which you actually seem to care about!

second of all, i’m sorry that people mentioning the tangible harm men do to women hurts your feelings and puts you instantly on the defensive, but that might be something to examine about yourself. also something worth examining is the fact that you saw a post say “misogyny is real and misandry is not, and if you’re going to discuss feminist theory you need to know this” and went “this post is attacking trans women”. if you’d taken a moment to check out op, you’d see the fact that she has made another post about misogyny- one specifically about how erasing discussions of misogyny harms trans women by erasing acknowledgement of one of the driving factors of transmisogyny!

thirdly, it sucks for you that we’re not centering men’s feelings in this discussion about how women are harmed by men. i get it. and i know that by not softening discussions about it by adding “of course not all men do this” in every post we make makes you uncomfortable. however, couching discussions about stuff like this in language that absolves you of all guilt inherently means you will never examine your own internal biases. maybe you need to do that. it might help to find out where this flinch-and-accuse reflex comes from, where you see the word misogyny and call me a terf right away because talking about it makes you feel bad.

fourthly, don’t try to use my gender against me! that was weird of you! you don’t know me! step back please!

and lastly, since you didn’t even read the post you sent this ask about, i can say with full confidence that you’re not actually going to read this response either. i mostly wrote it to just speak my own thoughts about this! so since reading comprehension clearly isn’t your strong suit, i’ll leave you with something you might actually get:

L + ratio + the post didn’t say that + you don’t understand even basic feminist theory + why are you following me if you hate women + learn how to read

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Paula Wright

Published: Feb 19, 2023

If any man could draw up a comprehensive, infallible guide to navigating this treacherous territory, we would certainly erect a statue to his everlasting memory. There is a Twitter account dedicated to exploring and enumerating precisely the distinctions and differences between the acceptably erotic and the intolerably sexist. It’s called @SexyIsntSexist. It is, of course, under the control of a woman.” Neil Lyndon. Do men really understand what sexism is? The Telegraph 20/5/14

I created Darwinian Gender Studies (DGS) in 2008 as a cross-disciplinary area of study and research which utilises insights across the evolutionary behavioural sciences, including but not limited to, evolutionary psychology, biology, anthropology, ethology, palaeoanthropology and cultural evolution.    It represents the consilience of the natural and social sciences, as envisioned by E. O. Wilson.

Back then, my planned PhD thesis was to be in developing an evolutionary, bio-cultural model of ‘patriarchy’ which challenged the premises of the feminist conception of patriarchy. Even in 2008, the project foresaw that political correctness, social justice and toxic feminism were taking us deep down the postmodern rabbit hole. My goal was to build bridges of understanding between the sexes not walls of fear and mistrust, which is what feminism does today. To learn about humans and humanity; what we are, and what we are not.

Two things we are, which we cannot cease to be and remain human, are a sexually reproducing, moderately sexually dimorphic, pair-bonded species. These are basic facts of our human nature which cannot be erased by social engineering.

Within DGS, I interrogate orthodox feminist concepts, such as patriarchy theory, objectification theory, gender, power, mating strategies, and sex differences and similarities, using humour and evolutionary explanatory models such as natural and sexual selection, parental investment theory, female choice, signalling theory, life history theory, intersexual competition and intrasexual competition.

History has demonstrated many times, that whenever our species attempts to take control of biology and bend it out of shape to ideological goals, human tragedy always follows. It’s a lesson we still don’t seem to have learned, as in spite of overwhelming evidence, many people still hold fast to the idea of an endlessly flexible human nature, and indeed, human nature is flexible, but a blank slate it is not. Neither however is it a crude caricature of immutable deterministic drives and instincts as often painted within the straw man of biological determinism. Human nature is very much mutable, but not infinitely or arbitrarily so, and here lies the nub: Within what may seem like infinite variations of human action and reaction to what life throws at us, our predispositions on an average scale are actually predictable. There are enough constants within this calculus to recognise the existence of an unmistakably human nature. This nature will vary and recalibrate between individuals and ecologies (variation is one of the engines of evolution) but these variations dance around a constant, evolutionary fire.

“Those who journey from political correctness to truth often risk public disapprobation, but it is notable that most never lose their tolerance or humanity. They may question the politics of race, but not that racism is bad; they may question campaigns about women’s pay, but not that women and men deserve equality of treatment.” Browne, A. (2006) The Retreat of Reason: Political correctness and the corruption of political debate in modern Britain. Civitas

I was, and am, standing on the shoulders of many female evolutionary scientists and philosophers who came before me such as Barbara Smuts, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Anne Campbell, Helena Cronin, Griet Vandermassen, Catherine Salmon, Maryanne Fisher, Bobby Low, Helen Fisher, and many more. Over the last 50 years, their scholarship has revealed that, far from feminist fears to the contrary, evolved sex differences do not equate to inferiority.  Via evolution, we in fact see true equality expressed in discrete and fascinating ways.

These women (and many men) have illuminated the role females play as potent agents of evolution via the phenomenon of female choice. This is sadly still an unsung revolution – unsung by feminism, not evolutionists –  as it shattered the male perspective biases that once dominated biology and Darwinism. These women did this, not with rhetorical declarations of war against ‘patriarchy’ but with logic and critical thinking.

When it comes to the principles of natural selection – the struggle to survive – men and women differ very little. Rather, it is in the principles of sexual selection – the struggle not just to survive but thrive enough to have offspring and allow them to thrive also – that the main differences start to become manifest. It is a categorical fact that none of these differences equates to any moral inferiority. No genuine evolutionary scholar would ever make such a claim.

Feminists have long claimed that logic is an exclusively male trait. So much so that to counter the “male” scientific method they felt the need to create “female” method – social constructionism - which ironically invokes every negative female stereotype they claim to want to refute. They did this not because social constructivism was a better tool – it is untested – but because it was the binary opposite of the scientific method.

Women, in fact, have nothing to fear from logic. Yet feminists do fear it, as philosopher Janet Radciffe Richards notes in her book The Sceptical Feminist, 

“…in spite of girls doing better at school than boys, feminists are still woeful at rationality…feminism has some tendency to get stuck in the quagmire of unreason from time to time [but] it cannot be denied that adopting an anti-rational stance has its uses; it can be turned into an all-purpose escape route from tricky corners”  

They also fear it because it falsifies the very premises feminism rests on – especially female inferiority.

This is a description of all feminisms today: radical, intersectional and all other tribes battling for dominance in the victim narrative – including ideological men’s rights, MGTOW and “red pill” groups. All feminisms eschew logic and reason for dogma and ideology and all are in thrall to the flying patriarchal spaghetti monster in the sky. Ask a question about female oppression, you already know the answer: it’s the patriarchy, stupid. And ideological men’s groups have their own version of patriarchy, known as gynocentrism. Both concepts are intellectually myopic.

I created DGS all those years ago because I wanted the opportunity to have a role, however small, in helping us better understand ourselves as a species.

It is true that as a woman I am perhaps more interested in the unique selection pressures women face due directly to their sex. As an evolutionist and a realist, however, this bias does not make me blind to the fact that men face their own unique selection pressures due explicitly to their sex.

The truth is, one sex cannot be understood except in the light of the other. Men and women have co-evolved, each shaping the other both physically and psychologically via sexual selection. Men desire power and resources because women desire men who have power and resources. And female conflict, well that doesn’t look like male conflict, and so often goes unseen, especially by feminists.

From an evolutionary perspective, feminism can be categorised as the study of the conflict between the sexes – intersexual conflict – aka the “battle of the sexes” with a particular interest in proximate, conscious mechanisms of how men can oppress women and how this oppression can be countered. But this is only half the story. Evolutionists posit that to really understand intersexual conflict one must also analyse intrasexual conflict. We do this because we observe across species that competition within a sex is always far more intense than between the sexes. An evolutionary lens also broadens the enquiry to include an analysis of ultimate, unconscious mechanisms of not just how, but why, men pursue the goal of power and resource control. What do men want to do with power? To create strong alliances, subdue rivals, protect against enemies and attract mates.  

Much is known about male intrasexual competition. We have had 2000 years to work it out – its role in shaping cultures and empires – for better or worse. Far less is known about conflict - and conflict resolution - between women; female intrasexual competition (FIC). It is the pink elephant in the feminist room. Do we have the same amount of time to understand female intrasexual competition? For better or worse? I don’t think we do. The epidemic of female-on-female bullying in nursing has long been acknowledged in academia, yet nothing is done about it. In the UK it costs the NHS billions of pounds in workplace attrition, sick leave and low efficiency. It can also cost lives, as a “culture of bullying” was highlighted in the official reports on two scandals in UK maternity wards where both infants and mothers lost their lives.

In another example observe the rise of intragender conflict in the West. Third-gender people exist in many cultures, but only in the West are males who identify with the female gender trying to use it as leverage to get access to sex-based rights and privileges. Then we have feminism itself a battleground fraught with female intrasexual competition, which is often mistakenly called “internalised misogyny”.  Women too, it seems, want to create alliances, subdue rivals and attract the best mates.

Using FIC as a lens to look anew at hot feminist topics such as the beauty industry, cosmetic surgery, anorexia, and the endless wars of attrition between the many tribes of feminisms brings fascinating new insights, as all these phenomena seem to be expressions of female competition not male oppression.

Nonetheless, there is still a comfortable consensus among all feminists that the beauty ‘ideal’ is a tyranny perpetrated upon women by the patriarchy. “Feminists down the ages have argued that the oppression of women is played out on their bodies, their clothes, their style of adornment. To politicise dress has been one of the enduring projects of the women’s movement.” (Walter, N. 1999) Naomi Wolf tackled this concept in her seminal book The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. It suggested that this patriarchal strategy is one of ‘divide and rule’ as it “creates a climate of competitiveness among women that divides them from each other.”

Competitiveness is the keyword here. Perhaps the idea of sanctioning the idea, nay the fact, of female intrasexual competition seems frightening for feminists because on the surface of it, it threatens the very notion of a ‘sisterhood’. Yet we know that men are murderously competitive with one another, as homicide rates attest, and this does not seem to threaten their notion of ‘the patriarchy’.

The evidence actually shows that the beauty myth may not be a tyranny perpetuated on women by men, but on one other - if it is a tyranny at all! And it reveals a much more complex and fascinating picture of female agency which goes far to liberate women from the doctrine of passive femininity.

The fact is, women are fiercely competitive with one another, but as the existence of feminism attests, this does not stop women at least trying to cooperate to face challenges, though, as feminism also shows, its own willful ignorance of human nature means feminists cannot agree on anything for long. This explains the many tribes within feminism, and the fiercely defended hierarchies that exist within feminism itself.

I do not deny that these revelations are tricky for feminists to negotiate, but that is no reason for not taking them on. That female intrasexual competition exists is not in doubt. The degree of it however will vary from culture to culture. We know dominance hierarchies exist in many species and all apes. Humans add to the mix competence hierarchies which allow for the utilisation of innate talents and the division of labour which has allowed our species to become far more than the sum of its biologically determined parts.

We also know females have a large role in the construction and maintenance of such hierarchies, for better and worse. Women are individuals and as such are often not united in their interests. An individual’s environment is crucial to how they calibrate their own needs. Yet, ironically, the collective structure of feminism, suppresses the evolutionary mechanism of individual female choice. The epithet “choice feminism” is regarded with contempt by most feminists today.

 “If we do not know what we are capable of…then we do not know what to watch out for, which human propensities to encourage, and which to guard against.” Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.

Further reading: Griet Vandermassen Sexual Selection: A Tale of Male Bias and Feminist Denial ; Griet Vandermassen: Who’s Afraid of Charles Darwin: Debating Feminism and Evolutionary Theory; Anne Campbell: A Mind of Her Own: The Evolutionary Psychology of Women ; Sarah Blaffer Hrdy: Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding ; Sarah Blaffer Hrdy: Mothernature ; Susan Pinker: The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women and the Real Gender Gap ; Christina Hoff Sommers: Who Stole Feminism? ; Cindy Metson & David Buss: Why Women Have Sex; Women reveal the truth about their sex lives, from adventure to revenge (and everything in between) ; E.O. Wilson: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge ; Jerome H.Barklow (ed): Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for Social Scientists

==

We recognize that the evolution of peafowl, bees, seahorses, angler fishes and marsupial mice has resulted in males and females whose physiology and behavior development has influenced and responded to each other. Yet somehow, that female and male humans behave as they do as a result of the other is somehow unreasonable or even "sexist." Like creationist Xians, this is a denial of evolution and of humans as members of the animal kingdom.

It seems like the "god did it" dragon of "tHe PaTrIaRcHy," then, was conjured to fill the gap in the combination of denial of biological sex-based differences (directly responsible for the formulation of gender ideology; and itself a denial of evolution), and denial of intrasexual competition between women ("On Twitter, women are more misogynistic than men") in order to obscure female agency.

If "gender studies" had been based on science instead of Marxian psychosis and postmodern fantasy, it might well have been harder for the Queer Theorists to find a solid ideological foothold and enthusiastic collaborators.

#Paula Wright #evolutionary psychology #intrasexual competition #Darwinian gender studies #gender studies #feminism #patriarchy theory #biological dimorphism #dimorphism #sex based differences #western feminism #human evolution #science #religion is a mental illness

[queerasaurus-rexx]

you cannot decouple bio-essentialism from racism. racism is rooted in bio-essentialism. racism is rooted in the belief that other people are lesser/not deserving/dangerous because they have darker skin.

even feminist bio-essentialism.

terfs and gender criticals will swear up and down that they aren't racist or fascist despite the fact that their rhetoric is straight up recycled from both. (see the 'trans people are unhygenic' situation where people of colour straight up called them out for recycling racist rhetoric and then they tried to side step by saying 'well i know a lot of trans people who don't wash i didn't mean it like that' and like? no? we're not fucking stupid, we know what you meant.)

this is why i don't believe them when they tell me they're people of colour and they're standing up to the racist trans agenda. maybe it's just me being an internet old, but i've just seen way too many people suddenly drop an 'but i'm [insert non-white race here] so actually you're the racist' card when they get called out (and then they turn out to be white).

it just gives me a headache.

it's completely possible some of them are women of colour.

but you aren't going to convince me by 'no, you'-ing me.

not to mention, the belief that all men are bad includes, and often rings harder against, men of colour. you know, those people who already don't benefit from the patriarchy because they aren't white. men of colour already have to deal with people automatically assuming they're predators, that they're coming for your mothers and your sisters and they're daughters, because they aren't white men.

it's basically saying

'no, i'm not racist! i buy into this predatory stereotype because he's a man, not because he's black/asian/native/hispanic/etc.!'

no matter how many 'white men are bad too!'s you include, men of colour will always face the brunt of feminist bio-essentialism.

i am only speaking as a white person, though. there are depths and layers to this discussion that are not my place to comment on.

#anti terf #anti radical feminism #gender essentialism #bioessentialism #anti gender critical

[colorisbyshe]

So, my anti-Jeremy Renner post blew up and as sometimes happens when posts blow up, a bunch of TERFs got in my notes. I do a fairly systemic purge whenever this happens. I go onto each one I can find in the notes of that post and go through their blogs, blocking any other TERF I can find on their blog and going through the blogs of any URL I see multiple times so I can block all of the TERFs on their blogs. Literally blocked over 500 people, from big name blogs, to just some frequent rebloggers. ANd many, many pathetic randoms who can’t get a single note on their posts but desperately try anyways.

I have been a bit vague and flippant about this because bitching about them only ever fuels their victim complexes and often fuels their desire to engage and get attention. Me saying I don’t want TERFs engaging with that post made multiple TERFS ignore my boundaries and lack of consent, engage, and laugh about it. I know there’s no “winning” with them, so I don’t like arguing with them. It is identical to arguing with MAGA freaks--the level of delusion is impenetrable and it often only ends up traumatizing the people most hurt by them, by making them witness hatred and ignorance.

I instead try to be a positive force and just speak out in support of trans women to make where I stand clear.

But apparently I haven’t been clear enough because through this systemic weeding of my notes I have discovered multiple TERF followers, some because of the anti-Jeremy Renner post but some have been here a while. They weren’t obvious via URL or bio but going on their blogs made things clear quite quickly.

So, I just want to say it here.

I am a nonbinary woman. I am AFAB. I was born with a puss puss and I naturally grew tits with puberty. I am by every TERF’s definition “a woman” and it is with that clarified I will say--Trans women specifically have been more foundational to my understanding of gender, myself, and the world at large and my LOVE of my gender, myself, and the world at large than most other groups of people.

Trans women have done more good for me specifically and the world at large than any trans exclusive radical feminist ever has.

Reading the words and experiences of trans women has actually brought me more in harmony with the “woman” part of “nonbianry woman” and it has done so more than any fucking uterus-obsessed, menstrual blood-smeared, trauma-based one-dimensional nonsense TERFs have shat out and have forced the rest of us to witness.

Understanding transness on the whole has made me better appreciate the diversity of human experience and the boundless ways we can love each other and ourselves. It has made me dig deeper on how my life and society has shaped me and made me willing to stand up against societal expectations. I am the one who gets to define who I am. Not what I was born with. I am not a human seeking out the perfectly shaped hole to crush myself and lose myself inside. I am a million different things in vessel waiting to expand outwards and inwards at the same time, bound by fucking nothing.

Transness is beautiful. It is nuanced. It allows each person to get closer to the infinite.

Hatred of trans people in general but trans women specifically has no fucking place in my life, on my blog. I seek out liberation against all oppression and leave no woman behind in that.

I’m not going to give in to what any shit tier human being wants and wish violence upon y’all like you want. I’m not going to feed your martyrdom. I am just going to say I wish you a broader understanding of the world and deeper wells of empathy and love.

I don’t know if it’s simply a power trip y’all are on, eager to finally have a group you can punch down on, or if something truly went wrong in your lives where you have to have a fear response to someone more vulnerable than yourself. But get the fuck over it, grow up, and do better. You deserve harsher words but I will not give in and give them to you so you can lay yourselves upon the cross and weep about it.

Womanhood doesn’t benefit from this shit. Society doesn’t benefit from this shit. And frankly we’ve had enough fucking suffering without self righteous bigots making it fucking worse while pretending it’s progress.

Trans women are women. And trans women belong in “woman only” spaces more than trans-exclusive bigots ever will.

#trying to speak carefully so none of this can be weaponized against trans women #because i know some of y'all are desperate to do so

[bi-kisses]

I cave. I was a radfem / am still one in theory but everyone is being ridiculously careless with their activism these days. I admit I rooted along for tighter regulations concerning transition particularly for children but it's apparent it doesn't stop there and whenever I tried voicing my concerns to other friends and groups I got belittled and told I was falling into the fearmongering of the TRA. And I also admit I believed that at first but now you can't ignore that the people advocating for the denial of the TRAs demands also cut into women's rights and that of homosexuals and protection rights. It's just too dangerous to play around like that - it doesn't feel like it's worth 'fighting' for if the result is this. Yeah I hurt when I think about the stories of TIMs slithering into our positions and spaces but compared to what is happening and planned to happen law-wise I hurt even more... So I no longer consider myself allied with radfems even though at core I have the same beliefs. I will not act on them. The execution of these are not progress in any way. So begrudgingly - in a two sides only system with no middle ground - I'll cave to their demands for the long run. Also I realise there are more moderate TRAs who acknowledge the two bio sexes (although they they still insist transitioning is possible) who also criticise the TRAs who are one the nonbinary trip (like you) but I honestly think we are all at a point where we can't refuse taking sides when the issue (to vote on) is black and white. Maybe that's just the election fear coming up. So my ask is to you as a kind of mediator/ person between the two sides: what's your take on this? Justified fear to have or baseless concerns? Is taking sides necessary?

Genuinely a really interesting thing to talk about!

I think that, the problem with "picking a side" in this case, is that beliefs aren't the same as actions. So when you hold opinions, they can be very nuanced and have layers regarding the validity of this or that identity, but when it comes to actually calling for societal change, that nuance is.... Flatter.

As a result, yeah, I think we *are* sort of forced to choose one extreme or the other, despite our beliefs falling somewhere in the middle, because there isn't any opportunity right now to push for those moderate views, legally speaking. The options are bodily autonomy for all, including transition, or restricting the rights of women and children.

I agree with a lot of tenants that radical feminists stand for, such as abortion rights, normalization of body hair, fighting porn culture/the sex industry, and being critical of the beauty industry (makeup, cosmetic surgeries, etc). But that doesn't mean I align myself with radical feminists, because ideologies don't own ideas outright, and I disagree with so many other core beliefs.

Radical feminists these days have prioritized their hatred for trans people, predominantly trans women, over the rights and autonomy of women in general. You're absolutely right and it's not an easy thing to admit, if you've been ascribed to a label and/or community for any length of time, that they're on the wrong side of things.

Because, circling back, it has become a matter of those two extreme sides, and radical feminism has chosen to fight for restricting everyone's rights out of hatred for <1% of the population.

To answer your questions directly, I do think there's justified concern. The UK is a great example of how poorly this is turning out. And if you plan on actually engaging in activism outside of the internet, I do think you have to choose a side, or at least a cause, to stake your effort into... Even if you aren't 100% on board with the cause as a whole.

I'll use my friend as an example. She's a trans woman living stealth and has been doing a lot of activist work advocating for Palestine. The committee she's a part of had a controversy because another member was accused of transphobia. This controversy was drawing away time and resources from their main cause, being Palestine. My friend honestly didn't give a shit if someone on the board had transphobic beliefs because that wasn't the point of what they were doing, so she tried to redirect that attention back to their work rather than internal conflict. She had to pick a side there, as a trans person, and she chose the pressing matter over the personal one.

I think it's something we can learn from and relate to.

I want to conclude by thanking you because your ask was really interesting as a fresh perspective. If you'd like to talk more, my DMs and ask box are open.

#anonymous #kisstalks #long post

[mightyflamethrower]

Transgenders Dominate Multiple Women's Cycling Events

JOHN SIMMONS | AUGUST 24, 2023

We interrupt your workday to present to you yet another reason why transgendered females (who are men) should never be allowed to compete against women.

Within the past week, two separate biological men won cycling events against women - one in Switzerland, and one in Washington state. The first race took place in Zurich (the largest city in Switzerland) where Kiana Gysin took first place at the women’s fixed gear racing final, taking home a prize of roughly $556.

As a disclaimer, the X (formerly known as Twitter) user who published that tweet does not believe men should compete against women, so the wording of that tweet was written with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

Gysin had previously ridiculed the Union Cycliste International (UCI) for banning transgenders from the women’s division in any events that it oversees. But after witnessing how Gysin performed, it's easy to see why the UCI made this decision.

Elsewhere in our crazy world, another male pretending to be a female won a race against women in Richmond, WA. 

A 35-year-old man named Claire Law was competing against teenaged girls at the 1/2/3 Women’s Northwest Elimination Championship. This type of event means the last rider of each lap gets eliminated until only one is left. Unsurprisingly, the results apparently weren’t close.

Related: British Media: English Women's Soccer Team is Too White

“In a livestream of the event, Law was seen crushing his teenaged opponents,” Reduxx reported. “As the third place rider Lucy Dorer, 15, was eliminated, second place rider Lucy Scoville, aged 17 can be seen completely dropping back for the last lap, and not even bothering to compete with Law, who sailed ahead to what appeared to be an easy victory.”

Why someone in their 30s is being allowed to compete against teenagers in any division of any sport is beyond me, much less a man being allowed to compete against women.

But hey, since sports these days are all about inclusion, these events should be celebrated!

Just like the tweet above, that was filled with sarcasm, too.

Despite outcomes like this happening across a variety of sports, some people still believe transgenders in women’s sports won’t lead to anything bad happening. The group FemMess, which advocates for transgenders to be allied in the women’s division, also criticized the UCI’s decision to ban transgenders from women’s cycling events, saying:

We from FemMess CC strongly condemn UCI’s decision to essentially ban trans women from competitive cycling, this decision has no basis in scientific findings and has only been implemented because of the current transmisogynistic political climate and pressure from trans exclusionary organizations. We won’t be attending any event that follows UCI Guidelines as we won’t financially support organizations like this. “We stand for an intersectional feminist approach to the sport and bio essentialism is dangerous for everyone, they won’t stop with trans woman. F**k UCI!”

The fact that women are forced to compete against men is absurd, and that people like FemMess that want stuff like this to happen is even more so. While we have seen other instances of people showing a level of common sense regarding this issue, there is obviously still work to be done.

Follow MRCTV on Twitter/X!

I would feel sorry for the women, but by and large, they have been the most ardent supporters of Transmania. So.....it serves them right.

[whimsicaldragonette]

Blog Blitz: The Love Remedy by Elizabeth Everett

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Publication Date: March 19, 2024

Welcome to The Love Remedy book blitz with Berkley Publishing Group. (This blog blitz post is also posted on my Wordpressbook blog Whimsical Dragonette.)

Synopsis:

When a Victorian apothecary hires a stoic private investigator to protect her business, they learn there’s only one way to treat true love—with a happily ever after. When Lucinda Peterson’s recently perfected formula for a salve to treat croup goes missing, she’s certain it’s only the latest in a line of misfortunes at the hands of a rival apothecary. Outraged and fearing financial ruin, Lucy turns to private investigator Jonathan Thorne for help. She just didn’t expect her champion to be so . . . grumpy? A single father and an agent at Tierney & Co., Thorne accepts missions for a wide variety of employers—from the British government to wronged wives. None have intrigued him so much as the spirited Miss Peterson. As the two work side by side to unmask her scientific saboteur, Lucy slips ever so sweetly under Thorne’s battered armor, tempting him to abandon old promises. With no shortage of suspects—from a hostile political group to an erstwhile suitor—Thorne’s investigation becomes a threat to all that Lucy holds dear. As the truth unravels around them the cure to their problems is they must face the future together.

Author Bio

Elizabeth Everett lives in upstate New York with her family. She likes going for long walks or (very) short runs to nearby sites that figure prominently in the history of civil rights and women's suffrage. Her series is inspired by her admiration for rule breakers and her belief in the power of love to change the world.

Photo credit: Asa Shutts; from Elizabeth Everett's website.

My Rating: ★★★★★

*My Review and Non-Exclusive Excerpt below the cut.

My Review:

This is an engaging story about two people who are each carrying heavy burdens learning to let each other in. There are fun cameos from the women scientists books if you recognize them, but you can also read it without reading the other series.

I really liked all the characters. They were complex and felt very real. I loved Sadie and her gleeful recounting of all the facts she learned at her science school. Lucy was strong and determined but also bent to the point of breaking under the weight of her responsibilities. Thorne was closed off and rigid and desperately in need of someone breaking him out of his self-imposed shell.

The romance wasn't swoony but was more subtle, a gradual and reluctant giving in to a partnership of mutual appreciation and aide. I really liked that. I prefer a quiet partnership to a grand passionate romance anyway.

What I appreciate most about this story though, is how fiercely feminist it is. Lucy is determined to continue running the apothecary and providing real cures to people who can't afford them. Her sister Juliet works to provide medical and reproductive care to women in need. Her brother David seems flighty but has his own crusade. Lucy is also determined that every woman should be given the method and means to prevent pregnancy and induce menses if that choice is taken from them.

All of this flies in the face of Thorne's upper-class upbringing of what a 'good' woman should do and know, and serves to create the major conflict between them. Lucy refuses to compromise on her ideals and she shouldn't have to.

The author's note at the end brings that struggle into even starker relief. Elizabeth Everett makes it very clear where she stands on the issue of women's reproductive rights and more power to her. It's an issue that deserves fighting for and taking a strong stance on.

I would say that the writing and character development of this is even better than the women scientists series and I look forward to her next book.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for providing an early copy for review.

Non-Exclusive Excerpt:

Lucy's guilt had been squeezing the breath from her lungs for weeks. On the counter, slightly dented from having been crushed in her fist, then thrown to the ground and stepped on, then heaved against the wall, sat a grimy little tin. Affixed to the top was a label with the all-too-familiar initials RSA. Rider and Son Apothecary. Rider and Son. The latter being the primary reason for this very worst of days. The longer she stared at the tin, the less Lucy felt the strain of responsibility for running Peterson's Apothecary and keeping her siblings housed and fed. Beneath the initials were printed the words Rider's Lozenges. The ever-present exhaustion that had weighed her down moments ago began to dissipate at the sight of the smaller print beneath, which read "exclusive." The more she stared, the more her guilt subsided beneath a wave of anger that coursed through her blood. "Exclusive patented formula for the relief of putrid throats." Exclusive patented formula. The anger simmered and simmered the longer she stared until it reached a boil and turned to rage. Grabbing her paletot from the coatrack and a random bonnet that may or may not have matched, Lucy stormed out of the shop, slamming the door behind her with a vengeance that was less impressive when she had to turn around the next second to lock it. Exclusive patent. The words burned in her brain, and she clenched her hands into fists. One warm summer afternoon four months ago, Lucy had been so tired, she'd stopped to sit on a park bench and had closed her eyes. Only for a minute or two, but long enough for a young gentleman passing by to notice and be concerned enough for her safety to inquire as to her well-being. While the brief rest had been involuntary, remaining on the bench and striking up a conversation with the handsome stranger was her choice, and a terrible one at that. Lucy had allowed Duncan Rider to walk her home, not questioning the coincidence that the son of her father's rival had been the one to find her vulnerable and offer his protection was down to her own stupidity. Now, as Lucy barreled down the rotting walkways of Calthorpe Street, she barely registered the admiring glances from the gentlemen walking in the opposite direction or the sudden appearance of the wan November sun as it poked through the gray clouds of autumn. Instead, her head was filled with memories so excruciating they jabbed at her chest like heated needles, rousing feelings of shame alongside her resentment. Such as the next time she'd seen Duncan, when he appeared during a busy day at the apothecary with a pretty nosegay of violets. He'd smelled like barley water and soap, a combination so simple and appealing it had scrambled her brains and left her giddy as a goose. Or the memory of how their kisses had unfolded in the back rooms of the apothecary, turning from delightfully sweet to something much more carnal. How kisses had proceeded to touches, and from there even more, and how she'd believed it a harbinger of what would come once they married. A shout ripped Lucy's attention back to the present, and she jerked back from the road, missing the broad side of a carriage by inches. The driver called out curses at her over his shoulder, but they bounced off her and scattered across the muddied street as Lucy turned the corner onto Gray's Inn Road. Halfway through a row of weathered stone buildings, almost invisible unless one knew what to look for, a discreet brass plaque to the left of a blackened oak door read: Tierney & Co., Bookkeeping Services Lucy took a deep breath, pulling the dirty brown beginnings of a London fog into her lungs and expelling it along with the remorse and shame that accompanied her memory of Duncan holding her handwritten formula for a new kind of throat lozenge she'd worked two years to perfect.

"I'll just test it out for you, shall I?" he'd said, eyes roaming the page. Duncan and his father had long searched for a throat lozenge remedy that tasted as good as it worked. Might Duncan be tempted to impress his father with her lozenge? His lips curled up on one side as he read, and Lucy recalled the slight shadow of foreboding moving across the candlelight in the back storeroom where they carried out their affair. "I don't know," she'd hedged. Too late. He'd folded the formula and distracted her with kisses. "I've more space and materials at my disposal. I know you think this is ready to sell, but isn't it better that we take the time to make sure?" It might have been exhaustion that weakened Lucy just enough that she took advantage of an offer to help shoulder some of her burdens. However, the decision to let Duncan Rider walk out of Peterson's Apothecary with a formula that was worth a fortune was due not to her sleepless nights, but to a weakness in her character that allowed her to believe a man when he told her he loved her. Now, four months later, somehow Duncan had again betrayed her. Having already lost the lozenge formula to Duncan's avaricious grasp, Lucy had been horrified to find a second formula missing. She'd come up with a salve for treating babies' croup, a remedy even more profitable than the lozenges. What parent wouldn't pay through the nose to calm a croupy baby? Lucy was certain that Duncan must have found out about her work and stolen both the formula and ingredient list for the salve. This time, Lucy would not dissolve into tears and swear never to love again. This time, she was going eviscerate her rival and get her formula back. Then she would swear never to love again.

Excerpted from The Love Remedy by Elizabeth Everett Copyright © 2024 by Elizabeth Everett. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. 

#elizabeth everett #the love remedy #berkley romance #netgalley #arc review #shilo reads #historical romance #romance #feminist #feminist romance

[snarltoothed]

Its pathetic how you're trans exclusionary and also bisexual & agender. Do you think that if transphobia continues they're not coming for you next? You think you're safe from being called a freak or a pedophile or from being accused of invading other people's spaces? From legislation and the dominant social paradigm othering you and making your life hell? You think throwing others under the bus will save you? You're a fucking coward and I hope you get a sense of reality.

i totally forgot that you even sent this ask because guilt-tripping from random strangers really doesn’t faze me — sorry!

anyways, umm, it’s pathetic how you’re sending random feminists hate mail over something that is literally not even true! i fully include trans and nonbinary people within my feminism — just not transwomen and nonbinary males because i believe female people of any gender still face challenges, discrimination, and oppression directly related to the sex we were born as!

…which wait, before you tell me intersex people exist, i know that! but intersex disorders are medically sex-specific and binary, and in the extremely rare case that a chromosomal male was born and grew up with entirely female external genitalia (usually as a result of Sweyer syndrome), i’m fully open to nuance when it comes to their inclusion within the radical feminist movement, especially given that the trans/qu**r movement has repeatedly ignored the requests of both individual intersex people and intersex organizations to stop equating the trans and intersex experience. it’s not like they can turn to you guys for any actual understanding or compassion.

in my LGB advocacy, trans people are also not excluded based on their gender identity! the only people excluded from my LGB advocacy are heterosexuals — which yes, i’m sorry, i do live in the real world where sexuality is based on actual physical sex, so yeah… “transbians” and “gay transmascs” are generally excluded (those open to or exclusively T4T aside) on the basis that they do not experience same sex attraction. but if you’re not straight, congratulations! my LGB advocacy is also for you.

the “agender woman” in my bio is also mostly a joke, “agender” more as in “atheist” — i do not subscribe to the belief system of gender. although, if i did, that’s probably still how i would describe myself because even if i thought that innate gender identity was a thing for other people, i don’t have one. i don’t identify with femininity. i do identify with my lived experience of being female. idk how else i would explain that in your community without being scalped, lol. and it’s poking a little bit of fun at my teenage self for actually genuinely telling the more micro-label oriented of my peers that the best i could describe myself was as a “demibisexual agender girl”.

if anything, though, the people standing in my way of being freely truly agender and living as a woman are BOTH conservatives and the trans/qu**r movement, because i really don’t want to have to have an ideological argument with either of you about what the fuck my leg hair means, i don’t want to be assigned a non-woman for having body hair and not being extremely feminine by EITHER of you! you are both supporting a dominant social paradigm which others me and women like me, it’s only the way in which you shame me and make me feel like a freak that differs.

i’m fully aware how the American political parties have lumped very separate issues into the same bills and are practicing other nefarious political schemes to remove womens’, childrens’, and LBG peoples’ rights by using the decrease in public support of the trans/qu**r movement to pass bills and laws that otherwise wouldn’t be passed… because y’all keep supporting fucking pedophiles? maybe stop doing that or if you personally aren’t, tell your buddies that trans people can be horrific criminals, just like any other subset of people, because all individuals are different, and murderers and rapists and pedophiles don’t deserve public support even if they’re trans. the fact that the most vocal of the trans community keep defending and supporting convincted pedophiles, rapists, and other dangerous violent criminals simply on the basis that they are trans is a large part of WHY many of us “cis” LGB people are publicly separating ourselves from the TQ+, we know how bad that shit looks and have historically condemned the members of our own communities who have been revealed to be pedophiles and rapists. not to mention the fact that the heterosexual TQs are like, wildly homophobic.

pretending outright that trans people cannot be violent criminals is something that can and rightfully should be criticized — i would criticize the assertion that any protected minority class status makes a person immune to any sort of violent criminology, or otherwise not deserving of facing consequences for committing violent crime, especially sexual violence against children, including the minority classes i belong to. i’m certainly not against trans people recieving proper legal defense, and i believe trans people deserve the same presumption of innocence as anyone else until proven guilty in a court of law… and while i do not believe males belong in female prisons (as inmates OR staff, tbh), i do believe that prisons in general are in desperate need of reform and that that reform should be considerate of the needs of vulnerable male populations such as transwomen and gay men for safety from other men while also maintaining female-only prisons.

i don’t know what you expect me, a poor & disabled woman living in a northern democrat-controlled state, to do about the shady shit happening in Florida and elsewhere in the American south. i’m not even in a position to vote on anything that could be considered “throwing other people under the bus”. the biggest things i’ve voted for were keeping the state democratic, legalizing weed, and protecting the right to abortion. i’m sooo politically evil and throwing so many people under the bus and totally perpetuating a genocide… which i guess if you’re a conservative you could say about the fetuses, but, since you’re barking up my tree for siding with conservatives, i’m hoping that you’re at least fucking pro-choice.

I’m not trying to be mean here, but you kinda came up in my inbox being mean first… so frankly I think you’re the coward for not thinking independently and for needing to harass women who do, and I hope YOU gain some sense of reality, as well as empathy and nuance.

#r #asks #tra hatemail #like… dude i really don’t want personal beef with you #i am genuinely sorry for having to get a little harsh… but you came at me with that energy first #if you have any questions or would like to discuss anything i’ve said further i’m fully open to that #however i’d far prefer the tenor of the conversation to be respectful

[roamwithahungryheart]

Man... the RACISM Camille got from the AH supporters was unreal. From calling her "loud" and "bitchy" to insuting her intelligence and saying just straight up nasty things I don't want to repeat as another WOC. (For those who don't know, when you call WOC loud and tell them to shut up when they're standing up for their rights and the rights of others, it can be quite racist) I can't scroll down Tumblr or Twitter without seeing white radfems saying something that sounds like what the right would say. They got to take that BLM out of their bios if they're going to engage in that shit.

Like... so much for caring about women's rights lol. I guess not when it's a WOC standing strong for victims and taking up that space in the court room that she deserves. It goes to show they don't really care about women except for AH's crocodile tears. (which will hurt women more than JD since I always thought he has more in common with abused women than AH ever will) Also, did I mention they were comparing her bar exam scores to Rottenborn? Not very feminist of them, hmm...

Anyways, your blog is amazing <3 Never Fear The Truth

Right there with you, Anon, I was watching the coverage on CourtTV and they said she was 'inappropriate and confrontational' like, DUH of course she's gonna grill her!!! If it had been any other attorney it would have been 'impressive' I guarantee. And the bar scores thing is just mad! Just because she didn't go to Stanford like Rottenborn. We're so quick to tear other women down for their achievements and it's truly sad.

Never fear truth 💖 x

#Johnny Depp #Amber Heard #Depp vs Heard #Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard #Depp v Heard #Johnny Depp v Amber Heard

[thetolkiengeek]

Okay so this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately and I’d like to talk about my dad and his inability to understand and respect transgenderism.

In theory, he should understand. He is highly educated, grew up very very low middle class (sometimes dipping into poverty, based on whether or not his dad was being financially supportive and not, say, fucking off and having a new family), and he was pretty darn left for most of his adult life, up until his late 40s. He’s a very smart guy—a super accomplished doctor who is excellent with his patients and has a cool head for emergencies. He understands incredibly complex medical conditions.

But this is key—he cannot conceive of transgenderism as anything other than a mental condition that requires fixing. He can’t wrap his brain around the fact that biological sex is not straightforward nor binary, or that some people may want to be referred to by a different name or a different set of pronouns than their supposed biology dictates. And I don’t think it’s from a lack of empathy—he’s incredibly empathetic. I think it actually has to do with him divorcing my mother.

I dont mean this in the way I think it comes off. My mother didn’t drag him to the left, just as I think my stepmom didn’t drag him to the right. My dad genuinely thinks he’s a centrist (and doesn’t really understand that politically these days that means conservative-lite). The thing is, when my parents divorced, my dad struggled HARD with his sense of masculinity.

My mother is an incredibly forceful personality and has largely, I think, used it for good. My sibling has not been so lucky with her parenting style, but she did teach us how to be feminists and stand up for ourselves. But it’s easy to see how my dad would construe the pain of divorce and the incredible conviction my mother has with a deliberate emasculation of him.

So my dad struggled trying to find a definition of masculinity that gave him back the agency he felt he lost during the divorce, because he used to be a very soft, gentle man. At his core, he has not changed. But for him, he took comfort in ideals of masculinity that are simply not achievable but that he thought would have saved his marriage if he’d only been more forceful or confident.

But the only definition of masculinity he had access to was the one created by society for him, and the one his dad displayed. And his dad was a piece of shit that my own father NEVER wants to emulate. So, again, he turned to people like Ben Shapiro and some controversial comedians.

As a result, he has tied masculinity and his own sense of self-worth to his own biology, and THAT’S why he can’t conceive of transgenderism. Because if someone can just choose to be a man, then what meaning does masculinity have? He’s so scared of having to make his own definition and losing the only anchors he has to keep himself grounded.

So it’s obvious to me why a lot of conservatives don’t want to give transgender folks rights—because if they do, they have to confront the fact that their bio-essentialist ways of thinking are fundamentally broken, and once those are broken, well then gender roles go out the window and then nobody knows who they are anymore and will just allow society to collapse. The heterosexual paradigm is a pillar of conservativism because it relies on the unpaid, unacknowledged labor of women who are supposed to be complacent in their own lives and their own reproductive capabilities. (There is the race aspect that I am choosing to leave unexplored here due to the nature of this argument, but it’s all connected to that bio-essentialism)

For conservatives, if transgender people are given rights and accepted, what is keeping unhappy people in the roles demanded of them? If anybody can be any gender, then gender has no meaning and nothing would ever get done.

And so my dad clings to a life raft that was never meant to float. And I watch him drown while he ignores the lifeline tossed to him.

#my post #transgenderism

[papirouge]

I just wanted to say to you thank you for introducing FDS to me ☺️

Ireally appreciate places for women to vent and uplift each other in regards to relationship creation and life stability. Red flags and low value behavior is something I’m learning to pick up on and I’ve seen first hand what going 50/50 does. I hope more girls see it too. It can hard to read if you’re used to lib fem stuff force fed to you but you know you’re doing something right when msm is literally telling women to ignore our standards and date sub par men instead of telling men to also uplift themselves to be the best versions of themselves. I want a family in the future but ONLY with a hvm. I want nothing less but the best because my future kids, if I have them, deserve the best father. If it doesn’t happen, then so what, you know? What will be, will be.✌️ we have already seen and read the horrror that comes from being desperate, settling and having babies from a subpar relationship. It’s not worth it. God created animals to seek out the best in mates, pretty sure it is also for us too lol.

You're welcome 🤍

lol your last sentence though I think shoving bio essentialism onto human relationship is peak scrote talking point buuuuuut there's some truth in what you say. Scrote will always argue that men should chase younger ans breedable women bc that's how nature works but they conveniently totally ignore how in the same nature female actually pick the best male mates. Like, ultimately the choice lies to the female and the male has to put up to outstanding assets to hope finding a female partner. But 99% of bio essentialist moids are losers/lvm, so they really shouldn't chose that hill to die on🥴

Yes indeed, you'll have less to lose remaining celibate with no children than picking a bum and struggling all your life with the consequences of picking a bad husband (especially if children are involved). I'll never understand the "you'll end up alone and childless🤪" gotcha scrotes love using against women with standards, when stats are literally showing unmarried/childless women are doing better than unmarried ones💀 (stats also show marriage last longer when spouse marry at an older age🤍) We have everything to win over not marrying.....unless it is with an actual awesome man that will unarguably improve our overall lifestyle. And it's a win win situation considering married men are actually doing better than unmarried ones - but only those worthy deserve this upgrade, sorry not sorry.🤭

Have you seen the story of the woman who ended up having her pregnancy video on a pregnancy porn fetishist website because her husband didn't respect her decision of never putting it on the internet? this one radicalized me. And that's why I'm having less and less patience with anti feminists acting like the concerns of some women about males disrespecting of female boundaries & safety weren't legitimate. I have so many things to say about how many anti feminist tradfem on this website show glaring characteristics of attracting lvcm (the c stands for "Christian" LOL) but that I already called them out enough for that 💅🏾

#check my tradfem tag for more lol #tradfem #answered #FDS #female dating strategy