#conservatism is a lie

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

#transgender #trans history #transsexual #transphobia #Magnus Hirschfeld #holocaust #holocaust denial #book burning #j.k. rowling #jk rowling #just in case you missed what i mean by all this: go fuck yourself anon :) #trans people have always existed #and we will always exist #if you really wanna pick a fight with me over well-documented history then you better bring in some sources to back your shit #queer history #queer #lgbt+ #lgbta+ #lgbt #lgbt history #edit: i finally got around to those damn image IDs. i am so very sorry for totally forgetting that's my bimbo moment of the month #also real quick i thought about adding an image of the actual building but the only one i can find has a Nazi parade in front of it #it was taken the day of the book burning raid and honestly if i were to include it then i'd add it to the first few paragraphs #and i think the story's better told when you uphold the hope Magnus Hirschfeld and all the researchers he worked with had #also keeps being brought up: yes Hirschfeld was a eugenicist. it was a popular belief set that was only discredited after WW2 #Hirschfeld died in 1935. he literally didn't live long enough to see science turn against those beliefs and practices #considering how he changed his mind on transitions i like to think he would've changed his mind on eugenics too if he'd lived

[mywitchcultblr]

I'm done with your purity

I'm fucking done with all of you westerners fucks who take your freedom for granted. AO3 was banned in china because pissy fans reporting RPF TO THE GOVERNMENT UNDER FALSE REPORT OF PEDO OR WHATEVER thus making life a living hell for Chinese writers and fans. ALSO LET ME TELL YOU that fanfic and AO3 is a safe space for many oppressed LGBT people outside of the west

I can't fucking say that I'm trans and bi without having people beating the shit out of me, but I can fuckin' write that I'm gay as fuck in fanfic or writing gay shit about my fave with fanfic

Imagine some people defending state wide censorship over fanfic, because they don't like icky fanfic, that's a sign that either you are brainwashed or fucking privileged and taking your freedom for granted. You know why Asian and other non western USA-European are more chill with fanfic and fandom?

Why we are less prone to make some stupid callout over fanworks?

Because most of us doesn't have the same information and expression privilege like the west, we take any freedom that we can have

That's in 2017... There's probably more than one million websites being censored rn. I cannot even buy pride pin here because NO ONE outside of internet selling it! The censorship always begin from "banning information to protect children and moral from nsfw" down to censoring Spongebob Squarepants

You don't like something? Just don't fucking read it, it wouldn't stop the author to write and when they do stop writing usually after they are harassed so bad to the point of mental break down or suicide. What the actual fuck...

Defending and supporting state wide censorship because you want to feel superior on the internet is beyond stupid and it showing your privilege... Also yah fuck you who defend china aggressive state wide censorship because adult x adult RPF icky or whatever, I like reading Tom Hiddleston x Reader, because I'm lonely and it's fun. Don't lie that you never thinking of marrying your favorite celebrities or dreaming about dating Gerard Way.

What the fuck you gonna do about it? Crucify my ass? So long you are not shoving it to the person's face, who give a fuck? It's not a justifiable ground to cheer for government mandated national wide censorship. A lot of westerners are so privileged and terminally online to the point their mind revolve around online discourse 24/7 I'm not saying discourse has no damn merits but you get what I said...

Some people particularly white westerners are so privileged they have the chance to goes back 180° and agreeing with conservative mindset they claim to hate so much... Also your kink critical bullshit and your bullshit crusading over dark stories? Yeah. Heavily influenced by TERF and conservatism. Newsflash...

I'm not a person who agree with all ship or stories, i don't claim any moral high ground. I was so scared of getting cancelled due to the hostile neo puritan fandom culture, but seeing people defending China great firewall and aggressive censorship finally broke something inside of me and I cannot stay quiet

I don't give a fuck about your fanfic discourse, If i don't like something i just wouldn't fucking engage with it and wouldn't read...

I'm done, I'm tired. Fucking tagging this shit as anti vs pro because i need to get the message out there and LET THE CHAOS begin

( When you want to escape your country censorship to the internet but then you see the supposed liberated westerners people wanting censorship because they want to feel moral. Yes there are even westerners who don't want to see anything even remotely 'problematic' example: they will attack Zutara or fuckin' Reylo shipper whatever. See? You are terminally online and so privileged... Congratulations... Here's your fucking medal and gold star)

#ao3 #fanfic #shipping #shipping discourse #terminally online #puriteens #puritan #china #censorship #SEA #Indonesia #fandom #fandom wank #purity wank #fandom discourse #fandom critical #rpf #archives of our own #lgbt #politics #antis #vs #pro ship #asia

[breelandwalker]

@sonnabug reblogged your post:

#is myth the right word if they were the ones who felt they were being persecuted? #not siding with them just wondering about word choice and technicalities #because its true our history was founded on what they decided to tell us but is it an outright lie or did they truely feel persecuted

Oo oo oo, a teaching opportunity!

Okay, so the Puritans came to power during the First English Civil War - the one where they axed Charles I afterward and abolished the monarchy. Their whole beef was that the new Anglican church wasn't STRICT enough and still had too many Catholic trappings (and way too much tolerance for the remaining Roman Catholics in the country). So they kept pushing for Purity and Piety, in personal and business spheres, basically insisting that a strict Protestant moral doctrine should govern every aspect of life, from the management of the home to the running of businesses to interpersonal relationships to the governing of the country and its' policies abroad.

Sound familiar? Their whole rhetoric puts me in mind of a particular line from Elvira: Mistress of the Dark: "The local council is horrified if someone in Fallwell, wherever or whatever, is having a good time."

Anyway, all this religious kerfluffle (plus a couple of other factors) eventually led to the complete destabilization of the English government and the execution of Charles I. And then when the monarchy was restored under Charles II and the country was like, "Oh thank goodness, we can have things like beer and Christmas again and maybe a little less religious conservatism," the Puritans promptly went, "Well this won't do at ALL." Most Puritan clergy with separatist leanings resigned from the Church of England and many Puritans packed up to move to the colonies, where they could "practice their religion in peace." (Read: "Where they could be as stodgy and strict and bigoted as they wished and created a system of laws based on religion instead of common good.")

There's a lot more to it than that and I'm simplifying and glossing over quite a bit, but that's the nuts and bolts.

The mess the Puritans made both in England and in America was one of the reasons the vaunted Founding Fathers insisted on Separation of Church and State, as well as why Freedom of Religion is part of the First Amendment. They'd seen England tearing itself apart over a Wabbit Season / Duck Season tug of war between Catholicism and Protestantism for a good century and more, and they did NOT want to repeat those mistakes in the new country they were trying to build. (They got a lot of stuff wrong, but at least they had the sense to be like, "Yeah maybe religion shouldn't run the government.")

So while it's true that the Puritans may have felt persecuted, it was for basically the same reasons that conservatives and fundamentalists claims to be oppressed today - people generally don't like it when their stodgy uptight neighbors try to beat them over the head with a Bible and demand that one particular interpretation of a single religion should be the driving force behind the running of every aspect of an entire country.

But since they got to write the earliest chapters of American history with no one to provide a strong counterargument, we get this pervasive self-created myth that the Puritans were these poor ragged refugees, fleeing religious persecution for a new land where they could live in peace and harmony and...decimate the local indigenous population and murder their own neighbors in the name of piety. The Pilgrims were assholes and we've been fed pretty lies in our schoolbooks for decades.

(For modern context, religion wasn't a strong part of American politics until McCarthyism happened, at which point we got the God references in the Pledge of Allegiance and on our currency. Then the Moral Majority movement got Reagan elected in 1980 and we've been fighting modern Puritans in government ever since. America has never been a Christian nation, but conservatives keep doing their damnedest to try and turn it into one.)

Hope this helps to clarify things! 😊

#history #puritans #american history #pilgrims

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history who maintained his power in the face of dramatic convulsions in the Republican Party for almost two decades, will step down from that position in November.

McConnell, who turned 82 last week, was set to announce his decision Wednesday in the well of the Senate, a place where he looked in awe from its back benches in 1985 when he arrived and where he grew increasingly comfortable in the front row seat afforded the party leaders.

“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” he said in prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press. “So I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”

His decision punctuates a powerful ideological transition underway in the Republican Party, from Ronald Reagan’s brand of traditional conservatism and strong international alliances, to the fiery, often isolationist populism of former President Donald Trump.

McConnell said he plans to serve out his Senate term, which ends in January 2027, “albeit from a different seat in the chamber.” Aides said McConnell’s announcement about the leadership post was unrelated to his health. The Kentucky senator had a concussion from a fall last year and two public episodes where his face briefly froze while he was speaking.

“As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work,” McConnell said in his prepared remarks. “A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today.”

The senator had been under increasing pressure from the restive, and at times hostile wing of his party that has aligned firmly with Trump. The two have been estranged since December 2020, when McConnell refused to abide Trump’s lie that the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president was the product of fraud.

But while McConnell’s critics within the GOP conference had grown louder, their numbers had not grown appreciably larger, a marker of McConnell’s strategic and tactical skill and his ability to understand the needs of his fellow Republican senators.

McConnell gave no specific reason for the timing of his decision, which he has been contemplating for months, but he cited the recent death of his wife’s youngest sister as a moment that prompted introspection. “The end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer,” McConnell said.

But his remarks were also light at times as he talked about the arc of his Senate career.

He noted that when he arrived in the Senate, “I was just happy if anybody remembered my name.” During his campaign in 1984, when Reagan was visiting Kentucky, the president called him “Mitch O’Donnell.”

McConnell endorsed Reagan’s view of America’s role in the world and the senator has persisted in face of opposition, including from Trump, that Congress should include a foreign assistance package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine.

“I am unconflicted about the good within our country and the irreplaceable role we play as the leader of the free world,” McConnell said.

Against long odds he managed to secure 22 Republican votes for the package now being considered by the House.

“Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them,” McConnell said. “That said, I believe more strongly than ever that America’s global leadership is essential to preserving the shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan discussed. For as long as I am drawing breath on this earth I will defend American exceptionalism.”

Trump has pulled the party hard to the ideological right, questioning longtime military alliances such as NATO, international trade agreements and pushing for a severe crackdown on immigration, all the while clinging to the falsehood that the election was stolen from him in 2020.

McConnell and Trump had worked together in Trump’s first term, remaking the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary in a far more conservative image, and on tax legislation. But there was also friction from the start, with Trump frequently sniping at the senator.

Their relationship has essentially been over since Trump refused to accept the results of the Electoral College. But the rupture deepened dramatically after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. McConnell assigned blame and responsibility to Trump and said that he should be held to account through the criminal justice system for his actions.

McConnell’s critics insist he could have done more, including voting to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial. McConnell did not, arguing that since Trump was no longer in office, he could not be subject to impeachment.

Rather than fade from prominence after the Capitol riot, Trump continued to assert his control over the party, and finds himself on a clear glidepath to the Republican nomination. Other members of the Republican Senate leadership have endorsed Trump. McConnell has not, and that has drawn criticism from other Republican senators.

McConnell’s path to power was hardly linear, but from the day he walked onto the Senate floor in 1985 and took his seat as the most junior Republican senator, he set his sights on being the party leader. What set him apart was that so many other Senate leaders wanted to run for president. McConnell wanted to run the Senate. He lost races for lower party positions before steadily ascending, and finally became party leader in 2006 and has won nine straight elections.

He most recently beat back a challenge led by Sen. Rick Scott of Florida last November.

McConnell built his power base by a combination of care and nurturing of his members, including understanding their political imperatives. After seeing the potential peril of a rising Tea Party, he also established a super political action committee, The Senate Leadership Fund, which has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Republican candidates.

Despite the concerns about his health, colleagues have said in recent months that they believe he has recovered. McConnell was not impaired cognitively, but did have some additional physical limitations.

“I love the Senate,” he said in his prepared remarks. “It has been my life. There may be more distinguished members of this body throughout our history, but I doubt there are any with more admiration for it.”

But, he added, “Father Time remains undefeated. I am no longer the young man sitting in the back, hoping colleagues would remember my name. It is time for the next generation of leadership.”

There would be a time to reminisce, he said, but not today.

“I still have enough gas in the tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm which they have become accustomed.”

[myobsessionsspace]

Buckle up, this is a long one!

Hi Anon! 😊👋

I cut off the link because, that is not what I’m about. I’m a positive person, I don’t like conflict or ‘coming at people’ none of that. I don’t believe in putting anyone against anyone else on this app. Everyone can do or say what they want on their blog and if someone doesn’t like it, they don’t have to follow them. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and everyone else is entitled to follow or block. I definitely don’t believe in pitting jikookers against each other at all.

I’m a chatter box with a lot in my head and don’t know when to stop a lot of the time, so sorry in advance!

With that out of the way...

I'm someone who believes in Jikook. You know this if you look at my posts, I believe you know this to bring a Jikook related ask.

I believe they have a long term exclusive relationship and that they are still together to this day. In believing that I must believe that they are queer, be them gay, bi, pan or anything under the umbrella that has them sexually and romantically attracted to each other and not concerned with their biological assignment and gender presentation.

Because I believe this, I therefore can see the issues behind a couple who for all intents and purposes are both men in a country that vilifies homosexuals.

YouTubers who take to the streets and speak to everyday people in Korea about their experiences being gay in Korea as natives and also foreigners.

I think I’ll do a post one day on some, but feel free to dm me if you want some links before then.

l also have some links of short docs done on homosexuality in Korea and conservatism.

I can also direct you to some articles on the laws that have been upheld just recently to uphold discrimination against gay people in Korea.

“In the comments every US army saying they nor locals care about artist's sexuality and queer concept they put out.”

I’m English, so I guess I’m part of that ‘West.’

I’m not gonna lie to you, no shade to anyone that believes otherwise, but I have personally only seen that when a celeb is known to be openly queer, not just alluding to it, but out and proud, the media bring it up EVERYTIME they mention anything to do with the artist.

The artist can do a food drive and the media will find a way to mention about when they came out, even though it has nothing to do with the music. It’s like when an artist dates someone famous, the media STILL find a way to bring their past relationships into things that have nothing to do with it. It may or may not make an impact on an artists fandom buying their albums, singles etc but it can unfortunately affect their growth with the general public.

Artists don’t just make music in a vacuum, they have brand deals, shows they go on, festivals, collaborations etc. though you may think in this day and age, being queer shouldn’t make a difference, unfortunately it does. Some brands may not want to associate themselves with an out and proud artist, some producers may not want to work with them, some festivals may not think they match the vibe and don’t want a crowd of queer fans turning up, even in the West.

“Make sense as there are multiple queer artists who are so successful in west. Whole world was singing 'unholy' by a non binary person lol.”

Who are these multiple out and proud queer artists? I’m not trying to be obtuse, I don’t know all the artists right now. I know like Troye Sivan, Lil’ Nas X, Demi Lovato, Sam Smith whose song you mentioned. Please forgive me if there are loads more big western out queer artists I’m missing, I’m just thinking about young big pop artists.

Lil’ Nas X is an amazingly strong person, he deals with a lot but he has such a strength of character, he gives as good as he gets and he gets A LOT! So make no mistake he faces a lot of challenges and fights for where he is and to be unapologetically him.

Demi I can’t say much on because I haven’t taken the time to understand where they are in their journey and their musical career now, but they also came out with a non-heterosexual label for themselves well into their established career.

Jungkook is not Sam Smith. He is not a white man from England who gained success FIRST before coming out as non-binary SEVERAL albums and accolades into their career. Jungkook is not an artist under the same circles as western artists who can rely on the same connections that western artists do.

Big western out queer artists who after coming out of the closet, do not live in a country that still has outdated practices such as mandatory military service, such as terrible women's rights to the point that women feel the only way to take back any control is to abstain from relationships, marriage and children.

This is the country Jungkook is from, the country of his family, friends and loved ones. Though he may make statements that jikookers can see for what they are, that those closely tapped into bangtan and all the fandom intricacies may know about. That’s not on the same scale as a GLOBAL solo debut. The spotlight being solely on him and NOT spread amongst 7 members. That will carve out how the general public, not just ARMY, see him from solo debut and always.

I funnily enough just did a post on Jungkook himself talking about wanting to do music about imaginary scenarios and stories. He said this in 2021. It's my inference (as you want my opinion) that these songs for his solo is that. Is it a reach then to say the music videos do not reflect him?

Also none of these artists are from a group. They are responsible for their career and their career only. They aren’t going to go back to their group work and have deals that don’t just affect them but 6 other people. They don’t live in a country where freedom of speech means something completely different.

“If it's catchy enough not even conservative country fans gives af about artist sexuality or gender imo.”

Your opinion. I don’t believe this to be the case.

Yes one or two catchy songs may get them fame if they’re out from the very beginning, but if they fail to sustain that momentum for any reason they quickly become ‘niche’ confined and limited to their own fandom, not given the platforms again to make a bigger and wider impact, falling to obscurity and only those that were with them from the beginning keep up with their newer projects past those one or two catchy songs.

Unless you come from a conservative country you can’t say with full confidence. Real conservative countries, like Korea have no problem with celebrities calling homosexuality a mental illness and calling queer people depraved, deviants etc. many Korean celebrities have said as much and more to the press and public with no consequence to their fame or career, the same cannot be said for if a western celebrity said as much.

“So how this narrative of JK chose het image to enter western market make sense ? He could get exactly the same results by staying to his authentic self isn't it ? Isn't it just a narrative made by shippers to convince themselves that he's still queer even if he's doing het songs to keep their ship floating? ( I really don't have a problem if he was queer but any excuses given doesn't make sense regarding his choices. Atp the only sensible explanation I can think of is that he's het, it's his choice to portray himself in this concept, it's him choosing to sing about het sex back to back, he agreed to having female lead actress in all his chapter 2 mvs. He kinda confirmed it by saying it wants to show different sides of HIMSELF. So maybe that's what it is.. simple 🤷‍♀️”

Sensible *to you.* with the information and opinions that *you* have.

Again I believe Jikook are together so of course that's my train of thought and with the information that I have what is sensible to *me* is not the same as you.

However to be completely 100. It doesn't matter what I think.

My thoughts do not change who Jungkook dates nor does it change his sexuality.

If you believe him to be heterosexual ok.

If I believe him to be queer ok.

He'll still be with who he wants to be with, he'll still identify as what he wants to identify as.

If I interpret his music videos to not be a reflection of him and you do interpret his music videos to be a reflection of him, ok.

What difference does it make?

I can see Jikook as real and believe there to be deep meaning behind their years and years of words and actions. I can also see his music videos as 4 minute fictional films with actresses and musical background that once the filming ends, so does his dealings with them.

That is also simple

💜

#Jikook #Anonymous Asks

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

leftist liberals love to point out how right-wingers are brainwashed and populist and lie to their own people and have a propaganda machine but think their own holy movement would never. their own perspective is all fact-based and not an ideology. i feel like this implies some sort of mental superiority liberals feel, like „im too smart to fall for propaganda“, like our institutions are not backing individualism and liberalism to avoid change, babe you are defending the sex industry with hypothetical what-ifs and completely ignore the system behind it to focus on personal choice like choices are made in a vacuum💀

no wonder liberalism and conservatism/traditionalism are the most dominant and successful ideologies in the west right now (besides apathy), you are so easy to pander to! because legitimately analysing and dismantling systems and institutions of oppression is scawwy! or its not even oppression because the sex industry is the one system where personal choice beats institutionalised marginalisation! hollow and lazy, just like the right wing.

#rant

[underclerysclock]

Gerry is literally such an interesting character though. I feel like because I joke about him all the time I don’t talk about how compelling I find him and also none of the rest of the fandom really delve into him either which is a shame because they made him such an interesting exploration of privilege, repression, immigrant identity, the Australian dream etc etc etc.

Like he’s kind of selfish, he buries his head in the sand and makes himself wilfully ignorant to bad things happening around him (from the bicentennial protests he’d definitely be extremely aware of to Dale’s mental breakdown in 2x05 to minimising the consequences of his own arrest), he’s so outwardly cool and collected that even the audience doesn’t realise how much he lives in denial.

And part of his continued denial is because he’s the rare immigrant who did actually achieve the Australian dream; he has fame and money, a loving family, a loyal fan base, a big house in Eaglemont. The cracks are beginning to show, the tabloids know about his sexuality and he knows he’s doomed if people find out. But Australia gave him everything he was promised, and compared to what Ireland looked like in the 80s, his new home gives him so much more freedom that he never had in a country that was still under the thrall of Catholic conservatism. And of course he’s not thinking about the fact he’s gotten everything he has because he’s white, and the right kind of white, and in fact, the right kind of Irish (ie not Northern. A Northern Irishman isn’t going to have the worst time in 80s Australia, but his identity is going to be far more politicised than someone from the Republic).

We talk about Dale and repression a lot. Because it’s really obvious. He’s repressing what are ultimately positive feelings - pleasure, passion, sexual desire. And we want him to experience queer joy the same way Gerry does. But Gerry is repressed as well. He’s repressing all of the negatives. He finds pain, controversy, anguish, etc, shameful and dirty the same way Dale does with desire. He doesn’t want to admit that the Australian dream is a lie, that he is extremely lucky and that all that he has could crumble at any moment.

There is so much that compels me about Gerry and makes him my favourite beyond “haha Funny Irished Man played by sexy actor” and I never talk about it because I don’t know how and no one else seems to fixate on him like I do. But like. Talk to me about Gerry please please PLEASE.

#flood warning #the newsreader #I’m actually putting this in the main tag because I put a lot of thought into wording this post #but gerry carroll I want to study you like a bug

[odinsblog]

It’s fine to enjoy the fact that Liz Cheney and some other Republicans are excoriating Donald Trump, but no one should ever forget that Liz Cheney personally and repeatedly pushed disinformation about abortion, she supported Roe v. Wade being overturned, she is in favor of voter suppression, and she still has not made any prolonged substantive progress for marriage equality

We can and should be happy whenever the Republican Party decides to bury their hatchets in Donald Trump’s back, but their infighting should not ever be mistaken for actual progress.

Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are the natural predictable outcomes of the extreme conservatism that Republicans have espoused for the last few decades. Arguably, there is no Trump without Bush and Cheney.

Republicans do not get to distance themselves from their Frankenstein monstrosity now. Liz Cheney and the GOP own Trump. He is theirs, and they are his.

Unless your goal is to shift the Overton window further rightward, the Cheney family is NOT who anyone should be hoisting up as “good” Republicans. Dick Cheney helped lie America into a 20 year long war-for-oil, and Liz Cheney is against marriage equality and supports voter suppression. Those facts matter. They aren’t trivial.

No one is suggesting that we support Trump or DeSantis, but elevating Liz Cheney to near hero status is another DNC mistake that will materially harm people in the future, should she ever return to politics. For every Liz Cheney I’m sure there are two progressives who are more deserving of lionization than Liz Cheney. Lionize someone more deserving, someone who isn’t against abortion. Someone who doesn’t believe that torture and voter suppression are good things. But the Democratic Party loves kicking left, while kissing right.

And remember, conservatives don’t like her anyway, so it’s not like hoisting her up is ever going to change their minds.

PLEASE do not fall for the okie doke - there are not any “good” Republicans. If they were good people, they wouldn’t be Republicans. We can appreciate whenever some of their goals momentarily align with progress, but they are not “allies” and they are definitely NOT good people deserving of any praise.

#politics #republicans #donald trump #liz cheney

[orpheusdrinkinga40inadeathbasket]

The Beatles invigorated the role of the fan because they were the first cultural product to engage holistically with the figure of the teenage girl. They emerged onto ground broken by Elvis and then outpaced their predecessor creatively and commercially. Elvis supplied an avatar for the forbidden promise of sex, but his appeal rested in how easy he was to objectify, his obviousness. Cartoonishly handsome, he was a body onto which the teenage girl could project unspoken and illicit desire. He inspired adoration, but it could not compare to the ferocious awe frothed up among Beatles girls. There is no Elvis equivalent to the term "Beatlemaniac." "To younger teenagers, the Beatles' cheerful, faintly androgynous sexuality was more approachable than Elvis's alpha-male heat," wrote Lynskey. The Beatles offered something more complex than an empty sexual template. They presented an opportunity for identification. A girl could invest her desire in the band, but she could also discover herself there. The gaze cast on the Beatles was a queer one from the start. Before American women looked at the Beatles, they had been seen by Brian Epstein, the closeted gay record clerk who discovered and ferociously advocated for the band when record executives failed to give them a second glance. Watching them play a lunch hour show at a grimy club in Liverpool, Epstein picked up on the magnetic potential of the four young men. In Vivek Tiwary's graphic novel The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story, artist Andrew Robinson closes the frame around the future manager's stunned face as he beholds the Beatles for the first time, as if he could sense his life pivoting around that one rapturous moment. "There was some indefinable charm there," he wrote in his 1964 memoir A Cellarful of Noise. "They were extremely amusing and in a rough 'take it or leave [it] way' very attractive." Upon becoming their manager, Epstein was tasked with convincing the world to see the Beatles the way he saw them: via a gaze that desired its objects without othering them. Heterosexual desire spans a chasm, coveting difference. Queer desire pulls together like elements, finding attraction in affinity. That teen girls could even feel the kind of active, demanding sexual desire evinced by their screams was still a novel concept in the early '60s, which carried vestiges of the prior decade's postwar conservatism. "In a highly sexualized society (one sociologist found that the number of explicitly sexual references in the mass media had doubled between 1950 and 1960), teen and preteen girls were expected to be not only 'good' and 'pure' but to be the enforcers of purity within their teen society—drawing the line for overeager boys and ostracizing girls who failed in this responsibility," wrote Barbara Ehrenreich in a 1986 essay. "To abandon control—to scream, faint, dash about in mobs—was, in form if not in conscious intent, to protest the sexual repressiveness, the rigid double standard of female teen culture. It was the first and most dramatic uprising of women's sexual revolution." Befuddled by the Beatlemaniacs' exuberance, interviewers and critics (who were more often than not men) pinned the scream to a desire, of all things, to mother the band. "It has been said that you appeal to the maternal instinct in these girls," began an interviewer in 1964. John cut him off: "That's a dirty lie." Joking or not, he was right. The dynamic at hand did not correspond to a mother/son model. Beatles girls wanted the way men were expected to want: unabashedly and directly, as active agents in the exchange of desire. There was nothing coy about their hunger.

Sasha Geffen, Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary

#sasha geffen #glitter up the dark #the beatles

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

Of cicadas, black and white interiors

The pervasive sound of cicadas in the Japanese suburbs and countryside seems threatening. It is the sound of summer. Cicadas lie underground all-year-round only to climb up on the trees for their short lives in summer singing, crying, mating, and then dying. Their hollow corpses lying on their backs are the only sign that they have lived once a day before.

However, PA Works makes the buzzing or sizzling tone more menacing, as if they are ready to attack or engulf you, as if there are several colonies of them screaming and singing at the same time.

That’s how one feels when entering the vast premises of the Suwa family’s ancestral home. It is claustrophobic in spite of its verdant location. The lives behind in this compound are cheap, except for the owner’s.

The interior of the mansion is so dark, old-fashioned, the furniture made of wood, the heavy curtains, the high ceilings, wood panelling’s aching to be restored, the tapestry, the old and torn wallpaper, the gritty floorings, and the art nouveau windows and glass doors symbolise conservatism, hierarchy, clandestine yet tight structure and strict rules. Time has stopped here. No wonder Rei doesn’t feel at home in here. It is suffocating.

They keep their distance from each other.

This is in contrast with the loft he lives in with K and Miri. The openness and natural light permeate in the four corners of their home. The interior walls are painted in brighter colours devoid of drapery and peppered with lamps.

Interesting how we want to change the things that have shaped us negatively. Consciously or otherwise.

#buddy daddies #buddy daddies spoilers #kazuki kurusu #rei suwa #unasaka miri #shigeki suwa #buddy daddies wall of text #episode 8: nothing seek nothing find #I love cicadas but their singing is a bit too much #buddy daddies speculation

[dhaaruni]

Do you have any suggestions on sources to check out to understand American conservative ideology? I’m honestly trying to make a good faith attempt to understand it and why so many Republicans don’t seem to appreciate things that Democrats do for their income bracket (if they’re lower income) just bc of their stance on immigration? Like to me, Biden lowering bank overdraft fees matters more than immigration

Books, podcasts, articles, documentaries, anything!

I'll list out sources for you at another point but first of all, I think you're really misunderstanding how the conservative mindset works. You understand that people by and large vote on social issues and not economic issues right? That's why rich liberals vote for Democrats while poor conservatives vote for Republicans. The way it works is that the ethos of cultural conservatism is about preserving culture, and immigration changes the culture of a country and here's the key part, this applies even to people that aren't interacting with immigrants. They have to press 1 to get English sometimes when they call the pharmacy and that's enough to drive them up the wall! Moreover, the reality is that social liberalism is tied to education and also wealth, and the people who have less money are more likely to want to preserve what they do have, which in essence, is the "culture" of their nation.

Now, those people aren't going to vote Democrat anytime soon but the reality is that even during the peak of Stephen Miller putting kids in cages, Americans still didn't want to increase the amount of immigration, they just wanted the *visible* cruelty to stop, they're totally fine with welcoming asylum seekers into the country, giving them warm food and a hug, and sending them right back to where they came from. That's why Remain in Mexico helped Trump so much, Mexico did the dirty work of detaining and sending back migrants for the US like Turkey does it for the European Union, and the wealthier countries didn't have to get their hands dirty and their citizens often had no idea what was happening.

The issue that Democrats have right now with regards to immigration is that "elites," both Democrat and Republican, are more open to immigration than voters of either party although obviously Republicans are more opposed. Plus, liberals are opposed to high-skilled immigration from China and India in particular because Asian immigrants compete with them and their kids for education and jobs, like just look at how Democrats talk about how affirmative action negatively impacted Asian kids when it objectively did! Like, white women didn't benefit the most from affirmative action, that's a blatant lie.

The reality is that if only elites voted, the United States would be a center-left country but obviously it's not. Like, the huge negative reaction residents of blue cities are having to Republican (and Democratic!) shipping migrants up north is just so telling because it's very evident that Democrats don't want poor brown migrants who don't speak English around them, they just want to virtue signal about being pro-immigrant sanctuary cities without putting in the effort. That aside from the fact it's extremely obvious that most of the "asylum seekers" who show up at the southern border aren't qualified for asylum under international law, they're economic migrants, which is why people are demanding changes to asylum laws.

The reason that most non-white working class people still vote Democrat is because the Republican Party is extremely racist, with the exception of Black people and that's due to the history of slavery in this country. If Republicans toned down the racism even like 15% and stuck to racism against Black people and kept their mouths shut about Latinos and Asians, Republicans would get 40% of the Latino/Asian vote like Greg Abbott did in 2022 in Texas even if they likely wouldn't get to 60% like Ron DeSantis did in 2022 in Florida. And obviously, you understand as well as I do that if Republicans won 40% of the Asian and Latino vote nationwide, they'd get 400 electoral votes due to their also cleaning up among non-college white voters. Black people are 13% of the country and they can't carry Democrats without Dems winning over enough white voters and people are just allergic to admitting this fact.

All this in essence is why Democrats being reliant on rich liberals to pay for social programs they don't use is biting them in the ass. People with money, who are by and large college educated, simply don't want their taxes to go up, and to win non-college voters, Democrats have go right (on policy not just in terms of messaging) on cultural issues, primarily immigration, climate (no "green energy" or being mean to the oil/gas industry and fracking), and anything related to LGBT issues beyond "keep gay marriage legal" (even though nobody except like, Muslims in Michigan, is voting on LGBT issues one way or another). Abortion is the one "cultural" issue which helps Democrats but that's because kids are expensive and a huge undertaking especially if you don't want them, so it's still selfish and not really for the "greater good" that most people, including many Republicans, are pro-choice.

Moreover, Democratic donors and the "groups" (shadow network of activists, think tanks like the Center for American Progress, and Dem staffers who are well to the left of elected officials) don't want to move away from cultural liberalism since they skew wealthier than the general population and would rather talk about mincing the definitions of acronyms nobody uses and canceling student loans for the overeducated and downwardly mobile than public schools not letting kids take math classes and Medicaid negotiations because those issues don't impact them or any of their friends and families.

At the end of the day, the reason conservative ideology doesn't die out is because when push comes to shove, people prioritize their own self-interest. Obviously there are caveats and sometimes people opt to help others and society at large, but placing ourselves and our loved ones over the rest of the world is an intrinsic part of human nature and one that we need to understand if we're intent on changing society. Does that make sense?

#answered #anonymous #politics

[haggishlyhagging]

The antifeminism of Left, Right, and center fixes the power of the Right over women—gives the huge majority of women over to the Right—over to social conservatism, economic conservatism, religious conservatism, over to conforming to the dictates of authority and power, over to sexual compliance, over to obedience—because as long as the sex-class system is intact, huge numbers of women will believe that the Right offers them the best deal: the highest reproductive value; the best protection against sexual aggression; the best economic security as the economic dependents of men who must provide; the most reliable protection against battery; the most respect. Left and centrist philosophies, programs, and parties tend to vicious condescension with respect to women's rights; they lie, and right-wing women are quite brilliant at discerning the hypocrisy of liberal support for women's rights. Right-wing women do not buy the partial truths and cynical lies that constitute the positions of various liberal and so-called radical groups on women's rights. They see antifeminism, though they call it simple hypocrisy. They are outraged by it.

-Andrea Dworkin, Right Wing Women

#andrea dworkin #right wing women #female oppression #anti feminism #feminist thought

[thebreakfastgenie]

12 for the ask game (hope it's frank)

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

It's Frank!!!!!!!!! Frank Burns is a great character. First of all, he's funny, and what more can you ask of a sitcom character? Secondly, Larry Linville was genius. Thirdly, Frank is sad and pathetic and pitiable! He's repulsive! He's lonely! He has no friends! He doesn't know why! Fourthly, Frank is such a valuable character. Law and order president Richard Nixon (I know) had won re-election in a landslide not even two months after MASH started. Conservatism was popular! And Frank agreed with all that shit and he was mocked for it. He was uncool. He was never vindicated. He existed to show conservative ideas were wrong and the show was never as political without him. He's also the best case for a deeply repressed gay/bi character if you're into that sort of thing. Watch The Chosen People! Frank is also a poor little meow meow. He had abusive parents. He's living a lie in a loveless marriage. He's everything fandom wants other characters to be, and it's canon! He's also just. So fucking funny.

[nicnacsnonsense]

The thing about “Slutshaming Lex: the episode” is the way Lionel (who admittedly is motivated to lie), Shannon (admittedly not the sanest person in the room) and Corrine (theoretically objective) all frame it like Lex is deliberately using and misleading the women he sleeps with. The implication seems to be that these are not consensual one-night stands, but rather Lex making women believe that he has a deeper interest in them to get sex, and then is blowing them off afterward. Except we see Lex initiating his hook up with Shannon (the second one anyway) and there is nothing that he does to imply he’s interested in more with her. Which leads to the inevitable implication that the writers just assume it’s such a given that if a woman is agreeing to have sex with guy it’s because she believes he’s interested in a romantic relationship that any guy who does not explicitly clarify otherwise regardless of circumstance is being deliberately deceitful.

That’s a lot to unpack. You can really feel the deep conservatism from the SV creators sometimes.

#smallville #lex luthor

[communist-ojou-sama]

Not gonna lie I think living in Japan and reading about and observing Japanese political history has really helped me develop this attitude toward capitalism because anti-capitalist sentiment in the fascist right going back to its origins is very much genuine. In a settler colonial country like the US that literally has its entire founding myth buttressed upon capitalism, it is true that reactionary conservatism always defaults back to capitalism. However, in Japan, where the fascist element happened very much more out of a bottom up swelling of societal rejection of modern western society generally and especially of capitalism specifically (rather than where it developed more out of a top-down imposition of demagoguery by industrialists and traditional elites in other places) in favor of pre-capitalist socioeconomic relations, it becomes undeniable to me that capitalism has Some progressive elements and certainly is not reactionary or regressive By Nature

[d-parade]

Is “transgenderism” just another youth subculture?

As much as the words “transtrender” and “brainwashing” sound extremely harsh and hateful, the fact is that there is some truth to them.

(Personally, I wouldn’t like to use these words as they might come off as too biased even though they do represent my views somewhat.)

It is no lie that children and teenagers are constantly in the process of finding and discovering themselves. They are the peak of progressiveness. This can be seen all throughout history with rising rebellion trends that goes against the norm.

Take for example (because I’m kinda obsessed with it), the bosozoku and yankii youth subculture in the 80s and 90s in Japan. Teenage gangsters exploded in popularity. Gang fights, underage smoking, biking all spiked during this era. Why? Because it heavily went against the traditional Japanese culture of being an upright student with good grades. Teenagers were sick of it and hence decided to rebel.

This is a trend.

Another example would be the emo scene during the 2000s, though I won’t be going into that.

If you notice, many youth subcultures tend to go against societal expectations and norms because it is stemmed out of frustration of being in a suffocating rigid society.

Now… what does this sound like? Hell yea, the transgender movement. The young people involved, the sudden spike, it’s intertwine with one’s entire identity and self expression, and the general push it has towards progression.

This is what youth rebellion looks like in the 2020s. It is exactly the same as all the other subcultures that preceded it.

But it’s going overboard, way too overboard.

Youth subcultures and the rest of the world always had a sort of divide between them, but living in mutual disagreement. There were always backlash and discrimination from the older generation, and sometimes from others in their own generation.

Transgenderism doesn’t escape this. But the slippery slope of liberalisation and conservatism pushed these issues to opposite far ends, resulting in extremism which churns out more hate. As you can see, this creates an endless cycle that would not stop anytime soon.

Furthermore, the rise of transgenderism ropes in transsexualism, due to misunderstanding that they are one and the same. You can understand how this is harmful as transsexualism is a medical issue, transgenderism much less so.

I would also like to point out how many participants of old youth subculture have grown out of it. If you were to talk to them in the past, they would tell you that they believe that they will forever live like this and that it was part of them, not because it was a trend. But if you were to talk to them now, they understand it was merely a trend that they unconsciously followed. Of course, there’s some who still partake in the culture, but the vast majority wouldn’t.

This is a hint that transgenderism is a youth subculture. We’re also seeing it now, as the prevalence of eccentric neopronouns and such have been decreasing ever since it’s spike in 2020-2022.

Enough rambling.

In conclusion, I do believe that there’s always been frustration based on gender expectations which might lead to the desire of being the opposite sex, or leaving the idea of binary gender altogether. Similar to how some black people might’ve wished to be born white so that they wouldn’t have to undergo slavery. But the transgenderism we see today is definitely just another rebellious youth subculture that has gone too far.

Are participants valid as humans? Of course.

Am I saying your feelings and experiences are not real? Not at all, they’re very real to you right now and I wholeheartedly understand.

But am I going to feed into the idea that being trans is your true, never changing self? No, because I believe you will slowly grow out of it, and that the transgender movement will eventually die down when two sides reach an equilibrium. Although, this might take another 10 years or so.

I’ll use pronouns if it makes sense, respect you as a human. But am I going to encourage things that I believe will harm you in the future? No.

Most of all, it’s crucial to know that leaving behind something you thought was your entire identity is fine. It’s all part of being a teenager/ young adult and growing up.

#transgender #transsexual #transgenderism #truscum #transmed #transmedicalism #trans