OPINIONS & RANTS & SHIT
essentially just a dump places for opinions, beliefs, and complex thoughts on certain topics. would consider this a healthier alternative to a discourse blog
a piece gay shit: i've been around every neck of the woods in terms of lgbt discourse, identity politics, who's "valid" or not, etc etc. im an adult. i have a full time job, a degree, a committed relationship, gas money, and other real world bullshit to worry about. i could not give less of a damn on what "contradictory" labels some 15yo wants to use. or even a fuckin 50 year old, cus im kind of sick of those people that say "oh yeah who cares about all that, because when they're 18 and an adult they'll magically stop being queer in a weird way i dont like and identify as normal and it wont be an issue!" and thats not what i'm saying either. i dont care if that 13yo trans man still calls himself a lesbian, or if that 65yo transfem calls herself both a fag and a dyke. it has 0 effect on how i go about my life, and i'd much rather spend that energy fighting against a goverment that wants to make every flavor of queer illegal. infighting is dumb.
on the topic of queer (trans) infighting: the newest flavor of discourse i've seen sweeping my tumblr dash (which some of you who follow me there may have caught peeks of) is the whole "reinventing the gender binary/patriarchy but make it *trans inclusive* and also *extremely intersexist* this time". aka the whole "TME" vs "TMA" / "trans men oppress trans women" bullshit. i know, dysphoria sucks and its so easy to take that out on people that seem to have it easier. but i fucking promise, no singular flavor of trans identity has it easier. transmisogyny is deepy ingrained in our culture from the ground up and transfems have been the butt of every queer joke for the last forever. there's a hundred stories of that written by transfems in a way i could never articulate as it's not my experience. go read those if that's what you're looking for. but transmascs and trans men experience their own unique flavor of oppression as well, such as "insurance won't cover my T unless my legal sex is male but then the OBGYN will deny me service because my legal sex is male so i get to choose between dysphoria or ovarian cancer" which is an iteration I've seen play out across online and irl with friends and patients alike. we know that corrective rape is a thing and we know that it's likely unrepresented for transmascs/men due to the data itself identifying us as women. and even the terms themselves are just complete bullshit. "transmisogyny exempt" implies that it includes cis men and women along with afab transmasculine people, and yet I think I've only ever actually seen it used to refer to transmascs specifically. and again, as transmisogyny is something that is deeply ingrained in our culture, i don't believe any group can be exempt from it. for recent events, look at cisgender olympian Imane Khelif, who has been under extereme criticism and threat from transphobes and transmisogynists despite having literally given birth to multiple children. As someone who is partially through medical transition, I commonly get mistaken for transfem by allies and bigots alike because transmasculinity is so heavily erased in our culture that many people don't even know somemone can go that way. not even to bring up that it assumes you're completely perisex/not intersex. (inspired by a post i saw earlier of someone stating this as their lived personal experience of being intersex) if someone is born intersex, medically altered to have female genetalia at birth and is then raised as female, undergoes male puberty and develops male sexual characteristics, and then medically transitions and identifies as a woman, are they TME or TMA? on paper, they are an afab trans woman, which is an identity i've seen openly mocked even by those who believe in "all good faith identities". also, where do nonbinary people fall into this? amidst the discourse I've seen many nonbinary people who attempt to speak on this being accused of being "deceiptful" for not disclosing their agab/current genetalia. how the fuck is this not just reinventing "what's in your pants/what gender are you REALLY?" all over again? we need to stop with the struggle olympics and trying to figure out who has it "worst" and just focus on living and fighting for the right to live.
kink at pride and more on fetish stuff: unless you can clearly define what a kink is in a way that exclusively only covers things that are actually kinks and fetishes and excludes all things that are not fetishistic or are nonsexual in nature (hint: you can't), you cannot effectively ban kink at pride. define kink as anything relating to sex? congrats, you've banned anyone that isn't exclusively asexual and celibate since everyone else either has sex or thinks about sex sometimes. (to clarify. absolutely no hate to people who dont want or have sex. all rights and love to ya). define kink as any kind of 'fetish gear'? am i allowed to come with my leather jacket? can my friend wear their choker? can that gay couple bring their dog? (you didn't specific who the gear was on!). why stop there? feet are probably the single most common fetish! are we enforcing a 'closed toe shoes only' rule at pride? being queer itself is seen as a fetish for most queerphobes/conservatives, which just brings us back to the USA in the 1960s where being gay out loud is a crime. also could be controversial but we should stop acting like nudity is inherently sexual. i work in a hospital and i've been to chicago. i've seen 60+ year old man cock. nothing sexual about it. i saw an argument that said "are you saying someone coming up to you in a trenchcoat in a grocery store and then flashing you their fully nude body wouldn't be traumatizing. first of all, no. second of all, i think someone in a long skirt in a grocery store walking up to me and then pulling up their skirt to reveal that- instead of shoes- they just had their feet stuck in two tupperware bins full of peanut butter, it would have an equal if not worse effect on my mental state.
something i say a lot that ends up applying to most things: as soon as you set a (legal) precident for a certain 'crime' to have a universally applied 'punishment', you start entering the grounds where a corrupt government has an invested interest in redefining all opposition to fit that crime. for example- if you give the death penalty to all pedophiles, the gov't will say being queer in public makes you a pedophile.
borders: i also don't really believe in the concept of borders. i think the idea that there's an imaginary line in the dirt somewhere and you need to pass a bunch of tests and have paperwork and money and etc in order to cross it or else you get thrown in jail and get your children stolen from you is fucking ridiculous. i literally do not give a damn about the nuances. borders are stupid, people should be free to just go where they want without worry. no one is illegal on stolen land and no one should be fucking illegal anywhere by basis of imaginary land markers.
on adults and minors: when i was younger, about age 11 or 12, i met an upperclassman (mid/late HS) on the school bus and we had a 'relationship' of sorts for several years. i was 11 and autistic, i did not know what dating was or how it was supposed to go, but this was a cool older kid who thought i was cool! this ended up being the most traumatic period of my life which i am still in therapy for to this day. he was the only older person i spoke to other than adults in my family (who had their own well of problems) so i didn't really know that what was happening to me was not how adults/older teens are supposed to act. quite literally the only reason i found out what happened to me was abuse/sexual assault was years later. I was 15ish, freshly out of the relationship and speaking to some other friends about weird things our ex did, and my friend's friend (who was in the same grade as my ex/abuser) stopped me while i was talking and said "hey, that's not just him being weird. that's rape. you need to tell someone". i mean this so strongly, if i had some older friends around his age at the time who were good people and not creeps, it would have been so much easier to know that what was happening wasn't normal. good adult examples keep kids from thinking "this is just how adults are" when dealing with creeps. and it's not like you magically become a different person at 18. you don't suddenly get bapped on the head by the aging fairy and blessed with a complete knowledge of taxes and the stock market. and acting like adults will just magically become pedos bent on grooming children the second they are in contact with someone younger is absurd. i'm not following that 16yo on tumblr because i want to do anything to them, i'm following them because they like cool music and post vampire memes or whatever. age doesn't even occur to me online until someone says something like "i'm stressed about the SATS coming up" or "when i'm old enough to start HRT" or something. i think the dichotomy between adults and minors existing ends up putting way more people into vulnerable and dangerous situations rather than "protecting the children" like it claims to.
tone tags: i'll be blunt. i hate them. i hate whoever went "you know what would be perfect for a group of people that struggle with memorizing arbitary and complicated social cues and the meanings they're supposed to have in each situation? a whole new code system of text cues with arbitary meanings that can change based on who you're talking to or what platform you're on!" it's fucking social cues 2.0 : The Woke Neurospicy Edition. I will not use them. If I can't tell what tone you're using, I'll ask. If i think the tone I'm using is confusing, i'll say so. for example, "have you ever heard of a dictionary? (genuine question)" or "wow ur a dumbass (affectionately joking). I know logically that this shit grew out of Twitter and Tiktok where there's a character limit but I haven't used Twitter ever or tiktok in years so fuck em. if you use them on me i will just politely pretend they aren't there and so far nobody has ever complained about my tone/intention descriptions. and honestly sometimes it makes me feel like the other person is assuming i'm stupid. like "how are you doing? (/gen)" makes me feel like they think it's my first day on earth or like they're trying to train an AI to pick up on human conversational tone tendencies.
speedrounds: let's go! [i am/i believe...] race/ethnicity/religion: anti-racism, anti-colorism, black lives matter, anti-theism is rooted in white supremacy, anti-islamophobia, anti-nazism/neo-nazism, anti-antisemitism/support jewish folk, free palestine, free sudan, free the congo, anti-any fucking genocide or apartheid, anti-colonialism, land back, no one is illegal on stolen land, anti-sinophobic, stop asian hate, pretty much 'everyone should be equal on a personal and systemic level and also give the native people their shit and freedom back'. sex/gender/lgbtq feminist, anti-bioessentialism, anti-gender essentialism, fuck terfs, fuck swerfs, fuck lgbtq-phobes of all flavors, anti-exclusionist, pro-good faith identities, i do not give a damn what label you use if you aren't hurting anyone, anti-enbyphobia, anti-intersexism/support intersex folk, pro-choice no matter what, believe victims. ableism: quit fucking saying the r slur (yes even if you're autistic), pro-informed self dx, support physical and mental disabilities, advocate for accessable infrastructure, "not smart" is not a moral failing, support people with personality disorders (even the ones that scare you), lack of empathy does not make you evil, support folks with higher support needs, the medical system is not unbiased or perfect or free from abuse. politics: fuck the right, fuck republicans, fuck fascists, fuck neoliberal fascists, fuck conservatives, begrudgingly blue, support local elections, change starts small, support mutual aid, pro-public transport, pro-library, pro-walkable cities. (not an extensive list aka i may have forgotten something)