Opposition Research

tenbitchyfingers:

francisperfectionbonnefoy:

tenitchyfingers:

edenunderfallout:

woke-up-on-derse:

Can we stop pretending that bullies who hate queer kids are usually queer themselves?can we stop pretending that we are our own worst enemy? Can straight people take responsibility for the environment and people they’ve cultivated for once????

The only person that violently bullied me came out after high school but he was forced to pass as het/masc. Queer on queer violence then is a survival technique to live within a culture of forced heteronormativity, the idea that queer people being angry at other queer people/feeling wrong/jealous about others self expression is then a problem with them not finding acceptance from their friends, family, or religious organization and wouldn’t exist if not for that pressure.

Basically. I’ve never heard anyone say “gay bashers are gay themselves so it’s not my problem” anyway. Because the context of heteronormativity is always there. 

Which is also why we should attack the problems instead of people. If you say the violence is from “the straights” and then turns out the person was queer, you also lose your credibility and your protest seems weak.
The problem is not “straight people”, the problem is homophobia and heteronormativity and these are ideas that can be perpetuated also from lgbt people whether to survive and “not be outed”, both due to the fact it’s in the culture we grow up in.
It’s easy to think the problem is “gays vs straights”, but it is not. It’s about wrong ideas and prejudices, people are just the phenomenon in which these shows up irl but pointing at people instead of the prejudice that made them behave a certain way doesn’t help on the long run.

And lbr if you attack all straight people you’re attacking your allies too. You don’t want that. And you’re not in the position to attack people who care and are helping. Queer people like us are still a minority and we can’t bite back at people who genuinely want equality.

This thread is pretty hilarious.

It went at the top from ‘hey, let’s not imply that the predominant abusers of queer people are other queer people, because they’re not’ and at the bottom it ended up with ‘let’s not imply all straights are abusers’, which never even fucking happened.

This is how the responsibility for victimization falls on the victims theirselves. The narrative of ‘hey maybe we shouldn’t say cishet people who abuse queer people are usually not cishet’ shifts gradually over time until it gets to the point where of course this is a problem with queer people. Not the fact that we’re beaten, raped, killed, starved, fired, evicted, and encouraged to commit suicide in a world inimical to our survival. It’s the fact that we’re not nice enough about it.

If a cishet dude looked at what happens to queer and trans people (and the ways it falls heavily on our siblings of colour), and he gave any amount of a fuck about it, he’d be horrified at the people who decided they were deserving of death and he wasn’t, and he’d realize that if it were up to queer people, they wouldn’t fucking choose death for theirselves. And if Pat McCrory came out as trans tomorrow, it wouldn’t change the fact that he’s a fucking cis supremacist, and it wouldn’t change the fact that the institutions created to privilege cisgender people — which, even if they have trans members, require cis acquiescence to exist because of that demographic majority — still exist and still grind people up in its gears.

The four people who bullied me in elementary were, last I checked, happily straight and cisgender, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most childhood and adult abuses of queer and trans folk are by cis and het folk, not closeted trans folk.

Fuck literally everything about these responses to the OP. I am exhausted from being painted as the locus of my own suffering.

Reblogged from: mypinkpubes

I watched the debate on Monday, and just now, I was reminded of it during a thought process I had about a picture I saw on a furry art site I’m on.

This picture was a commission and was tagged with a slur, and it’s not clear what the character’s owner’s identity is. If the owner is trans, then it’s merely an unfortunate word being reclaimed, and while I wouldn’t myself, and I’d prefer some sort of indication that’s what’s happening, I wouldn’t say anything further. If the owner, as I suspect, is cis, then, obviously, there’s a problem.

The thought process I went through was tiring, however. I imagined how it might go if I actually asked this person how they identified, and how it would go if they were cis:

[me]: The word ‘—’ is a slur and is harmful to the people it’s supposed to represent.

[them]: [some variant of] That’s what everyone calls it/but that’s what they’re called/that’s what it is in furry art/what else am I supposed to call them?

And I wanted to write this to compose my thoughts about that question.

First of all, using ‘that’s what this kind of person is called’ is a justification for describing a group with this specific term. It implies that it’s impossible for a slur to become the widely-accepted term for that group. I could bring up numerous examples of slurs that have become so common to refer to a group that many people don’t actually know the proper terms, e.g. the Rromani slur. (If you’ve never heard of the Rromani before, ever heard the word ‘g*psy’? Yeah. That’s the slur.)

If you doubt that the word functions as a slur, consider how many people of the group itself actually use that term for theirself. I’m not talking about sex workers trying to perform SEO operations, I’m talking about the entire population of people the slur represents. Many, many, many members of this group have strong objections to the word not only for its history but for its semantics, and I guarantee you for every person of this group you find that says it’s okay, I can find five that say it isn’t, and since we’re measuring the benefit or harm it might cause to a group of people, the popularity or unpopularity of the term within that group matters a great deal.

However, it does objectively put the person I’m asking in a difficult position: I’m asks them to stop using a word that is not harmful to them, and to begin using words that are not only rarer, but that would require them to deliberately expose theirselves to the exact same pushback for enforcing that boundary around their character.

Not only that, but the term serves a specific purpose in furry art, that being to demarcate different kinds of fantasy anatomy. Someone with breasts and a penis uses this term. Someone with breasts, a penis and a vagina uses another. Someone with breasts and a vagina uses another. Someone with a flat chest and a penis uses another. Et cetera. In this way people are able to find the specific combination of parts they want, and this is clearly useful.

This is the basic concept behind the idea of another art site’s so-called “tag what you see” policy. It is deliberately ignorant of the gender of the character. It does not allow for external information to define what that character is. If the character has a particular set of body parts, that character is categorized under a particular term. These terms are memorable, short, and easily searchable.

All the fantasy body types, however, are slurs. All of them. None of them would be appropriate in all the same contexts ‘male’ and ‘female’ could be used. And this is a problem, because it relegates discussion of these fantasy anatomies – some of which exist in real life – to nothing more than a porn category.

Bear in mind, I don’t actually have a problem with people liking what they like. If you have a thing for characters with tits and a phallus, all the more power to you. I just want to make sure that the people I personally know with tits and a phallus, the people who really exist, including myself, aren’t hurt by continuously seeing theirselves reflected under a word that they would never choose for theirself, and that actively categorizes them under an unwanted gender.

To put this into perspective, imagine, for just one moment, that as a straight, cis man, you could not turn around on certain sites without encountering someone like you labeled ‘f*g’. That was the term for a straight dude, the label that’s used to describe you. And when you maybe talked to someone about it, to ask them not to tag characters like you with that term, they came back with ‘well, what am I supposed to call you? That’s what everyone calls you.’

Imagine that was prevalent on every site you went to of this type, with only minor pockets and niches where people would call you male, or straight – if any existed at all. Imagine that the ‘sex’ tag system – or even the ‘gender’ system – labeled you this way. Imagine this was the price of admission for participating in this particular community to any significant extent.

If you’re a straight, cis woman, you could imagine the same kind of situation, only the term would be ‘b*tch’ or ‘d*ke’.

And maybe, maybe someone I ask will understand. Maybe they’ll realize they’re using a term that hurts other people and devise other words that function the same, but aren’t as harmful.

[them]: Whatever I don’t care that’s what it’s called I don’t have to listen to you get angry over nothing fuck you

And in that moment, I’m Hillary Clinton, patiently smiling.

manslator:

snoodspirit:

manslator:

man-ilovedeath:

manslator:

The thing about “manspreading” is that it’s totally a thing. The fact that a lot of dudes are out here trying to justify it is proof that it’s a real thing. But it’s really rude. There is no denying it. You get these guys over here saying they have to because of some comfort issue having to do with their balls or whatever, but here’s the thing about public transportation, it’s not about comfort. 

People don’t ride the bus or subway to be comfortable, they ride it to get to work, or school, or home, or wherever the fuck they have to be that day. If was suppposed to be comfortable, then there would be more than a quarter inch of fucking cushion on those seats. 

“But I need to be comfortable!“ 

No, you fucking don’t! The bus is meant to get as many people as possible from point A to point B. They can’t do that if you’re taking up more than one seat. I get it though, if you were at home or the only passenger in the backseat of a personal vehicle, fucking do it dude. Take up as much space as you want. Spread those limbs, my little starfish! But the bus is not yours. The subway is not yours.

It is a shared space. That doesn’t mean take up as much of it as you can for yourself, that means take what you need. What you NEED. That’s why I take up only one seat. Not one seat and some of the seat next me because of my junk. And if I can’t, I stand up. Standing up is totally an option on public transportation and is literally way better than sitting down anyway. In my opinion, at least. My ass doesn’t hurt, I don’t have strangers crotches in my face, I feel like I’m in a gum commercial for whatever reason, it’s awesome. 

Also, some woman have balls, and you never catch them manspreading. Like what the fuck is your excuse, you greedy shit? 

yo have you ever asked them nicely if they could move their legs so that you can sit down?

Manslation: I’m here to save the day!!! It surely never would have occurred to little old you to do the completely fucking obvious thing that you try all the time without success. It meant a lot to me to save you the trouble of having to do all that super hard thinking! Someone oughta bake me a cake.

Okay so it kinda is about comfort though? Male pelvises are typically shaped in such a way that putting their legs together is actually difficult, not just uncomfortable. Not to mention most men have, you know, a penis and testes which are pretty fragile and sensitive so squeezing their legs together isn’t an option.

And I’m an intersex woman jsyk before you come at me with that “manslation!!!” bullshit.

Manslation (cis male sexual characteristics and/or gender identity not required): I’m going to hop into a thread a thousand years late to tell you one more time why men’s balls are more important than you. Ummm didn’t you ever think About CIS MEN’S BALLS? BALLS. DiD u knoW THAT CIS MEN HAve THEM???? AND THEY MUST BE OPTIMALLY COMFORTABLE AT ALL TIMES

@manslator I’ll say it again, for @snoodspirit and everyone else who needs to learn this:

I cross my legs at the knees.

You heard me right. A non-transitioning DMAB person with a penis and testes and thighs that can crush watermelons from years of rollerblading can manage to cross my legs as tightly as they can go without pain. It’s possible, but it takes some finesse, which explains why these assholes can’t seem to manage dealing with their own anatomy.

Men do not understand that there is a technique to it, and rather than trying to figure it out, they cross or close their legs without thinking, get uncomfortable as they accidentally get a ball squished, and spend all their time perpetuating this pelvic bullshit instead of learning how they fucked up. Let me point out that the angle men claim they need their legs at while sitting down is somehow far greater than the angle at which they stand up, where men do not walk around bow-legged.

There is no kinesiological reason men need to take up two bus seats’ worth of width. If there was, bus seats would be redesigned to accomodate them.

Wherever you heard this crap about pelvic shape, they were mistaken or lying to you.

Reblogged from: manslator

On Twitter I happened upon this tweet thread, which had someone arguing that black women shouldn’t be angry that Michelle Obama was called a transphobic slur, on the basis that the slur implies that transgender people are bad, and in not rejecting that interpretation of the word, you accept that transgender people are bad.

This was backed up by @killdano​, who has in that tweet thread decided to invite people to his Tumblr for longer-length discussion of the subject.

So here’s my contribution to that discussion.

The anger over Michelle Obama being called a transphobic slur has two parts, neither extricable from the other, but I’ll address one of them first because it’s the one the original tweet addressed. It goes something like this: Even if you totally reject the argument that trans people are bad, it’s obvious that it was intended to disparage Michelle Obama by implying that she’s transgender, because the people using the slur believe that being transgender is bad.

I am AMAB transgender myself. I see nothing wrong with being transgender, of course I don’t. But I do acknowledge that my view is not the only view, nor is it even a common view in some circles. I acknowledge that given the preponderance of specifically anti-trans bills being debated (or even passed!) in state legislatures, North Carolina’s being the most prominent, the mere concept of someone being a woman when they were assigned the role of man is seen by a significant portion of society as perverted, antisocial, and a threat to (cisgender) women and (cisgender) children.

That’s the difference. There is a wide chasm of meaning between “don’t call Michelle Obama a transphobic slur because being trans is bad” and “don’t call Michelle Obama a transphobic slur because people think being transgender is bad, including the people using the slur”.

You know how I know they think this? Because we’re talking about people against Michelle Obama using this specific word, which has a dual function: As a marker of identity and as an insult. That’s what a slur is. It uses the identity as the insult, and implies that merely by having that identity, you’re a bad person. It can go in both directions: You either have that identity, so you’re bad; or you’re bad, so you must have that identity.

You can categorically reject the logic of this implication and, at the same time, acknowledge that it’s the intended implication, instead of burying your head in the sand and telling yourself that nobody takes your identity as an insult. Walk down the street and call the next person you see that slur. Go ahead. Call the next ten people you meet that slur. Really try to sell that you perceive them as transgender. See how many take it as a compliment.

That they’re wrong to be insulted doesn’t meaningfully change that they think that it’s insulting. One fact prescribes an ideal state (nobody should believe that being transgender is a bad thing) and one describes the reality (many people do believe being called transgender is a bad thing, so implying they are can function as an insult).

Further evidence for the intent to disparage Michelle Obama comes from the second part of this issue, which is that a common arrow in the quiver of anti-black misogyny is to disparage black femininity and imply that black women are mannish, or men, or masculine, or otherwise not ladylike, a perception commonly aimed at trans women as well.

In fact, it’s already happened during this election cycle:

This is a political cartoon. It’s nakedly in the tank for Donald Trump, like most political cartoons are in the tank for (or against) specific causes and people. And it depicts an exaggeratedly muscular Michelle Obama with a crotch bump, a boxy frame, big feet, and a flat chest against a svelte, curvaceous, buxom Melania Trump with zero muscle tone. It doesn’t take an art major to interpret this as being an attack on Mrs. Obama’s femininity: The argument here, however busted the logic, is that the First Lady is less of a lady than Mrs. Trump, and that’s bad, and we should “make the First Lady great again” by electing someone whose wife is more ladylike.

Ben Garrison either intentionally drew the comic this way to make this argument, or he literally does not understand what he’s drawing, and since he’s a pretty famous political cartoonist, I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s doing at this point.

This is not an insult unique to black women, but it is an insult commonly leveled at black women, and its intent is to function like an insult. This can be pointed out whether you believe it is an insult or not: It’s pretty easy to separate your own opinions from those of others and acknowledge when someone is trying to damage your credibility or character, even if they’re using an insult you don’t yourself perceive as a negative trait. I think Michelle Obama’s got the best-toned arms in the history of First Ladies. I still think it’s insulting to imply she’s got manly arms. 

Whether someone is using an effective tactic (how they specifically attack your character) is irrelevant to identifying their overall strategy (of attacking your character to reduce your approval among others).

So let’s cut the crap. The people playing “identity politics” are the people using people’s identities as a weapon. Stop calling people slurs, stop assigning identities to people that they don’t theirselves admit, stop calling black women masculine on the basis that they’ve got great arms, and for fuck’s sake, stop stalling on indefensible bullshit when you don’t have a leg to stand on.

Part of the issue with engaging people is that sometimes they don’t understand how many things are in dispute about their position, or they feign non-understanding to make their argument seem stronger than it is.

One thing I find especially vexing about the “transtrender” argument is that it has layers upon layers of wrongness, each of which is actually obviated by one of the others. I feel like going through them one by one to map them out. I get the impression I might need to in the next few days, anyway.

The argument that there is an epidemic of “fake” transgender people who take resources away from “true” transgender people has something wrong about it nearly every word. First of all, I reject that it reaches epidemic proportions. Out of the total number of transgender people that exist, I don’t think many of us are fraudulently transgender. For that matter, I don’t believe that being transgender is “trendy” or “fashionable” or anything of the sort, not in the way that transmedicalists use the terms.

Second of all, I don’t think the people that transmedicalists call “fake trans people” are fake trans people. I think they see an identity or a coping strategy they reject, and reject the transgender identity of the person identifying with it because they reject the gender or the coping strategy of the person identifying with it. This is an important distinction. If someone rejects their assigned gender, it doesn’t particularly matter if they’ve identified as a girl, agender, or an attack helicopter, they have still rejected their assigned gender. It’s possible for people to fit all the explicit criteria of being transgender that transmedicalists explicitly say are necessary, and still identify as something they don’t recognize. It doesn’t seem like any of them have acknowledged this possibility, though.

Third of all, I reject that the people who fraudulently identify as transgender are a significant cause of restricted access to transgender medical resources. A truscum argument I heard a while back was that there was a shortage of T and this was somehow our fault, despite the fact that testosterone is routinely overprescribed to cis men trying to regain their youthful virility.

Fourth of all, I reject that if anybody accesses hormones and later detransitions, or if people have been rejected from hormones, this should affect the care given to the people who do need hormones. The criteria for gender dysphoria does not say anything about what I feel, what the person down the street feels, what the doctor feels, or anything else; it talks about what the patient feels. Withholding care from a patient because of the actions of unrelated, unknown other people is unethical. It’s heartening to see informed consent clinics popping up; I hope that becomes the standard for trans medical care, because by and large, we understand what we need.

Fifth of all, I reject that if someone detransitions, they aren’t transgender! I am personally aware of people who are medically unfit to take hormones; it is, I am sure, exceedingly rare, but not impossible, for hormones to simply not be right for you. I further reject that people being denied hormones is evidence of an that those people are “fake”, because being denied hormones is a common complaint among transmedicalists. If they believe that getting rejected for medical care is a sign of being fake, they’ve got a lot of explaining to do.

But see, a lot of this wrongness actually makes the rest of the wrongness irrelevant. If there isn’t a significant number of fakers, then none of the rest is significant enough to warrant the unbelievable amount of energy that has been poured into eradicating them. If identifying with some nonstandard gender isn’t “trendy” or “fashionable”, there’s no clear motivation for anyone to do it, and it’s unlikely that anyone is doing it for any reason other than because that’s how they want to identify. If “fake” transgender people are simply real transgender people seeking an identity that suits them, then we’re eating our own in an attempt to look presentable to cisgender people. If there aren’t widespread attempts to receive hormones fraudulently or if the doctors prescribing them aren’t at fault for punishing all transgender people for the actions of a minority of transgender people, then transmedicalists are blaming the wrong people and letting structural transphobia off the hook.

Every single one of these points has to be correct in order for the transmedicalist viewpoint to be true, and yet it’s vanishingly unlikely that all of them are. Even one of these points being untrue blows a gigantic hole in their argument because it relies on so many co-reliant parts. That’s why some people adopt the tactic of shifting to what they think is a safer part of the argument when you start to get too close to dismantling one part of it.

It’s also why I address as many of them as possible when I talk about this. It’s why my posts become so long. It’s not like transmedicalists have their position basically correct except for a few understandable errors. The whole thing is errors. And even if I can convince someone that A or B argument is false or misleading or erroneous, they tend to just close ranks around the rest of the argument, because they believe it’s necessary to defend the borders of their identity.

I want to impress upon people that there is no “mostly correct” with this argument. The whole thing needs to be correct, or the conclusion is incorrect, and yet so much of it is incorrect.

And it is incorrect. Transgender people who are slightly less ridiculous to cisgender people are trying to use transgender people who are slightly more ridiculous as scapegoats, to convince those cisgender people that they’re pure enough to get access to what they need, and they don’t care who they hurt in the process. Not even other people who need that same access, but who have made theirselves look more ridiculous to cisgender people.

And I’m sick of being told I’m not transgender, or not transgender enough, or that some of you think I’m transgender and some don’t. My identity, your identity, the transmedicalist identity, and the identity of the fourteen year old Tumblr user with bunself pronouns isn’t up for a vote. It’s should not be up for debate whether I am who I say I am. I shouldn’t have to justify it to anyone, least of all a bunch of ignorant assholes who I find to be increasingly indistinguishable from TERFs in what they believe about gender. 

I’m sick of people getting hurt, and I’m doubly sick of hurt people taking it out on those who didn’t fucking do anything to them.

Tagging @rationalsjdiscussions​, because I think you’d find this interesting.

It seems to me that there are two main ways to be persuasive, neither mutually exclusive: You can have a better substantive argument, or you can be better at rhetoric.

Having a better substantive argument is being able to show why position A is superior to position B in some way — including, if necessary, why the benefits of position B are less important or less in magnitude than the benefits of position A. Being better at rhetoric is using various kinds of appeals to sell position A more skilfully than the person selling position B.

If the advocate for position A tends to get creamed by the advocates for position B, they might try to amp up their rhetoric to match. They might spend their time specifically engaging with the arguments of B advocates, learning their strategies, and coming up with specific rhetorical counters to those arguments. They might try to outsell B advocates.

They can do this whether position A is actually better than position B or not.

Politics has always been about spin and selling and showmanship. That’s not in any doubt. People have always looked for the most persuasive argument, and because of how human brains work, it’s not always the most beneficial position but the most compellingly-presented one.

And sometimes, the most compellingly-presented positions are dishonest, especially when they appeal to our emotions: Our fears, our hopes, our anger. They just are. We as humans are bad at bullshit-detection and don’t innately know when we’re being deceived. When someone tells us they can eliminate the things that scare you, check your wallet. When they incite scorn towards a third party, and blame them for your problems, check your wallet. When you’re low and desperate and they promise to lift you up, check your wallet.

So sometimes, a position that has been dismantled on its merits makes a resurgence via rhetoric, because its advocates are unable to fathom a universe in which they might have backed the wrong horse.

Wrongness is hard. We don’t like to be wrong. Sometimes we like to correct ourselves, but if we have nothing to correct ourselves with, if we can’t go from believing we’re right because we believe position A to believing we’re right because we believe position B, we flounder. The state of being wrong is very short and intensely unpleasant for most of us, most of the time, and we like to avoid that

And when you perceive your identity to be under attack because people are calling it wrong, it’s common not to be able to let go of the wrongness that underpins your identity, especially when it serves as a convenient reason to explain things about your own experience. Sometimes being wrong about a thing results in a huge framework toppling with nothing to immediately replace it. In other words, admitting wrongness would result in sitting in that wrongness far too long to tolerate. It’s so hard to admit that we’ve conceptualized a part of ourselves on bad information that we’re willing to invent whatever arguments we need to justify it, up to and including shooting the messengers of good information to prevent it from getting to us.

Gamergate does this with the identity of “gamer”, who plays games, why games are made the way they are, et cetera. They’ve conceptualized “gamer” as an exclusive, meritocratic, masculine identity, and deny all efforts by “outsiders” to expand the definition.

The Sad and Rabid Puppies do this by talking about what “true” SF and fantasy is, and being unable to conceptualize that maybe people like the science fiction stories they do because the stories are more compelling to them. Their identity as a science fiction consumer is threatened by the fact that their definition of what makes good science fiction is extremely limited compared to what science fiction actually is.

Transmedicalists do this, too, with the identity of “transgender”. They’ve seen people abuse them and those they care about because of a group they see as fundamentally different, and deny any common ground between theirselves and the second group in order to mitigate that abuse. Their identity is threatened because if everyone who claims to be transgender is, they can’t protect theirselves from these attacks as effectively.

My point is not to single out these groups, just to show them as examples. This is a problem that could afflict anyone. It’s necessary to be on guard for signs that we’re no longer arguing for a position we believe in but defending something we can’t admit to ourselves is wrong. It’s necessary to ask ourselves if we’re trying to sell something with rhetoric more than we are trying to demonstrate its benefits with substance. it’s necessary, as often as we can, to be honourable about the things we believe in, and humble enough to let go of the things that only harm us in the end.

real-trans-advocacy:

opposition-research:

This is a conversation I have just finished having with @thesocialjusticecourier. I think it’s necessary to show it in order to demonstrate something.

thesocialjusticecourier:

Not necessarily. People with Downs, or Autism or hell, even better - people who are born hermaphroditic have a medical condition but that doesn’t necessarily mean they need treatment. Some might if the condition has outlying symptoms or creates other problems that need to be handled with medication or treatment - but for the most part they’re just people who were born differently and function differently. Trans isn’t a fashion accessory or a sense of enlightenment - it’s something that happens with the alignment of the brain and the body and then is further aggravated or shaped by upbringing. This brings so many variables into the issue - it’s both societal and biological, so there are a plethora of ways that it can manifest: but make no mistake it is most definitely biological. That much has been proven time and time again - there is no way around it. Our brains have a distinct gender, sometimes that gender doesn’t line up with our bodies, sometimes there’s a partial connection there, sometimes there’s a more complicated series of connections - these are all variables of the same root problem - that root is what we are referring to as the medical condition, the way you experience it is the dysphoria. If you’re experiencing an urge to be something other than your assigned gender, then I would argue you’re experiencing dysphoria. Just because you’re comfortable with it and who you are doesn’t mean you’re not feeling a disconnect, it just means you’re responding to it differently than others would.

opposition-research:

Okay, let’s talk about the ‘fashion accessory’ thing, because I think that’s an incredibly harmful phrase. Not only is it inflammatory, it’s incorrect, and it’s got no place in any debate about transness because it is at best irrelevant and at worst a TERF argument. Nobody decides to become trans as a fashion statement. I have seen no evidence of it. Every single person who has ever been called out for being a special snowflake tumblrina has either been mistaken for DFAB when they’re DMAB (up to and including poring over stolen nudes to debate how the dick was photoshopped on), they’ve been raked over the coals for finding a pronoun set they connected with, or they’ve been excoriated for their ‘made-up gender’, and it’s all anti-trans rhetoric dressed up as pro-trans rhetoric. I may have a nonstandard set of pronouns, I may name myself after a taxonomic clade that includes rabbits because I happen to like rabbits, I may identify as a tumblr gender, I may celebrate my gender in ways you do not agree with, but it is not possible to go from that series of observations to ‘this person is making up their transness for attention’, and I will not, under any circumstances, stand for it. Am I clear?

There are many things you believe that I merely disagree with. That one makes me angry. It’s not even an argument. It’s just mean. And there’s no purpose to it but to shit on people who use words you don’t like.

thesocialjusticecourier:

And that’s where our conversation ends. Thank you for your time and I appreciate the insight into your views. I apologize I didn’t respond to your post - but again, I thought it was one of Toni’s posts on an alt and didn’t see the need to respond to it at the time. For the record the reason I’m ending this conversation, so there is no confusion, you just stuck your fingers in your ears, said it’s not true no I won’t believe it, denied a legitimate problem by claiming there is no proof when I have seen proof with my own two eyes. Also, your display about how you can create whatever gender you like on a whim and it should simply be accepted and respected regardless of how silly or harmful to anyone else it may be doesn’t help, neither does the condescending way in which you scolded me as if I was a child or had somehow personally offended you because you did not like my word choice. That said I have none nor do I feel any animosity towards you, I simply do not see a point to a conversation where these attitudes and tactics are being used. It’s a waste of both of our times and I find that very sad, but do not hold it or your views against you personally. This is not me disrespecting or attacking you. Have a good day.

Let me be clear about something.

There is a difference between coming to the conclusion that no problem exists on the basis of the evidence I have found on my own and that I have been given by those trying this argument on me, and sticking my fingers in my ears trying to avoid the truth.

This argument has been going on for literal years. It has been forwarded over and over and over again, with little variation. It’s the ‘ethics in games journalism’ of trans politics, and I use that very deliberately, because it was, at its outset, an attack on labels and the people who use them on the basis that they use those labels. I am going on record, right now, as saying that the truscum movement on Tumblr began the way Gamergate began, as a witch hunt with a flimsy justification, and is exactly as legitimate.

The original form of the argument was that ONLY those who actively pursue transition are trans, and ONLY those who identify under an approved set of gender terms are trans, and ONLY those who use an approved set of pronouns are trans, and everyone else, by definition, is a faker making up their identities for attention. That was the sum total of the argument. It worked backwards from a No True Scotsman argument into an identity garrison beyond which nothing was legitimate or valid.

I was accused of making up my gender solely due to the fact that I identify as genderfluid and because my pronoun set is not he, she, or they. My experience of gender had nothing to do with it. I was never asked about that. I was simply called a faker. And when someone actually talked to me, by and large, they told me that what I experienced was what they would consider dysphoria.

So I was different. I was part of the club. I was fine. It was all those other fakers.

You know, like the DMAB demigirl who was continuously harassed to the point of having their own Encyclopedia Dramatica page and threads on violent transmisogynist forums about them. To the point where people pored over stolen naked images of theirself debating whether their dick was photoshopped. This was done by self-identified transmedicalists.

Or all the actual teenagers getting screamed at by grown men and women over finding a pronoun they identify with, and walking into a war zone as a result.

This was the genesis of transmedicalism in its current form on Tumblr, the birth of the so-called truscum.

And as time has gone on, their arguments have shrunk in some ways and expanded in others. Despite there being, as far as I can tell, no evidence of widespread transness-as-fashion-accessory — despite repeated claims that there are, with attempts to back this up that have never held water — the core argument is the same: That there are trans people making up their identities for attention, this is determinable by reading their tumblr posts, this is justification for medically dysphoric trans people being denied care, that the denial of care is somehow not the fault of the doctors but of the so-called transtrenders, and that this is a major barrier to trans rights.

I agree with none of those premises. I disagree that identity should be, in any way, shape or form, a reason to hold power and influence over anybody, whether it be denying job opportunities, medical care, freedom, or life, and it is not the problem of the ‘fringe identities’ that they are weaponized by bigots as threats to keep others ‘respectable’. 

I accept that some bigot of a doctor has used bunself pronouns to deny care, or that families have used bunself pronouns to deny support. I disagree that if a doctor says that some trans person identifies theirself with bunself pronouns, and that’s why you, who doesn’t use them, can’t get hormones, it’s the bunself pronouns that are the problem — it’s the fact that the doctor is committing actual malpractice, and not treating the patient in front of them on the evidence they present of their own condition. I think if a family uses a ‘ridiculous-sounding’ identity to attack one of their own, that family is being abusive, full stop.

And I disagree, on a lack of evidence despite years of research, that there is a significant number of people making up their identities for attention in the first place. I don’t think it’s possible to see what goes on in someone’s head, and demanding that someone justify the name, pronouns, gender, or other identities they adopt on pain of those identities being denied, mocked, or used as basis for harassment is fundamentally harmful. It’s not only to the trans person theirself, but to anyone who might not want their identity to be contingent on how many other people agree that it should exist.

So here’s my challenge. @thesocialjusticecourier, put the fucking word out. I want the evidence. I want all of it. Bury me in claims of fake trans people. Show me exactly where you believe them to be showing evidence of their fakery. Give me a tally of how many trans people are faking, and how many are not. Show your work.

You want to tell me that there’s an problem, and that it’s of epidemic proportions, and that it significantly impacts the struggle for trans rights? You want to go against everything I have ever seen from the bigoted trans folk trying to tell me and everyone like me how to deal with our own minds and bodies? Do you really want to differentiate yourself from the TERFs in a way other than how many trans folk you want to eradicate?

You want to change my mind?

Put your money where your fucking mouth is.

Or stop chasing ghosts and get your spurious, obsolete, inflammatory, gratuitous, cruel argument out of my face.

@transagainsttrenders

@real-trans-advocacy @transagainsttrenders While you compile information about the epidemic of fake transgender people I keep hearing about, like the war in Eurasia, I should give you some background about this post.

It was created in response to a fairly ridiculous and lengthy debate between myself, thesocialjusticecourier, and a few other people she brought in. I point this out because it appears one of the mods of transagainsttrenders is SJC herself (Mod Courier). I hope you read this, real-trans-advocacy, because this is who you’ve invoked. For that matter, I hope everyone else at transgainsttrenders reads this, and sees who they’ve gotten into bed with.

The transmedicalist/truscum ideology, as I have seen, is predominantly about advocacy for access to transgender-related medical care. This is what thesocialjusticecourier has told me, in as many words. The argument has some fairly common points that I will now list:

1. Only those who require medical care due to medically-defined gender dysphoria are transgender. If you do not have gender dysphoria, you should not identify as transgender.
2. There are those who don’t require that medical care, or do not have medically-defined dysphoria, but identify as transgender anyway, which is incorrect. This group of people are defined as “transtrenders”.
3. The second group of people threatens the first group’s access to care and support, and this is because of the second group claims the label of “transgender”.

The transmedicalist definition of “transgender” is a political move. It’s intended to homogenize a broad, nebulous, marginalized group into a smaller, more monolithic one that can lobby for specific, tangible things. These things would benefit all of the homogenized group’s members, and ostensibly, do not benefit any of the people they’ve kicked out.

The label “transtrender” is intended to pressure and shame people who, according to transmedicalists, incorrectly identify as transgender in order to achieve this homogenization. The people who are “transtrenders” are not transgender, according to transmedicalists: They are cisgender people who have stolen the label of transgender because they believe it’s trendy (hence the name).

But this is not how the term is used in practice. In practice, it’s used to deny the transgender identity of anyone who is not a transmedicalist. I offer as evidence the fact that thesocialjusticecourier has told me this.

Transtrender: Any person claiming a gender identity that exists outside of a natural gender binary: male, female, bigender or agender. Predominantly those who claim otherkin identities make them trans (they don’t), or those who claim that gender is a malleable choice that can change on a whim or those who claim you can be transgender without experiencing dysphoria. Transtrending also encompasses things such as trans fetishization (outrageous trans headcanons that mock trans identities are part of fetishization and can lead to appropriation).

Dysphoria: Any urge to question or step outside of your gender identity that is powerful enough to effect your daily life: wearing a skirt one time doesn’t equate to dysphoria - but a consistent desire to be something outside of your designated gender I would argue is classifiable as dysphoria. The urge to do this varies from person to person, as do the symptoms of these urges. Some people experience very powerful dysphoria and this can lead to questioning self-worth, self-esteem problems and even lead to self-deprecating actions such as alcoholic or drug related addictions, self-harm and even suicide. Others experience mild to light dysphoria that is triggered by specific things rather than a constant feeling of inadequacy or displacement.

I’ve broken this down before, but the definition of “transtrender” as written here is about claims: claims to have a gender identity transmedicalists don’t recognize, claims that otherkin identities are transgender identities, claims that dysphoria is not required to be transgender, claims that gender identity is a choice. Under this definition, opinions about what a transgender identity is invalidate my transgender identity, whether I fit the alleged criteria for being transgender or not.

It’s not about how I feel about my own body. It’s not about my relationship to my own gender or my assigned gender. It’s about my opinion about how the transgender identity should be constructed. That’s a valid reason to take a label away, according to thesocialjusticecourier.

Drawing this boundary around the transgender identity isn’t about medicine at all: It’s about kicking everyone who’s a bit weird out of a label transmedicalists claim more of a right to than anyone else. It’s about trying to make the word “transgender” mean something simple and palatable to cisgender people so they can advocate for change that benefits them and only them, at the expense of everyone else.

Note also that thesocialjusticecourier admitted, in as many words, that her definition of dysphoria is not the medical definition. The DSM-V’s definition is actually broader than hers in some places and narrower in others, and I have a copy of the DSM-V if anyone would like me to go into detail about that.

These are not medical terms. They’re political ones that transmedicalists want to become medical terms, and they’ve been defined by transmedicalists theirselves based on how much they think it’ll help them gain access to the care they need.

When I asked for evidence of transtrenders, thesocialjusticecourier gave to me, as evidence of transtrending: 

To recap, none of this is evidence for what I’m asking about in the OP, and the people who might be responding to me in the near future align theirselves with an incompetent hack who has tried and failed to offer evidence, so with that in mind, let me define the terms a little more comprehensively.

I am specifically asking for evidence of people whose gender identity is fraudulent, and I mean that in the literal sense of ‘fraudulent’. I am not asking for evidence of people who have identities you consider to be invalid; I am asking for evidence of people who have knowingly perpetrated a false transgender identity for personal gain. If you don’t understand the difference, don’t bother responding.

While you’re doing this, I’d like to bring up a case of someone whose identity, including their claims of dysphoria, was so intensely disbelieved — despite photo evidence of the estrogen they were taking — that people claimed that they were DFAB and photoshopped a penis on nude photos of theirself. Let me repeat that. People were so intent on claiming that this person was not actually transgender that they pored over images of their nude body to try and find evidence of it.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for a blanket denouncement of that act by all sides as inherently transphobic and harmful to all transgender people before we move on. If you don’t have the basic decency to do that, don’t bother responding.

And then if you could explain why any scrutiny of any person’s stated gender isn’t transphobic while this is, that’d be really swell.

I am also specifically asking for any kind of coherent argument for why the existence of such people necessitates any change in the treatment of people for whom there is no question — even by transmedicalists — about their identity. I don’t accept the argument that any criteria to determine if someone needs care should take into account whether I or anyone else needs the same care. I don’t accept the argument that because doctors use people as an excuse to deny care to transgender people who need it, those people are to blame for the withholding of treatment. I don’t accept that because families use people as an excuse to withhold support from transgender people, those people are to blame for the lack of support.

I don’t deny that transgender people are denied treatment and support. I don’t deny that “transtrenders” are sometimes the stated reason for this. I do deny that the harm caused by denying treatment and support is the fault of the people who have been used, without their knowledge or consent, as an excuse to deny that treatment and support. Bigots will craft whatever argument is necessary to support the conclusion they want.

Cisgender people are to blame for the abuse perpetrated by cisgender people. The doctors withholding care are performing malpractice on the trans patients they deny. The families withholding support from their trans children are being abusive. If you see cisgender people harming transgender people and think other transgender people are to blame, don’t bother responding.

Don’t come to me with the genders you reject on the basis of being outside the range of genders you recognize. Don’t come to me with any group of people who prefix their identity with “trans” without putting “gender” next to it. Don’t tell me it’s my fault your family or your school or your job or your endo fucked you up because they didn’t listen to you about your own identity.

Talk to me about the people who do not reject their assigned gender but claim to be transgender regardless. Talk to me about the con artists, not just the people who disagree with you. Talk to me about the enemy at the gates you keep screaming about.

Or don’t talk to me at all, because I’m done arguing with people who understand their own position less than I do.

Reblogged from: real-trans-advocacy

thisiseverydayracism:

So Gretchen Carlson spouts racist, sexist, homophobic bullshit on Fox News for years while making a killing, and now expects sympathy for sexual harassment?

@thisiseverydayracism Yes, and she should fucking get it, because sexual harassment is not something Gretchen Carlson deserves even if she’s an unconscionable human being with dangerous and harmful views, which she absolutely is. Her being the victim of harassment is not her fault or something she brought onto herself, as is true of every other person experiencing this kind of harassment, and it sets a dangerous precedent to only defend the victims you think are worthy of it. It also lets Roger Ailes off the hook for being a disgusting human being.

If it were anyone else, you’d probably be the first to point all this out, because I’ve followed you from my main for a while now.

You’re better than this.

Reblogged from: thisiseverydayracism