Trans Politics, Trans Activism, also 'rolling is this transphobic?' thread

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uk getting very scary, they're planning to lump in trans-affirmative therapy with gay conversion therapy (as transphobes have been pushing for) and totally ban it for under 18s, also likely banning mermaids

ufo, Friday, 29 October 2021 02:54 (four years ago)

feels like it would be a good time to start taking to the streets? the polls always seem to show that the transphobes are a vocal minority, should start taking advantage of that

Daniel_Rf, Friday, 29 October 2021 10:16 (four years ago)

Trending now in UK:
#CisISASlur

(and not trending in a "everyone is taking the piss out of it" manner)

Andrew Farrell, Friday, 29 October 2021 10:19 (four years ago)

these fucking babies don’t know what a slur is

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, 29 October 2021 12:40 (four years ago)

who’s the snowflake now??

Tracer Hand, Friday, 29 October 2021 12:41 (four years ago)

Fuck K4thl33n St0ck fuck K4thl33n St0ck fuck K4thl33n St0ck

otm and also i think sussex have handled this quite poorly

o shit the sheriff (NickB), Friday, 29 October 2021 14:42 (four years ago)

there are people with certain physical traits who I don’t want to fuck

The problem is that women are being accused of transphobia for saying this exact thing, if one of those physical traits happens to be having a penis. Here's an example from Simon H. in a post on a different thread four years ago:

Feminist Theory & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread: All Gender Identities Are Encouraged To Participate

a couple of trans comrades have outright stated that 1. sexual preference for certain/specific types of genitals are inherently transphobic

Further down in that thread, j. says they see people expressing this position as well and supposes it isn't too uncommon. It's clear that this line of thinking persists to this day -- it's easy to find very recent examples of it on Twitter. Stating the position is in itself an act of pressuring people into having sex with people they don't want to have sex with. Can we all agree that's a bad thing to do?

Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Friday, 29 October 2021 19:14 (four years ago)

just to jump slightly backward to nicole and Neanderthal on pronouns upthread: yes it is new and will take practice.

But honestly it is really not that hard for well-meaning people to navigate this in a well-meaning way. As long as they're truly, y'know, well-meaning.

Currently I am navigating this because my eldest (14) is nonbinary they/them. So are many of their friends. I will likely mess up. But the guiding principle is just to... not be a dick, I guess? The people who are having the most trouble with it tend to already not be on board with the whole project. And of course if you're not on board with the whole project, your motivation to practice and be a non-dick is lessened.

For me, if I try to relate an anecdote about what Ash said to Jinx and how Sky reacted, well, I'm going to be using their names a lot more than I otherwise would. A sentence like "Jax said that Sky and Ash are going to Sky's house" both avoids misgendering, and avoids potential confusion between singular and plural.

gin and catatonic (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 29 October 2021 19:33 (four years ago)

the "not being on board" is key, if you support your trans or non-binary friends, you're not going to fly off the handle if you get corrected when you screw up. but if your viewpoint is "I'm really, really trying hard to do this bullshit for you, but as much as I love you, I think this is fucking stupid", you get angry when corrected because you think you shouldn't have to do it anyway.

the utility infielder of theatre (Neanderthal), Friday, 29 October 2021 19:38 (four years ago)

dating while trans can be a gauntlet of managing different kinds of transphobia; i feel grateful to the few ppl who have been attracted to me without making me feel weird about their attraction. that's about as far as i care to have an opinion on the matter which is otherwise really dense and confusing to me

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, 29 October 2021 19:45 (four years ago)

Stating the position is in itself an act of pressuring people into having sex with people they don't want to have sex with.

No. Conflating abstract discussions about ppl's preferences with coercion makes no sense to me - like if we were having a discussion about, for instance, whether it's racist not to be attracted to ppl of certain ethnicities, I think there'd definitely be ppl arguing that. Casting this as "lesbians pressured into having sex with trans women", as the BBC article did, strongly misrepresents the issue at hand - any casual reader browsing the headline will obviously interpret this as women being personally coerced into having sex, not some philosophical disagreement. Which of course is great for the gender critical crowd because their concerns all boil down to thinking trans ppl are sexually predatory anyway.

Daniel_Rf, Friday, 29 October 2021 20:24 (four years ago)

vtc, did u just not read the next sentence in my post or

cis people have long portrayed trans people as either punchlines or disgusting untouchables, often both. this absolutely informs who and who isn’t considered attractive collectively and individually.

this doesn’t mean that any given person must correctively fuck trans people, or that every person who doesn’t want to sleep with trans people is a bigot, but it does mean that we should all (trans people included, sometime especially so) examine and correct how those anti-trans biases affect our worldviews

now, if someone comes along and points this out, and someone else responds by loudly and publicly refusing to do so, rallies a bunch of cis people in support of their brave stand against being “pressured” to fuck trans people, and uses that organization to lobby against equal public services for trans people, then yes, they’re doing transphobia!

given that this is one of the main ways that anti-trans organizations have gained power and influence, and that that power and influence has led to very real material restrictions on our individual lives and collective well-being, you can perhaps forgive us for reacting to someone coming along taking the “just asking questions, let’s all be reasonable here” tone about “simply” not wanting to have sex with trans people comes off as in direct service of transphobia.

don’t want to fuck us? don’t fuck us! a billion tweets can’t make you. just keep it to yourself for god’s sake, it’s being used by more hateful people than you to hurt us.

nicole, Friday, 29 October 2021 21:02 (four years ago)

last two posts otm

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, 29 October 2021 21:35 (four years ago)

Neanderthal otm

nicole, I don't know if it helps you to hear this, but current 14-year-olds are apparently woke as fuck. I know I'm in a socially liberal bubble but still. If I were to judge by my child's school and my child's friends, everyone is either queer or queer-positive. And they appear to view trans inclusion (including respecting pronouns) as an integral part of LGBTQ+ acceptance. Their teachers and school administrations have been supportive as well.

gin and catatonic (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 29 October 2021 21:46 (four years ago)

I don't think you're in a bubble, it's just how people are as people tend to be supportive to each other. The terfs and other bigots have built bubbles for themselves.

braised cod, Friday, 29 October 2021 22:09 (four years ago)

nicole that post of yours is fucking outstanding

Tracer Hand, Friday, 29 October 2021 22:24 (four years ago)

i'm also wowed by nicole's posts itt and elsewhere. i don't have anything of import to say about this other than i'm also mystified about 1) the timing of this wave 2) the uk axis and 3) the appeal of transphobia generally. threats to male supremacy in the u.s. i understand, but this seems different.

Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Friday, 29 October 2021 22:46 (four years ago)

No. Conflating abstract discussions about ppl's preferences with coercion makes no sense to me - like if we were having a discussion about, for instance, whether it's racist not to be attracted to ppl of certain ethnicities, I think there'd definitely be ppl arguing that. Casting this as "lesbians pressured into having sex with trans women", as the BBC article did, strongly misrepresents the issue at hand - any casual reader browsing the headline will obviously interpret this as women being personally coerced into having sex, not some philosophical disagreement. Which of course is great for the gender critical crowd because their concerns all boil down to thinking trans ppl are sexually predatory anyway.

You don't think hearing people say "women who don't want to have sex with people with penises are transphobic" puts pressure on women who don't want to have sex with people with penises to have sex with people with penises? If we're talking about lesbians specifically, I think it's undeniable that this puts pressure on them; as part of the LGBT community, they would understandably care deeply about what other people in that community think about them and how other people think they feel about other members of that community.

I don't think saying "people who don't want to have sex with people of certain ethnicities are racist" puts the same kind of pressure on those people, because people who don't want to have sex with people of certain ethnicities probably don't care if other people think they're racist. Or, if they do, it's fair to put that pressure on them, because it's likely that they are motivated by racism. Whereas not wanting to have sex with people with penises is likely due to...not being sexually attracted to people with penises. And it's wrong to intentionally make someone feel bad about that.

I think the BBC headline would have been more accurate if it had said that it's not just trans women who are pressuring lesbians into having sex with trans women. Plenty of people who do this aren't trans.

Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Saturday, 30 October 2021 03:36 (four years ago)

Nicole, I know you don't think every person who doesn’t want to sleep with trans people is a bigot, and I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I'm talking about people who DO think that: people who think having a "sexual preference for certain/specific types of genitals" is inherently bigoted, such as the people Simon and j. mentioned in the other thread, and many people on Twitter and TikTok. These people definitely exist, and they are in the wrong. These are the people who disagree with you, and I'm saying it would be better if they felt the same way you did on this matter.

Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Saturday, 30 October 2021 03:36 (four years ago)

people who don't want to have sex with people of certain ethnicities probably don't care if other people think they're racist.

massive stretch here

, Saturday, 30 October 2021 04:44 (four years ago)

If I were nicole, I might just repost my last post, because you have paid attention to no part of it whatsoever.

Andrew Farrell, Saturday, 30 October 2021 10:06 (four years ago)

I don't think saying "people who don't want to have sex with people of certain ethnicities are racist" puts the same kind of pressure on those people, because people who don't want to have sex with people of certain ethnicities probably don't care if other people think they're racist. Or, if they do, it's fair to put that pressure on them, because it's likely that they are motivated by racism. Whereas not wanting to have sex with people with penises is likely due to...not being sexually attracted to people with penises. And it's wrong to intentionally make someone feel bad about that.

You're creating an artificial divide here where ethnicity is something you choose to be attracted to or not, while genitalia is just something you either are or are not. In fact both those preferences are molded by societal standards, from a very young age and to an extent that it's quite difficult to grasp for any "pure" attraction that could predate this. Considering how societies sexualize certain ethnicities and make others seem sexually threatening or unattractive, it's pretty safe to say that not every person who has preferences in this department "wouldn't care" what ppl thought of that or is even bigoted.

I think (to echo Nicole here) that it's important for all of us to reflect on how our preferences have been shaped this way. At the end of the day, your preferences are your preferences, and no one has to fuck anyone they don't want to. But ppl who go around making a giant noise out of how they are not attracted to group x or y are being at best insensitive and at worst pretty clearly bigoted, whether that's regarding race or the cis-trans spectrum.

Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 30 October 2021 11:47 (four years ago)

(cis-trans spectrum a bad choice of words there; obv loudly proclaiming you're not attracted to cis ppl doesn't carry the same baggage, much as saying the same regarding white ppl doesn't in most parts of the globe)

Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 30 October 2021 11:49 (four years ago)

You're creating an artificial divide here where ethnicity is something you choose to be attracted to or not, while genitalia is just something you either are or are not. In fact both those preferences are molded by societal standards, from a very young age and to an extent that it's quite difficult to grasp for any "pure" attraction that could predate this.

To be honest, I’m not totally sure I grasp what you’re saying here, and I’m not entirely sure if I made myself clear in the post you’re responding to. I’m not saying everyone who isn’t attracted to certain ethnicities has explicitly chosen not to be attracted to those ethnicities. But I am saying that if you realize you are not attracted to certain ethnicities, and you hear people saying people who aren’t attracted to certain ethnicities are bigoted, and this bothers you because you don’t think of yourself as bigoted, you can choose to reflect on how societal standards have shaped your preference (e.g. by making other ethnicities seem threatening), and generally this will result in the preference changing.

I think you would agree with all of that. However, you can’t equate preferences for ethnicities with preferences for genitalia just because both are influenced to some extent by societal standards. There is an actual distinction between the two, because in the case of genital preference we don’t know if the same reflection process generally results in the preference changing. While some people can change their preference, a lot of people feel very strongly that they can’t change their preference, and there’s no reason not to believe them. So putting pressure on them to change has the power to do harm. And saying genital preferences are transphobic does put pressure on lesbians to change.

it's important for all of us to reflect on how our preferences have been shaped this way

I think it's fine to say this, but this isn't what people in the BBC article were reacting to. Again, the problem is that other people are saying something different, which is that genital preferences ARE transphobic. It sounds like you don't agree that genital preferences are transphobic, but when lesbians react negatively to people telling them genital preferences are transphobic, you're saying they should keep it to themselves.

Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Sunday, 31 October 2021 03:11 (four years ago)

- The survey the BBC article was based on was conducted by a specifically transphobic organisation and answered by a self-selecting sample of transphobes. These are the people you are aligning yourself with.

- Conflating "social pressure to not be a bigot" with "individual pressure to sleep with someone" is textbook moral panic and completely vile.

- Why are you assuming all trans women have penises?? I know transphobes are completely obsessed with genitalia but this is very strange.

emil.y, Sunday, 31 October 2021 03:38 (four years ago)

Also I feel like I should say that as a moderator I am absolutely going to ban transphobes from the board whether they get 51 FPs or not. I haven't run this by any other mods, but honestly I'd rather get stripped of my privs and yelled at by every single member of the board than let it stand.

emil.y, Sunday, 31 October 2021 03:44 (four years ago)

not yelling, cheering

maybe these baps are legends (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 31 October 2021 03:47 (four years ago)

It is often tougher than you would think to know where someone is on the spectrum from "just asking questions", through recycling GC talking points, to outright hate. VTC is dancing just on the side where I'm furious but don't feel like action is reasonable. But I'm putting it out there that I'm not going to tolerate a whole lot of bullshit on this matter.

emil.y, Sunday, 31 October 2021 03:57 (four years ago)

hear, hear

Profiles in Liquid Courage (WmC), Sunday, 31 October 2021 04:00 (four years ago)

I am not sure why people think they have the right to tell other people what they should or shouldn't be attracted to, and to tell them their natural attraction is immoral (which is what they are doing, since transphobia is immoral) and/or due to a set of social conventions (which seems no different to me than saying being gay is a choice; one can choose different social conventions). I will say, as a gay man who spends a lot of time in an extremely conservative Middle Eastern country, that the arguments I am hearing from certain trans people are not very different from the one's I hear from conservative religious people who also have a problem with my genital preference.

Luckily, the trans people in my life just want to live their lives and aren't interested in telling people what to be attracted to.

kafka_keba, Sunday, 31 October 2021 04:22 (four years ago)

no one is saying the preferences have to change upon reflection. it's fine if some cis person is ultimately sexually incompatible with a trans person they had been attracted to, even after reflection. what trans people do object to is how any suggestion that people reflect at all on how societal transphobia has shaped people's preferences, or a trans woman calling herself a lesbian, or even just "trans women are women" is then equated with sexual coercion. no one's position is "cis people have to have sex with trans people they aren't attracted to out of some ridiculous guilt", but transphobes love to twist things to present it that way in order to attack trans people.

there surely are some trans people who do indeed have extreme unnuanced 'if you have any genital preferences you are transphobic' positions but that's very much a minority position, not at all reasonable, and no one here is arguing for it, and even then it isn't the same as the transphobe's straw man of "cis people have to have sex with trans people". the bbc article is extremely bad faith & i do not trust it to be representative of anyone.

ultimately 'genital preference' discourse is just a bad faith cudgel wielded by transphobes & i don't think it's at all a useful lens to approach the issue of sexual biases against trans people.

ufo, Sunday, 31 October 2021 04:45 (four years ago)

people raising the issue of 'genital preferences' are largely either transphobes trying to suggest that trans people are coercing cis people into unwanted sex, or trans people very very clumsily attempting to express the 'preferences are shaped by society' thing (and they should be discouraged from doing so for how obviously clumsy it is!), but it's much much more often the former.

ufo, Sunday, 31 October 2021 05:02 (four years ago)

I don't disagree with you, but I think the "genital preference is transphobic" argument of the last few posts has been in response to someone upthread mentioning such takes on Twitter and TikTok where of course you do get a lot of un-nuanced takes. (Also the argument that it is transphobic to have a genital preference falls to pieces when one simply inverts the stating of the preference: instead of saying what you do prefer, you say what you don't. I don't like vaginas, whether on a man or a woman.)

And I do think that gays and lesbians are especially sensitive to these un-nuanced takes because we have had our sexualities (sometimes literally) policed our whole lives, and this just seems like another attack and from a corner where one would not expect it.

kafka_keba, Sunday, 31 October 2021 05:05 (four years ago)

There is an actual distinction between the two, because in the case of genital preference we don’t know if the same reflection process generally results in the preference changing.

This is true of all other preferences too! Ethnicity, body shape, whatever.

It sounds like you don't agree that genital preferences are transphobic, but when lesbians react negatively to people telling them genital preferences are transphobic, you're saying they should keep it to themselves.

Consider transphobia as a societal force that impacts us all to some degree or other, as opposed to "specific bigotry from bad bad people", and I think you might start to understand what ppl are saying in the examples you cited?

Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 31 October 2021 07:45 (four years ago)

Why are you assuming all trans women have penises?? I know transphobes are completely obsessed with genitalia but this is very strange.

fwiw emily that's OTM and I'm sorry for engaging w/ the debate without pushing back against that notion.

Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 31 October 2021 08:02 (four years ago)

"as a gay man" my eyes nearly fell out of my head at the mention of the phrase 'genital preference' and "as a gay man" I'm familiar with gays posting 'no Asians, sorry just a preference' on their Grindr profiles and "as a gay man" I'm quite familiar that desire is always already complexly political and whenever it's presented otherwise there's always somebody on the receiving end of something and, well, look what's going on...!

plax (ico), Sunday, 31 October 2021 09:57 (four years ago)

Familiar* with what ? The fact? The reality? The concept? The notion? The history? I guess there's a reason my mind passed over it.

plax (ico), Sunday, 31 October 2021 10:02 (four years ago)

nicole at 8:08 27 Oct 21
practice! I’ve had a few people change pronouns in my life and just taking ten minutes a day to repeat to yrself a short script like “Their name is x. Their pronouns are they/them. They like x and it’s fun to hang out with them” or w/e works pretty well ime, and it doesn’t seem to occur to a lot of ppl
this is v helpful. one of my daughter's friends is going by they/ them now and I'm only getting it right about half the time. thank you, nicole.

peace, man, Sunday, 31 October 2021 10:27 (four years ago)

This is really sad and enraging.

got told to leave a women’s toilet last night (again) which was personally distressing obviously, but also like. could this country please pull it together ?!

— michael wave: gourd boy edition (@SzMarsupial) October 30, 2021

xyzzzz__, Sunday, 31 October 2021 11:20 (four years ago)

“as a gay man" my eyes nearly fell out of my head at the mention of the phrase 'genital preference' and "as a gay man" I'm familiar with gays posting 'no Asians, sorry just a preference' on their Grindr profiles and "as a gay man" I'm quite familiar that desire is always already complexly political and whenever it's presented otherwise there's always somebody on the receiving end of something and, well, look what's going on...!

― plax (ico), Sunday, October 31, 2021 9:57 AM

I don’t really understand your post, but the parallel between racial preferences doesn’t make sense. If one writes “no [x race]” that is racist because a person is of a certain race by... being part of that race. But genital preferences don’t work like that, unless you define gender by genitals, in which case you’re the transphobe. So since vaginas belong to no gender specifically, you can’t say preference for or against them is transphobic, since trans, cis, and non-binary people can all have vaginas.

kafka_keba, Sunday, 31 October 2021 17:36 (four years ago)

if a hunky trans man were into me i'd definitely do them. that is all.

Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Sunday, 31 October 2021 17:54 (four years ago)

"genital preferences" are really fucking idiotic the more you think about it. but i don't think this new poster is really interested in doing that (thinking).

Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Sunday, 31 October 2021 17:56 (four years ago)

The more I thought about it the more I realized saying it is transphobic makes no sense. You however have not made any argument. But again please explain to me how saying "I don't like x" when x can belong to trans, cis, and NB people is transphobic. If you mean saying that "I don't like men who have x" is transphobic, that is not a genital preference. That is a genital preference plus a gender preference. But gender preferences aren't transphobic either since trans people can be any gender.

kafka_keba, Sunday, 31 October 2021 18:03 (four years ago)

i really appreciate the posters in this thread who are not showing their ass

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 31 October 2021 18:06 (four years ago)

oh so now it's ok to have ass preferences

certified juice therapist (harbl), Sunday, 31 October 2021 18:17 (four years ago)

lmao

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Sunday, 31 October 2021 18:23 (four years ago)

Lol harbl

the utility infielder of theatre (Neanderthal), Sunday, 31 October 2021 23:52 (four years ago)

It needs not be something as charged as trans-sexuality, but anytime you make a big thing out of sexually excluding a physical part of a person, well you are just being rude, no matter what it is. Everyone can have preferences, very few people care about them.

And woman get chastised by those same dudes for sometimes having a preference for tall men.

Van Horn Street, Monday, 1 November 2021 17:26 (four years ago)

Anyway we can banhammer these new users who seem to just be here to be transphobes?

I'm a sovereign jizz citizen (the table is the table), Monday, 1 November 2021 17:55 (four years ago)

dating while trans can be a gauntlet of managing different kinds of transphobia; i feel grateful to the few ppl who have been attracted to me without making me feel weird about their attraction. that's about as far as i care to have an opinion on the matter which is otherwise really dense and confusing to me

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, October 29, 2021 12:45 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

reading this back, the degree to which the talking points being advocated itt by kafka_keba and VTC made me commit weird internalized transphobia on myself makes me think they're not advocating them in good faith ha ha

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 1 November 2021 17:59 (four years ago)

George Michael was quite eloquent about saying so.

The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 5 April 2026 11:46 (two months ago)

There’s quite a vast space between “shameful toilet sex” and the reasons behind why many gay men find it hot, fwiw.

― a tv star not a dirty computer man (the table is the table), Sunday, April 5, 2026 4:41 AM (one hour ago)

thank you for confirming that, it's something i believe but didn't have the ability to articulate. that's why when i talked about shame it was specifically in the context of MSMs. i don't think toilet sex is something to be ashamed of and i don't shame people for doing it! honestly i'd really like to hear gay men talk about what that difference is like for _them_. because i _know_ there is a difference, it maps pretty well onto certain experience i've had as a trans woman, but i can't speak to those differences because i just don't have that lived experience. hell if someone can just link to what george michael said, i think that'd be cool as well. as a queer person, a lot of how i experience myself is stuff that i learned from cis gay men, who _are_ positive role models, in general, or me.

to me this is sort of related to the ongoing "kink at pride" Discourse, whether or not kink _should_ or _should not_ be at pride, and it's not even a question for me. of course kink fucking belongs at pride. why would anybody even say it doesn't? it's part of who we are. it's more a matter of decorum. like... i had a friend who worked at the humane society, and one of the things that happened was that a furry group asked if they could come visit, to which the answer was god, yes, we'd love it if you visited, just please don't wear your fursuits, because it freaks out the animals. there _is_ nuance here. there _are_ questions of social decorum.

the complicating factor, i think, is that there's often a disproportionate response to people being caught doing that, as well as the fact that bigoted cops _do_ things like stake out toilet stalls trying to bust people having sex in public toilets in ways that really, genuinely, aren't doing any social harm. it's kinda the same way with paul reubens getting busted for masturbating in a porno theater. who the fuck is prioritizing arresting people for masturbating in porno theaters? it's funny, i don't remember anybody ever saying what _kind_ of porn was being shown at that theater. we all know who gets disproportionately targeted, though, when they go after stuff like that. nobody was outing reubens, but they _were_ arresting him and, well, literally cancelling him for jacking off to gay porn in a porno theater.

it's a fucking con. that's the thing of it. it's a big fucking con. these assholes are out there doing queer shit in grossly unsafe and nonconsensual ways while insisting that they're not queer - which frankly is fine by me because i don't think people who routinely behave in grossly unsafe and nonconsensual ways _should_ be welcome in queer community, no matter who they are - and then using _their own_ bullshit behavior as a pretext for regulating behavior that isn't actually a problem. what i've learned is that if everything is a problem, nothing is a problem, and the people who are causing the very, very serious problems know that, relish that, and exploit that.

kink belongs at pride. cops shouldn't fucking be staking out bathrooms to try and bust people having sex in the toilets. we as queer people should be empowered to be able to call out problem behavior when we see it without making sweeping judgements on the _character_ of the people involved. we know who the people causing problems in the queer community are. i don't have a problem with queer self-loathing. well, i have a personal problem with queer self-loathing, in that i'm queer and self-loathing, but i don't have a problem with other people doing queer shit and choosing to hate themselves for it. it's when they try to create a world where queer self-loathing is _mandatory_...

like, these people, self-loathing is a fetish they have, shame is a fetish they have, and they're trying to inflict that fetish on the rest of us. the way "sissy" discourse is used is part and parcel of that process. do i hold them responsible for my queer self-loathing? nah, that's my shit now, i own that. my problem is that their sissy fetish is getting in the way of my sex life. it has done for all of my life, but the problem has become _much more acute_ in these past couple of years.

whether or not the people creating this dystopia are, individual, sissies, that's not relevant, any more than it matters whether any individual pushing homophobic legislation is MSM. what is increasingly clear to me, though, is that transphobic legislation is part of a larger political program, and part of that program is, well, forced sissification. they don't have the fucking _right_. we should be the ones in control of that. not them.

Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 5 April 2026 13:32 (two months ago)

tl;dr the "top shortage" in transfem communities is an insidious tool of patriarchal white supremacist capitalist oppression

Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 5 April 2026 13:35 (two months ago)

god these people are really interested in other people's business... fucking hell

Bans on medical transition comprise just one part of the larger, unprecedented assault on transgender rights mounted by a coordinated campaign of mostly conservative activists and policymakers in the US in recent years. So far, these restrictions have primarily affected minors. But leaders in the emboldened movement have begun to more openly admit their desire to attempt to end gender-affirming care for adults, too.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/17/children-gender-affirming-trans-care-trump

Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 17 April 2026 19:33 (one month ago)

i'm not saying this to be snarky, i know it might come off that way - i genuinely am relieved that more people are starting to catch on. back in '23 i was worried that people would just, i don't know, let us all die. i don't see that happening now. it's awkward because probably a lot of people are going to be coming to the realization in the coming years of what was happening under their noses and that they didn't, like, notice, and i'm just not remotely interested in blaming or shaming people or saying what they _should_ have done. because there's gonna be a whole huge number of people who are going to be reckoning with the absolute horror of it and i don't really want to wag my finger at anyone while they're doing that, you know? there are all kinds of horrifying realizations to be had and i don't think that trans people necessarily need to get priority over any other marginalized group - there's plenty of horror to go around.

again, not being snarky at all, not trying to be lighthearted or dismissive at all. just real shit.

Kate (rushomancy), Saturday, 18 April 2026 03:19 (one month ago)

Ugh our state Legislature wrapped up a session full of trans-bashing bills with a law that makes it illegal for any local government to recognize or provide anti-discrimination protections based on gender identity. All of the five largest cities in the state currently include "gender identity" in their anti-discrimination ordinances for city employees. This new law will force them to delete that language or face civil lawsuits. I'd like to think one or more of them might fight it in court, but they're all so battered by the state over a zillion other things that I don't know if they will.

Just insane, the level of hatred.

paper plans (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 22 April 2026 20:24 (one month ago)

ok trying to repost, cloudflare blocked this earlier

Just insane, the level of hatred.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, April 22, 2026 1:24 PM (three days ago)

that really is it, the hatred is insane. not just the intensity of it... america at least has always had this level of fervent hatred... but the way it's being implemented.

i was watching this video but atun-shei films, and one of the things he talks about and is pretty insightful about is how this situation is different from the situation in america in 1860. in 1860 white america was pretty strongly divided on a geographic basis - white people in the south had one set of beliefs about slavery, and white people in the north...

well, that's an interesting thing now that i type it, there were plenty of pro-slavery white people in the north, but if there was an anti-slavery contingent of white people in the south, they didn't have a voice. it's not enough to write bigotry into law - that bigotry has to be universally accepted. i relate a lot to dr. king's frustration with white liberals, because for liberals choosing to _not fight_ for someone else is always an option. i don't even necessarily blame liberals for that or think that they're, individually, necessarily _wrong_ per se. it's just frustrating.

one of the things that's hardest for me to talk about is the way all of this extreme bigoted stuff that's happening now, that was just, like, _reality_ for all of us 30 years ago. by "us" i don't mean trans people, i mean _people_. nobody, myself included, listened to trans people, took trans people seriously, and now these bigots in state government are trying to, like, mandate hatred, and it just... it doesn't _work_. you can't force someone to hate trans people, it doesn't matter _what_ you put into law. they can make it illegal for local governments to protect us against discrimination and of _course_ that matters.

it's not just a matter of laws, though. i've been around long enough to know that there's such a thing as, you know, malicious compliance. people acting like they're complying with the regulations, but doing it in a way that doesn't actually support the people being protected by them. if a law protects me but the people who are in charge of enforcing that law don't want to protect me, well, the extent to which that law protects me is pretty limited.

well of course it works the other way around too. these brainrotted bigots are really upset that people aren't on-board with their bigotry and think if they make a law to mandate it everybody will fall in line, and what i've found is that no, actually, the more blatantly bigoted they get the more people support us and the more _passionately_ people support us. a certain subset of kids are internalizing this extreme form of bigotry that isn't ever going to fucking work, and i feel bad for those kids, but so many people are just... fucking horrified, rightly, at the insane bullshit these governments are trying to mandate.

i guess all the red states have now made it a felony for me to take a piss, or something. what do they expect us to do? stop pissing?

Kate (rushomancy), Saturday, 25 April 2026 21:37 (one month ago)

Once more, my friends, join me in a chorus of Fuck Kathleen Stock. Sussex Uni has won on appeal a judgment that they were stifling her ability to be a bigot.

emil.y, Wednesday, 29 April 2026 13:06 (one month ago)

great news indeed!

Ash Ra Pimples (NickB), Wednesday, 29 April 2026 13:32 (one month ago)

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-USCT-Strategy-1.pdf

Our nation has not been well served by its Intelligence Community (IC), which has been mired in old ways of looking at threats, or has been actively weaponized by its leadership as a political tool. Whether plotting against conservative Catholics attending traditional mass in Virginia, parents standing up for their children at schoolboard meetings, Members of Congress, or President Trump and his associates, this Administration will continue to prohibit the IC from being used politically against innocent Americans. As real threats were ignored or underplayed, Americans have witnessed the politically motivated killings of Christians and conservatives committed by violent left-wing extremists, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk by a radical who espoused extreme transgender ideologies.
In addition to cartels and Islamist terror groups, our national CT activities will also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist. We will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa, and use law enforcement tools to cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent. We will do the same with the state sponsors of such groups and those governments undertaking lethal plots on U.S. soil or against Americans anywhere.

of course i'm _angry_

i mean am i upset that president Certified Loverboy is classifying _me_ as a threat to America? well, yeah. i also don't have the privilege to _do_ anything about it. hell, i gotta be careful about what i _say_, particularly here on the internet. and i'm choosing, perhaps unwisely, to speak up anyway, because a culture of silence benefits none of us. i'm not advocating for anything. i refuse to advocate for anything. i limit myself to observing, because i think it is important to say, as clearly as possible, what is happening here.

if the president and his administration have decided that Charlie Kirk is their choice for Ernst vom Rath, well, so be it. the thing people forget about Schicksalstag is that it _changed_ how people thought about that government. their leader was derided as, i don't know, an "Austrian paperhanger" or a "short-fingered vulgarian" or something. after Schicksalstag people started to realize "oh. oh wait, this is a Problem." wikipedia:

The Times of London observed on 11 November 1938: "No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday."[12]

and, i mean, history doesn't repeat, it iterates. an event like that of the night of November 9th is... sure, the authorities would stand by, but would _ordinary people_? based on what i'm seeing, i genuinely don't believe so. three years ago i was on here throwing around words like "genocide", which i've stopped doing because i don't think it's effective, nor do i think it's _necessary_. rafael lemkin, who coined the term, considered it an act of _norms entrepeneurship_. which is to say, here was something that people did not _want_ to accept, that was too enormously evil for people to even understand. at some point things are past denial for the majority of us, though of course there are always those who will deny every genocide to ever exist.

the acts of the current american administration are, i observe, past the point of denial for an increasing number of allies. i know how i came across three years ago. as a doomer, as someone paranoid and perhaps even hysterical. i don't blame anyone for not believing me then. i'm just tremendously relieved that people are starting to recognize the enormity of the horror being perpetrated by the american government.

i do, i think, believe in america, and it's because of the people who stand with us, those who are proud americans. the america they believe in is being systemically structurally dismantled by the current administration. the biggest problem, i think, with this is not their potential to destroy. it's the destruction that happens through _neglect_. though america has always systemically oppressed and disenfranchised groups of people, primarily Black Americans, america exists do to things _other_ than oppress and exterminate people. its capability to do this is increasingly radically constrained by its ruler. i look forward to an america that can govern for the people, by the people, and of the people, an america that can promote the general welfare. there are no shortage of americans willing to do that work, craving that work, should we be permitted.

Kate (rushomancy), Friday, 8 May 2026 19:19 (four weeks ago)

I didn’t know that you were state-sponsored and a part of International Antifa, Inc. congrats, Kate!

Brenton Wood Conference (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 8 May 2026 20:52 (four weeks ago)

I didn’t know that you were state-sponsored and a part of International Antifa, Inc. congrats, Kate!

― Brenton Wood Conference (Boring, Maryland), Friday, May 8, 2026 1:52 PM (one hour ago)

pffft don't front like you're not following the Antifa Meeting Thread :)

anyway fwiw since y'all here support trans rights, you're _also_ Antifa.

and once more i am reminded of that Twilight Zone episode about Castro. or, you know... many, many examples of imperialist foreign policy. "we don't understand, we're killing way more of them than they are of us... no matter how many (slurs) we kill, there just seem to be more. What? What do you mean those weren't (slurs)? They were our allies? And now they hate us? Well, god-damn, that's what we get for trying to defend those (slurs)."

Kate (rushomancy), Friday, 8 May 2026 22:52 (four weeks ago)


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