#i'm cis and I rarely discuss gender issues so i don't think i'm the best placed to talk about it in depth

[genderkoolaid]

Cw: "Aaron" Bushnell https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/bushnell-gaza-immolation-protest-trans-identity

I thought I should let you know if you didn't already. Rip Lilly

While there is evidence pointing to Lilly/Aaron being trans, I still think we should be careful in how we talk about it. I don't really have a problem agreeing that the username and the reddit history does feel like someone who, at least, is exploring their gender identity. A person who says they knew him/her in life is very insistent that s/he could not have been a trans woman based on private information. However, others who have said they spoke with him/her online frequently insist s/he went by Lilly and used she/her and he/him. Although I don't think there's any reason necessarily for those folks to be lying, I do wish there were actual screenshots of the pronoun use in discord servers? Given that rn the conversation is just People Online Making Claims.

I'm still unsure of how I feel we should talk about this tbh. Lilly/Aaron was very deliberate in how s/he presented his/her gender to the public. As the person interviewed says, I don't think Bushnell would be upset by being seen as trans if s/he was a cis man. But even if s/he was trans, I am hesitant to make assumptions about what is best for a trans person's legacy. The issue of trans recognition in death is very sensitive for most of us, so I understand why people are so invested in this. But it should be kept in mind that the discussion around Bushnell's gender should not overshadow support for Palestinians. That was his/her goal and its clear that s/he cared more about that than making a statement about his/her own gender. It is fully possible for a trans person to make the decision to let themselves be assumed cis, and be comfortable in that decision, and its not up to other trans people to decide whether they made the wrong decision with their own legacy.

Its possible s/he made that decision solely because s/he wanted to prevent his/her message from being derailed by transmisogyny. But again, that shows to me that s/he wanted more than anything for his/her death to be focused entirely on raising support for Palestine. I don't want to be patronizing about Lilly/Aarons's decisions and I definitely don't want any Discourse on this to do exactly what s/he was trying to avoid. Additionally, Bushnell is reported as having used he/she pronouns. The person who claims s/he used both uses both Aaron and Lilly. Its very easy for genderqueer and nonbinary people to have their identities reduced to binaries in death, even by other trans people. If s/he was trans, why are we making assumptions about if s/he was fine with being called a woman, or that s/he wasn't okay with being called a man? There is too much grey space and too much exorsexism that goes unchallenged in our community for me to not feel the need to point this out.

Anyways. I guess my Take on this is that both trans and suicidal people tend to have our choices undermined, and have people on all sides debate over what we Really mean and what we Really want. We are rarely seen as being the experts on ourselves, or having our autonomy respected even when it makes others confused or uncomfortable. I don't think anyone online discussing this can have a full picture of The Truth. Like I said, I don't think there's any reason to assume people claiming they knew Lilly and that s/he used she/her and he/him pronouns are lying right now. But more than anything I'm concerned that the debate over this could end up doing exactly what Lilly/Aaron was trying to avoid. And I don't think its my place to insist any trans person has to be out. I want to respect what s/he wanted for his/her legacy. I don't want him/her to be a trans hero if that results in detracting from his/her goals.

I think this is part of larger moral issue trans activists have to deal with when it comes to trans history: when is it okay for us to correct the language someone used for themselves? When is it illuminating and respectful, and when is it whitewashing someone's own self-perspective to fit our goals? Bushnell was extremely purposeful in everything s/he did as a part of his/her suicide, and that includes how s/he presented his/her gender. I don't want to disrespect those decisions.

#m. #ask box #suicide tw #aaron bushnell #lilly bushnell

[boimmeup]

On Star Trek, Identity, and Equality

I was a part of a conversation today that really unsettled me. I'm not going to reveal where it was or who it was with, because I don't think any of this was said maliciously and I don't want anyone harassed or thought less of, but I want to talk about it.

I was attempting to share my headcanons for Boimler being trans and the process of his transition. Things like top surgery being really non-invasive and name-changing being a simple process. Hormone therapy from practically the day he realized. That sort of thing.

I was then told that the advanced society Lower Decks exists in, that of the Star Trek universe, would make it even easier than that. As in, a nigh-instantaneous process to make a trans person pretty much identical to a cis person. Several people chimed in to agree with this sentiment.

Now, this didn't sit right with me. I tried to talk about how visible transness was important to me, how it's important to a lot of trans people, not all of whom would be cis if the opportunity arose. I was told that because Star Trek was an advanced socialist society, things like gender no longer mattered, which means transness was no longer important either. Anyone can be anything, and they're all the same, essentially.

The group went on to state that because racism was no longer a real issue, Mariner probably doesn't even identify as black. I'm not black, personally, but that statement bothered the hell out of me as well. I dropped out of the conversation about then. I know someone came in to object, but there were also people who basically painted the conversation as meaningless, who barely even read what was being said.

I hope that most people who have read this far are as repulsed as I was. Even so, it's becoming more an more apparent that younger Trek fans do not understand the importance of things like culture and identity. I want to explain those concepts as best I can, as well as discuss why the idea of a perfect utopian society where everyone is the same is A) not canonical and B) extremely harmful as a concept.

Identity does not hinge on oppression. Being of a marginalized identity does not mean that identity ceases to exist if the marginalization is purged. There is history, culture, community, joy to be found in these identities. There is a sense of pride! Mariner would be proud to be black, like her VA, Tawny Newsome. There may no longer be a movement of racists within human culture, but her skin is still dark, her hair still textured. The only thing a lack of racism changes is that no one is pressuring her to be ashamed of those features. She is free to be her authentic black (and bisexual!) self.

In a similar vein, being proud of being trans is not an unusual or rare concept. No matter how advanced medicine and surgery become, if someone identifies with their transness, you cannot take that away from them. I will concede that maybe the possibility of a procedure to be made indistinguishable from a cis person could exist, but would everyone choose it? Hell no! There are so many trans people, both binary and non-binary, who could never be happy with being cis. It's not the end goal for a lot of us. Our scars are something to be proud of, our visible transness both a message and a victory.

If you are trans and wish you were cis, you are valid. There's nothing wrong with that point of view... but to paint it as the prevailing one is incorrect. Visible transness--nay, visible queerness--is nothing to be ashamed of or ironed out of society.

Star Trek doesn't eradicate people's differences - it celebrates them. In TOS, Chekov liked to bring up Russia whenever he could. In TNG, Picard is a proud Frenchman. In Lower Decks, Boimler calls out pretending to be from Hawaii as "culturally insensitive" and reveals he's from Modesto, CA. None of these instances would exist if Star Trek had truly created a perfectly homogenized society on Earth; they would all simply be from Earth. And that's the thing--they don't want to create that sort of world. Star Trek is not about making everyone the same; it's about making everyone equal.

Equality does not say a man and a woman are the same. Equality says there is nothing wrong with being either a man or a woman, and each are given equal opportunities in life, neither of them barred from any one thing for their gender alone. Equality says a group of people may be all wildly different things--disabled, queer, POC, neurodivergent, all or some or none of the above--but each and every one of them will be afforded the same treatment by society. Amenities will be made on equal grounds, as well; things like free healthcare, aids for the disabled, therapy for the neurodivergent, and so on.

Think of Geordi and his VISOR, later upgraded to ocular implants. His impairment did not prevent him from joining Starfleet, or from rising in the ranks. He was accommodated and given all the same opportunities as a sighted man.

This is what equality is. Not a bland, palatable sameness, but a celebration of the things that make us unique, and the resources to give us all the same chance at life.

The goal of socialist progression is not to make us all conform.

It is simply to make us all equal.

If the idea of visibly queer, proudly POC, or otherwise unique and culturally significant Starfleet officers bothers you, then friend--you're in the wrong fandom.

#star trek #star trek: lower decks #lwd #idk what else to tag this as honestly bc i know TERFs are stalking the queer tags #just spread it for me pls? it's important #long post

[punhetamaistriste]

I've been working all day

I was looking for a job, and then I found a job. Morrissey was real for that. I'm working for a little less than a month now, and it's not on my field (I'm an environmental science virtuoso) but I manage to make it work. I'm a dedicated, sympathetic proletariat. Working on the office I still don't find the show to be very entertaining, but they're coming from a place of office knowledge. I am the only bisexual man I know on the job, and I'm pretty much straight-passing when I'm out of the college campus. So, for the first time on my life, I'm being treated like a straight cis man. And it's terrible.

I like football. I like metal music and fantasy novels. I'm a skinhead. This on college is just traits to contribute to my reputation as a raging bisexual, but on workplace those are common ground among me and my straight coworkers. Since straight people rarely think about queers unless they're morbid homophobes, they assume I'm straight as well, no questions asked. It is hard to witness as these straight, cis, young to middle-aged men try and befriend me. I don't want to be alone, obviously, and the girls don't like me that much. They're usually friends with my gay coworkers, since they're married, or are dating, and do not want to interact with a man who likes women. I'm having a scoop on the straight world, and it's scarier than I thought. I'm friends with many bi people on college that I never thought of seducing. I have better things to do. Also, it's nice to just talk. Those men I'm befriending, they just talk to other men. The workplace is heavily divided by gender. One of them saw my football pin and asked me about my life as a migrant. My newest nickname is Carioca. As if punhetatriste wasn't enough. We talked about football, about Rio de Janeiro, about the best bars around the office building (but thanks I don't drink), and when the topic was women I got genuinely terrified. So this is how they think about women. This is how they talk about it when they're alone. I saw myself engaging in the conversation, talking shit about women and referring to them as whores, so this is how we talked about women.

When I was young I had a misogyny problem. I hated my mother, I was about 13 and I didn't actively hated women, but I saw them as… dumb. And I was smart. As a kid. I was deeply troubled because of my dad's recent death, and I felt so alone all the time. Didn't have many friends. Had a few crushes entering high school, but they didn't care about me (fair enough, I was ugly and terrible). I created my twitter account and my mutuals became my friends. They hated teens, blue haired queers, and women. I was respected for being an openly bisexual male, so I could hate on women. I read The Second Sex when it became clear to me that I was being misogynistic, but readind the book made me even worse. I got into feminist discussions with radfems to prove I knew more about being a woman than they did. Outside the internet I was becoming a punk, mohawk and anarchy included, and eventually I just grew tired of being an idiot. I got more and more engaged with the capitalist issues, started working on some anarchist programs (like occupying buildings or breaking shit up on protest with black blocs), then working with women was inevitable. Then, most my contacts were queer women or close. Bi women, trans women, lesbians, afab non binary people. In high school I finally made some friends, a couple of girls and I got myself inside a male friend group from my class. They adopted me, and I finally had people to talk to in class, late on my sophomore year. Then I entered college, where I only talk to queer people. I've been out of the loop on the straights for a couple of years now; despite knowing some straight people. The ones I know are communist or anarchist, they're very progressive and most have a college degree. They are (and I mean this in the most classist way possible) not like other straight people. Even they, they are not as close to me as the queer people I know. We have a shared experience being queer, young, usually POC and educated. This brings people closer. Now I work in a place where a major isn't required, so I'm dealing with non-college people for the first time in a while as well. I know this is something really shitty to admit, but I can't talk to people who aren't in college. I spent my whole day on campus for 3 years now, I live in a major city that has the best university on my country, I get invited to places only grad students go, and sometimes it even feels like I'm stuck in university. Now this scene is changing. Me being a proletariat is changing that. Also, you can be a grad student and misogynistic. There are many. What I'm saying is: I can't talk like a normal person anymore. I use complicated words. I assume everyone knows at least Calculus I. I talk about underground artists as if they're mainstream. I live in a bubble where feminism is still necessary but the misogynistic boogeyman doesn't exist anymore. Working bursted that bubble.

I feel sorry to admit I don't pretend to change the minds of these men. It would require time and real effort, also I'd have to do it very smoothly or I'd be alone in the workplace. For the first time in my life I'm being treated as a regular man, no expectations and mission, and the office is a place where I can relax and unwind from the college life. It is easier, the people are less competitive than in STEM, and they're trying their best to become friends. I'm very sorry to admit I'm going to roll with it and change nothing. Growing up as a deeply lonely child, I just want to be invited to the cookout. You'd say "it's easier for men to ignore misogyny!", or "You're enjoying practicing misogyny now that you're finally seen as a straight man, you are enjoying your newfound place of privilege" and you know what? Maybe. I'm trying to ignore it; it is hard to swallow, and those interactions will probably make me become more paranoid and obssessed with feminist literature, but I won't preach to my coworkers. I'm a fucking coward and I won't pretend this isn't true. It's almost like having a double life, working and studying. And other guys on STEM usually don't get that. They're misogynistic by themselves. How lonely.

#my writing #bipolar diaries #office space #jobposting #college life #misoginy

[icharchivist]

why is alluka gender an issue like half the fandom said she actually an boy but wants to be refer as an girl but half said she always been an girl but her family disown her for being an monster

Oh boy oh boy.

(just a note, i use a general “you” in that answer, I don’t talk to you directly nonny, it’s just easier for me to word what I want to say)

Alluka is a girl. There is no debate to have about it. she’s a girl, she identifies as a girl, and the only people refering her as a boy are the same people who refers to her as a monster and abuse her, so they shouldn’t be taken into consideration when it comes to the well being of their daughter/sister.

The narrative is rather clear that she’s a transgirl. A lot of people can talk about it better than I do, but it’s rather clear she was dmab (especially since in the flashbacks she is refered by male pronoums). The treatment by her family, mostly toward Nanika but honestly toward everything Alluka is in general, is really symbolic of a lot of trans people living in a family that would reject them.

So when she says she’s a girl, it means she’s a girl.

Killua is the only member of her family who loves her and respects her, and with the narrative being clear that the family doesn’t know about Alluka at all while Killua knows everything, and Killua had been one of our main characters, a good judgement for the whole show, who’s thoughts had always been as honest as possible, someone we’re supposed to trust. So if Killua says Alluka is a girl? She’s a girl.

If the people who calls her “it” or a monster, who don’t know anything about how her powers work, who isolate her, who are scared of her, who tries to force a narrative on her that isn’t hers, who are a clear parallel to transphobic families, tells the audience she’s a “he”, how the fuck do you want to trust them?

So no, there’s no debate to have about it. None. Alluka is a girl. She’s a transgirl. The narrative is clear about who you have to believe, the narrative is clear that it’s what to do to respect her. And if that wasn’t enough, all the symbolisms go in that direction as well.

So for people saying “she’s a boy who believes she’s a girl”, there’s two solutions: Either they are extremely uneducated on this topic and had a harmful understanding of this kind of situation, or/and they are transphobic.

The manga didn’t spell out the fact Alluka is a transgirl. Because it makes sense and the reader should put it into consideration by themselves. They never say it ontext “by the way she’s trans”, but it’s rather clear in every other aspects that she is. 

So for someone who’s not educated, say, a really young person, or someone who had never been even made aware of the existence of trans people, and if they never had a proper education on how to react in those circumstances, I suppose they can’t know. 

But that doesn’t mean they can actually call her “he”. It means they need to educate themselves.  (If you are in that situation i would bring you to this essay that was written about Alluka’s gender.). 

And there is the case of people being downright transphobic. And for that I don’t have any answer that isn’t incredibly mean, but just fuck off. The narrative is being clear that people who misgender Alluka are antagonists and abusers. If that’s what you want to identify as and be tone-deaf about what people tell you, it’s a problem. 

One last thing: no matter what gender you think someone is, if they tell you they’re another gender, you listen to them and you use the appropriate pronoums. It’s none of your business to judge someone over what they tell you they are or not, no matter how hard you believe it. It costs $0 to actually adress the person as the way they want to be adressed. 

If you believe “she’s a boy who prefer to be identified as a girl”, that’s transphobic, but also it’s not your place to say what their gender is. It’s what they say that matters. 

And a lot of people discussed it, especially people who can connect to Alluka’s storyline better than I do. Listen to them. Understand their points. Open your mind. 

And if people still refer to her as a “he” while knowing all of that, just fuck off.

EDIT: something I forgot to adress bc i forget I have to adress it, is that sort of “but maybe Alluka was dfab but her parents wanted her to be a boy/deshumanized her so they called her a he” - I’m p sure it was confirmed she was dmab (kinda in a tactless way by Togashi, but still did), and more is explored is the essay i linked.

So please don’t.

Take care nonny! 

#i hope i didn't say anything out of line #i'm cis and I rarely discuss gender issues so i don't think i'm the best placed to talk about it in depth #which is why i beg you to talk with people who know what they are talking about #but seriously even if you know nothing about gender or don't want to think about it #if someone tell you they're one gender - believe them #it's not your place to put it in question #but as it comes to education i guess i must say #i was once completely uneducated about this subject as well #when I was really young and got into b/lack b/utler #everyone used to call Grell a 'guy who just loves to pretend he's a woman' #and I knew absolutly nothing about gender so I believed that for a long time #until i got into lgbt's spaces and educated myself #so just please - don't listen to people hwo say 'they like to pretend they're another gender' #because this is often people who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about #or they do and they're being harmful #anyway!!! take care! #ichafantalks hxh #Anonymous #ichareply

[gendercynicalgrantaire]

A little bit ago I saw you make a comment about how radfems fail to realize there are trans normies. I've been thinking about it and I wanted to ask, other than yourself, do you know very many trans people irl who are normies who don't have any explicitly homophobic or misogynist ideas about gender and sexuality? I know they exist. But I've been disappointed by more than 1 transman who I thought cared about me and respected me as a lesbian when we really got into discussions about sexual orientation. Like I try not to become jaded but its really hard when I have trans friends I trusted for a long time and then they tell me same sex attraction is harmful or that gender roles are innate (ie: "I know I'm not a woman bc I don't vibe with xyz stereotype that I believe is true for every other woman I meet unless she identifies otherwise". I don't think every trans person is a actively toxic or anything but I feel like homophobia and misogyny is so rampant and explicit from the trans community in current year it's really hard not to be jaded as a defense mechanism.

Hi! So I found the post you were talking about. The intention I was trying to communicate wasn’t so much that normie trans people are unproblematic in their views of gender, but more so that there are trans people out in the world just trying to live their lives who aren’t narcissistic manipulators like a lot of internet TRAs might come off as.

When I call trans people “trans normies,” I’m defining that as trans people who are mostly not online and mostly not involved in trans discourse. And trans normies, like other kinds of normie, sadly tend to have some unexamined assumptions about how things work based on the dominant culture they were raised in.

Most of the trans people I know irl fall into one of two categories: the ones I meet at PFLAG meetings or trans-centric spaces, and the very rare ones encountered out in the wild. I’m going to hazard a guess that most trans normies are the latter-- they tend not to run in circles with many other trans people, and they also tend to be more interested in passing to blend in, both of which make them more difficult to find. They, like me, tend not to really run in the “trans community.” And admittedly, it’s even rarer that I meet a visibly trans person in the wild that I grow close enough to that I learn all about their gender philosophy, because I too have internalized assumptions about other trans people’s feelings that make me jaded against them (I’m trying not to fall into the idea that I’m “not like other troons” lol), and I’m trying to work through it to find and see if there are ones who have gender philosophies I can vibe with.

Most trans people whose gender philosophies I have heard, then, are the ones I meet in PFLAG and trans-centric groups. So probably a little less normie, but there are still normies mixed in there. And I’m not gonna lie, some of the ideas I hear make me cringe a little or feel like they would quickly fall apart if poked at. I don’t know if there’s a single trans philosophy out there that’s going to satisfy the gender critical community. But what I can say for trans people is that the vast majority of them that I have met irl believe in the following (paraphrased):

- If someone’s sexuality/dating pool excludes me, that’s their business. It can be a little disheartening knowing how small my dating pool is, but trying to convince people who don’t want to date trans people to date trans people is not a solution. I want a partner who loves me for me, not one who pretends to love me for woke points.

- XYZ stereotype does not mean that someone is a man/woman/nonbinary. (Insert just about anything in the XYZ. The trans and nonbinary people I meet in real life are also some of the most pro-gnc-cis-people people I know.)

- I am consciously aware of how I make cis people uncomfortable, and I make a conscious effort to mitigate that discomfort to the best of my ability while still living authentically and keeping myself safe.

- Cis women can have their own spaces. It doesn’t concern me.

- Obviously there are issues that only impact natal females and ones that only impact natal males.

- I understand that I have the biology of a certain sex. I might be uncomfortable with having a body of that kind, maybe even to the point where I don’t like to use the anatomical terms to describe my body in contexts where I can avoid it, but I’m obviously different from a [cis man/cis woman]. If I didn’t understand that, I wouldn’t be calling myself transgender.

I make these points because of their relationship with gc discourse. It’s inconvenient for gendercrits and radfems to acknowledge that there are trans people who feel this way. It’s even more inconvenient to know that the number of trans people who feel this way is not insignificant and thereby easy to dismiss.

In particular, I want to focus on the second point: stereotypes do not a gender make. Because honestly, most of the trans women at the PFLAG meetings aren’t talking about how they played with dolls as kids or how they just love being expected to wear make-up (often in an effort to pass, because unfortunately our gendered society does turn make-up into a tool for reading as female), and the trans men there run the gamut from hyper-masc to fairly feminine. There are a variety of trans philosophies I’ve listened to that stray away from the idea that simple gender stereotypes make a gender.

More often the story is one of alienation -- alienation from one’s body, from one’s appearance, and/or especially from society. And this alienation usually disappears (or at least fades into background noise) once transition has been undertaken. The trans person in question might not always have a satisfactory explanation for why that is -- and again, I don’t think any explanation fits the radfem/gc ideal -- but it is distinct from the rhetoric “wigs and dresses don’t make you a woman,” “lack of those things doesn’t make you a man,” which trans people are generally well aware of. This is what I hear most often from other trans people regardless of sexuality, mental health history, class, or any other dividing lines that gendercrits like to use to explain trans people away as simple, easily dismissible categories (think Blanchardianism).

Hmm...I hope that answers your question? I know I probably went off the rails there. Again, I can’t claim that trans normies can’t be problematic, or even that most of them aren’t problematic. Most normies in general are problematic because they tend to live less examined lives. But I also know there are trans people out there willing to listen to and calmly discuss the other side of things, especially if their viewpoint is just parroting what they’ve generally heard from the mainstream side of trans discourse.

In that regard, you’ll have the most luck with passing trans people and trans people who’ve been settled into their identity for a while. Non-passing and newly-out trans people tend to be defensive and self-conscious in a way that more seasoned and socially integrated trans people just aren’t. That’s another post in and of itself though. If a trans friend of yours says something along the lines of “I know I'm not a woman bc I don't vibe with xyz stereotype that I believe is true for every other woman I meet unless she identifies otherwise” (if they use that wording -- not sure if that second part is what they actually say or just the implication you’re picking up on, but chances are they don’t think every woman vibes with it and just need that pointed out) but they also seem like a chill person and you feel safe doing so, don’t be afraid to calmly and casually bring up a point of disagreement. It might not be something they fiercely cling to or have even really thought through all that much.

#i also know multiple exclusively-female-attracted trans women who just don't label their sexuality because they know they're not lesbians #so maybe this is just to say that trans people's conceptions of themselves and transgenderism run a really wide spectrum #and there are bound to be ones with bad takes but those takes can't be applied to the whole of trans people #okay i'll stop now lol