Thorns

This post on tumblr suggested contacting local politicians whenever you're in the mood to shout at someone online for being wrong on the internet, and it occurred to me that might actually work for me, if only as a way to divert my occasional FIGHT ME mood away from getting me in trouble. I've tried contacting politicians before when I was feeling like Being Productive and it felt overwhelming and depressing.

I haven't actually done it yet but I looked up some information! So I'll summarise what I've found here for anyone who might find it useful, further advice/info definitely appreciated!
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I really liked this article:

TERFs, Trans Mascs, and Two Steve Feminism In which A Man has an Opinion about Feminism, with Mixed Results.

It's about how a lot of "trans inclusive" cis feminists are terrible about trans masc people in ways which ultimately stem from transphobia and hurt all trans people. It's not perfect, but does capture that specific problem well.

I think the tight focus is overall a good thing but there's a few places the argument would have benefited from more mentions of the connection to broader issues with sexism/transphobia etc. Also I disagreed with some parts.

Some further thoughts:
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Inspired by this post from a gnc woman who keeps having people insist on using they/them for her.

If your "inclusive" approach to gender consistently misgenders certain types of cis people, it's not actually inclusive. "Respect everyone's stated gender identity" is the very lowest bar you need to clear! If you can't manage that, wtf are you even doing. If you think cis people's feelings literally don't matter at all then (a) That sucks don't do that and (b) do you really think you're not ALSO misgendering certain types of trans people? Cos I bet you are! Go sit in the corner and rethink your concept of gender until you can manage a basic standard of decency and respect for all gender identities.

This includes anyone who, say, "compliments" any straight cis men they like by saying they must actually be closeted trans lesbians. If he says he's a man you treat him like a man! If your definition of man is so narrow that "treating someone like a man" is incompatible with like/respect etc, that's a problem with you! Even if someone you thought was a closeted trans women does actually come out as one, that doesn't change the fact that you should have treated her as a man while she identified as one.

There's nothing wrong with thinking someone is giving off Trans Vibes. Privately saying to a friend "I wouldn't be surprised if X came out" is fine. If you're close enough, approaching them to check in and offer to change what pronouns you use is fine. But acting like you're qualified to ignore their stated gender is never ok. Even if they are closeted, you just outed them!

"Respect everyone's stated gender identity" is the very lowest bar you need to clear.

(And of course this all applies to respecting stated sexuality as well. Yes I am looking at you, people who think it's ok to publicly insist that someone is 'secretly gay')

I was discussing with a friend the attitude that genderswapping male characters is not "celebrating female characters". Because it felt both true and false to me, and I think I've figured out why.
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More queer youtube essays!

Part 1

Part 3

 

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Ok I don't know if this has already been done better elsewhere, and it's more of an intellectual exercise than a serious call for new language.

But I've been thinking about how it would be useful to have a way to signify that when I, for example, describe myself as "a man" I mean it in the context of being genderfluid, having a gender which includes "man" but is not defined by or limited to it, and which is just as much "woman" and "other" in the same way. I am not a "man" in the same way that a binary trans man or cis man is a "man", where man is the entirety of their gender identity to the exclusion of "woman" etc.

So it's like... I'm a man&, and also a woman& and other&. (I would use man+ etc but have a vague memory of seeing that used for something else. Google just got confused when I checked, though)
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Against Access by John Lee Clark

As I said on tumblr:
This is really interesting to me, in part because of the extent to which it does not match my experience as a disabled person. Which is fine, because he doesn't claim to speak for all disabled people, just for people like himself. And I am a very different kind of disabled.
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The History and Politics of Wuxia

Tabletop RPG safety toolkit I think this has interesting ideas for any sort of collaborative storytelling.

In my many discussions on activism down the years, I've said that one of the most dangerous things we tend to do is treat *insights* as rules.

A post I made on tumblr I was pretty happy with, so, a crosspost!

I feel like there’s a fundamental misrepresentation and misunderstanding of how changing interests work.

A lot of adults do ‘grow out of’ the interests they had in their youth. But it’s not like they suddenly lose the joy they took in that interest with nothing to replace it, nor is it (usually) a deliberate choice to Leave Behind Childish Things even though they still bring joy.

It’s just that interests tend to naturally change as you get older, and some interests are on average more appealing to younger people, so most young people into them will eventually start getting into something else. And if someone happens not to lose a particular interest as they grow older then…that’s fine, and not bad or immature or creepy. It’s just how things happened to go.
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pedanther linked this article by Antony Green(*) about some changes to how voting works in Western Australia and I just...I mean I understand some of it.

(*)A respected Australian political analyst
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