I think maybe if there’s something that people are saying about their own marginalized bodies that’s clearly giving them gender euphoria and/or just a regular old confidence boost, and it makes you insecure or gives you second hand dysphoria, then that’s a valid emotion to have but also shouldn’t be broadcasted like a #hottake on a public social media website and instead talked through with someone in private.
like some fat people get a lot of joy out of affirmations about being sexy, some transmascs get a lot of joy out of men’s tits memes, some transfems get a lot of joy out of suck her dick sunday memes, and it’s fine if the idea of any of these puts you off but it’s not the fault of the people who enjoy them and they shouldn’t have to self censor because of it.
i know we’re not an united ideological movement in any way, but i do wish trans people and trans allies had well-known guides for deradicalizing terfs.
terfs, like most cults, are pragmatic - they’ll take whoever they can get. but many of us on the left, be we lgbt+ or allies, are steeped in irredeemability politics. we don’t reform bigots, we exclude them.
and understandably so! but that also means the closest we get to actually bringing someone back from the brink is to just be hostile and tell them to fuck off. i getit, because we’re all dealing with our own trauma and these people are obviously partially responsible. but i do think there’s a way to deradicalize people.
terfs know people can change, that’s how they recruit. we have to believe people can change the other way too… otherwise, we’re dealing with an exponential number of terfs and terf-adjacent people who can seemingly only be radicalized in one direction. and that’s nota good numbers game.
so uh. yeah. if there was like an organized effort to create a “general guide” to deradicalize terfs, that’d be cool. and it can take many forms - literature and other texts which debunk their talking points, creating welcoming communities for previously isolated and lovebombed individuals, feminist circles which emphasize the harmony and interdependence of trans and feminist movements to destroy patriarchy and gendered expectations, or whatever else.
its a cliche to say at this point, but i think its still true - if we want to “win”, i think we need to work harder than to just say “its not my job to educate you.” if someone is in a gray area, or have yikes or outright offensive questions, we need to do something other than just tell them to fuck off. it doesn’t have to be you, but it has to be someone.
i say all of this because i’m trans and i’m scared. terfs are “rising” in politics. they are cited in transphobic legislation. they are able to stop goodlegislation. i want to deradicalize terfs notbecause i want you to personally forgive the people who hurt you, but because i want us to work together to protect trans people in society.
uwu trans boys who are feminine and attracted to men and wear dresses and paint their nails are actually the most powerful warriors against terfs we have, because exactly zero (0) of their talking points apply to us.
no we’re not “lost butch lesbians.” neither of those words make sense with our experiences, and no amount of conversion therapy will change that. no we don’t think “woman = feminine, man = masculine.” i’m currently wearing sparkly seafoam green nails. no we don’t need “feminism education,” half of us grew up feminist or later became so, and that’s a huge reason we’re more comfortable in having a non-traditional expression of our identity and breaking down patriarchal expectations by subverting gender roles. and no, we dont just need to realize that “strong women exist” or that “girls can be CEOs too”. most of us are socialists or communists so we don’t wanna be CEOs or contribute to exploitation thru climbing the hierarchical structures of our society anyway lmao.
when t-rfs talk about “peaking” people what they’re talking about is grooming btw
they will for real dedicate/circulate entire threads detailing extremely specifically how to recruit people into their ideology, often through explicitly manipulative and sometimes even outright abusive means. they gloat and joke openly about doing it to friends and partners and coworkers and younger siblings and anonymously to young trans people on the internet. you see this happening pretty much everywhere regardless of whatever blog you’ve clicked on and are hate-reading, it’s integral to their entire ideology of which would probably honestly collapse without it yet they accuse trans people of being in a cult
look at any blog in the “des-sted dysphoric” community to see innumerable further examples of this. they wear that title like a badge, very conversion therapy-esque. i’ve seen these people openly discuss how to convince their trans male and transmasculine friends into detransitioning. threads upon threads of advice on how to do this. a lot of times they even journal about it on their blogs, like “omg my TIF friend wants top surgery how do i peak them asap”. this is innately unnatural and predatory behavior
They have those insane videos of people hiding their tattoos all over their bodies. They say their products do not transfer or rub off. It really seemed like the holy grail of concealing.
So I decided to ask them about their thoughts on beard shadow.
That was two months ago and I’m still waiting for an answer. A few days ago, I wrote them on their facebook page via messenger. For days, all I got was an automated reply telling me to visit their website. So I left a bad review on their page and left them an angry message on messenger asking if their customer service sucked for everyone or only for trans women.
That’s when I finally got an answer, asking me to give them the email address I used to contact them in the first place.
I gave it to them and said I would not spend a dime on their products.
reblogging with explanation for the third image! i’ve also added image descriptions to the post. sorry for skipping it earlier, i posted this from mobile.
also, not that long ago, left-handed people weren’t actually allowed to write with their left hand in schools. my grandma remembers being smacked on the hand with a ruler for trying to write with her left hand. it’s only recently that left-handedness started to be seen as a complete non-issue.
Just me crying in the bathroom so I don’t wake my partners with this, fuck.
So to sum up: CT and DC have passed laws making it illegal to extradite someone to another state if they are being charged in that other state for crimes pertaining to abortion or trans health care, and makes it legal to sue and get your money back if you are targeted by a TX-style “bounty” law. DC also includes “crimes” of consensual adult sex, gay and interracial marriage and cohabitation and providing or using contraception.
This is, as the thread explains, basically legal interstate warfare. CT and DC’s laws bar compliance with such laws.
This is, on one hand, kind of terrifying, because this is where we are now. It’s going to get worse long before it gets better.
On the other hand… holy shit, someone fucking did something.
Someone fucking did something real.
Okay folx so… this kind of tags has been fairly common on this post.
I’m glad people are checking, but! If you didn’t know, this is what it looks like now if you post a link to Twitter on Tumblr. And!
Here are the screenshots of CT’s amendment. The important stuff in the 2nd screenshot is what’s underlined. There is too much text for alt text, it’s on the link above, but the tl;dr is “it covers abortion and gender-affirming health care.” It has been passed and signed by the Governor as detailed on the ct.gov link:
So yes, this is very very real, and Tumblr changed how they display Twitter links - the thread had all of this info in it except for the link to The Hill. :)
Please reblog this version before I lose my fucking mind over people reblogging the original post saying “I haven’t checked this and I don’t know if it’s real.”
I cannot believe this is what we have to do now to keep people safe. Good God.
The trans movement is not about making cis people comfortable. Trans liberation is not supposed to only be for the people who can appear most palatable to cis people. It shouldn’t ever be.
Cis society desires our eradication and silence. Placating those desires by silencing and fighting any trans and gender nonconforming person who is easily visible, atypical, and targeted by cis society’s hatred…that leads directly into a path of community “cleansing” that denies & kills every one of us who does not meet cis standards. By the way, that’s most of us, and the most marginalized first.
how many times do we have to say “you will never ever be able to tell with 100% certainty who is and isn’t trans in any given group of people unless they all individually want to tell you and policy based around the assumption that you can will fail terribly” before cis people start taking it seriously. just wondering
all of the following are true:
1. some trans people can and do pass very well
2. some trans people cannot or do not want to pass at all
3. pre-transition trans people who look like their AGAB exist
4. intersex people who do and don’t identify as trans both exist
5. pronouns aren’t an indication of gender
6. presentation isn’t an indication of gender
7. gender nonconforming cis and trans people exist
8. sometimes someone’s gender literally just isn’t any of your business
all of these things make it impossible to definitively, 100%, with absolute certainty, tell someone’s gender without them being okay with telling you.
Would it be helpful for non-trans people to take the survey, or should we just stay out of it?
TLDR: if you are cis, signal boost the hell out of this survey instead. signal boost it to various communities, especially ones reaching out to marginalized communities. if you are trans, then please also signal boost the hell out of this survey too.
We need to signal boost this to rural & non-urban-areas so the trans people there get counted, we need API (Asian, Pacific Islander) trans people to get counted. We need bi/pan trans people, we need military veterans, we need other demographics too so please contact the people who are conducting this survey. Here are their information.
You can be in a different country, and still fill out the non-US-citizen survey, as long as you’re trans.
Do Not Hesistate With Any Question or Accessibility Problem, Please Contact & Ask These People:
Josie Caballero–USTS Project Manager – Dirección de Gestión de la USTS[email protected]; 202-804-6057
Sybastian Smith –NCTE National Organizer – Organizador Nacional NCTE [email protected]; 202-804-6042
Alex del Rosario – USTS Outreach Manager – Gestión de Difusión de la USTS [email protected]; 202-804-6052
Other Q&A’s that came up during a 2021 November 16th presentation:
firstly, NCTE USTS did not get authority (IRB approval) to go into the protected class of incarcerated trans people
secondly, you don’t have to be a US-citizen to contribute data, but you will be given a non-us-citizen survey.
If you reside in the US but are just temporarily abroad, then you would be able to respond to the US-resident survey. If you are permamently living abroad, you would take the survey for non-US residents.
if you have any other questions about these categories then please contact the USTS team for help.
The rough timeline for the USTS:
Pledge Period is until the end of January
Fielding Period starts around the beginning of February with a 6 week survey window
Report writing with start shortly thereafter and go until end of 2022
You need to be trans to take the survey, but anyone can know a trans person.
Rare photos from trans history: Olympic runner and Zdeněk Koubek styles Cinda Glenn’s hair, 1936. Koubek was one of the first trans men to gain international fame after he transitioned in 1935.
this is inspiring weirdly complex emotions in me. like, it’s the fucking 1930s. I can hear the mid-atlantic newsreel voice. the fact that it plays coy with why he knows so much about women’s hairstyles, but like, as a funny surprise, not as shock and horror. the fact that it never deadnames him or uses incorrect pronouns. the fact that he looks like Mickey Rooney. idk it’s just making me feel feelings.
yeah I’m a nonpracticing woman. I was raised female but I don’t really believe anymore yknow?
I’m culturally female. I don’t really believe in one true gender, but I do participate in some of the rituals I was raised in, when I feel like it. And I enjoy participating in the traditions of other genders too sometimes.
I’m only female on Christmas and Easter, for my parents.
I’m not really into the whole female dogma, but the aesthetic went off, ya know?
why does this feel so true?
This is funny, but I read the first line like “nonpracticing doctor”. You went to school to become a woman, but you didn’t bother to get your woman license so now you just use your woman knowledge to write particularly detailed murder mysteries.
“for those who don’t know elevated access is a group of pilots that are volunteering their time, skill, aircraft, and resources to provide transportation for reproductive healthcare and gender confirming care.”
This is definitely a plausible Hank moment, but only after a long episode of him misunderstanding and getting it ignorantly (but not maliciously) wrong at first, being distressed and confused about how he’s out of touch with the kids and gender ain’t simple like it used to be
right up until some rude asshole does this in his face and he needs to stand up for his friends / family and suddenly Understands the emotional crux of the issue
“And you have all these so called whistleblowers claiming the government is putting chemicals in vaccines and food to make you one of them transgenders or homosexuals. But I’ve never seen a transgender support the government or one of those so-called “gay frogs”, so it makes you wonder what THEYRE really putting in this stuff. All I’m saying is that Chelsea Manning went to prison and Mr. Rogan is a millionaire, and you always gotta follow the money”
“Tell you what man, talkin’ ‘bout dang ‘ol critical gender theory man, ‘s all a construct, talkin’ ‘bout man’s man and real woman but I tell you what man, talkin’ ‘bout when the lights are off we all just dang ‘ol people man”
