A single unified LGBTQ+ conversation

Sure, I was more responding to the second part of your post that we shouldn't push our values on them.

But yeah, that's terrible. Personally, most of the LGBT-phobia I've seen has been the Evangelical all-American variety (which isn't surprising considering where I live).

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 18th 2019 at 4:59:21 AM

How to deal with it from a workplace perspective really depends on the kind of place you work at, some workplaces will act to stamp out homophobia amongst staff, others will not.

I am absolutely certain this one won't. Rather, I might be fired for fighting it too much and stirring the pot.

Mermaids, the British trans children's charity is getting the lottery funding which was under investigation (after a swarm of TERFs lead by a washed up sitcom writer threw a snitty fit).

Edited by Bisected8 on Feb 19th 2019 at 9:14:24 AM

...in addition to a stupifying amount of money raised by a left-wing You Tube comedian during an epic charity livestream of Donkey Kong 64 which was held primarily to spite said sitcom writer.

Yep. The charity ended up with 1.5x the amount of money they were supposed to get, and we have said sitcom writer to thank. I'm sure he'll be soooooooooo pleased! (^_^

(I'd check his reaction myself, but he's blocked me).

Linehan can go eat undercooked goat testes and feel moderately nauseated for weeks on end. He is such a horrid, impotent little creature.

Skimming his twitter, it looks like it mostly boils down to "how did they carefully look at all these allegations we made and conclude they weren't true!?" without any self awareness.

I will never understand transphobes, but particularly vaguely lefty British transphobes.

Simple, they have a strongly essentialist view of gender (often linked to some form of social conservatism) and thus in their worldview trans people must be liars or mentally deficient. Which causes them to attack trans people to reinforce the "proper" hierarchy of gender.

Disgusting but not particularly incomprehensible.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 20th 2019 at 3:26:13 PM

I can't help but wonder if some gender essentialists might themselves be agender/non-binary without realizing it, though that might just be projection on my part. While it was never really that big of a deal to me, I remember finding it pretty confusing how people could "feel like they should have a certain/different body" (heavily simplifying things here, obv.) beyond just aesthetics or practical reasons.

I think it's more likely the majority of them are just cisgender people who can't imagine not having your sex and gender link up. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are some agender people who hold those positions, just like there are bi people who think homosexuality is a choice.

Note: CW for Transphobia ahead

Not actually necessarily the case. A lot of the TER Fs I've seen accuse Trans people of reinforcing the gender binary. If that sounds like moon logic, well, its because it is. But their "reasoning" is that Transitioning often includes such things as wearing clothing etc of the "opposite" gender, or doing things considered traditionally to be in the domain of the "opposite" gender or blending the two together. They then claim that that means (especially Trans Women) are using the stereotypes of what said other Gender is (or with non-Binary people, that they're just making things up). And thus, by defying the Gender binary Trans people are upholding it.

Just as bullshit and disgusting, but not in the same way.

Eh, maybe but probably not many of them. Most seem to be cis, and I find it...not in great taste to imply that most of the people doing the attacking are the attacked themselves. Feels a bit victim-blamey, and serves mainly to whitewash the many cis people who were most vocally or violently against our existence.

I've seen some of them act the way you described too: its just not the entire picture. There's a couple more "theories" of theirs as well, but most of them do end up, when you dig too deep, back to gender essentialism.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Feb 20th 2019 at 5:42:01 AM

Huh, that's... a thing.

I guess I've just been exposed to the right-wing TERF logic, this must be the left-wing equivalent.

That's vile.

Sorry. It's just some loose speculation based on my own experiences.

No worries! I figured. just thought I should put it out there.

But...yeah. There's no one true doctrine of evil, per say. Its mostly a union of hate.

Isn't that a common criticism of Natalie Wynn? That the 'femininity' she seeks to live is something that excludes Butch women, or something like that?

What would that be, 'butch tomboy transwomen are...'

What are they, really? What about effeminate campy transmen?

Can our brains handle that? Can our words? What is a man? Or a woman? *throws a wine cup crashing into the ground in frustration*

Edited by Oruka on Feb 20th 2019 at 3:17:55 AM

They're the miserable piles of secrets we made along the way.

In seriousness, yes, it is. It also tends to exclude non-Binary people, though she thankfully (ironically) hasn't thought her own logic through enough to quite realize that yet.

There's a lot I could say on Natalie, but this isn't really the thread and I don't want to go on the Contrapoints thread to only be largely negative.

Speaking of threads, we should possibly bring this to another thread, perhaps one of the LGBTQ threads over in On-Topic. I put the CW in my first post because not everyone wants to discuss Transphobia, I feel we should not overstay our welcome in that regard.

I can address the rest of the post in a PM, if you wish.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Feb 20th 2019 at 6:30:30 AM

There's like, a lot of feminists (and misandrists who claim to be feminists) who argue that trans women are trojan horsing into women's spaces and trans men are cheating the system by trying to claim male privilege instead of working to dismantle the privilege system like good, honest feminist women.

I don't think that transphobes have an equivalent to Armored Closet Gay, but I have long had a suspicion that what's come to be termed toxic masculinity is a strong factor in why it seems like there are more trans women and enbies, especially AFAB enbies, than trans men. The loudest definition of what a man is isn't something the kind of person who questions their gender wants anything to do with.

And this is arguably the most common line, which by all accounts I should have mentioned. Don't know how that one slipped my mind, considering how frequently I see it. Sorry! (^_^;;

As mentioned though, regardless of the path they pick, its still just hatred under the surface.

Anyway, anyone have happier news?

Edited by AzurePaladin on Feb 20th 2019 at 11:44:14 AM

Not to be picky, but (skipping a long lecture on whether "misandry" is actually a thing) asatranswoman I would prefer if you didn't describe transphobes (in particular TERFs) as misandrists.

They clearly direct their hatred at trans women, not men (cis or trans). Which, ironically, proves they know we're damn well not men, but that's besides the point.

I don't know about that, I always thought their transphobia was misandric: 'men are evil, transwomen are just lying men, wanting to do what men always want, get power and feed their perverse sexual lusts, those pigs'.

I'm still unclear about Butch transwomen, femme transmen, and whether gender is an ill defined social convention that we should be casual about and basically anything goes, or something super duper important about people that we really need to respect and not play around with.

That. Just because we can agree here that trans women are women doesn't mean that transphobes operate on that axiom, and there's a strong tradition of "feminists" concluding that men as a gender are the problem, not a system that privileges men that we're all products of.

Gender is just altogether a spectrum. A box you can't get out of is a cage, a box you could leave at any time but feel comfortable inside is shelter, a box you've put together yourself out of the elements you like best is a home.

The thing about TERFs is that they have the same relationship with truth as certain politicians — to them, what's true is what they want to be true at that moment, and never mind if something else was true five minutes ago.