Before you ask any questions or start any fights, please take a look through my carrd.
Pansexual as an identity has always enforced bigotry against bisexual and transsexual people.
LGBT is a distinct group from LGBT+; The first is a targeted activist movement, the second is a social category. Both are legitimate in their own right, but I will always prioritize LGBT in discussions.
This blog is and will always be pro trans. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Trans rights are human rights.
That being said, non-binary genders and identities do not belong under the trans label.
Before you send me anon hate, attend an LGBT(+) club or event and ask three people there how they feel about the issue you are upset with me over.
Division of labor in the home is one of the most important equity issues of our time. Yet at this rate it will be another 75 years before men do half the work.
The optimistic tale of the modern, involved dad has been greatly exaggerated. The amount of child care men performed rose throughout the 1980s and ’90s, but then began to level off without ever reaching parity. Mothers still shoulder 65 percent of child-care work. In academic journals, family researchers caution that the “culture of fatherhood” has changed more than fathers’ actual behavior.
Sociologists attribute the discrepancy between mothers’ expectations and reality to “a largely successful male resistance.” This resistance is not being led by socially conservative men, whose like-minded wives often explicitly agree to take the lead in the home. It is happening, instead, with relatively progressive couples, and it takes many women — who thought their partners had made a prenatal commitment to equal parenting — by surprise. Why are their partners failing to pitch in more?
The answer lies, in part, in the different ways that men and women typically experience unfairness. Inequality makes everyone feel bad. Studies have found that people who feel they’re getting away with something experience fear and self-reproach, while people who feel exploited are angry and resentful. And yet men are more comfortable than women with the first scenario and less tolerant than women of finding themselves with the short end of the stick. Parity is hard, and this discrepancy lays the groundwork for male resistance.
Though many men are in denial about it, their resistance communicates a feeling of entitlement to women’s labor. Men resist because it is in their “interest to do so,” write Scott Coltrane and Michele Adams, leaders in the field of family studies, in their book, “Gender and Families.” By passively refusing to take an equal role, men are reinforcing “a separation of spheres that underpins masculine ideals and perpetuates a gender order privileging men over women.”
While interviewing working parents for a book on parenthood, I spoke with one dad in Vermont who said: “The expectation among my male friends is still that they will have the life they had before having kids. My dad has never cooked a meal. I’ve strayed from that. But subconsciously, the thing that makes you motivationally step up and do something when you’re not being asked …” he trailed off, and then said: “I have justifications. It’s a cop-out.”
Take love out of the equation and focus on the workplace, and it’s clear how this plays out. Studies show that male employees sit back while their female co-workers perform the tasks that don’t lead to promotion. In a series of lab studies, the economists Lise Vesterlund, Linda Babcock and Maria Recalde and the organizational behaviorist Laurie Weingart found that in coed groups, women are 50 percent more likely than men to volunteer to take on work that no one else wants to do. But in all-male groups, the men volunteer just as readily.
In an interview with NPR, Dr. Vesterlund explained that the women do the work “because they’re expected to.” The men “come into the room, they see the women, they know how we play these games.”
We play the same games at home. I interviewed couples separately and found that the women were often angry, while many men didn’t seem to realize there was a problem.
The couples offered three explanations for this labor imbalance. The first was that women take over activities like bedtime, homework and laundry because men perform these tasks inadequately. But this isn’t “maternal gatekeeping,” the theory that men want to help but women disparage their capabilities and push them out. Instead these seem to be situations that necessitate the intervention of a reasonable adult.
A mother in California said: “It’s important to me that my sons are not falling asleep in class and that they’re not late for school. My husband does not share those priorities, so I do bedtime and school drop-off.”
The dad in Vermont explained: “I do laundry when I need it. When it comes to the kids’ laundry, I could be more proactive, but instead I operate on my time scale. So my wife does most of their laundry. Let me do it my way and I’m happy to do it, but if you’re going to tell me how to do it, go ahead and do it yourself.”
The second explanation involved forgetting or obliviousness. A mother in Illinois said: “My husband is a participatory and willing partner. He’s not traditional in terms of ‘I don’t change diapers.’ But his attention is limited.” She added, “I can’t trust him to do anything, to actually remember.”
A dad in San Francisco said that many of the tasks of parenting weren’t important enough to remember: “I just don’t think these things are worth attending to. A certain percentage of parental involvement that my wife does, I would see as valuable but unnecessary. A lot of disparity in our participation is that.”
Finally, some men blamed their wives’ personalities. A San Diego dad said his wife did more because she was so uptight. “She wakes up on a Saturday morning and has a list. I don’t keep lists. I think there’s a belief that if she’s not going to do it, then it won’t get done.” (His wife agreed that this was true, but emphasized that her belief was based on experience: “We fell into this easy pattern where he learned to be oblivious and I learned to resent him.”)
A father in Portland, Ore., confirmed that his wife takes on more but said: “It has to do with her personality. She always has to stay busy. No matter what day of the week it is, she has a need to be engaged, to be doing something.”
Many mothers told me they had tried to change this and had aired their grievances with their partners, only to watch as nothing changed. A mother in Queens said she spent three years trying to get her husband to do more before coming to terms with the fact that maybe it was never going to happen. “He notices the unfairness, but he just accepts it as something we have a disagreement about,” she said. “How much convincing of the other person can you do?”
All this comes at a cost to women’s well-being, as mothers forgo leisure time, professional ambitions and sleep. Wives who view their household responsibilities “as unjust are more likely to suffer from depression than those who do not,” one study says. When their children are young, employed women (but not men) take a hit to their health as well as to their earnings — and the latter never recovers. Child-care imbalances also tank relationship happiness, especially in the early years of parenthood.
Division of labor in the home is one of the most important gender-equity issues of our time. Yet at the current rate of change, MenCare, a group that promotes equal involvement in caregiving, estimates that it will be about 75 more years before men worldwide assume half of the unpaid work that domesticity requires.
If anything is going to change, men have to stop resisting. Gendered parenting is kept alive by the unacknowledged power bestowed upon men in a world that values their needs, comforts and desires more than women’s. It’s up to fathers to cop to this, rather than to cop out.
Ok these guys are terrible, I will give them that, but I think it is important to be real about the fact that most long term partnerships are going to have to change several times over their lifespans. Practically speaking, none of us have one marriage. AND, a lot of couples don’t figure out how to make that change and negotiate what the new partnership is going to be. You see them acknowledge that above.
My feminism is predicated on the idea that men are not irredeemably Other, and that means that this can be a fixable situation. My husband and I were in a similar situation a few years ago and really fixed it, I think, and I’m glad we did. If I have some tips about how you do it, they are:
Treat executive function like a task that takes up real time and really contributes. A pattern you see a lot of the time is only a woman in a straight relationship making lists, noticing things, keeping track of things. As another comment points out, that is exhausting. Personally, instead of trying to make my husband notice everything I did, it works for us to treat that noticing and planning like a major task. Because I do that, I do a lot less of everything else. I treat that like a real contribution and use it to silence the part of me that feels badly that I don’t ever do other things.
Be real about what your own strengths and weaknesses are, and don’t let your understanding of those strengths be surface level. I am bad at routines, I’m very good at planning, noticing, and setting systems up. My husband is terrible at noticing things, but better at doing stuff on a schedule no matter what. We lean WAY into that. It means he does all the laundry on a set schedule (we don’t rely on him noticing when it needs to be done, he does it every Sunday morning no matter what) and I make sure the kid has enough clothes for that schedule to work. He also does all dishes and kid lunches. I cook and plan meals, do things like reorganize a closet when it needs it, and keep track of the family calendar. That might sound uneven, but a lot more one-off stuff comes up than you think, and if you’re dividing the regular stuff equally but one person is also doing the ad hoc tasks, it won’t be equal at all.
I am also good at things that take some sitting around and getting through them (like bedtime or sitting with a sick child on my lap all afternoon). He is good at going and doing tasks. I do bedtime, he does grocery shopping and school drop off/pickup. Which one of you is better at being interrupted? At falling back asleep vs getting to sleep the first time? At tolerating crying? At sticking to a schedule? Figure out a hundred of these, and divide work accordingly.
When you divide tasks, divide them completely. Do some introspection about what you actually require from a task to be done adequately, and get comfortable being annoying about that. Let everything else go. It took me a while to not feel like some horrible nag (lots of gendered stuff there) for wanting my clothes to be laundered the way I wanted if I wasn’t doing it myself. I had to get over that (and he had to get okay with hearing that.) He was out of town last weekend, so laundry didn’t get done. This morning, I said “hey, I am reaching a critical underwear situation, can you do laundry tonight?” There’s space in this for him to ask me to spot him, but I’m not just doing it and getting resentful.
But there are also aspects of tasks that you can let go of. One of the few planning tasks that’s his is arranging summer camps. (This is an insane part of US parenting. Every household has to have a spreadsheet.) He does this completely. I don’t even know which camps our kid is in until he puts them on the shared calendar. Does he do this in a way I like? Absolutely he does not. Every year he books something in case or makes a mistake and has to cancel or find something at the last minute. I have to let that go if I want him to own this.
Each parent has an individual relationship with a child, you can’t funnel it all through one parent and expect it to work. Like in the original post, a dad says that he’ll do the laundry on his schedule, not one that’s dictated to him. If laundry is his job, that means that a child who’s angry there are no clean pants that fit *has to scream at him* and as the other parent, *you stay out of it.* That’s between them and has nothing to do with you.
Sometimes , to make that work, you have to bundle dependent responsibilities. If a lack of clean clothes leads to being late for school, have the same person do both of those. AND have him be the only person who goes to the meeting with the principal about how often they’re late. This is not actually between the two parents, this is a contract of care between a parent and child.
If your co-parent is actually so negligent that this will harm the child (not make you look bad or make a kid angry or inconvenienced or whatever, and you have to be real about this) you cannot pretend to co-parent with them.
You probably have to overcorrect. An equitable division of labor in a straight relationship probably feels like the man doing 60-75% of the work. Letting that happen will require a lot of self-work from most women.
Recognize that this is a life or death situation for a marriage. Like, as parents, this is the #1 most important thing to figure out, and if you don’t? You will be happier divorced. I think a lot of people, maybe mostly a lot of men, think this is something you can work around or wait out. I don’t think it is.
In the wake of a revealed Tim Hortons x Harry Potter collab, I was reading an article on the backlash, and got hit with the one-two-punch of these (paraphrased) statements: "JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, has made statements that some people claim are transphobic even though she denies this"
Followed by
"Rowling posted recently 'trans women aren't women and you should be thankful you're allowed to pretend otherwise just as I'm allowed to tell the truth'"
Yeah some people claimed that? Some people? They thought that might have been transphobic, yeah? Some people felt it was transphobic? Some people?
Dating, like actual dating and not just hooking up or casual shit as a trans woman truly does suck tremendous ass. You never know how people will react to you, you're always afraid to make the first move because even if you feel like a person is safe you really never know. You can't approach people and express interest of flirt most times because I don't know how people will react and I don't wanna get my ass beat. Hell even hooking up with like, a cis man can be scary because yeah he might have been into you and seemed like a cool guy but once that post nut clarity hits, what if he feels ashamed and disgusted by what his horny brain wasn't. Obviously not all cis men are evil or would do that but you never know and you gotta play it safe. I'm also mixed on the whole meeting someone's family thing. It'd be so cool to have a partner who's so proud of dating you they introduce you to their family, but at the same time if their family isn't cool with trans people, I'd rather save myself the discomfort. Idk I'm happy to be trans and I'm proud of it but sometimes it feels like a cursed existence...
I'm gonna do something really controversial. Going to debunk the claim that JK Rowling posted an upskirt photo of a trans women.
Why? Am I defending JK Rowling? No. She still misgendered Freda and made fun of her appearance. She still sucks here and is a bigot.
I'm doing this because I believe calling this upskirting and sexual assault diminishes the meaning of both terms, because the photo posted objectively does not meet the definition.
Here is the photo JK Rowling posted of Freda.
This image comes from a live debate filmed two years ago. You can see at about 25 minutes in that this image comes from the exact same camera angle that the debate was being filmed from. It is the view that the audience would see of Freda the entire length of the debate.
[Screenshot from the debate video]
It is not an upskirt. This is simply what Freda looks like from a front view, while sitting down in the outfit she was wearing. If this is an "upskirt" and therefore sexual assault, than the entire audience and the camera crew was sexually assaulting her as well for simply viewing her from the front.
Please save and share this info where possible. This report has since been removed by Amnesty International due to legal threats of libel from JK Rowling. This information is no longer easily accessible.
Free reign to say Jk Rowling is a predator who shared an upskirt picture of a trans woman and said she shouldn't have worn a skirt if she didn't want to be sexually harassed, enjoys the company of open child predators, and thinks Lolita is a tragic romance story. She is a danger to women and children.
cosmetic plastic surgeons do not give a fuck about you. their offices are like assembly lines. they do not care about you. they do not care about your feelings. they only care about how much money they can make off of your insecurities.
this especially includes so-called "gender affirming" cosmetic surgeons. "oh i found this great surgeon who affirms me" no you did not. you found a snakeoil salesman who is going to have you chasing a dragon you will never catch.
i had surgery in 2015. i saw the surgeon like a few times in the year after for follow up, but all of that was included in what i paid him up front. making sure stuff was healing properly, etc
idk, when i saw the guy for an initial consultation, i had a large burn going down my arm from an accident at work. i hadn’t seen anyone about it - literally didn’t even leave work when it happened, didn’t really have the cash to see a doctor, was going to have to take out a loan to get my surgery (insurance told me first do it then we’ll reimburse, but it turned out there was a secret “no trans surgeries on this specific employers policy” after the fact)
he took the time to talk to me about it. wasn’t what i was seeing him for, not something he got paid to do, but he looked it over, gave me advice, told me what parts would scar…
my hormone provider/PCP recently changed - same clinic just a new guy. we talked about a recent hospital stay/wound care, and about how bad my experience at that hospital was
we had to do a blood draw, and sometimes my veins just feel like being obnoxious, so he couldn’t get all he needed on the first prick. but he *noticed* how uncomfortable i am with medical shit, noticed how much i hate needles. like, i didn’t say anything, but he offered to stop and delay one of the tests for a couple months. he picked up how fucking traumatized i was by my (non trans related) emergency surgery and hospital stay, and thought of a way to minimize my pain and discomfort
idk if i’m wording that in a way that can do justice to how comfortable and safe that experience made me feel. but it’s part of a pattern - i have noticed that the providers who provide me affirming care are often the most patient, kind and dedicated providers i encounter. the ones who care enough to respect my pronouns are also the ones that will respect my pain and discomfort
and i know that clinic isn’t rolling in the dough. there’s no insurance that pays for trans shit here; they are working with uninsured broke trans people in a hell hole red state. i KNOW with at least my clinic - they are doing it for love and ill fight anyone who says otherwise
idk, you realize how similar your propaganda messaging is to propaganda about abortion clinics? “they are only doing it for money” “they are making tons and tons of money off this” “they are secretly evil to the point where they don’t care about harming others, even to death” when it’s all kinda obviously untrue on its face?
like, put yourself into the shoes of a doctor here. is it *really* a good idea to go into gender care for the money rn considering the christofascists and just regular old fascists you are carrying water for are kinda in power for the indefinite time being?
reading progressive sex ed caricatures with accurate and detailed and realistic diagrams of sexual organs + shows their variation, but all i can think about is how there is no discussion of what srs is besides the fact that it exists
this one has been passed around recently from the mayo clinic and that actually makes me so happy because how many of transfeminine people are aware of what their options even look like?
there’s a diagram for phallo and meta from springer link(i believe) and. honestly i’d never seen these before and i dont think i’ve ever seen any diagrams. i know vaguely because of reading papers or listening to people talk about their experience but i’ve never seen it, yk? it makes me more confident in my choice to get meta when i’m older
There’s a website called Transbucket that has a whole archive of before and after photos, surgery costs, surgeon names and locations, and general feedback on complications, sensation, everything. It’s been around for at least a decade, and there are photos of some folks five or eight years down the line. It’s organized by procedure, and it’s very comprehensive. It’s NSFW of course but it’s an amazing resource!!!
Are you considering or have had transition care? | Transbucket.com
Autigender describes a gender identity that is deeply intertwined with being autistic. Coined by the neurodivergent community, it isn't a specific gender itself; rather, it highlights that a person's autism fundamentally shapes how they experience, express, and understand their gender
Have you guys ever like. Considered that gender isn't all the weird bullshit you're making it out to be. And that having different experiences in life based on your circumstances will like. Literally always fundamentally change who you are.
"Whether someone understands it or not, these are the consequences of the political views they're espousing" is a pretty important analysis tool for online movements because quite honestly, over half of everyone engaging in politics online have no foundations for the stuff they're saying and are just saying whatever makes them feel like a member of an in-group.
This is exactly why non binary conceptually is so fucking nutso to me. You either believe gender is this nebulous spiritual phenomenon and therefore being trans is more of a religious experience than anything and physically transitioning isn't a treatment but a choice or you believe that gender dysphoria and neurology play a role in how people desire their bodies to appear, in which case it inevitably becomes clear that non binary genders don't actually make any sense.
But the vibes based politics of being accepting of everything that could possibly be labelled as queer has resulted in otherwise intelligent individuals just assuming being non binary is equally legitimate as being a trans man or woman. Sad!
I haven't looked at my notes in a few days for obvious reasons but I AM still planning on making a Post(TM) with a full deep dive into periods. When I feel like it of course.
instead of "trying not to be catty" (which i know is so hard for you!!!!) why don't you just apologize for being wrong and spreading misinformation and telling trans women that they are wrong about their bodies while you continue to perpetuate medical misogyny?
you don't need to "work on a bigger post." you need to apologize and process all the new information you have learned on your own time❤️🩹
But that's the thing, none of this is new info, I made a post that goes over a lot of this two years ago. What people are claiming isn't adding up to the sources they're providing.
I'll make a bigger and more well-worded post later so I can actually add sources and direct quotes from studies and articles rather than going by my off-hand knowledge from the research I did in previous years.
idk maybe it's just bc i am currently shitting and throwing up from my period so my patience is quite short, but i do not think you as a cis woman with very little education in endocrinology should be the person making the master post on this. "what people are saying isn't adding up"?? maybe people have different bodies and different experiences and this is an under-researched and widely misunderstood area of medicine anyway! there is also variation between cis women's descriptions of their periods and other symptoms. did you know that only 6% of medical funding worldwide goes to women's health? and most of that is spent on fertility research! why are you so certain that you are "right"? why are you so certain that your lack of medical expertise makes you the right person to discuss this topic? why is it so hard for you to take a step back and admit that you were wrong, that you do not know as much as you pretended to, and that we ALL have a lot to learn in this area?
Y'know what I actually agree, I was saying some shit I didn't actually have the most knowledge on, stumbling over facts with things I'd either misremembered or assumed. It's not fair to pretend I know everything here.
But to deny that we do know how periods function, and that it excludes people without uteruses and ovaries (cis and trans women alike) is just flat-out wrong and it's really frustrating to even entertain the vast majority of this discussion.
Yeah, we have a huge medical gap between the sexes. But that gap isn't in the area of How Do Periods Happen.
We can have a different discussion about the larger reality of trans women having serious cramps without forcing a connection to cis women's periods. I wish we could just do that. But instead we have these arguments about what menses actually encompasses, and why taking estrogen doesn't actually create a 28-day hormone cycle in persons without female reproductive organs.
