Starting to think it's just straight up incorrect analysis to view terfs as even viewing trans women as men, and that they hate trans women for their masculinity (and by extention being characterized by hatred for men and masculinity). Instead, i think you have to view their comments on trans women and their bodies as intentionally and forcefully masculinizing a woman, excluding her from womanhood for not fitting into white women's beauty and body standards. Many people have noted that this is similair to how black women are historically and today masculinized in society, and indeed terfs commonly attack women of color for similair things. If it is about hating men it's noticable that they don't talk about men the same way, "men" are only ever a threat if she's a woman. Any other man is allowed to be an ally to the terf movement if he's "protecting women" (by excluding certain types of woman). It's misogyny, it's transmisogyny, everything about this structurally replicates the ways women are mistreated by society generally, and excluded from femininity, just lazerfocused on targeting trans women.
When Black women are forcefully masculinized, we understand this as misogynoir, we understand this as an intersection of misogyny and race, not some societal hatred for men. We understand Black women who are targeted by masculinization as still fundamentally being viewed and treated as women, just not women worthy of the protection of white womanhood. Why is masculinization any different for trans women, why do we not see this as masculinization?
i will say this as a person who is not white: i think being called racist as a white person is like way lower stakes than anyone makes it out to be. and like, the reality is that white people have an inflated sense of anxiety about what being called Racist Means when like. let's be fucking real for a second. it does not meaningfully often result in Material Violence to a person for being "called racist." and I think being racist is just a thing that happens. and like if we are going to say that being accidentally racist from time to time is something that like, is relatively low stakes, that has to go hand in hand with being like. ok well I guess i should take some time to think about why someone might think I'm racist and like Do something about that.
like I think the paranoia and anxiety about how Being Called Racist is something that Does Violence to People is rooted in a white guilt racialized anxiety and if I am going to be real with you I do not think it is based in material reality. you can be a little uncomfortable it's not the end of the world. i think it's frustrating as a racialized person to see so many white people more frantically hand-wringing over the prospect of being called "racist" than over the prospect of Being Racist. it's annoying to say the least.
like idk girl. what can i tell you? do you know how frustrating it is to be a racialized person and have nobody hear you when you say something is hurtful to you because of racialized reasons? even people nominally "in your community" whatever that means? does the materialism fall out of your head when it comes to race for whatever reason? grow past your anxiety and your discomfort.
i think many people are racist frequently and "unintentionally" for what it's worth and i think it's low stakes for the most part. how are you able to handle telling other people that it's transmisogynist or homophobic to treat you a certain way but you pearlclutch when people are like that was kind of racist. it's not a cosmic sin. it's just a thing that should be understood and grown from, graciously. come on.
How To Shut Up A Woman In Three Steps: The Transmisogynist's Guide
I - Her Tone
This is, by far, the easiest tool to wield effectively against a trans woman. If she is short in her responses, then you can accuse her of harassment and unwarranted anger; if she outright blocks you then you can simply claim that she only cares about her small-minded internet echo chamber; and if she engages with you at any length then you can quite easily nitpick her language and tone until she is thoroughly discredited.
Even better, she will most certainly become annoyed with you - in this scenario, all you have to do is argue that she is aggressive, hysterical, and quite likely a danger to society, and you will be believed by a great many people. This is, of course, because the trans woman's natural position is as a fundamental danger to society. Therefore, it takes very little convincing for an onlooker to come to that selfsame conclusion with some prompting. They may not even be aware that they are falling victim to their own inherent transmisogynistic bias, which is why this approach is quite beautiful in its simplicity! For those who don't immediately believe you, you can easily dismiss them as brainwashed idiots, syncophants, or both.
To drive your point home, call her a terf, a radfem, or a baeddel. If she has ever, in anger, spoken poorly of cis queers, or even better of transmascs, then this will become trivial to argue. Tell her that she is the problem, that she is contributing to community infighting, and that she should really be trying harder to work on this whole "trans unity" thing. Blame all oppression on her. For bonus points, when you tell her that she is dividing the community, you can also throw in the idea that should be making out with you instead of arguing. (This is, of course, because women primarily belong as sex objects to men, and if she would stop having so many opinions then perhaps she would understand this better.)
II - Her Privilege
This is an expanded version of the former tactic, because it requires a certain level of delicacy in the wording you use. However, people react quite strongly to the language of privilege, irrespective of whether that language reflects a material reality, and therefore this is a fantastic way to make a woman stop whining.
I would advise you to check if the woman is white; if she is, then you can easily accuse her of weaponizing her whiteness. (N.B. If she has not stated her race publicly, or if you can't be bothered to check, then this accusation will still work - if she is actually a woman of color, you may very easily claim that you were making a statement about white trans women in general. Further, it is not necessary for you yourself to be a person of color; as long as you position her as uniquely privileged in her whiteness, your own whiteness will remain irrelevant.)
In a similar bent, it is always quite possible for you to dismiss her theory as being "white." Always posit that she is championing a sort of wealthy white woman's privilege, always claim that transfeminism is at its core non-intersectional, and always claim that transfeminist theory in its entirety was created by the white woman - in this way, you may mark her as a privileged white bitch regardless of her race, national origin, or identity. (Under no circumstances should you mention or acknowledge the existence of trans women of color, as this immediately disarms your rhetorical weapon. In fact, if she brings up trans women of color, it is most necessary for you to claim that she is co-opting their experiences.) If you can imply that she is a racist while doing so, then you will be even more successful.
If this fails, then there are other similar cudgels you can implement to great effect: perhaps claims of intersexism, exorsexism, or sex-based discrimination. Call her a "perisex trans woman," a "binary trans woman," an "amab trans person." Say that she is speaking over the real victims; if you must combine multiple (or all!) of these terms at once in order to make her seem like a uniquely privileged party, then do so without hesitation. If she has ever had a bad opinion, or an opinion that you might frame without context as being a bad opinion, then simply publicize that. However, in the absence of such, see rulebook as follows: if she talks only of trans women in general, then you must bring up transmasculine nonbinary people; if she talks of transfeminine nonbinary people, then you must bring up intersex people; if she talks of trans people as a whole then you ought to circle right back around to claiming that she could never understand what trans men have gone through. Never concede that, say, an intersex trans woman exists, because that will inevitably lose you rhetorical ground.
Insinuate that she is herself the oppressor, that she is regressive and small-minded. In fact, if you really wish to run circles around her, then you can easily accuse her of upholding her own oppression by arguing that she is upholding a gender binary, enforcing sex-based division in the community with her language. If she describes herself as a victim of transmisogyny, then tell her that all people can be victims of transmisogyny; if she tells you that this is inaccurate, then simply argue that she is speaking over the real victim (you).
In fact, if you misgender yourself and claim to be oppressed due to your assigned birth sex, then she will have no recourse to fight back - because we all know that she is really a male, and therefore is silencing you poor natal women, who are the true arbiters of female oppression, and the real experts on misogyny. If you intend to utilize this specific tack, then I would personally suggest you use "they/them" to refer to her, because delegitimizing her womanhood is a key component to this argument.
III - Unpersoning
If both of the above techniques have failed (unlikely!) then you may now proceed to that age-old transmisogynistic technique: weaponizing her fetishes. This can be a bit more difficult to bring up naturally, but it is a last resort that can produce some fantastic results. Ask yourself the following: Has she posted about CNC? Has she talked about siscon roleplay? Has she ever engaged in a little/caretaker dynamic? Has she ever made a forcefem joke? In order, your claim against her should be as follows: she loves rape, she loves incestuous abuse, she loves to fuck children, and she personally wants to nonconsensually detransition every transmasc because of her violent perversion. It should be quite simple to get people to turn on her. If she has ever interacted with a user who has posted any of these things, simply consider her tainted by association and dismiss her in the same manner.
This is, as previously discussed, due to her natural position as a degenerate danger to society; simply reinforce that concept wherever possible, until she is driven away from her online circle entirely. Do not outright use the word "autogynephilia," but you can certainly suggest the actual tenets of the idea to wonderful effect.
This can be implemented via statements such as, "oh, so now the incest lover is going to tell me about the oppression i experience;" however, if you would care to be more subtle, then you can set up a slow-burn whisper network to turn her friends and acquaintances against her, or dedicate years to harassing her in her comments section whenever possible.
If she has pushed you far enough that this technique has become necessary, then it is clear that she must be a hostile force in the community who ought to be removed by any means. Therefore, it falls to you to try to get her to cut herself off from everyone who might support her - this will efficiently shut her up. If you can get her to kill herself, then it will silence her permanently (and cause you to win the argument, by extension)!
Just remember: what you are doing is noble and correct, because any woman who claims that a man has power over her is one who is better off dead.
GOFUNDME HAS SUSPENDED MY FRIEND @shadi90'S VETTED CAMPAIGN
this is terrible. he is now searching for someone to assist in hosting his replacement vetted [#185] campaign. if you have an american / european bank account and this is a possibility for you please, please reach out.
in the meantime, please direct any donations to this paypal:
Help support Wasim Abulebda by donating or sharing with your friends.
to those unfamiliar with shadi's campaign, your donations will directly help in saving the life of his young child, ibrahim. he was wounded terribly by the israeli regime in november and needs very, very expensive medicines and treatments to recover. your donations will help in this.
if you have donated in the past, please request a refund from gofundme and redirect it to this paypal until we have a replacement campaign. thank you so much.
If you ignore this, you will condemn Ibrahim to death. I speak to you from the heart of a father watching his son collapse before his eyes My heart bleeds with pain for Ibrahim, whose weak body cannot bear the disastrous environment in which he lives.
I need help ASAP & DONATE
If you can't donate, just repost 🇵🇸
Please donate as much as you can, even $10
because it could save he lives.🙏🍉
Donate Now :👇👇
Help support Wasim Abulebda by donating or sharing with your friends.
The Harris-Walz Campaign team’s recent appearance on ‘Pod Save America’ shows how operatives who have spent their entire careers cycling thr
Harris’s staff was composed of establishment political operatives who have spent their entire careers cycling through campaigns, corporate boardrooms, and consulting firms catering to America’s elite. Unsurprisingly, their leadership produced a campaign that failed to inspire or connect. What’s worse, as their Pod Save America interview reveals, they are completely unwilling to take accountability for any of it and seem totally incapable of learning from their mistakes.
my wife and i were talking while we were watching The Game Awards and I genuinely think that like. the proliferation of "Shiny 3D Graphics You Are An Epic Player Character Guy Navigating A World Designed For You To Kill Stuff And Feel Epic" as a significant thrust of "Video Games" as a "medium" feels like a path which could potentially have been subverted had the USSR not fallen. Like, imagine a world where a lot of games and successful Games Industry Shit were not taxonomic descendants of Doom and Marathon and but were descendants of like. Tetris. Like not to be like "games cause violence" but Killing Shit as the Goal isn't Intrinsic to what a Game is and despite all of the very true criticisms that Games Don't Cause Violence I think it is undoubtedly true that by and large, American Shooter Games can be described scientifically as "School Shooter Fantasy Shit."
I've never played Balatro and idk what it's like at all because I've never seen footage of gameplay of it but the way my friends have talked about it I imagine it kind of represents this divergent path.
hold on i'm just gonna look up some gameplay footage.
...
Yeah OK I think that's like close to what I'm saying
i think about this a lot because of how much of an impact the USSR had on film as a medium in its early decades. eisenstein, kuleshov, montage theory, proletkult, the moscow film school, mosfilm... it is not an exaggeration to say that they changed everything. the combination of artists who were theorizing their work in a systematic way explicitly opposed to bourgeois art together with state resources that could actually execute experiments with high production costs was revolutionary for the medium. they introduced formalism, they defined the language we use to talk about film. montage made it possible for film to go beyond the fixed narratives about exceptional and relatable individuals inherited from bourgeois theatre, and show systems, complex and epic narratives involving regular people rather than heroes, in a way that ultimately ended up revolutionizing theatre as well. we are barely applying the insights made by soviet artists in those older mediums to videogames now, and it's mainly happening in indie games on tenuous budgets that only get finished by some miracle. if there were a soviet videogame industry and videogame academy, i think we'd see not only more abstract games like tetris or balatro, but also narrative games and even combat games (computers as a technology are just so connected to military command and control) built on a much more expansive and rigorous proletarian philosophy of art. none of this "escapism" "keep politics out of videogames" imperialism simulator stuff. disco elysium wouldn't be an aberration immediately crushed by capital on its success, it'd be like. a normal game. i think about this a lot
It is absolutely so disappointing to see donations for Mohammad Ayesh @ayeshjourney slow down to a trickle.
Let us not forget that he is the one who is helping us keep @gaza-evacuation-funds afloat and it is his hard work everyone is relying on whenever you are making posts about fundraisers and donations on your own blogs and sharing our fundraiser list!
For the past few months, Mohammad has been suffering with excruciating gut pains that are suffocating even. And he's had to take a cocktail of medications to combat the effects of the unsanitary food and water that he and many other Gazans have had no choice but to eat for the last year.
Mohammad has a short term goal of £34,000 which I think we could reach tonight since we are less than £200 away. And I propose we get to £36,000 within this week.
If even half of my followers donated just £1 upon seeing this we could get to and exceed £36,000 tonight. Please make sure you are following @ayeshjourney and supporting him.
Hi my name is Shelley and I am fundraising on behalf of Mohammed and his family
here is their … Shelley Gordon needs your support for He
>also carrying manifesto and potential murder weapon + silencer
>identified based on hostel mugshot that doesn't appear to be the same person in other photos
>fake ID matches the one used by POI at Hostel, where they already knew this person was
>picture of the shooter that they claim to have tracked back to the Starbucks has noticeably thinner and wider eyebrows than POI, as well as completely different clothing
>suspect was purportedly tracked from crime scene on cameras and disappeared at a bus station
>greyhound NYC to Altoona PA is less than a day, as is a Greyhound from NYC to Toronto
>shooter has been roaming free for five days
>NYPD, the most vain police department in the world, has been pursuing even the most fuckstupid leads they have (veterinary pistol lol) and spreading photos that are obviously not all the same person
>NYPD has a long history of fabricating evidence against arrested suspects and then dropping cases in court, having done this with a murder case as recently as this past January
>New York City is the financial capital of the nation and needs to appear safe for the capitalist class or it will surely hemorrhage funding
>Eric Adams, Mayor of New York, is currently embroiled in a humiliating corruption investigation and doesn't have much remaining face he can afford to lose
I feel like now would be a good time to remind everyone that it is fully legal in America for the cops to lie to you and gaslight you in interrogation.
If they’ve decided you’re guilty and your lawyer hasn’t gotten there yet, they can and will say anything to make you confess and it won’t matter to them if the confession is true. Keep that in mind with any information that comes out in the next couple days. I’m not saying I don’t believe this is the guy. He very well could be. For now I’m neutral on the subject.
But I am saying it’s awfully convenient they found him with a butt load of evidence just on his person after a week of him evading them like a pro. And that the NYPD knows everyone thinks they’re chumps and they’re probably real desperate right now to look even halfway competent.
There’s an (apparently legitimate) video circulating right now of a Syrian exploring the tunnels of a now-abandoned Assadist facility and saying “I feel like I’m playing Half-Life”
A UK-based war monitor said there were more than 100 strikes on military targets.
Syrian media reports say Israeli warplanes have carried out dozens of attacks across the country, including on the capital, Damascus.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said there were more than 100 strikes on military targets.
A research centre with suspected links to chemical weapon production was among the sites hit, according local media reports.
