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#stop only being an ally to the trans people that are convenient for you to be an ally to. i fucking dare you to.
penrosesun · 1 year
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You know, I think it’s pretty darn telling that when I made a post that said, “abortion isn’t solely a men vs. women fight – there are men who have uteruses, and women in power who have actively fought to end reproductive rights”, a whole lot of people came out of the woodwork to claim that I was wrong, because trans men and intersex men couldn’t possibly be targets of abortion restrictions, and that they were only accidentally affected due to being misclassified as women. But, the second part of what I said? The bit where I pointed out that, in addition to the fact that some men are victims, some women are active oppressors? Fucking crickets. No one bothered to address it at all – they responded to the first part of the post like the second part wasn’t there.
There is a large movement of far-right women who want to limit the bodily autonomy of all people, both women and men – via banning abortion and contraception, via banning trans-related healthcare, and in many cases, via explicit eugenics through the support of policies of blatant medical racism. You can’t just brush that under the rug, and you can’t just claim that the many female politicians and judges who are anti-choice are just gender traitors and therefore magically not really women.
In the United States, 59% of women are pro-choice, compared to only 45% of men. That’s certainly illustrative of there being a gender difference, probably due to misogyny. But put another way, there are MORE THAN SIXTY-NINE MILLION WOMEN who want to strip all people with uteruses, be they women or men, of their reproductive rights. That’s an awful lot of women to just conveniently forget about. That’s an awful fucking lot of women you need to strip of their agency in order to pretend that all women are your inherent allies in the abortion fight.
If you’re not willing to stop calling this a purely men vs. women fight for the sake of trans and intersex men existing? You know what – fine, pretend we don’t exist, I don’t even care anymore. But pretending that literal millions of cis women don’t exist is absurd, even for complete transphobes. The far right will never be your allies in the fight for bodily autonomy – yes, even if they have a uterus, yes even if they are affected by an abortion ban as well. Granting them the status of automatic victims, even when they are actively working to destroy the rights of others, purely on the basis of what they have between their legs isn’t feminism. It isn’t female allyship. They’re not helpless – they’re actively working against you. And you can say that that’s sad, or that they’re mislead, or that they’re ‘not voting in their best interest’, or whatever else you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re women, and that they’re nonetheless on the wrong side of this.
Or, put another way:
Stop treating abortion as a men vs. women fight. It’s a fight between a far right agenda and people who value bodily autonomy of any kind.
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Let's talk about this. Major content warning for discussions of transmisogyny, transandrophobia, sexual violence, violence against trans people, and (a brief mention of) sexual harassment towards minors.
The person who wrote this is asking people to stop comparing TERFs, a group of bioessentialist radical feminists who claim to protect "women's spaces" from "men" (which is a dogwhistle for trans women in this case), to TEHMs, a group of bioessentialist gay men who claim to protect "gay male spaces" from "the straights" or "fujoshi fetishizers" or "females" (all dogwhistles for trans men). While they may seem similar at first, there is actually a lot more to discuss here than there might appear to be when you first look at the issue.
TERFs and TEHMs are treated by many of us progressives as two sides of the same coin, and whether this is a fair assessment or not depends on a few things. A point that the person who wrote the text in the screenshot (who I will henceforth refer to as OP) does not fully spell out but a point that they seem to be implying is that TEHMs are inherently less harmful than TERFs because while TEHMs only aim to gatekeep male homosexuality, TERFs aim to gatekeep womanhood as a whole.
It is entirely true that one of the main goals of the trans-exterminatory radical feminist ideology is to gatekeep womanhood such that no one (trans women) can never get in and no one (trans men and other AFAB people who are not women) can get out. TERFs will paint trans women as predators trying to creep on cis women and will infantilize and demonize trans men. However, it is important to think deeper about this. You will often find TERFs allying themselves with misogynistic men, racists, and even literal nazis, simply because they agree that trans people are bad. The point of trans-exterminatory radical feminism is not mainly feminism. It is transphobia.
Now, let's look at TEHMs, trans- exclusionary (exterminatory) homosexual males. Even though TEHMs are often also transmisogynistic, the core of TEHM ideology is transandrophobia. I also do not think it is fair to say that TEHMs' bigotry is specifically towards Achillean trans men either; TEHMs will attack non-MLM transmascs too, knowingly. TEHMs claim to believe that transmascs are straight women who are trying to creep on cis gay men and force them to have sex with us. They hold very misogynistic attitudes to cisgender women too, but they will find themselves allying with TERFs when it is convenient to them.
Even if a transmasc is not MLM, TEHMs will still target them. That is because the main goal of TEHM ideology is not to gatekeep homosexuality as they claim, but it is to exterminate trans people. The point of trans-exterminatory gay "activism" is not to fight for queer rights. It is transphobia. TEHMs have said and done many bigoted and violent things, some of which I will list here. However, my knowledge and what I have seen is limited, so I do recommend that you talk to some other trans men and transmascs about this topic.
Things TEHMs have done include, but are not limited to:
Sexually harass trans men, many of them being minors. Trans minors on this very site have received messages from TEHMs giving them disturbing descriptions of all the sexual acts that they (the TEHM) apparently would not do with them (the transmasc).
Threaten trans men with violence in real life, and in some cases actually committing said violence. There are many TEHMs that have said that if a trans man tried to hook up with them, that they (the TEHM) would have no problem murdering them (the transmasc).
Advocate for bans on gender affirming healthcare, specifically testosterone for people assigned female at birth. TEHMs actually influence policy because cishet lawmakers can use them to say "see, an actual gay man agrees with us!"
Give a platform to TERFs who are supporting the current trans genocide happening in the United States, often supporting said TERFs and speaking over marginalized women (including and emphasizing trans women).
So why did I list all of these things out? I want to address the second point OP makes, which suggests that TEHMs are passive. As you can see from all of these things that TEHMs regularly do, they are not passive. TEHMs are violently transphobic and misogynistic men who are actively out to exterminate trans people, especially transmascs. So why then does OP imply that TEHMs are passive? OP is trying to say that TERFs are worse than TEHMs, and hence telling us not to compare them.
To say that TEHMs are actually not that bad is erasure, plain and simple. You do not have to deny the very real harm that TEHMs cause in order to advocate for awareness surrounding transmisogyny that is spread by TERFs. TEHMs and TERFs alike want you to believe that they are just gatekeeping their communities, but this is simply not true. Both TERFs and TEHMs use protecting their community as a justification for their transphobic beliefs and their "activism" that calls for trans genocide.
So, do I think that you can compare TERFs and TEHMs? I believe that it is useful to point out similarities between different types of bigotry while still acknowledging that they are different. Here's the thing, though: TERFs and TEHMs are not different types of bigotry. Their bigotry is transphobia. While there are a lot more incorrect beliefs that TEHMs hold that would make them wrong even if they were trans accepting, all of those beliefs stem from transphobia. The same is true with radical feminism: even "trans inclusive" radical feminism is rooted in transphobia.
TEHMs and TERFs are not exact mirrors of each other, but they are two very similar belief systems rooted in the same type of bigotry whose subscribers find themselves agreeing with each other very often. Both TERFs and TEHMs aim to marginalize and exterminate trans people through different means. I will give OP here the benefit of the doubt and say that they are not purposefully erasing transmasculine experiences, but are instead unaware that such experiences exist or to what extent they are prevalent. However, I still think it is important that everyone is educated about TEHM rhetoric and how to avoid spreading it.
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multigenderswag · 10 months
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people are only trans/nonbinary allies when it suits THEIR identity and it sickens me.
it’s so widespread I can’t even do anything about it except seethe in silence because I don’t want to get hunted down and embarrassed again.
if people could look outside of what accepting trans/nb people would mean for THEIR sexuality for one fucking second i guarantee you there would be less discourse in this dumpster fire of community
yes, this is about man lesbians/woman gays.
I saw someone call a demiboy lesbian “straight” and then have the audacity to say “nonbinary lesbians are valid!1!”. PICK A FUCKING SIDE.
hi yes last anon i forgot my last point so-called “trans allies” also like to ignore the idea of male and female not being mutually exclusive. I pray they get their asses handed to them one day by some fellow multigender folk because at this point direct confrontation is the only that that’ll get them to see the cold light of day and stop being part of the problem. they don’t like to accept us because they can’t handle the thought of being attracted to the opposite gender, even if it’s in the most slim way- so much so that they can’t see that *we’re not forcing them to DATE us, we’re asking them to ACCEPT and INCLUDE us.* if there’s someone in a community they don’t want to date it’s fine until that person happens to be genderqueer/trans/enby. and that’s very telling about how accepting they really are.
Trans liberation, and honestly any kind of activism for any marginalized group, would not be possible if people only ever stood up for their own identity. We need to support each other in order to have any strength.
Some people really will only expand their view of sexuality and gender until they find something that fits, and then stop there, and don't bother learning about or advocating for anyone else. And that's not how activism works! If aroallo people like me never made any effort to understand and accept and stand up for asexual folks, the aspec community as a whole wouldn't get very far. And like you said, if trans/nonbinary people only cared about their own gender identity, and never made an effort to learn about and stand up for the variety of trans/nonbinary identities that exist in the community, the trans community wouldn't get very far!
It's disgusting to insist that someone's sexuality is something they say it isn't. Did that demiboy identify as straight? If the answer to that is no, don't call them straight. It's very simple, really.
Did they not hear the contradiction? Do they listen to themselves speak? At this point, I'm convinced some of the "lesbian means NON MEN loving NON MEN" crowd includes nonbinary lesbians because they see nonbinary people as women. Nonbinary can mean woman with short hair or woman who uses they/them pronouns or maybe even woman who got top surgery, but god forbid nonbinary lesbians call themselves men or go on T or get bottom surgery or be someone who was assigned male at birth and doesn't want to medically transition. Basically, they only support nonbinary people if they can conveniently view them as "basically a woman."
There's no way to be a trans ally if you view "male" and "female" as mutually exclusive or as polar opposites. That shit is Gender Binary 101, and deconstructing it should be one of the first steps of being a trans ally. It shouldn't be something that other trans and nonbinary people believe so commonly. Not only does this mindset exclude multigender people who are both men and women, but it hurts binary trans people who are connected to or feel like they used to be their assigned gender.
"We can't accept men who identify as lesbians, because then they will invade lesbian spaces and force lesbians to date them." Does this sound like TERF talking about lesbian trans women, or a so-called trans ally talking about multigender lesbians? Trick question, it sounds like both, because they're practically indistinguishable from each other. So many trans allies, even trans/nonbinary people themselves, will make the exact same arguments as TERFs and not see a single thing wrong with it, and it's awful.
You're not helping the trans community if you only accept identities that are convenient for you.
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trans-axolotl · 1 year
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is it okay for perisex people to question if they may be intersex and do research even if they think they’re perisex and don’t think they have signs of it? is it good to do similar to the way questioning your gender (for cis people) is good too? or is it inappropriate to look into
Hey anon,
I think it's important to recognize the distinctions between intersex identity and experiences and other LGBTQ experiences. we are part of the LGBTQIA community but like, I don't think that it's always the most helpful to try to directly compare what our journey can look like with other dyadic LGBTQ journies because they aren't entirely going to look the same.
Sometimes I'm not even sure if questioning intersex is the right word to describe the process of intersex discovery-I think when you are questioning if you're intersex or not, it can be a lot more helpful to draw insight to disability community experiences around self-diagnosis rather than trying to compare it to like, questioning being trans. Because with being intersex there is this whole other physical aspect and possibly medical intervention and tests and I don't think people need to pursue medical intervention, but that can be a different experience than questioning being gay or trans where you usually aren't going to be engaging as much with the medical world or your physical body in that way.
So yeah, it's okay for perisex people to do whatever research you want- I'm not stopping you. If you don't have any intersex signs it's up to you if you want to spend your time doing in depth medical research and i don't know how beneficial some of the in depth info will be to you. I think if you don't think you have any signs of intersex variations, I'm not sure if considering this an intersex discovery process is helpful, and it might be more helpful to frame it as more just doing research, finding information, increasing your knowledge on intersex topics. Obviously if you're doing research and do find information that you think might pertain to you then that of course makes sense you would want to explore that. I also just don't know if I personally think that cis ppl need to question their gender or that it's inherently a good thing--I don't think it's a bad thing, I just think I personally more think of it as a morally neutral experience that people will have all different feelings about.
also i don't want you to take this as an attack on u, bc it's okay not to like, know all the nuances of intersex community topics. but i do want to say that something we get pretty frustrated with a lot in intersex community is the way perisex people often only engage with intersex topics if it's convenient to them, or on their terms. and when you frame learning more about intersex people as something you would only do because there's a chance you might be intersex even though you think you're perisex, that brings up some complicated feelings in me. i'm very used to perisex people only engaging with intersex topics when it benefits them, so it is a little uncomfortable for me to see learning more about intersex people framed as something you could only do if you were questioning being intersex. i don't think you intended it to come off that way and im not mad, but i do think it's worth considering the fact that this information is still valuable and a helpful way to be an ally regardless of whether or not you turn out to be intersex, and that i think perisex people need to reflect more on how they center themselves in intersex conversations.
anyway, long story short, it's always fine to do research on intersex variations, but i think it's important to realize that intersex questioning doesn't always look the same as other LGBTQ questioning processes. and also important to be aware of the trend of perisex people centering themselves in intersex conversations and consider ways to uplift the inherent value of intersex community + knowledge even when it's not beneficial or convenient for perisex people.
this answer's kind of a mess cause im tired but other intersex people feel free to add on or disagree, we have lots of different opinions and this is just my perspective.
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talisidekick · 5 months
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Bruh you just admitted that your idea of womanhood is based on sexist stereotypes. Or at least that these are "the first things a trans woman will gravitate towards" (as if that makes it less sexist). The only thing the other person did was point that out, and call it laughable, which it is.
And yeah of course this comes from the general sexism of the world around you and your upbringing, but you're a whole adult person, and your "makeup for girls, fishing for boys" thing is still embarassing.
(And immediately going with "fuck you, you piece of shit" as a reply doesn't make it better lol. Why don't you try being stereotypically feminine in ways that are good for everybody, like being less aggressive, rather than ways that support the beauty industry, which actively hurts women, workers, and the environment?)
Point to where I said "womanhood is defined as". You can't because I never defined it nor did I assign limitations to it, and neither did I define manhood. Point to where I said women can't go fishing, or men can't go wear makeup, or enbies can't do either. You can't because I never did.
So how about you go fuck yourself you piece of shit and stop putting words in my mouth. I don't care to make my words palletable to fascists promoting genocidal hate towards a minority. Read my words and choke on them. And fuck you for telling me how to present or how to be. You don't get to tell me how to live my life asshole. I'm a woman, I decide how I live, what I wear, and what I'm like. Don't like my attitude? Not stereotypical enough for you? Hurts your precious misogynistic view of women? Fucking deal with it. It's not my job nor my interest to appeal to your world view on how I should live my life. I live my life by my own principles, not yours.
This goes out to all transgender people, the intersex community, and our allies: don't fucking EVER let anyone define how you have to act or behave based on your gender identity or what you have under your shit and in your pants. If anyone tries to tell you how to be, you are encouraged and empowered to tell them to go fuck themselves at your earliest convenience.
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ladycatryx · 7 months
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In Defense of Harry Potter
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If you or someone you love is a trans person in crisis: The Trevor Project‘s 24/7/365 Lifeline [US]: 866-488-7386 Trans Lifeline [US]: 877-565-8860 TrevorChat, (online instant messaging option) International Support: TrevorSpace
I minored in Gender Studies for both my Bachelor's and Master's. I have a bookshelf full of queer theory. I have several trans friends.
And I went to a Harry Potter themed party the other day.
Like many of my fellow 90s kids, I grew up reading Harry Potter. It was an era-defining feature of my adolescence, eagerly anticipating book releases and midnight movie theatre screenings. But unlike many of my peers, it is not merely a feature of my past. I still regularly read and write Harry Potter fanfiction. I have beautiful art books and unofficial compendiums chock-full of lore and behind-the-scenes details. I am a HP trivia wizard---or witch, as the case may be. I have so much investment into the lore and the world of Harry Potter, and I often find myself in Hogwarts and the surrounding Highlands in my dreams---even moreso now that Hogwarts Legacy has given us a first-person and 3D experience of the layout and landscape of the Wizarding World. So I relished the chance to don my Slytherin robes and get all dressed up in character. The pictures turned out great. But I couldn't post them on any of my social media. I have been told, in no uncertain terms, that anyone who continues to support or engage with the Harry Potter franchise is a TERF and a fascist. Full stop. To quote one of my friends, "I don't interact with Harry Potter media anymore. And frankly I treat any interest in it as a sign of transphobia for my own safety. So I really don't care to know much about the [Hogwarts Legacy] game aside from the disgusting blood libel it chose to use in it's narrative. It's a hard line for me as a trans person."
It's a controversial topic, to be sure. Now I absolutely hate cancel culture's tendency to drag something someone said 10 years ago into the spotlight and blow it out of proportion, even sometimes taking it out of its original context to spin it as a bad actor with bad intentions, and then to deny people the ability to apologize or acknowledge personal growth (see: what happened to Lindsay Ellis. Thanks, I hate it). But let's be clear: that's not the case here. JKR has only dug herself deeper into the hole, being belligerently and purposefully ignorant and cruel despite a PR team probably begging her to shut up, and despite an entire world of people who have attempted to teach her better. She has acted, and continues to act, in bad faith, even writing trans and queer-coded villains and serial killers into her latest books. This is not a person who has attempted to apologize and make right her wrongs when they've been pointed out. This is someone who has been given every opportunity to not be an awful person and instead has doubled down on her hurtful and hateful views.
So, now that we know JKR's true colors, clearly the entire world of Harry Potter is suspect, as is anyone who continues to enjoy it....right? Sure, maybe not everyone who still rocks their House Pride merch is a TERF, but, like the sandwich-eaters of Chick-fil-A who just need their chicken fix, they certainly can't be counted as allies....right?
I've struggled with this.
And maybe this entire blog post will be read as nothing more than a selfish person defending their right to enjoy a thing guilt-free in order to conveniently overlook or dismiss the harm they're doing by persisting in centering their nostalgia over the real-life danger JKR's views presents to trans people. You can be the judge of that, I suppose.
My impulse since all of this has been to lean into "death of the author," an argument that says, essentially, it is not authorial intent that matters for meaning, but the text itself that is authoritative. In theory, the text can speak for itself, and the way readers engage with it and interpret it can stand in isolation from whatever meaning was meant by the author. (For an excellent video on this subject, click here, and here for a JKR-specific one). But I'd like to expand on that here, because 1) as the links above point out, engaging with the work of a living author still empowers them and gives them a platform and 2) is usually just an emotional response to silo oneself from the guilt of consuming the content of a problematic creator. In other words, it's a cop-out.
But I'm a sociologist. I'm currently an ABD Ph.D. student. I specialize in theory, gender, religion, and culture---the latter is just an elaborate system of signs and symbols that we are embedded in and have to make meaning out of. And meaning-making is a messy business. Interpretation is a vital and integral part of meaning-making. Messages aren't just handed down from the heavens and absorbed---social actors are actively engaged in the process of receiving them. Sometimes there are interferences, misunderstandings, and mixed signals that scramble the meaning. Intent does not equal impact, and so the messages we receive and understand do not always correspond to the meaning that was meant. (Again, not saying JKR is misunderstood or that we're misreading her intentions here---she's pretty unequivocally awful. But I am saying that in a world where meaning is what we make it, a trash person can still produce something of value, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder.)
Sometimes reading a meaning other than that which was meant into something can have humorous consequences. Sometimes the results are disastrous. Sometimes it means that we humans, as pattern-seeking creatures, see the face of Jesus on a slice of toast, or a baby-shaped cloud in the sky the same week we find out a loved one is pregnant. I think the fact that we can make meaning where there is none and make beauty out of nothing is spectacular, miraculous. In this age of disenchantment, many people are looking for ways to reconnect and reenchant their lives, to create sacred rituals out of their mundane routines. We are meaning-seeking creatures, and with many people feeling burned by, disillusioned with, or distrustful of traditional religion, we are turning to nontraditional sources of wisdom and inspiration. For literal millions of people, the Harry Potter books have been one such source. And I think there is value to them still, despite what has come to light about their author.
In college, I was heavily involved in interfaith activism. I no longer identify as Christian, but I was raised Christian. And I started to feel the parallels from my own experience.
If a person has been hurt by a Christian, feels Christianity is toxic, identifies passages in the Bible that have been used to oppress or were the product of a time that was openly endorsing of slavery, homophobia, misogyny, etc...their experience is valid. They have a right to say "Hey, I was raised with this thing and at one point it meant a lot to me (or maybe not, maybe it was always forced) but it hurt me and I no longer feel comfortable there and I choose not to engage with Christianity anymore." They have a right to be wary if they hear someone is Christian and they don't know anything else about that person.
But no religion is a monolith. The Bible is not a monolith. For every passage that may be hurtful or harmful or be interpreted in bad faith to support a particular agenda, there are dozens more about love, kindness, and compassion. Religion has been the driving force behind so many wars and evils...but it has inspired countless good as well. The Bible has been wielded as a weapon to cause suffering as well as been looked to as a resource of hope and peace.
I'm not saying that cancelling someone for resonating deeply with the Harry Potter series and not wanting to give it up because of what it means to them is like asking someone to not be a Christian or to give up their faith so as not to offend others. Of course, the comparison seems flippant. Religion is religion! We give it special legal protections because of its literally sacred status. It concerns matters of ultimate importance. The other is...fiction.
But what is sacred is a social construction. I'm going to bracket here any discussion about the existence or nonexistence of deities, an afterlife, and etc. What does religion actually do for people? What does it mean in the lives of the faithful? It is a source of comfort. Of hope. Of inspiration. Of answers. It can be a moral guide, with lessons and instruction and a guide for how to live that others can model their own lives on.
Casper ter Kuile, cofounder of the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, (check out their values statement if you want to know where they stand---spoiler alert, they're as progressive as it gets) would not find the comparison ridiculous. In fact, ter Kuile (who is, by the way, a gay man) founded the project with a fellow student while at Harvard Divinity School. In his book The Power of Ritual (2020) he talks about how the HP books have been a source of solace and inspiration and sacred reflection for him---and not just for him, but for thousands. Millions.
"Millions of readers already treated the Potter books as sacred in their own way. Therapists and counselors report young people using Hogwarts as their psychological safe space to go to in times of struggle and pain. And it isn't simply a refuge from the world. The Harry Potter Alliance, founded in 2005, has mobilized thousands around the country to act on marriage equality, fair-trade chocolate, and other progressive issues, using the narratives and rituals from the books to motivate and shape winning campaigns. Just as social justice movements have reinterpreted biblical narratives like the Exodus story and quoted the psalms, so too the Harry Potter Alliance references characters and plotlines from the wizarding world to motivate readers into action" (2020:44-45).
The HP books have helped people (and kids) cope with the loss of loved ones, understand privilege, learn that adults, authority figures, and even the government that makes the laws can lie and be corrupted and may not always have one's best interests at heart. That what is legal is not necessarily right or just. That evil doesn't just look like pale, snake-faced men who attempt to murder babies---sometimes it's enough for people in power to do nothing, to care more about maintaining their own relative privilege, power, and comfort. That often bullies lash out because they too have been hurt, and that hate can be easier to speak than love when it's all that you know...but that in the end, it is our choices that matter, not our abilities or the circumstances of our birth. The books have powerful messages, and they have nuance.
Take, for example, Petunia Dursley. As ter Kuile points out, universally disliked. But:
"As Vanessa and I reread that first chapter, we saw a young woman, unsupported in motherhood, suddenly given a second infant to care for after the death of her sister. Imposed on by a world she has always envied and feared, with no explanation, she feels vulnerable to a society that can only spell danger. No doubt, Petunia is abusive to Harry. She neglects him in the most foundational years of his life. But this sacred reading illustrated that narratives of good and evil nearly always are more complex when we risk our hearts to explore a sacred reading. It not only gave me a new lens for understanding a character, but it challenged me to realize I'd let the polarizing news narratives construct simplistic binaries of innocence and guilt" (2020:49).
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The books aren't perfect. Even the messages JKR wrote into the books aren't all good, even if many are. Many people despise Dumbledore despite the twinkle in his eye and his many wise sayings for the way he used Harry like a pawn, like a tool---keeping him in the dark and just getting him to survive long enough to get him to die at the right time. By putting him in danger year after year, putting responsibility on his shoulders that no child should ever have to bear. For thinking that there would ever be an acceptable reason to leave him in the care of abusers, blood or no, magical love ward or no. And I love fanfiction because this messiness is explored and unpacked.
And yet, in canon, this jock who married his high school girlfriend and became a cop named his son after that guy and the incel who lusted after his mom man who tormented him and his schoolmates for years (I do love Snape as a literary character though, speaking of nuance...) instead of, oh, Remus, Rubeus, Arthur...y'know, any of the other men that were actually decent father figures to him in his life.
And yes, there are some heinous things in the book, like giving the Asian character the name Cho Chang and the Black man the name Shacklebolt. The antisemitism of the way goblins are portrayed: big-nosed, greedy, and money-hungry. And don't get me started on the fucking shofar. It has become trendy to shit on the books and other related IP, even to the point of ridiculousness. (Case in point: the uproar over the inclusion of a trans character in Hogwarts Legacy. And not from TERFs, but from the progressive community. At first I didn't understand---performative allyship? Surely her inclusion, and the ability to make trans characters in the character create, is better than the alternative, right? Apparently, it's her name that's the issue: Sirona Ryan. I had to actually look up why people were mad because again, I didn't get it. Evidently, people took issue with the "Sir" and the "Ryan," arguing that two such masculine-sounding elements on a trans woman's name was the equivalent of naming her "Penis McMan." Yes, really. Guess we better tell Serena Williams she's canceled too for perpetuating the "Black women athletes are too muscular and masculinized" stereotype). Anyway, it's been a dogpile lately to point out the plot holes and the poor world-building. And I admit, fanfiction authors often wield some amazing transformative alchemy, building on some of the half-assed parts of the lore and magic system and turning it into something far superior to what is canon. Nevertheless, it is reductive and revisionist history to portray the books as something other than the international bestsellers that they are. They are not the most amazing, brilliant things ever written, and yes, there are series out there that deserve the fame and attention and accolades that the Harry Potter series got. But nor are the HP books terrible derivative drivel that suddenly everyone wants to portray them as. In reality, they're a mixed bag.
What they undeniably are is important to people.
People read sacred texts because:
"the thousands of years in which generations have engaged these texts is something we need to pay attention to; and that we can step into a continuous stream of conversation between the text and human beings that has lasted centuries" (The Power of Ritual 2020:38).
There are nuggets of wisdom and timeless truths to be found, even in fiction. There is nostalgia for those of us who literally grew up with these characters, being of a similar age to Harry, Ron, and Hermione as we first read the books. The HP series is fairly unique in being both culturally relevant---a pop culture touchstone (I can't recall ever attending themed midnight release parties at a bookstore for any other series)---and possessing of longevity. The HP generation is passing the books along to their kids now. It connects generations in a way not many other franchises do. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are the only other ones that come to my mind at the moment.
JKR is a TERF (which is not a slur, incidentally). Unapologetic. An awful person, certainly.
But I've seen people call her evil.
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We can debate the meaning of the term, certainly. Evil itself is not black and white---her own books taught me that. If someone is evil, can anything they produce contain some good? Or is it irreparably tainted? Can someone be evil and still donate millions of pounds to charities for the homeless and victims of domestic violence? Could an evil person be capable of writing such emotionally deep and nuanced characters?
I think we are all capable of great evil and great good. Again, I'm not advocating for forgiveness or redemption here---she's done nothing to earn such goodwill. I don't support her.
But I think there are ethical ways to continue to engage in and enjoy the franchise. Don't buy officially licensed merch---but the fan-made stuff on Etsy labeled "Red House" or "Magical School Badger House" I find fair game. Buy your copy of Hogwarts Legacy used, or borrow from a friend. (Personally, I'm pessimistic enough to think that there's nothing I personally can or can't do that will financially impact her in any meaningful way...throwing away all my HP merch and not buying the $7 Slytherin slipper socks at BoxLunch isn't going to make a dent. It's up to the major companies and corporations that have partnered with her in the past to license Harry Potter-themed merch to roll back their association, and for production studios and actors to refuse to associate with the franchise. That's what she'll notice and care about. But I digress.)
On a personal level, I find deep psychological satisfaction from identifying as a Slytherin. (I'm also that bitch who is way too into her MBTI archetype and knows her rising sign and other obscure details of her natal chart, so sue me.) Just the other day, I got into an argument with my partner, who accused me of employing leading questions to get information about his mental state and plans for the day---he prefers directness, I find subtlety to be much more polite. We speak different languages. That's not the point. The point is, he felt manipulated, and even though he knows me well enough to know it wasn't out of any malicious intent, it felt slimy to him. From my perspective, my approach comes from a history of emotional abuse from my father, who has Borderline Personality Disorder and a host of other mental illnesses I inherited (yay, trauma!) In other words, it's a survival tactic. (Self-preservation: also a Slytherin trait.) I had to learn to prioritize myself from a very young age to avoid being taken advantage of. To some, that may sound selfish. For me, it was survival. And the word "manipulation" gets a bad rap, but it literally means "to handle or control (a tool, mechanism, etc.), typically in a skillful manner." That isn't necessarily sinister or done with bad intentions. It's strategic. It's smart. It's what emotionally aware humans have evolved to do as social animals. We don't talk about manipulating tools as shady behavior. It's an asset, this ability.
Maybe that's my ambition speaking. But I wouldn't be where I am today---working hard to earn my Ph.D., having already earned a Master's Degree from a highly prestigious institution, having graduated summa cum laude with research honors at my previous university---without ambition. But I do understand that people distrust sly, slippery, cunning people. But Coyote is a culture hero, I don't abide by the maligning of snakes and serpents, and I'm a Prometheus/Lucifer apologist. People may not find their methods entirely honorable, but you can't argue with the results being for the greatest good. Those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends. It all fits, and it's a label that allows me to understand myself and my motivations and priorities better.
If you've been hurt and betrayed by JKR and can no longer find solace in a world that was once a source of comfort for you, I grieve that with you. I understand, and I'm sorry. No one should be forced to engage with something they find tainted and harmful, and everyone must draw that line for themselves. But I think there are ethical ways to continue to enjoy and engage with a franchise that has been a source of joy and inspiration for so many, including those within the LGB+TGNC community. The text even lends itself to queer, subversive, progressive, and action-oriented readings, which is the sweetest form of reclaiming and empowerment, and which the queer community has a long history of---appropriating the hurtful and harmful and transforming it into something playful and prideful. Queer folx are the original alchemists.
It's an egregore now, especially the fanon version of the Wizarding World. It's the collective product of millions of people loving and investing in these characters and their world. It has taken on a life of its own, independent of its creator. And like Lucifer, like humankind, it can defy the will and designs of its master and break away. It's expanded beyond her. She may have built the framework of the house, but we grew up there. We furnished it. And we can return to move things around and play in it from time to time. Some of us never left. I won't give that up because I've been made to feel I have to.
Oh, and that Harry Potter themed party? It was held at a business that is an unofficial hub for the local queer community. A portion of the proceeds went to a local LGBTQ charity, and there were several trans people in attendance. And we all had a fabulous time.
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What do you think it will take for the gendie/trans movement to die?
Lawsuits.
And losses.
Some organizations are not really on board with this ideology, but are playing along either because there's a loud minority of moralizing activist ideologues - mostly woke, straight white churchladies who style themselves as "queer" or "nonbinary", or at least, "allies" - within them who are sucking up all the oxygen, or because they feel they're obliged to by the market. And particularly, they don't want to be conspicuously non-compliant. They just want the beast to eat someone else. For reference, see the Twitter accounts which post Pride banners and icons in western countries, but not in Middle East/North Africa (MENA) countries. They just need sufficient reason - legal or financial - to start ignoring the ideologues and get back on-mission.
Others are fully on board, from the top down. And unfortunately, this category tends to include medical institutions. These organizations need a good legal or financial bat taken to them. Which will hopefully then trigger a spill of their management layer. And with more and more whistleblowers, and more and more lawsuits, such as those by Chloe Cole, Layla Jane and others coming down the pipeline, and increased scrutiny due to the widening gap between European and North American approaches, something will eventually give. Insurers, risk assessors, shareholders, regulators and others with a vested interest in the longevity and viability of the organization will be forced to intercede. Especially as it becomes undeniable that the Europeans are deferring to evidence, while the North Americans have succumbed to ideology. At some point, the US in particular, will need to undergo the same process as the UK, Finland and other countries in conducting an inquiry and review into what's going on and the scientific evidence that supports it... or not.
The really big problem is that these ideologues are notorious liars. Consider what happened when the Tavistock was announced to close, with the interim Cass report describing the GIDS service as "not safe or viable as a long-term option for the care of young people with gender related distress." The ideologues spun this into "they're closing it down so they can open many more! Nothing wrong with it except capacity!" Countries like Finland and Sweden have stopped prescription of puberty blockers and hormones, which was spun into "they didn't ban affirmation" (i.e. blockers and hormones). They conveniently leave out the part where they can only be used in strictly controlled clinical trials, because the current evidence is astonishingly weak. It's like saying "ebola is safe" because certain high-security labs have access to it for research and testing. It's the same kind of pathological dishonesty you get from Xians trying to make their demon god into the "good" guy because free will, salvation, you send yourself to hell, etc, etc.
There are also people so over-invested that actually acknowledging the boiling pot they found themselves in would be too psychologically damaging. Imagine being a Jack Turban, who has made his name lying for virtue, being confronted with the people whose lives were directly impacted by the misrepresentations he'd spun. Or being Michelle Forcier and figuring out you'd spent your life sterilizing children for no reason. How do you ever come back from something like that? The psychological architecture of religiosity tends to have mechanisms to protect the believer from the psychological damage of this kind of atrocity: denial, rationalization, etc. We see that in the traditionally religious. It's not even possible to get a Xian to acknowledge the logical and moral problems with religious concepts such as hell, sin or salvation. They're psychologically incapable. Even if Ray Comfort realized he'd made a mistake about evolution, he'd never be able to publicly admit it, and would still go on with his schtick. Because backing out of such a major commitment would be inconceivable.
I wish I could say that people will have a "come to Jesus" moment (so to speak), an epiphany and come to their senses. But that won't happen. It won't be a moral or scientific revelation, it will ultimately be the pragmatism of the bottom line.
People can believe that they have a mismatched gender thetan living in their body, or that they are "cakegender" or whatever. But they don't get to force the entirety of society to play along, any more than a Xian gets to force everyone else to pray, or a Muslim gets to force everyone to observe Ramadan. We need to start reassembling the secular walls the genderists have been breaching.
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aspects of tumblr of sj that are terrible
Marginalized people on this website and on other sources: here is how to be a Good Ally(tm) Privileged person: -parrots this idea without critical thought because they have also been told they can't BE critical of what they're being told bc they're privileged. They may also parrot this idea through the lens of privilege bc of obvious reasons- A different marginalized person: ugh no don't do that that's terrible. Why are privileged people so entitled :/ Good Allys(tm) don't exist ----------- SJers: -expects privileged people to always agree with people from a marginalized group, even when marginalized people's opinions differ wildly within SJ circles or otherwise- --------- Marginalized group on this website: privileged people are not allowed to be in our safe spaces Privileged people: -avoid marginalized people's blogs and posts, the only way they can really "avoid" a safe space on a social forum like tumblr, or reblog posts again uncritically and with no real understanding beyond the superficial- Marginalized group: why are people ignoring this issue??? Why do our posts not get any recognition???? Why do people reblog these just to look good but take no action????? You "allys" are so fake ---------- SJers: privilege doesn't make you bad. Stop acting offended when we say you're privileged SJers: except you are bad. You can actually never BE good, your privilege will always taint you as a person. No sacrifice you can make for this group you don't belong to makes you a good person or a good ally. Also since undoing privilege is a continuous battle, even if you DID achieve Good Ally(tm) status, it can be take away immediately if you make a relativity minor mistake via ignorance or if you don't continually participate in social justice and do repeatedly draining things forever with no stop in sight ------------ Sjers: intersectionality is important! Also SJers: -forget intersectionality the minute its convenient for them (e.g. a bunch of cis straight girls mocking a guy for adding to their "men don't face any REAL problems" post and it turned out he was a trans dude; disabled/ND people have an extremely hard time performing to ideal SJ standards, probably more than any other group, etc.)-
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niniane17 · 1 year
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Some thoughts about feminism and modern transphobia.
One of the most dangerous damages that the TERF movement has caused over the years is how it has undermined a lot of common feminist arguments for the sake of hating trans people.
Take the pronouns debate, for example. I once read a TERF making fun of trans people insistence on being called by their preferred pronouns by saying that "you don't stop existing if somebody doesn't acknowledge you" and...well. As I said, I have thoughts.
Namely, that yes, you kinda *do* stop existing if enough people refuse to acknowledge you. This is the whole point of ancient practices such as the damnatio memoriae all the way down to the concept of "social death".
The feminist movement is no stranger to this concept. Indeed, quite a lot of the feminist movement ever since its beginning could be summarized as "acknowledging women's existence as more than men's appendices". Until not long ago, women were not legally permitted to have anything without their husband's permission, and feminists rightly denounced the fact that women were supposed to disappear into their husband's life. The famous "maiden name debate" exists sorely because of the idea that women are their husband's property with no identity outside of that.
(The "smart" answer people give is usually: "well, but isn't the maiden name her father's name? Isn't this patriarchal as well?" Yes, it is. Welcome to patriarchy, I guess)
There are many cultures that currently have few to no resources to widows or unmarried women purely because of the idea that women exist to serve men. Those women might as well have stopped existing too.
Not to be clichéd, but we do live in a society. If an entire society plainly refuse to acknowledge you as a human being on your own right, then you might as well not be one. You're a living dead (a useful concept in many ways).
The connection here should be obvious, as well as the fact that using patriarchy's very same dehumanizing techniques is bad and can lead to very bad things. And yet, here we are. Trans people and trans allies are always accused of not wanting to accept "material reality" (my favorite one is "you're drunk on postmodernism". God I wish I could be) without realizing -or not wanting to realize- that this very argument was used and is still used against cis women all over the world.
This is why I never really cared about the infamous "what is sex/is sex binary/is sex real" debate; at end of the day, it doesn't really matter. We don't structure our society around "material reality", we structure it around what is more convenient. Up until very, very recently, the only convenience we took into account was cishet men's one. Said men have then proceeded to find any kind of reason to keep the structure that way, often using real facts (only people with uteri give birth) to support arbitrary decisions (therefore, they should stay home to take care of them forever).
It profoundly saddens me how rapidly some feminists are ready to accept this oppressive paradigm. I guess this is what hate does to people.
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Ok I've really had enough of seeing trans 'allies' talking about how they can buy the new Harry Potter game and still support trans people.
First off, the antisemitism is blatant and disgusting and way more than enough to dissuade anyone that cares even a bit about Jews from playing it. You don't even need to get on to Rowlings transphobia to acknowledge this game is shit.
But the transphobia that is being supported by the purchase of this personally hits me incredibly hard. I don't think people understand just how much power Rowling has in the UK. I live here, I'm brown, I'm mentally not doing the best, and (terrifyingly) I'm trans. I'm also not in a safe enough place to transition and that's taking its toll.
What makes me so mad though is how much has happened in the last ten years to make my life harder that really didn't need to.
The actual number of terfs here aren't as large as they make themselves seem but, with her to lobby things and to publicise their (wrong) ideas about me and my fellow trans people, they have a scary amount of say. Even the Labour leader (our more left leaning party) won't say anything on the 'trans issue' and the BBC is making article after article about trans folk 'pressuring people' and my own family looked to their articles about Keira Bell (the amount of documentaries and articles about detransitioning would have a person thinking it happens about half the time anyone transitions) to make up their minds about how to treat me (as you can guess it was like shit).
I need to stress that SHE HELPED DO THIS.
Rowlings transphobia gave all this false credibility and convinced people that there was a market or community for this sort of 'journalism'. Politicians and reporters are appealing to what they think is a nation of terfs (but her powerful support is also a convenient excuse for many to be their shitty transphobic selves unfortunately) while the many trans people and all of the people that genuinely care for them are holding on to the little that's left now.
There's only one gender identity clinic for adolescents left in England and transphobic hate crimes have gone up 4 fold in the past 5 years. Sunak is already saying some very concerning things.
I'm begging people considering whether they should buy the game (or keep consuming and supporting her stuff generally) because: they're 'separating the art from the artist', it was their childhood or they don't see what difference it makes to real people to please just listen when we tell you this hurts us directly and deeply. I might have had a chance at a less traumatic childhood. I might have had a politician to vote for that at least said they'd do something - anything to help. I might have been able to access a faster and safer transition. I'll probably have to wait about 5 years for top surgery which is horrible but it could be much longer and I don't know how I'll manage that.
Just stop giving her more power to ruin our lives further. Many of us are kinda at the end of our ropes.
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taketheringtolohac · 3 years
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uh cw talking about trans pregnancy in the tags but don’t mind me! im just seething with justified rage :)
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i’m always 2 exhausted even by thinkng about it to even begin discussing At Length what’s So Exhausting About Billions’es Handling Of Their Trans Character (which is way way better than it could be) but like, some of the main points of it are
taylor can outright say that they’re nonbinary One Time, but otherwise their gender can only be Made Relevant via other people misgendering them and/or by being transphobic towards them, and this happens like. loads of times. and sometimes in ways that feel a touch excessive / kind of indulgent in reminding us like haha don’t forget this character Is Seen As ___ by people and their body and presentation is a matter of Fascination for cis audiences, but not necessarily respected, and we can see the character navigate this but they won’t discuss it at length b/c why would any trans person Want to talk about being trans OR have another trans person in their life to talk to, cuz what are the odds of That. 
in relation to that last point: taylor can’t talk about their Not Cis experiences / reality, or even hardly mention it directly / by name, but the show can keep writing them as reaching out to random useless cis people in their life when these cis people are having some kind of super particular individual problem, and taylor laying out some really REALLY watered-down, vague, indirect version of their being trans as a way to show they Relate to whatever dumbass situation this awful cishet person has gotten themself into. being in some kind of frustrating situation? feeling alienated or isolated or undermined or misunderstood or judged? well i guess you’re experiencing a tiny bit of the trans existence! except you are not. and like, of Course a character would look like an asshole if they were like “boy taylor, now that i’ve had a rough week due to some really dumb problem, i think i understand what it must be like for you to be nonbinary!!!” but it’s fine if Taylor Chooses To Relate Their Transness to whatever some cishet loser is dealing with. no, being #outed as i-do-bdsm is nothing like being an out lgbtq individual. and like all these people in taylor’s sphere are nightmare people who don’t deserve their sympathy in the first place but that’s another gripe lmfao
can’t believe that was the “brief overview” version lmao but anyways, i was thinking about another weird and kinda frustrating thing that someone brought up on twitter
well actually it was kinda what two people were talking about on twitter, and the first thing was how like, yknow in a show like this where the ppl focus of the series (supposed to be axe and chuck i guess like eugh can you even imagine) are Supposed To Be Assholes? it’s always like, how those main chars in “prestige drama” are generally men who are *meant* to be seen as shitty and probably dumbasses, and yet like, there’s an inherent Sympathetic Treatment in focusing on them and in having their godawful exploits drive a lot of the plot and action and suspense and etc, and it’s not exactly enough to just say like “oh but you’re suppoooosed to Know that they suck”
but the second thing was how in “Prestige Drama” Tv With Shitty Protagonists, there has this tendency to have the crappy usually-cishet-white-abled-men main chars be like, not ever really display any “””especial””” level of bigotry?? saying something how like, any big -isms or -phobias seems to be reserved for the “”””real”””” bad guys. and that kinda ties in a bit i think with how, even if there’s the “well they’re supposed to seem unsympathetic” justification, they’re still........not really supposed to seem too unsympathetic. and it’s not that anyone would ever think it’s ~realistic~ for a nonbinary person to be in the world of High Finance and be able to announce their pronouns and have their identity for-the-most-part respected by everyone right off the bat, and i sure don’t want billions to be going for that ~realism~ on this one thing (especially when it doesn’t exactly try to strictly hold itself to Realism in plenty of other regards) and have taylor dealing with constant misgendering and likely no one with authority consistently watching out for them in this manner and people telling shitty jokes behind their back and etc etc etc which might be more ~realistic~ but please don’t.........
but at the same time it’s awfully convenient that apparently everyone at axe cap is such a committed Trans Ally that even when taylor defects by the end of s3 and everyone is like “booo hiss we hate taylor” they all feel free to disrespect taylor in pretty much any way Except for showing any signs of transphobia, ever. very nice that none of these characters have to bear the burden of being labeled A Real Jerk for insulting taylor on the grounds of their being trans (other insults are fine). like the guy on twitter said, bigotry is only for the Really real bad guys who really only need to be one-dimensional or in the background or otherwise not given that much attention.
like it exasperated me So much when there was some scene with axe and wags and wendy (like, scream. already i’m in hell. for gods sake) where wendy’s getting the green light to try to sabotage taylor’s relationship with their dad (to.....destabilize their fund?? just kinda bum them out, possibly??? it seems to be the latter 9_9 ) and axe is like “yeah fuck it, go for it, grrrr i hate taylor >:| “ and wendy says something in which she then Pauses and adds a footnote to her sentence, in which she clarifies that by “them,” she is referring to taylor, not taylor and [someone else she’d mentioned in the same sentence]. it’s just exhausting, ugh. like, yeah yeah believe me everyone who uses singular They pronouns knows allll about how oh no, there’s the chance for Ambiguity now!!! we never have that problem with other pronouns ever!!! and it means we deserve to force people to pick He or She! and it’s just like, ugh. yeah thank you for reminding us that these three bastards who are currently plotting how to permanently destroy a familial relationship of tay’s are nevertheless being sure to Respect Their Pronouns while doing so!!! not that they *shouldn’t* but like, as fucking though. and it’s just so......fucking unnecessary ugh. you don’t have to awkwardly make sure to point out you were using ~the singular They~ right then just as this clunky reminder that oh i’m not Transphobic @ them tho........like shut up thanks so much. i would like for taylor to never have to interact with wendy again, but god knows im sure that wish won’t come true. like, you didn’t have to clarify in the first place. and it’s so nice that all these nightmare individuals are such committed #allies. ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
#again not that i Want them to be more ~realistically transphobic~ but it's all sooo annoying#and again like. the interviewee comes in and misgenders your trans coworker? and you don't say a god damn thing to correct him? ty SO much..#nobody's even Actually that good at supporting this trans individual's Existence In This Space but. they're not blatantly transphobic so!!!!#conveniently enough none of them have to get the Easily Hateable Points for it; not that the general billions audience is where i'd expect 2#find a zillion trans allies or ppl capable of encountering the concept of Nonbinary Identities without imploding for 2.3 weeks#and of course there's the inherent limitations of taylor being a) a trans character set in this world of High Finance and b) the Only trans#character that we know of on the show.......they have to represent The Entire Experience and Every Non-Cis Person Ever ughh#but the approach of (this character will never talk about their Being Trans if they can help it) and (we'll have other ppl force Their Being#Trans into being directly relevant by being shitty to them about it / forcing them into situations in which they have to deal w/ transphobia#just like. kill me. and even the ''look how Not Transphobic this person is'' is hardly done right like. yeah wow#i'm sure that for axe it's like oh he ~doesn't Care abt ur identity~ as long as you can Get Those Results!!!!! great..#it's not like a trans person couldn't relate their Transness to a certain experience that a cis person has#it's just that that experience would Not be something like [axe being in timeout for insider trading and shit]#e.g. inchrestingly i think that [autistic experience] and [lgbtq experience] are ones that have some real solid parallels / similarities#aka some opportunities for fun convos betwixt winnie n tay wherein like...not that The Hc isn't that winston is Gay but also like#one of those rare times i don't particularly think abt this Wrol Character as being trans. he could be!! nobody can stop us! but yeah like#if in theory taylor was relating their transience (haha....nah seriously their Transness) to this cis autistic person's experience....#there would be a lot more Genuineness (there needs to be a better form of that word ugh) and value in that conversation than all the other#times Billions has them make their being trans more like....palatable / watered-down by like ''wow i understand Experiencing Undesirable Cir#*Circumstances....'' like god please. trans people talk about Being Trans sometimes. they talk to other trans people. let them say#''nonbinary'' more than once#ANYWAYS ugh it's all just. ex as pe ra ti ng#it's very exhausting seeing this content which is clearly For(tm) a cis audience like. i appreciate that taylor's shitty father's transphbia#and disrespect towards taylor in that matter is probably the way that plenty of the audience feels towards taylor and it's Nice that taylor#gets to smack that shit down but. it's very!!!!!! exhausting ugh!!!!!! im used to The Clipz now but boy it was stressful the 1st time around#and it still is.......love 2 b misgendered even when it's ~not a big deal~.......#all of this on the authority that im trans / nonbinary (and autistic; re: that sidenote lol. and also not straight either)#not that being nonbinary is separate from being trans b/c it's not unless you just so happen to not id as trans#coz guess what....ppl who ''qualify'' as trans don't Have to use that particular label / feel that it applies whether theyre nonbinary orNot#and being nonbinary is never inherently distinct from being trans. being trans means You Aren't Cis (and you describe urself as trans)
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tyrannuspitch · 3 years
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Jumping off @kidrat​ ’s recent post on JKR, British transphobia, and transphobia against transmasculine people, after getting a bit carried away and too long to add as a comment:
A major, relatively undiscussed event in JKR’s descent into full terfery was this tweet:
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[image id: a screenshot of a tweet from JK Rowling reading: “’People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
Rowling attaches a link to an article titled: “Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate” /end id]
This can seem like a pretty mundane TERF talking point, just quibbling over language for the sake of it, but I think it’s worth discussing, especially in combination with the idea that cis women like JKR see transmasculine transition as a threat to their womanhood. (Recite it with horror: ”If I were young now, I might’ve transitioned...”)
A lot of people, pro- or anti-transphobe, will make this discussion about whether the term “woman” should include trans women or not, and how cis women are hostile to the inclusion of trans women. And that’s absolutely true. But the actual language cis women target is very frequently being changed for the benefit of trans men, not trans women, and most of them know this.
Cis people are used to having their identities constantly reaffirmed and grounded in their bodies. A lot of cis women, specifically, understand their social and physical identities as women as being defined by pain: misogynistic oppression is equated to the pains of menstruation or childbirth, and both are seen as the domain of cis women. They’re something cis women can bond over and build a “sisterhood” around, and the more socially aware among them can recognise that cis women’s pain being taken less seriously by medicine is not unrelated to their oppression. However, in the absence of any trans perspectives, these conversations can also easily become very territorial and very bioessentialist.
Therefore... for many cis women, seeing “female bodies” described in gender neutral language feels like stripping their pain of its meaning, and they can become very defensive and angry.
And the consequences for transmasculine people can be extremely dangerous.
Not only do transmasculine people have an equal right to cis women to define our bodies as our own... Using inclusive language in healthcare is about more than just emotional validation.
The status quo in healthcare is already non-inclusive. When seeking medical help, trans people can expect to be misgendered and to have to explain how our bodies work to the doctors. We risk harassment, pressure to detransition, pressure to sterilise ourselves, or just being outright turned away. And the conversation around pregnancy and abortion in particular is heaving with cisnormativity - both feminist and anti-feminist cis women constantly talk about pregnancy as a quintessentially female experience which men could never understand.
Using gender-neutral language is the most basic step possible to try and make transmasculine people safer in healthcare, by removing the idea that these are “women’s spaces”, that men needing these services is impossible, and that safety depends on ideas like “we’re all women here”. Not institutionally subjecting us to misgendering and removing the excuse to outright deny us treatment is, again, one of the most basic steps that can be taken. It doesn’t mean we’re allowed comfort, dignity or full autonomy, just that one major threat is being addressed. The backlash against this from cis women is defending their poorly developed senses of self... at the cost of most basic dignity and safety for transmasculine people.
Ironically, though transphobic cis women feel like decoupling “women’s experiences” from womanhood is decoupling them from gendered oppression, transmasculine people experience even more marginalisation than cis women. Our rates of suicide and assault are even higher. Our health is even less researched than cis women’s. Our bodies are even more strictly controlled. Cis women wanting to define our bodies on their terms is a significant part of that. They hold the things we need hostage as “women’s rights”, “women’s health”, “women’s discussions” and “support for violence against women”, and demand we (re-)closet ourselves or lose all of their solidarity.
Fundamentally, the problem is that transphobic cis women are possessive over their experiences and anyone who shares them. Because of their binary understanding of gender, they’re uncomfortable with another group sharing many of their experiences but defining themselves differently. They’re uncomfortable with transmasculine people identifying “with the enemy” instead of “with their sisters”, and they’re even more uncomfortable with the idea that there are men in the world who they oppress, and not the other way around. “Oppression is for women; you can’t call yourself a man and still claim women’s experiences. Pregnancy is for women; if you want to be a man so badly why haven’t already you done something about having a woman’s body? How dare you abandon the sisterhood while inhabiting one of our bodies?”
Which brings me back to the TERF line about how “If I were young now, I might have transitioned.”
I’m not saying Rowling doesn’t actually feel any personal connection to that narrative - but it is a standard line, and it’s standard for a reason. Transphobic cis women really believe that there is nothing trans men go through that cis women don’t. They equate our dysphoria to internalised misogyny, eating disorders, sexual abuse or other things they see as “female trauma”. They equate our desire to transition to a desire to escape. They want to “help us accept ourselves” and “save us” from threats to their sense of identity. The fact is, this is all projection. They refuse to consider that we really have a different internal experience from them.
There’s also a marked tendency among less overtly transphobic cis women, even self-proclaimed trans allies, to make transphobia towards trans men about cis women.
Violence against trans men is chronically misreported and redefined as “violence against women”. In activist spaces, we’re frequently told that any trauma we have with misogyny is “misdirected” and therefore “not really about us”. If we were women, we would’ve been “experiencing misogyny”, but men can’t do that, so we should shut up and stop “talking over women”. (Despite the surface difference of whether they claim to affirm our gender, this is extremely similar to how TERFs tell us that everything we experience is “just misogyny”, but that transmasculine identity is a delusion that strips us of the ability to understand gender or the right to talk about it.)
I have personally witnessed an actual N*zi writing an article about how trans men are “destroying the white race” by transitioning and therefore becoming unfit to carry children, and because the N*zi had misgendered trans men in his article, every response I saw to it was about “men controlling women’s bodies”.
All a transphobe has to do is misgender us, and the conversation about our own oppression is once again about someone else.
Transphobes will misgender us as a form of violence, and cis feminist “allies” will perpetuate our misgendering for rhetorical convenience. Yes, there is room to analyse how trans men are treated by people who see us as women - but applying a simple “men oppressing women” dynamic that erases our maleness while refusing to even name transphobia or cissexism is not that. Trans men’s oppression is not identical to cis women’s, and forcing us to articulate it in ways that would include cis women in it means we cannot discuss the differences.
It may seem like I’ve strayed a long way from the original topic, and I kind of have, but the central reason for all of these things is the same:
Trans men challenge cis women’s self-concept. We force them to actually consider what manhood and womanhood are and to re-analyse their relationship to oppression, beyond a simple binary patriarchy. 
TERFs will tell you themselves that the acknowledgement of trans people, including trans men, is an “existential threat” that is “erasing womanhood” - not just our own, but cis women’s too. They hate the idea that biology doesn’t determine gender, and that gender does not have a strict binary relationship to oppression. They’re resentful of the idea that they could just “become men”, threatened by the assertion that doing so is not an escape, and completely indignant at the idea that their cis womanhood could give them any kind of power. They are, fundamentally, desperate not to have to face the questions we force them to consider, so they erase us, deflect from us, and talk over us at every opportunity.
Trans men are constantly redefined against our wills for the benefit of cis womanhood.
TL;DR:
Cis women find transmasculine identity threatening, because we share experiences that they see as foundational to their womanhood
The fact that transphobes target inclusive language in healthcare specifically is not a mistake - They do not want us to be able to transition safely
Cis women are uncomfortable acknowledging transphobia, so they make discussion of trans men’s oppression about “womanhood” instead
This can manifest as fully denying that trans men experience our own oppression, or as pretending trans men’s experiences are identical to cis women’s in every way
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snapdragonjuice · 2 years
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If you only support people when it's convenient to you you're not actually supporting them. Like the moment the author of your childhood favourite book says trans people don't exist or matter and you still try to defend supporting the author's work, you don't support trans people. Or when a food place regularly donates to anti lgbtq+ organisations and you refuse to stop eating there cause "it's so nice", you don't support lgbtq+ people
If that book or that food or whatever else means more to you than the lives of actual people, you don't support the people you just support the aesthetic of being an ally
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luhanvirus · 3 years
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Butterfly Effect
 In which a 29-year-old gay LXC married his 26-year-old family friend JC (who happens to be a trans man) out of convenience so that both of their traditional families would leave them alone and let them live their lives, without thinking that he will find love in this marriage.
N/A: Xicheng AU based on that Redditor who shared his touching AF love story.
For the #CultivaTober2020, another story that no one asked me. Incomplete for the lack of time.
Day 23: Butterfly
.
A lot of people like to think that love comes before marriage, oftentimes it doesn't always work out that way. 
Sometimes people get married because of different pressures and expectations put on them by society and their families, but that doesn't mean you can't find love in this kind of situation.
Lan Xichen didn’t expected falling in love with his husband.
They didn’t marry for love, actually they married to make a giant scam on their families.
It maybe be weird, but Lan Xichen was a gay man that came from a wealthy and traditional Chinese family where he managed the business extension abroad. 
And as the current heir of the company after his father’s death, the elders didn’t liked when he came up openly about his homosexuality and they didn’t accept it. No matter how many times Xichen said them that he wouldn’t marry a man, they still wanted him very married to a lady from a good and influential family.
One day Xichen got tired and said them clearly that he will just stay single, so they should stay out of his business.
That kind of worked for four years, until the last year when uncle Lan Qiren trapped him in a visit with a this “girl” that was the single “daughter” of one of their business allies and left them alone in a room.
Xichen looked at her, she was pretty indeed. His posture emitted an air of confidence and his almond gray eyes resembled storm clouds, like lighting bolts would appear in any moment to attack, her short black hair was pulled into a bun with a purple ribbon and she wore a big violet hoodie that covered all her body curves. 
It was so obvious that neither of them wanted to be here.
Anyways, Xichen didn’t expected that this person would misunderstand the whole situation:
“Listen to me, because I’m not going to repeat myself. I’m a trans male and I’m not out of my family and I DON’T WANT to get married to you”, blunted out the person. “You don’t want to be married with me because I am a MAN, so just leave it!”
Lan Xichen blinked, really shocked.
Did she.... Did he really thought that I set up the visit?
“I don’t even like women, what do you mean?” Xichen babbled, confused at least.
The boy looked at him, suspicious.
“What did you said?”
Xichen massaged the left side of his forehead, without knowing if the should laugh or cry at the turn of the events. “Well, I’m gay.”
When he said it, he didn’t wanted to be funny.
He was serious.
“Oh my god,” mumbled the boy before to start laughing loudly. “My mom will die if she knows!”
At least one of them was having a good time, finding the whole thing hilarious.
Xichen didn’t noticed when he started to laugh too.
Well, could you blame him? This was so ridiculous. Yet, they ended being friends after that unfortunate turn of the events. They even exchanged numbers before to part away.
.     ·  ✦
“I knew it was her, she’s perfect. Well mannered and ...”
Uncle Qiren was delighted at the idea that Xichen was cured from homosexuality, the poor man still has hopes that he would change his mind and will fall in love with the little daughter of Jiang Fengmian haha.
If you only know, uncle. Thought Xichen, having a good time that night.
Unlike Wangji who seemed worried, he was his only support in those kinda family meetings.
“Brother.”
Xichen smiled at his brother, relieved that everything ended in good terms even if it was a disaster. “Don’t worry, Wangji. I know what I’m doing.” 
He couldn’t be more wrong.
Wangji looked at him, unconvinced. “If you say so.”
However, Xichen didn’t overthink it in the moment because Jiang Wanyin was someone really nice to talk by the way, so he keep talking with him.
And they talked a lot through nine weeks.
What made both families to get excited at the match, they never got this far with any other candidates. 
So they kept pushing them about marriage.
Xichen didn’t knew why, but one day they just accepted to marry each other. He remember that both were "like yeah, screw it" and that’s how they got quickly married in Yunmeng a summer day of August to get their families off of their backs.
Wanyin moved at Gusu with him and both pulled a giant scam on their families and got away with it.
No matter how you see it, it was a win-win situation. Wanyin lived his own life and take the guest room for himself while Xichen didn’t get more cutting remarks about being gay because he has a “wife” now.
Life was easygoing, so he let Wanyin cut his hair short and stop dressing feminine as his family forced him.
It was a little gesture, but that small change resulted in something unexpected.
.     ·  ✦
The things had been so smooth sailing between them that they even adopted a dog, Xichen was having a good time when he come to his house now that he has a roommate and a pet.
It felt more like a home than the place where he’s slept.
He didn’t noticed before, but his house didn’t felt like a home before he married.
Wanyin resume his university studies and made new friends, he was so comfortable and happy that he started to cooking dinner for both of them recently. Sometimes Xichen couldn’t eat with him because he returned at home passed by midnight, but he tried to return early at home to share at least a couple of dinners together at week.
That night Xichen got a little late, but Wanyin stayed with him in the dinning room. Looking him eat everything and even repeating a dish.
“Were you hungry, huh?”
Xichen was used to not talk when he eat because he was educated like that, but he found rude to not reply his husband at the same time. So he did an exception that night.
After all, Wanyin cooked that delicious food for him and waited for him.
“I didn’t have lunch today.”
Wanyin looked at him, with a bothered frown in his eyebrows. It reminded Xichen the first time that they share a dinner in home and he couldn’t stand the spicy food that Wanyin cooked. 
That time he thought he would die, but he survived to Wanyin spicy food.
Now he’s getting to used to piquant food.
“I can cook your lunch.”
“You don’t have to do it, Wanyin.”
“What kind of husband am I if I left my spouse starving?” Wanyin teased him, smirking.
.     ·  ✦
Next morning Xichen didn’t expected that Wanyin would fulfill his word and made a lunch for him, even his coworkers seemed surprised to see him eating in his office instead to skipping the lunch when he had important meetings. 
That day he had a meeting with Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao, so they planned to invite him to eat a hotpot without knowing that Xichen would refuse.
When they saw why he refused, they stayed to accompany him.
It seems that it was a friendship duty annoy at your recently married friends.
“Now Xichen-ge gots lovely lunchs made by his wife, I’m jealous”, said Jin Guangyao as he looked for food delivery on his telephone for him and Mingjue, they didn’t want to leave his friend alone if they could tease him.
Mingjue nudged at Xichen, grinning “As your childhood friend, I demand to be the godfather of your first child.”
“That’s unfair, Da-ge! Let Xichen-ge chose the godfather!!”
Xichen smiles nervously at his friends, feeling a cold sweet in this forehead.
“We are not having kids.”
Mingjue raised an eye brown, confused. “Why not?”
Xichen felt conflicted.
Well, these were his friends and he should trust them, right? He wasn’t ashamed of his husband, actually he felt proud that he could be himself since they met.
“Uhm, how I could say this? My “wife” is a trans male, so...”
“Oh.”
“It’s complicated, we got it.” Ends the conversation Jin Guangyao, putting a hand in Mingjue’s mouth. 
.     ·  ✦
Months passed fast and it was December when Xichen realized that his husband started to getting closer to him.
Not like they were strangers before, but something changed after Christmas.
Wanyin started to watch tv with him in the sofa when Xichen was in home, eating with him every time they can, buying him stuff and even texting him more frequently, sending photos of him and Huan Huan when he go to walk their puppy. He even started staying in Xichen’s room to facetime his mom because she always complained about how he always facetimed alone so he came to Xichen bed to get him to say hi.
And after a while, Wanyin got tired to get out of Xichen’s bed to go back to his own to sleep, so he moved to Xichen room permanently.
Before Xichen knew, they escalated to cuddling awaken and sleeping.
Contrary to Xichen could think, it wasn’t that weird.
Actually it felt heartwarming to hold his tiny husband on his arms, specially when their puppy dog was in the middle of them. Enjoying the warm between his owners.
It made him feel something, but he wasn’t sure what.
.     ·  ✦
“When are you two going to give us a grandchild?” Wanyin’s mother asked them one day via facetime.
Wanyin went all red, screaming. “Mom!”
It was obvious that he didn’t wanted to have this conversation with his mother.
Xichen was beside him in the bed, working on his laptop before to speak in the name of the two. “We want to enjoy our youth first. So no kids for now.”
Hoping that Wanyin wouldn’t mind with his idea.
They didn’t talked about children, yet.
His mother-in-law sounded a bit beaten after that, but she insisted on encourage Wanyin to make his own family as if their dog wasn’t their son already. 
When Wanyin cut the call, Xichen finished his work so he put the computer aside.
“Sorry, Xichen.”
“Why? It’s not your fault that your mother want another grandchild.”
Wanyin looked at him before sprawled out on top of him, doing random things and Xichen was unsure what it means. “Then, how many children do you want?” 
He asked so suddenly that got Xichen out of guard.
“What?”
“I’m joking, do you want children anyways?”
He was always like that since they got close to each other last year, always joking around him.
Sometimes Xichen didn’t know if he was joking or being serious.
“I don’t know, I never thought about having kids.” Xichen blurt out of his mind, smiling at the thought that they have this level of communication to talk about things like this. “What about you?”
“We have Huan Huan, enough for me.”
“I don’t think your mother 
“Well, Huan Huan would be the only grandson that I’m going to give her.”
.     ·  ✦
They almost kissed twice, one time when they were cuddling in the bed and the other one when Wanyin started sitting on Xichen’s lap, nuzzling him and stuff like that.
Their faces were so close that Xichen thought they were going to kiss.
It was so close that he could feel his hot breath, but then Wanyin went all red and jumped ship at the last minute. Xichen felt so disappointed that they didn't kissed already, but he thought that he understand why Wanyin might not kiss him.
He must be thinking that he doesn't want this or something like that.
Contrary to what people could think about his husband, Wanyin had the tendency to overthink things.
He still was working on this, but Xichen couldn’t handle with the self-isolation and the romantic? tension in the house every time he saw Wanyin flustering and getting shy around him.
It was odd after met the confident and a little arrogant side of his husband, so this new side made him feel things that he didn’t know he could feel for Wanyin.
Xichen even feel butterflies in the stomach every time they get close for any reason.
He just wants to kiss Wanyin so badly that he felt embarrassed.
He was so screwed.
.     ·  ✦
One day, Xichen couldn’t stand the situation anymore. He was still a little unsure about his own feelings so he talked long and tended with his friends at the bar about how he wants to take Wanyin on dates and kiss him and let him speak as much as he wants because Wanyin likes to talk about the things that he loves and how much he loves their dog, he could talk about Huan Huan all day and Xichen wouldn't mind, he loves their puppy too.
In the end, he ended asking advice to asking his husband out.
“I want him be happy and I want myself be happy. So how can I ask my literal husband of nine months to be in an actual relationship with me?”
"Talk to him. Tell him what you’re feeling. Ask if he feels the same way," said Mingjue.
“You made it sound that simple, Da-ge.”
"I think you should let him know that you’re open to having a more intimate relationship. It seems he’s feeling something too since he’s cuddling you,” added Jin Guangyao.
“I don’t know what to do.”
Mingjue take a a big sip of wine before to talk again. “Just close your eyes and jump, man. You got this."
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That Post (2/???)
Just between you and me and everyone reading this post, I would not have started with “how this began”.  I’d have got straight to the point.  Nobody really wants to read the backstory, they want to know the terrible things I’ve done and the horrible consequences that are going to come of my actions.
Simon says he asked me why I used his name in my url.  That’s not true.  He asked whether I was afraid of trademark infringement, and only just fell short of an explicit threat to take me to court.
In the time between me starting to write this and his followers spamming my blog, he’s written another post alleging that I had some sort of contact with him prior.  That’s also untrue.  He might be mistaking me for another tumblr user with a similar name, but I did clarify that I was not that person.
I expect Simon’s writer was assuming I would be so intimidated that I would back off.  They definitely didn’t expect to be speaking to someone who’d already considered that they might be threatened with legal action and had checked to make sure that what they were doing was perfectly legal.
I voluntarily told him why the blog is called Simon Alkenmayer is dead, because it seemed to be making him upset.  You can see the entire exchange here.
When Simon says he “asked” me to stop using his name, he means he asked me to stop, after he tried to threaten legal action.
Simon then lists a bunch of reasons he told me for needing to change the blog name.  And this is true, but none of them are particularly realistic.
To put this in perspective, I need to emphasise that Simon is not a real person.  He is a character someone made up and is roleplaying as.
But sure, I’m using his intellectual property.  I was not at the time using his intellectual property, aside from referencing his name on my blog, which is to be expected, considering I was using my blog to record his responses to me.
Even if we agree that I might end up in the public eye, and I might make missteps, which he seems to take for granted (flattering), there’s no reason to believe we would be confused.  For one thing, he is a fictional character whereas I am a real person.  For another, nobody is getting Michael B Jordan, actor, mixed up with Michael Jordan, basketballer, and they only have one letter difference in their names.
And the dangerous, angry people who target Simon are part of his plotline.  If they exist, it’s as weirdos trying to prove he’s not real, and have no reason to target me, since I also don’t believe he’s real.
Then, instead of calling me The Fool, or even just Fool, as it says on my blog and which would actually be kinda funny, he lets everyone know he’s going to refer to me as “isdead”.  This person thinks they’re a trans ally but they can’t even figure out how to use the correct name? Obviously, he’s trying to copy the fact that I’ve said I’ll refer to his writer as Si, which I only did because I need a way to distinguish between the character and the writer, and I really want to give Kristina the benefit of the doubt here.
But mainly, I want to point out that the sentence where he does this begins with the word heretofore.  Simon’s writer probably thought it was a suitably old sounding word, and it really is. Unfortunately, it means “up until now” not “from now on”.  He really should have used henceforth.
It’s excessively picky, and I’m only mentioning it because Simon lived during the time when these words would have been used.  And later on in this rant, he complains that one of the reasons people hate him is because he never breaks character.  Except that he breaks character all the time.
I’d like to be clear that I’ve never said that I used Simon’s name in homage.  I’ve said it was a reference.  If I have used the word homage, I would have been referring to a homage to Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, not a homage to Simon.
But I don’t think I’ve ever used that word, it implies a level of interest in Simon that I’ve never had.  I think he’s used it here because he likes to say and imply I run this blog as an attempt to lash out after he didn’t pay me attention I thought I deserved.
Simon then tries to accuse me of not caring about his feelings. Which is true.  Simon is a fictional character and I do not care about his feelings because like the character, they don’t exist.
His writer is certainly very angry about me using Simon’s name, but they’ve made a choice.  They have decided that it’s more important to them to remain anonymous than it is to stop me using the name.
When I’ve said that I have a right to use Simon’s name, it’s merely in the way anyone can use any name.  Simon’s name is not trademarked and you can’t copyright a name.
He’s then gone on to try to explain the original conversation, which I’ve already explained above, so I’m not going to cover it again.
I don’t see why Simon is trying to stain my character by saying I called him a liar, since he admits he did say the wrong thing.  I think it’s pretty reasonable to assume someone is lying if they threaten you with legal action that they can’t go through with.
Simon then tries to assert that the pen name is actually protected anyway, which is simply untrue.  I’m not attempting to profit off this blog, and libel does not cover products, or fictional characters.
It’s also worth noting that libel must be untrue, which I don’t think anything on my blog is, or I wouldn’t be writing it.
Simon goes on to say that he blocked me because I was lashing out in a negative way, but I was just refuting what he was saying.  I know I’m not the only person who he’s blocked because Simon didn’t want his followers to see any inconvenient truths.
I wasn’t actually openly hostile to Simon for a long time, although I doubt he sees it that way.  I used to go to his blog and ask anonymous questions, and then reblog the screenshots to my own blog to point out the inconsistencies in his characterisation or the conflict in what he said, and what my research had produced.
When I first created this blog, I wasn’t at all interested in proving anything about Simon, I was interested in the experiment, and how well Simon’s writer had researched the character.  That’s one of the reasons I quickly lost interest in him, because it seems they don’t even do a cursory wikipedia search on most things.
I haven’t sent an ask to Simon since September of this year.
Simon also references his IP tracker as though it lets him know when I’m sending him asks.  Either he’s bluffing, or he doesn’t have one.  If Simon had my IP address, he would know that the three other people he’s referenced in this rant aren’t me.
It’s convenient for Simon to say that I think he’s a villain because he didn’t want me to use his name. What could be more petty? In actual fact, I think he’s probably well meaning and more dangerous because of it.
He then goes on to list a number of things I’ve allegedly done, that prove my blog is a hate blog – is this the thing I’m being called out for?
It seems to me that the thing Simon dislikes about my blog, aside from the name, is that I don’t run it the way he wants.
He himself says, in his FAQ, that to interact with the experiment, you don’t have to consume anything that isn’t free. So it’s interesting that he’s suddenly accusing me of not reading enough of his book.
Simon thinks that his blog isn’t literature, his followers seem to think it’s not literature, but it is still an interactive storytelling medium.  That’s what he’s using it for.  Simon’s opinion doesn’t change that the blog is part of his canon.
For someone whose writing is fairly average, Simon is very good at using emotive language when he wants something.  His blog is a community, the rest of the internet is a cesspool.  One that I’ve been rooting around in, apparently.
What actually happened is that I was sent an anonymous tip off which I then investigated.  And I didn’t “accuse” Kristina Meister of anything other than being the person behind Simon.
And I’m not sure you can call it fielding mean spirited asks when those asks are about Simon.  What the person writing Simon, and what many of his followers seem not to understand, is that I’m critiquing a fictional character.  There’s no reason for me to tell people not to send asks pointing out Simon’s flaws, because Simon is part of the fiction.  He’s part of the critique.
And if the person writing Simon doesn’t understand that distinction, they probably need to take a bit of a break.
The reason I’ve not brought forth a single argument that gives Simon pause, is because nobody can. Regardless of what they say or even what they think about themselves, I don’t think the person who writes Simon is open to persuasion. I’m not writing this blog for Simon’s benefit, I never have been.
You can see it in his attempts to paraphrase me.  I don’t think Simon’s antisemitic for referencing the lizard people conspiracy, I think he’s antisemitic because in reaction to the observation about antisemitic tropes in his work, he doubled down and referenced the lizard people conspiracy in an attempt to lure me into sending him angry asks.
Which I didn’t do, but other people did, and he thinks those people are me.  Thus, why I say he probably doesn’t have an IP tracker.
The reason I don’t engage with Simon using logic is because there is no point, and even if there were, I don’t think he would understand.  I have studied logic, and his writer doesn’t even bother to google historical periods he allegedly lived through.  Why would I waste my time with that?
I don’t hate Simon, I just don’t think he’s a real person, and I treat him as accordingly.  That’s allegedly what is experiment is investigating, but he interprets it as hate.
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