#gender denier

[pinkiepie20000]

arlecchino x male reader hcs! >_<!!!!!!!!!

WARNING: NSFW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

she leaves you for a woman.

#genshin smut #genshin x you #genshin #genshin fanfic #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin fluff #gender denier #diluc pegger #im a faggot #arlecchino x reader #arlecchino x male reader #why am i like this #i love arlecchino #jokey joke #this is what they get guys >_<!!

[namesconfuseme]

HII! IM REALLY PROUD OF THIS! AND I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO POST IT HERE

MY JON DESIGN CHAGED BTW!

AHH also I made a tiktok!

My uni work has been killing me lately as I have a deadline coming up! Meaning most of the art I've been doing is for that it art trades/ free sketches! HOWEVER I have also been drawing Tma fan art!(as seen above) I'm gonna post it through out the month!

#drawing #digital art #the magnus archives #jonathan gender denier sims #jonathan sims #tma fanart #tma spoilers #illistration

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Colin Wright

Published: Feb 18, 2024

There was a time when biologist PZ Myers was relevant. This period spanned the late 2000s and early 2010s, coinciding with the rise of “New Atheism” (as some called it). In 2006, Myers’ blog Pharyngula was celebrated in Nature as the world’s most popular science blog and was deemed the top atheist blog by Hemant Mehta in 2009. In 2008, Myers was part of a memorable incident where he and Richard Dawkins were planning to attend a screening of Ben Stein’s pro-Intelligent Design propaganda film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Despite Myers being interviewed and featured in the film, he was barred from entering by a security guard on orders from the producer, Mark Mathis—but Dawkins was allowed in!

In 2010, I invited Myers to give a talk about Intelligent Design at Sierra Community College in Rocklin, CA, where I was studying before transferring to UC Davis for my bachelor’s degree. I picked up Myers from the Sacramento train station, and we enjoyed a stimulating conversation about evolution en route. Before his talk, I gave him a tour of the school’s esteemed natural history museum. After his talk, we all went out with Myers for food and drinks and had a great time. I share this to show that my starting attitude toward Myers was nothing short of admiration.

However, as gender ideology gained a foothold within the atheist movement, the brains of many prominent and once-rational figures began to melt. Philosopher Peter Boghossian has poignantly characterized this shift among Left-wing intellectuals from being quick to point out the limits of their knowledge to a tendency to pretend to not know what is undeniably known.

This trend is exemplified by Myers, as I will illustrate.

Recently, Richard Dawkins shared on 𝕏 the lecture I delivered at the Genspect conference in Denver, CO, last year, titled “The Sex Binary: What It Is and Why It Matters.” Dawkins praised my talk as “superbly clear & totally correct,” and reaffirmed the reality of the binary nature of sex. Following this, gender activists bombarded Dawkins with absurd articles challenging the binary concept of sex, including a particularly misleading piece in Scientific American titled “Stop Using Phony Science to Justify Transphobia,” which asserts that “Actual research shows that sex is anything but binary.”

In response to this onslaught of dubious science, Dawkins countered the article directly: “This ridiculous article…ignorantly misunderstands the nature of the sex binary.” He went on to underscore the important distinction between how sex is “determined” versus how it’s “defined” in biology that I outlined in my talk.

In turn, Myers, seemingly desperate to regain some of his previous prominence, criticized Dawkins in a blog post. Myers’ misunderstanding of the biology of sex, especially given his background in developmental biology, is on embarrassing display in his post.

Myers begins his criticism by suggested that Dawkins’ expertise in ethology (the study of animal behavior) means he lacks the sufficient expertise that would give him better insight into the biology of sex.

Did you know that Richard Dawkins began his career as an ethologist? He got his Ph.D. studying animal behavior under Niko Tinbergen. If you’re an ethologist, you might study things like courtship behavior and parental investment and feeding strategies etc., etc., etc. Dawkins studied how animals make choices.

This argument is a common strategy used by gender activists to undermine those who present biological facts that contradict gender ideology’s central dogma. I receive this criticism incessantly because I am also an ethologist. I studied the collective behavior of spiders and social insects, and this often gets me dismissed as some “bug guy” out of his depth commenting on issues well outside my academic wheelhouse. This portrayal, however, is couldn’t be further from the truth, and it is often medical doctors and biologists who study a narrow group of taxa who are most likely to form misguided views about the biology of sex.

In reality, ethologists (now usually referred to as behavioral ecologists) are uniquely well-situated to address questions pertaining to the fundamental and universal meaning of male and female. That’s because the most profound behavioral differences to be found in nature within a species are those of males and females. It turns out that the evolved reproductive strategies of producing either fewer large gametes (ova) or many small gametes (sperm) results in divergent selection on many behavioral traits between males and females. Moreover, understanding that the universal defining feature of males and females is rooted in gametes allows us to account for instances where behavioral sex roles are reversed, as is seen in some birds and other animals. In fact, such role reversals would be indiscernible without identifying the males and females based on the gametes they produce, underscoring the relevance of ethology in discussions about biological sex.

For instance, how do we know that male seahorses are the ones that gestate young and give birth? Or that in northern jacanas (J. spinosa), it is the females who are larger, more ornate, territorial, and exhibit less parental care than males? This knowledge stems from understanding that male and female are categories that exist independent of mere morphology and behavior.

Myers makes an uninformed argument:

Somehow, an awful lot of biologists study sexual behavior — like lekking, or sexual displays, or fidelity, and on and on — that don’t necessarily involve sperm collection or measuring ovulation or that kind of thing. It is absurd to insist that only gametes define sex. I recognize spider sexes by the morphology of their palps, and by their differences in behavior, not gametes. I see the birds flying outside my window, and I discriminate sexes by color, primarily.

Myers could not be any more confused here. How does he recognize that it is typically males who form leks, or that males often display more elaborate mating behaviors and exhibit less sexual fidelity? This knowledge comes from studying these species and correlating these behaviors with the type of gametes an individual produces. Once we discover that males of the Vogelkop superb bird-of-paradise (Lophorina niedda) possess highly decorative plumage and engage in elaborate sexual displays, we no longer need to continuously verify this. We know it’s the males because we learned that only those with decorative plumage and elaborate sexual displays in this species produce sperm.

However, Myers insists that defining an individual’s sex based solely on gametes represents an “extreme reductionist” approach, and suggests we should consider “all the other valid signals they openly display.”

Dawkins is just being an extreme reductionist to the point he’s making himself and his position look silly. Go ahead, all you reactionary biologists, rant about how there can be only two true sexes because people have some cells that are almost never seen in public, in defiance of all the other valid signals they openly display. Better biologists will go on recognizing all the factors that define sex without your self-imposed, narrow-minded blinders.

The core and critical flaw in Myers’ argument for using other traits to determine the sex of an individual is that these traits are only reliable indicators of sex in species where we already know which individuals are males and females, based on their gametes. In humans, we associate breasts with females and facial hair with males because adult human females typically develop breasts and adult human males tend to grow facial hair. But how would Myers propose to identify males and females in a newly discovered species without any prior knowledge of their secondary sexual characteristics?

Consider a hypothetical new mammal species with some individuals small and blue and others large and brown. Since we know mammals are anisogamous (i.e., reproduce via fusion of a sperm and an egg), we can be as certain as possible that this species also exhibits males and females. But how do we determine which is which? Should we assume the blue ones are males and the brown ones females, as is the case with blue groper fish? But in blue gropers the males are large and the females are small. Should we therefore consider the blue individuals of our new mammal species female because they are small? But in spiders the males are smaller than the females, suggesting perhaps the small individuals should be considered males?

Do you see the absurdity of the approach? We know human males tend to be hairier, male blue gropers are blue, and male spiders are usually smaller, because being male is a trait independent of hair, color, or size. What unites these males is the type of gamete they have the function to produce. That is what makes them male.

Thus, the only way we can know which individuals of our new species are the males and which are the females is to find out which individuals produce sperm and which produce eggs. The. End.

Myers has to understand this, but he is too afraid to tell the truth.

==

The people who say, "but, but clownfish!" conveniently leave out the part where they explain how we know a clownfish has changed sex. Does it like mimosas and shopping, or is there some other indicator compared to before?

What is it about a clownfish changing sex that tells us it has changed sex?

🤔

#Colin Wright #gender ideology #queer theory #gender identity ideology #biology #human biology #reproduction #human reproduction #gametes #biological sex #PZ Myers #evolution denial #evolution deniers #religion is a mental illness

[coochiequeens]

Uproar in football stadiums: There can't be two genders

24th matchday, FC Ingolstadt vs. Dynamo Dresden: Banner in the Dresden fan block "THERE IS ONLY ONE RIDICULOUS DFB... AND TWO GENDER".

A fan poster claims there are only two genders. The DFB sports court punishes this. Now mass protests are breaking out in stadiums. Is a super-woker DFB embarrassing itself? Are football fans queer deniers? Is the over-political DFB president making a mistake once again? Or is the gender debate simply reaching a new dimension?

The scandal began as a real satire. The German Football Association's sports court has imposed a fine on Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen because fans there claimed that there were only two genders. The DFB is the world's largest sports association, Bayer Leverkusen is top of the Bundesliga and on the way to the championship - the stage for the gender criminal court could hardly be bigger. The club has to pay a total of 18,000 euros “because of discriminatory, unsportsmanlike behavior on the part of its supporters”. Fans held up a banner at the game against Werder Bremen that read: “There are many styles of music, but only two genders.”

The incriminated banner triggered a rather cheerful discourse between harmless rival fan groups from Werder Bremen and Bayer Leverkusen. Bayer Ultras had described themselves as the supposedly cool "Raverkusen" in a choreography in the game against Freiburg, whereupon the Werder fans countered the Leverkusen team as music philistines in the subsequent game with a "Beer King ≠ Techno Club" banner. They responded with the now scandalized Bayer banner “There are many styles of music.” With the reference to the "but only 2 genders", the Rhinelanders probably wanted to make fun of the left-wing orientation of the Bremen Ultras after they had mocked their own taste in music. Such fan teasing is normally part of the rich, coarse and universally laughed-at part of German football culture.

But the fact that the DFB is now trying to publicly punish the Leverkusen fans as inhumane gender deniers is causing a lot of football fans to shake their heads and feel indignant. To justify its punitive action, the DFB wrote on From federal politics, the Green Party's sports spokeswoman, Tina Winklmann, immediately supported the DFB, saying the poster was "inhumane and discriminatory."

Discussion about DFB leadership breaks out

Many fans see it differently and simply do not want to be banned from the idea that there are two genders. The DFB's punitive action is therefore triggering a wave of similar sanctioning actions in other stadiums. Dynamo Dresden supporters displayed a giant banner that read: "There is only one ridiculous DFB... and two genders!" The DFB now also wants to take action against this with penalties. In Braunschweig, fans made a giant banner with the inscription “Dear Sir or Madam, Period.” In Cottbus you could read meters high: "There are only 2 genders - both despise the DFB". In Chemnitz they read in giant letters: "There are only two genders, even a blind person can see that! DFB fan shop: men, women, babies and children". The fans were referring to the two-gender DFB shop.

Now the DFB should actually punish all possible clubs and fan groups, because new “two-gender” posters are added every weekend. But behind the scenes there is also a discussion about the DFB and its leadership.

Some criticize that the DFB is putting unnecessary additional strain on the already heated relationship between the DFB, DFL and fans because of the planned investor entry into the DFL. Others criticize the DFB, which is becoming increasingly left-wing politicized and demonstratively “woke” under its president Bernd Neuendorf. The long-time SPD professional politician Neuendorf works closely with the SPD Interior Minister Nancy Faeser in his positioning for demonstrative diversity. Joint party membership sometimes leads to over-political actions, as was the case at the World Cup in Qatar, when the two staged the one-love prank.

The appointment of Andreas Rettig (liked to be called "Antifa-Andi" in the scene) as the football association's new sports director is also seen as a demonstrative signal for activist association management. In November 2022 he appeared as spokesman for the SPD and gave a lecture in Bochum on the topic of “The social responsibility of professional football”. One of the oddities of the DFB's politicization is that the Hamburg communications agency BrinkertLück was hired under Neuendorf. She was in charge of the SPD chancellor election campaign for Olaf Scholz, and today BrinkertLück is the “lead agency for the DFB product world”.

Freedom of expression and biologists' resistance

The two-gender scandal is attracting attention beyond the football scene because it is an example of where the boundaries of what can be said lie in the diversity debate. The DFB penalty decision acts like a political correctness edge in the gender culture war currently taking place. The fact that, in addition to biological sex, social gender identity should also be respected and tolerated is widely undisputed, even among football fans. Since 2018, in German civil status law, gender entry has been possible in addition to male and female.

The great resistance to the DFB language police is explained less by the lack of tolerance towards queer footballers and more by the question of what one is allowed to say in public and what is not. If the sentence "There are two genders" is really criminalized and publicly stigmatized, then the deep freedom reflexes of the open society will be violated. Because the gender debate, like all other debates, is subject to the constitutionally protected freedom of expression.

Germany's most prominent biologist, the Nobel Prize winner Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, even vehemently advocates the principle of two genders: "Of course there is a spectrum when it comes to gender, the social sex, while when it comes to biological sex there is only female or male. Over. End." The Federal Government's Queer Commissioner, Sven Lehmann, however, claims: The view that there are two genders is unscientific. There are many genders. The Nobel Prize winner responded to this in an "Emma" interview : "That's unscientific! Mr. Lehmann may have missed the basic course in biology." And further: "It is completely clear that transsexuals should not be discriminated against. If people are treated badly, that is bad. But they cannot impose their ideas on everyone as facts." If the Nobel Prize winner were to say something like that in the football stadium, the DFB would fine her.

Translated into English by google

#Germany #German Football Association #Believe in all the genders you want but there's only two semesters #inhumane gender deniers

[pricklypear1997]

Got told to kill myself by some furry who’s most likely some MTF as well… I never once incited violence against this person nor any lgbt individuals. I simply told these white American/Canadian/australian/Brits to stop comparing themselves to Rwandans and Cambodians and to stop telling kids they’re trans for being gender nonconforming and for forcing their ideology on the rest of the world and the LGB.

Like this is beyond hysterical. A furry telling me to Kms 🤣. These people love to blabber about equality and human rights, but only if it suits them. Oh they also don’t give a shit about women nor anyone who isn’t of WASP origin, but will literally use minorities and foreigners to make themselves look like good people whenever it’s convenient for them. They do not care about women, they do not care about children, they do not care about non white populations and they blatantly hate any white person who doesn’t hate themselves for being white 😂 😂 😂

#tumblr wank #lgbt wank #lgbt #extremism #TRA #autogynephilia #sexuality is not a preference #y’all have issues #fetishists #furries #anti furry #degenerate #alt left shenanigans #alt left #stupid #gender is a synonym for sex #it’s biological #biology is real #biology denier #insane

[attemptinghaikyuu]

Rest assured my loves… reader in part 3 of Kita fic is still the same delusional mess as in part 1 and 2!!!

#they are such a little denier #gonna fight the feels!!!!! #but this isn’t a battle they win >:) #haikyuu!! #kita fic #problematic #haikyuu x gender neutral reader

[shreygoyal]

View on Twitter

Men in rich countries are the least likely to care about climate change

🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Possible explanation: as men benefit most from current economic and social hierarchies, they perceive greater psychological costs to adjusting to change.

(Source)

#Climate Change #toxic masculinity #Late Stage Capitalism #climate denial #climate deniers #gender ideology #Climate Crisis #My Tweets

[they-who-wander]

I bought a "vaccinated & chipped" bracelet!!

It says vaccinated and chipped the way ppl say Spay and neutered abt dogs XD

I love it so freekung much! And some other antifa/Common sense sticker ^.^

#This is a pun on covid deniers saying the vaccine is a government microchip #And slightly gender affirming imo XD #I still need this years booster #And I want to get an nfc chip one day just for fun #So yeah #Vaccinated and chipped

[kanelia]

Last year tras were screaming JKR is an antisemite because of some common folk tale creatures she featured in her work, 4 months ago tras were screaming JKR is an evil Zionist (whatever that means to them) because she expressed her disgust over rape and murder of Jewish women. Today, tras are screaming JKR is a Holocaust denier because she recognises the victims were targeted based on their ethnicity and same-sex attraction instead of modern day gender feels.

Don't you idiots know you can't have your cake and eat it too?

#leftist hypocrisy #radblr #radical feminism #radfem #tra stupidity #jk rowling

[pinkiepie20000]

IM GONNA GFYCKING SQYIRTTTTTTTTT

#genshin #genshin fanfic #genshin impact #genshin smut #genshin x reader #genshin x you #genshin fluff #gender denier #im a faggot #diluc pegger #hsr x reader #she star on my rail till i honkai #honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail smut #honkai star rail fluff #baldis basics #baldis basics in education and learning #batim #bendy and the ink machine #trolls #honkai impact #honkai impact 3rd #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #red dead fandom #roblox #fnaf #five nights at freddy's #flamingo

[namesconfuseme]

This is focusing on season 2 and episode 81 as I haven't gotten much further. ITS NOT COMPLETE

I don't usually post WIP on here, but I am trying to get feedback and also figure out what to put in the gaps.

I think I'm on my 4th hour? Maybe more

Let me know what you think!

#digital art #drawing #magnus archives #the magnus archives #tma fanart #jonathan sims #tma #hes wearing a skirt #jonathan gender denier sims #fanart

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Matt: Male gametes. That’s what makes me male.

Michelle: No. No, your sperm don’t make you male.

Matt: Then what does?

Michelle: It’s a constellation.

Matt: In reality. In truth.

Michelle (confused): Whose truth are we talking about?

Matt: The same truth that says we’re sitting in this room right now, you and I.

Michelle: No. You’re not listening.

Matt: If I see a chicken laying eggs and I say that’s a female chicken laying eggs, did I assign female or am I just observing a physical reality that’s happening in the world?

Michelle: Does a chicken have gender identity? Does a chicken cry? Does a chicken commit suicide? Let’s frame it...

Matt: What’s that have to do with...

Michelle: Because you’re talking, you’re trying...

Matt: A chicken has sex, like any biological organism.

Michelle: A chicken has an assigned gender. But a chicken doesn’t have a gender identity.

Matt: So we “assign” female to chickens when they lay eggs? That’s a...

Michelle: We assume they’re female if they lay eggs.

==

It wasn’t so long ago that we were being told “NoBoDyS SaYiNg bIoLoGiCaL SeX IsNt rEaL”. Now they’re saying so out loud.

A licensed medical doctor and professor of pediatrics at Brown University who doesn’t think biological sex is observed or even real. Yet is allowed to advise, prescribe drugs to, and transition children based on the mental virus of postmodern social constructivism, and teach others the same.

https://vivo.brown.edu/display/mforcier

Michelle Forcier, MD, MPH has been in Rhode Island and at Hasbro Children’s Hospital since 2009. She is a Professor of Pediatrics, Assistant Dean of Medicine (Admissions) at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

#Matt Walsh #Michelle Forcier #What is a Woman #What is a Woman? #social constructivism #social construct #gender ideology #queer theory #gender pseudoscience #gender phrenology #medical malpractice #biological dimorphism #dimorphism #human biology #evolution denial #evolution deniers #insane people #unethical #deranged people #religion is a mental illness

[shinhati]

i see jk rowling is trending i click on it i see people are saying she's a holocaust denier and a nazi supporter i keep scrolling i see a screenshot of the tweet and she's saying she doesn't agree with nazi perspectives on gender. i log off

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for considering making a call out post about a well known fandom blogger who was transphobic towards me/ others?

We're both in a fandom that has a very large transmasc fan base, and they themself aren't cis (Bi-gender), so their post really caught me off guard... Especially because I was mentioned in it??

Let's call them Pink.

Earlier that day, yesterday, Pink had reblogged something from me. Someone sent Pink an Anon message saying that I had "trans misandry deniers dni" in my bio. The Anon then said they "didn't want to start anything" but knew Pink's opinion of it.

I had that in my bio because of the amount of people who think trans men don't face transphobia and that we have it easy.

✨Info break time✨

For those who don't know, trans misandry or transandrophobia, is the specific type of transphobia experienced by trans men/ transmasculine people. Like how trans fem peeps experience trans misogyny.

Ex. the idea that because we identify as men/ with a masculine gender, we are inherently dangerous/bad, are "joining the oppressors", or abandoning womanhood to gain male-privilege. And that we don't experience the hardships that most AFAB people face.

It has nothing to do with misandry against cis men, which on a systemic level I don't believe in at all.

✨back to the story✨

Pink responded to the Anon essentially saying that anyone who believes in transmisandry: is overemotional, shouldn't be taken seriously, and is the same as someone who believes in cis misandry.

This was... Super odd?? Like, the fandom they main is like 70% transmascs, they see us all the time. Why would they think that it's ok to say we don't face discrimination? It affects our lives so much and it weirded me out how they could think it was silly. And even posting my account's name for everyone to see was SUPER weird.

I was really hoping that Pink didn't understand what transmisandry was, and was just thrown-off by the word "misandry" being used. Because that's a common occurrence. So, I sent them a DM in hopes of explaining what they may have misunderstood.

In the DM I said I wasn't mad though I didn't appreciate them making the post about me, but I didn't think it was made in bad faith. I told them that my bio was referring to the specific type of transphobia I and other transmasculine people face and not CIS misandry. I ended my message saying that if they'd like to understand better, I'd be happy to answer any questions they had... and then they blocked me. I think I may have overstepped by doing this, but they did publicly ridicule me so ehgeh?

I don't know if they read my message or not because they didn't respond. I don't want to make anyone feel hurt bc they are pretty popular in the fandom and people like what they post. But I want others to be aware of how Pink feels about the probable majority of their followers and the fandom base they frequent.

So AITA and overreacting and let it alone?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[joannechocolat]

On why women’s rage is a superpower

My mother hates my new book. I gave her a proof just a few days ago, and although she’s still only halfway through, she can’t wait to tell me all the ways in which she hates my novel.

“Is this science fiction?” she says. (She detests science fiction.) “Were you ill when you wrote this?” (I was.) And repeatedly, she says: “Why are the women so angry?”

I get it. She’s out of her comfort zone. At 83, with no internet, no interest in pop culture and a deep-rooted hatred of anything close to horror or the supernatural, she wasn’t my target audience. And yet it’s never easy to hear such criticism from a loved one. But in some ways, she isn’t wrong. Broken Light is an angry book. It came from a time of lockdown, when social media was my only window onto the world. It came from a place of trauma, when I was fighting cancer. It came from a place of corrupt hierarchies, self-serving politicians, anti-vaxxers, Covid deniers, victim-blamers, and those eager to blame all their woes on minorities. And of course, it arose against the background of the #MeToo campaign and the Sarah Everard murder – a murder that shocked the nation, not least because the murderer turned out to be a serving police officer with a reputation for sexual misconduct - which unleashed a collective howl of protest, as well as an ugly, misogynistic backlash. Even so, my story came as something of a surprise to me: the story of a woman’s rage, and, on reaching the age at which women often feel least valued, her coming into her power.

It surprised me, most of all because I wasn’t an angry person. At least, I didn’t think I was. Those who know me describe me as someone who tends to flee conflict, who generally tries to find common ground, who gets upset when people fight. And yet, writing this story, I found myself saying and feeling certain things on behalf of my heroine, Bernie Moon; things I might not have said for myself, but which felt right and urgent, and true, and strangely liberating.

Anger has a bad press. A woman’s anger, especially. While men are encouraged to express feelings of justified anger, women are often criticized when they try to do the same. Angry women are often portrayed as “harpies,” “banshees,” “Furies.” It suggests that a man’s rage is righteous, but that a woman’s is unnatural, making her into a monster. Male anger is powerful. The God of the Bible is one of wrath. Seldom is he ever portrayed as expressing any other emotion. In the same way, men and boys are often led to believe that expressing emotion is weak - except for anger, which is seen as acceptably masculine.

In comparison, women are often criticized when they show aggression. Angry women are hysterical, shrill, out of control, unreliable, unattractive, unfeminine. A perceived lack of “femininity” makes a woman less valuable, less worthy of respect and of protection. The Press coverage of women victims of violence is a case in point. A victim of violence needs to be attractive, white, gender conforming and virtuous in every way if she is not to be overlooked, or worse, portrayed as somehow having contributed to her misfortune. When trans teenager Brianna Ghey was stabbed, the Press were very quick to state that her murder was not thought to be a hate crime, whilst at the same time obsessing over – and questioning - her gender. When Nicola Bulley disappeared, police felt obliged to divulge details of her struggle with the menopause, as well as her alcohol issues, even though this was privileged information and of no public relevance. When Emma Pattison, the Head of Epsom College, was murdered alongside her daughter, the Press immediately assumed that her husband George must have felt “overshadowed” and “driven to distraction” by his wife’s prestigious job. In all three cases, the victim falls under the hostile scrutiny of the Press, while the perpetrator is given an excuse. In all three cases, the victim – one trans, one hormonal, one better-paid than her husband - is effectively portrayed as “unnatural”. Subtext: Unnatural women do not deserve the protection of the patriarchy. Unnatural women come to bad ends.    

Once you start to acknowledge it, rage grows at a surprising rate. Over the past three years, I have found myself growing increasingly angry. Angry at the injustices committed by our Government; t the greed of corporations; angry at the prejudice extended to those who are different.

Connecting with others on social media has made me more aware of the lives and experiences of those from different backgrounds to mine, and with different levels of privilege. For a long time I’d been resistant to calling myself a feminist. Feminists are angry, I thought. What right have you to be angry?

Growing older, I realize that this was my mother speaking. A woman of a certain generation, who although she was aware of the challenges of living in a patriarchy, still had a level of privilege that many women do not share. White, professional, cishet women can sometimes have the luxury of choosing not to be angry. White, professional, cishet women can sometimes have the illusion of equality. But feminism isn’t only for just one kind of woman. A feminist must look beyond the limits of their own experience. And that’s where the anger really starts: anger at injustice; anger at corruption and lies. Most of all, anger at the prejudice against certain people for just being themselves; for being transgender, or Black, or old, or simply not conforming to what a white, patriarchal society expects and values. And once you start seeing injustice, you start to see it everywhere. It’s like an eye, which, once opened, cannot unsee inequality.

My anger flourished in lockdown. A time of growing divisions. Masks are invaluable in a pandemic, and yet they inhibit connection. They serve as a kind of reminder of who can speak, and who is to be silenced. While Boris Johnson was urging the public to trust the police, a vigil for Sarah Everard was broken up, with violence, by officers citing lockdown laws. While elderly people were dying alone; while I drove for four hours just to go for a half-hour walk in the park with my son; while I sat alone in my chemo chair, politicians were partying. Billionaires were enriching themselves. Behind the mask, the eye opened wide. I caught myself making faces behind my disguise at strangers. There was something weirdly liberating about this; as if, behind the piece of cloth, I could express myself at last. Not unlike writing a book, in fact. On screen, the eye opened wider. Bernie Moon, my heroine, was unlike like me in many ways, and yet anger connected us. The anger that comes from helplessness; from seeing others mistreated. Anger at a society that propagates inequality. And the anger that comes from hormones – those mood-altering chemicals that everyone produces, and yet which allegedly make women erratic; unreliable; hormonal.

In his novel, Carrie, Stephen King tells the story of a girl, whose telekinetic powers are unleashed by her teenage hormones. Carrie is unpopular, bullied, isolated. Her rage finds an outlet in her power. Driven to breaking-point by the bullies, she becomes a monster. Of course she does: after all, the author of this tale is a man, writing from the perspective of a couple of thousand years’ worth of patriarchal inheritance. In literature, a woman’s anger is unnatural; monstrous. It leads to terrible, unnatural things: makes murderers and infanticides of Clytemnestra and Medea; monsters of Medusa and Scylla. Unnatural, monstrous women are always punished in literature, even while acknowledging that they are often the victims of men. And unnatural women are often seen as physically repulsive – a reminder that, to be valued and loved, women must be young, and pure, and conform to the standards of beauty set out by their society. In literature, just as in life, those women who do not conform tend to be less valued, less seen, and when they do appear, do so as wicked witches, evil stepmothers, ugly crones and hideous travesties of womanhood.

But what would happen if a woman took control of the narrative? In recent years, we have observed a number of retellings of Greek myths from the point of view of the monster. Stone Blind, by Nathalie Haynes; Medusa, by Jessie Burton; Circe, by Madeline Miller. In both cases, the monstrous woman is seen from a different perspective; her rage absorbed and justified; her narrative reclaimed from a patriarchy that seeks to tame and subdue a woman’s rage, even at the cost of her life.

My new novel, Broken Light, comes from the same process of reclamation. It owes a debt to Carrie, but I have avoided the explicitly paranormal theme of the original, as well as the girl-on-girl bullying and the psychopathic mother. In my version, Carrie lives; marries her childhood sweetheart; internalizes all her rage and suffocates her power. Until the menopause – a topic which until recently has been largely misunderstood and taboo – at which point her power returns, and with it, a new kind of freedom. Freedom from the male gaze; from the responsibilities of motherhood; from the largely impossible expectations of society. Unlike puberty, menopause is triggered by a lack of certain hormones; and yet the symptoms can be just as dramatic and isolating. Loss of libido, exhaustion, depression, emotional outbursts as well as unpredictable and alarming hot flashes – my version of Carrie’s pyrokinesis. Whether my heroine’s powers stem from any kind of paranormal source is very much up to the reader to decide – after all, paranormal is only a step away from unnatural. And what counts as unnatural is in the eye of the reader – an eye that has been opened, I hope, to a series of new possibilities.

One is that rage is natural. Living in a patriarchy, women have a right to their rage. In fact, it seems more unnatural to me when women are not angry, given how much misogyny remains in our society. And growing old is natural. Being hormonal is natural. Differences are natural; so are disabilities. All women matter; whatever their age, or colour, or sexual orientation, or marital or reproductive status. The value of a woman’s life should not be defined by her popularity, or her age, or her looks, or her kids, or her value to the patriarchy. And no-one else gets to decide what a woman ought to be. A woman is not what, but who - a person, not an object; an active participant in her world. Women have lived too long behind the mask. They deserve their own stories. Stories in which they are allowed the full range of human possibility. So, to answer my mother’s question: Why are the women so angry?

Because it’s a superpower.

[twisted-king]

Hello! Since you also write genshin, I've thought about reader or F!S/O being from Teyvat. But that isnt really the main point. How 'bout their F!S/O is from Sumeru and is strictly bestfriends with Cyno and Alhaitham. How would Trey, Azul, Jade, Floyd, and Jamil feel about their F!S/O having boy bestfriends back at her world? Maybe if they're jealous, reader tries to comfort them by saying that Alhaitham is engaged(to Kaveh)XD Lol

You dont have to do this if its to much♡

Oddly specific but I like the cut of your jib!

Also can be read as genter neutral, I don't reall mention gender on this one?

Trey, Azul, Jade, Floyd, and Jamil X F!SO from Teyvat

who is also besties with Cyno and Alhaitham

Trey Clover

Well youre from a whole different world! Magic seems to exist in some capacity at least.

He doesn't know what a Zatyun peach or a Sunsettia is.

But he tries v hard to make you things that remind you of home sometimes!

He actually does a pretty good job at it too!

And thats where the issue arives.

Whenever he asks about your homeland he knows he is going to hear about your best friends

He's trying SO hard to be normal about this

Trey loves you so much but, he gets a little jealous!

You've done so much with these two!!!

"And Cyno's jokes are the absolute WORST! I swear some of the things he says are worse than Ace's!" "Oh that's... nice!"

but they're your best friends! He really shouldn't be jealous.

"I still don't understand why Alhaitham is so jacked, like all he does is read books all day!"

He really shouldn't be jealous

"And I'm kind of glad its never too hot around here! Like I know he works primarily in the desert but like put a shirt on sometimes! You know?"

But damm its hard.

He tries to be subtle (not really)

"So have you ever like... done anything with one of these guys?" "What do you mean?" "Like have you dated one of them..?"

oh.... OH!

You laugh at that, he's embrassed "Oh gosh NEVER! They both have boyfriends anyhow! Alhaitham is engaged!" "Oh."

You nod and give him a little kith

Wow he's relieved!

Azul Ashengrotto

He loves learning about you and your home world! Truly!!!

Azul thinks your mind is briliant, you're so smart and quick on your feet due to years of travel!

With travel comes a lot of experiences

a lot.

without him.

He's playing it cool though! suuuper cool

"Oh I remember Alhaitham would never answer anything that wasnt formatted or completed properly! maybe you could do the same? it would certainly free up some time, no?" "Of course it woudl free up some time, dear... But" "buut?" "Well it wouldn't be fitting of my benevolent nature now would it, my love?"

Azul keeps trying to prove he's a better boyfriend than your old friends

He needs you to know he's the best option for you <3

"And could this 'Cyno' make you a delightful seafood pasta like this?" "No, not really, he was more into rice." "I see..."

Oh hey he made you curry and rice

You know, by the way. He is NOT sneaky

After another bout of showing off, you finally say something.

"They have boyfriends, you know?" "huh?" "Cyno and Alhaitham? they have partners. You don't have to be jealous." "Why would I be jealous, dearest?"

DENIER

Denies his jealous to this day but he gets happier after you reassure him.

Jade Leech

Yeah he's super cool about this!

for the most part...

He's extremely interested in learning about the flora in your world!

and he thinks those vishap creatures you compare him to sound rather interesting.

Jade being rather curious in nature comes in handy! since he doesnt seem to get jealous.

His questions are... odd, though. they kind of make sense?

"Cyno once took out like-- 10 guys in like a MINUTE! it was so cool! "Is he that fast in the depths of the sea?" "No-" "I see..."

Sometimes he's a little less slick though

"OH my gosh Alhaitham is so weird about soup! He hates the stuff because it could get on his books of all things!" "Does he consume beverages as he reads? tea perhaps?" "Yeah, sometimes." *Pleased eel noises*

He's just being careful :)

Jade often prefers to dicuss your best friends while in the kitchen. he likes spending this time with you!

And he has his knives and mushrooms at his disposal.

*chop chop chop* "And so Haitham and I used to skip out on akademiya meetings together-" *chopchopchop-* "But Cyno would ALWAYS 'catch' us just before the meeting would actually ends-" *ChopChopChopChop-* "So then he'd bring us to Kaveh, Alhaitham's fiance to-" "He has a fiance?" "yeah,why?" "no reason." *chop~ chop~ chop~*

He's still keeping the information from his... questioning in mind.

Can't be too careful, after all.

Floyd Leech

He loves his shrimpy's stories!!!

He hates his shrimpy's stories :((

Floyd is reaaal conflicted. He thinks you're so interesting! your world seems like fun!! he wants to go there with you.

But not with those men you keep talking about

"So sometimes there are these HUGE mushrooms that kind of act like a launchpad! they're super springy." "Eh? Jade might like soemthing like that... OOOH! do ya think if I throw someone (Ace) on one of those they'd still bounce?" "Yeah they would! one time while going after a criminal, Cyno had to-" "Eeeeh I'm bored. You coming to my next game?"

Subtlety? not THIS eel

He audibly groans when you bring them up sometimes.

But he still loves hearing you talk! so it really confusing sometimesz

"So genius invocation uses 8 elements, 7 from the nations, one is omni. Usually the cards are based off of vision users like Diluc of mondstadt, Arataki Itto, from Inazuma... OH! there is one of my best friend, Alhaitham, he's dendro and Cyno's is electro, its actually" Oh he's no longer looking at you.

You get an idea... "There is one of Haitham's fiance, Kaveh" "Oh really?"

GOT HIS ASS

You're his girlfriend, you know him best.

He's a little less weird about listening to your stories now, he's way more enaged.

He still tugs you closer to him when you mention other men, but thats kind of normal for him now.

Jamil Viper

A confident king? He's not really jealous. He knows he can be better than them.

Plus they're just friends to you.

But in all honestly he like... doesn't care too much about Teyvat.

You're here now, with him. not them.

Don't get him wrong, Jamil likes hearing about what your world!

There's only oneee little thing he doesnt love hearing.

"Sometimes I miss the food from Teyvat... Cyno always made the best Tahchin." "The best you say?" "Yeah! he shaped it like a pyramid every time he made it!" "Have you ever tried mine?" "You make tahchin!?"

He's smug, you'll love his cooking more than that Cyno's.

He serves you a plate of tahchin, golden brown, perfectly seasoned, barberries topping the rounded rice dish "So, what do you think?" "This is so good! I kind of miss the padisarah petals though.."

The hell is THAT?

"Is it... not up to your expectations, my flower?" "No its delicious! I think I just miss the way my friend would make it.."

He's a little grumpy about it!!

Jamil gets kind of huffy with you next time you're together.

He's not ignoring you but just don't bring up food for a while.

Snake man will just respond with "Why don't you ask Cyno." when it comes to cooking for the next day or two...

#twisted wonderland #twistedwonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland x yuu #jamil viper x reader #azul ashengrotto x reader #jade leech x reader #floyd leech #trey clover x reader