I can't take it anymore I'm seriously at my limit

Peaked when I found out about Iran using transition for homosexual conversion. Gender critical but personally not a radfem. Desperately searching for the small pockets of sane people on this hellsite. If your feminism includes men and/or excludes women because of their sexuality or race it is not feminism.

[kiefbowl]

Reblog this to show support of curious women secretly reading “terf” blogs. You can ask us questions, we won’t out you. You’re our sisters :)

[gendercriticalthinking]

I 100% support this message and I'd like to add something that I think would be very helpful to "stealth"/"questioning"/new gender critical people: a list of commonly used terminology/abbreviations by gc bloggers! I often see people asking "what does X acronym stand for?" in the reblogs/comments of gc posts, and I know I was confused as hell reading stuff sometimes as a newly-peaked gal haha, so here you go!

* TIM and TIF stand for "Trans-Identified Male" and "Trans-Identified Female". Basically, TIMs are what others usually call "trans woman", and same for TIFs and "trans man" (although these terms also cover non-binary-identified and neo-gender-identified people as well).

TIM/TIF are used instead to more accurately reflect the reality of the people in question without sidelining their beliefs/identities: we understand you identify as trans, but calling males "women" and females "men", even if there's a "trans" in front, does not accurately convey reality, and we oppose that.

* OSA and SSA stand for "Opposite-Sex Attracted" and "Same-Sex Attracted". Therefore, the label OSA people covers straight and bisexual people, while SSA covers gay and bisexual people. Basically, SSA women/men are what others usually call "wlw/mlm".

Because people who believe in gender identity and use "mlm/wlw" consider some males to be women and some females to be men, the "men" and "women" in "mlm/wlw" do not accurately convey the reality (similar to the above) of the sex and sexualities of the people in question, as a male who is OSA but identifies as trans would be considered by some to be a "wlw". However, OSA and SSA place the emphasis back onto the sex and sexuality of the people in question, which is, again, a more accurate description of reality when talking about people and their sexualities.

* TRA stands for "Trans Rights Activist." However, this is mostly used to mean "people who agree with/support gender/trans identities/neogenders/etc" rather than "people who are engaging in actual activism for those beliefs." The term gendie is essentially used the same way (although it has more of a connotation of "trans/nb/neo-gender-identified people" rather tham "people who support gender identity but may not necessarily identify as trans/nb themselves") and it has been used frequently more recently, although I and others feel like it's a bit juvenile and derisive.

* Gender ideology refers to the beliefs above, e.g. the validity of gender/trans/non-binary/etc. identities. This is usually used to refer to the beliefs about gender that are exclusive to liberals: that you can change gender/sex, that gender/sex are not binary, that everyone has a gender identity, that misgendering someone or pointing out their "biological" (a redundant word) sex is at best highly offensive and at worst a hate crime, etc. Whereas, gender or gender roles/stereotypes are usually used to refer to the more historical/"classical" concept of gender which lines up with conservatives' beliefs: you know, the whole "women like pink and should wear makeup and are naturally submissive, but men like blue and should be muscular and are naturally dominant" crap.

Although they seem different, they're actually one and the same, or at the very least the liberal/new gender ideology is firmly founded in classic sexism. Both conservatives and liberals believe wholeheartedly in gender: that it applies to everyone without exception ("all women must be feminine and all men must be masculine", and in gender ideology's case add on "feminine women and masculine men are cis while gnc people are trans, you must be either cis or trans" aka you must either enjoy your gender role or want to transition because you dislike it), that it must be rigidly enforced and supported to maintain order and understanding ("A girl who likes boy things?!? That's an affront to nature and must be corrected, girls should like girly things!!!" or "A girl who likes boy things?!? That's clearly a sign she he must be trans, because boys like boyish things!!!"), that it's genetic/inherently true rather than something that is imposed upon people due to misogyny ("Women are submissive to men because God made them that way to be men's servants" and "Everyone has a gender identity, it's something you were born with in your brain, and how you feel about your body [which you can change] and your gender [which you cannot change] determines if you're cis or trans. You must be one or the other."), etc.

* GNC stands for "Gender Non-Conforming", aka what technically applies to most people on Earth, to the dismay of the gender fandom. It's usually used, however, to refer to people who are very noticeably/starkly/deliberately GNC in almost every way and proud of it, such as butch women.

* Gender critical (often shortened to "GC" ) is an adjective that most-accurately describes how people like me view gender/gender roles: they suck. Get rid of them. We are, you could say, "critical" of the concept of "gender". Not all gender critical people are radical feminists, but because rejection of the misogynistic concept of gender is a defining belief of GC people, we are nearly always some variety of feminist.

This means we don't really fit in with either of the two most-common/vocal "sides" of the trans debate: conservatives who see a male person in a dress and makeup go "This is disgusting! Stop wearing that right now! You're a man, so dress like one!", liberals who see the same guy go "This is so gender! I'm sure you're a trans woman because of how you present yourself! You're dressing like a woman, so that's who you are!", and gender critical people who see him go "This is awesome, keep being you! It's wonderful that you enjoy being a GNC man! What you enjoy or wear does not define who you are, and who you are does not define what you should enjoy or wear!"... or at least we would more often if the previous two groups didn't end up causing most GNC people to either be closeted/repressed, or believe they must be trans and therefore not a GNC man/woman but instead a gender-confirming trans woman/trans man (or some type of enby, same difference: "you don't obey the gender stereotypes belonging to your sex so you must not be that sex/gender" instead of "gender stereotypes are stupid, and your sex is your sex").

* TWAW is short for "Trans Women Are Women," a common chant and circular-logic-nonanswer from gender ideologists, the popularity of which in stark contrast to the lack of saying "trans men are men" (something only ever said after first saying TWAW, never on its own) surely has nothing to do with the coincidental fact that the beloved, supported, face-of-the-movement group are males and the forgotten, neglected, secondary-to-men group are females.

* While these are of course words used commonly by everyone, I think it would be helpful to lay out the gender-critical definitions of gender and sex here: "gender" is short for "gender roles/stereotypes" (see "gender ideology" above) whereas "sex" is used to refer to the biological realities (chromosomes, gametes, hormones, secondary characteristics, etc.) of being female or male.

Basically:

- Conservatives believe gender and sex are the same thing (or at least use the words interchangeably, as well as believe your gender should match your sex) and therefore believe "female = woman = feminine" and "male = man =masculine".

- Liberals believe gender and "biological" sex are different things (yet often confusingly use the words interchangeably or subconsciously believe they are the same [as seen in their frequent slips of the tongue when talked to] but claim to believe they are different because they want to be good allies) and therefore use "woman" and "man" to describe gender (because they believe "woman = feminine" and "man = masculine") while using "female" and "male" to describe sex (but again they often and confusingly use male/female as synonyms of man/woman, and again likely because they want to be good allies and believe anything that might contradict TWAW is horrific and transphobic).

- Gender critical people believe gender is an archaic, misogynistic system that is long overdue for being tossed out while sex is an accurate, scientific term (therefore making "biological/birth sex" redundant, it's like saying "meat-eating carnivore") to describe the reality of being a human. Women are adult female humans and men are adult male humans. "Feminine" and "masculine" are outdated, arbitrary, sexist concepts and should not be associated with anything: not clothes, not behaviors, and especially not one's sex. Your sex is just biology. It should never determine your behavior and lifestyle: neither to say your sex and behavior/lifestyle must match with gender, nor that if they don't match then your sex/gender must change to make them match.

[gendercriticalthinking]

Okay. One final post. One final straw that broke the camel's back.

A lot of you on here aren't actually gender critical. You claim to be, you think you are, but you're not. You have the exact same definition of "woman" as trans ideology: "women, and men I personally feel sorry for." You only became semi-gender critical because you got fed up with the misogyny and narcissism of specifically straight/bi trans-identified men in particular and so excluded them from the "woman" category based solely on your loss of sympathy for them. Not because they're male.

Because gay men and gender non-conforming men and crossdressing men who you think look feminine enough and men with sexual development disorders are still women to you because people are mean to them, sometimes in ways similar to the way they're mean to women (and you know how bad it feels!!!! and you don't want to be the bully who hurt you to someone else!!!) so that makes them women. This is the exact same sympathy pathway TRAs are preying on. You haven't left the church. You just exclude some amount of the people you're obligated to give concessions to because you feel bad for them.

Your definition of "woman" isn't "adult human female. period." it's "people men are mean to." It's the same definition TRAs believe. It's TMA and TME. It's men and non-men. It's letting men define reality based on what they believe and define identity based on who they decide to abuse.

If you include even one (1) man in your definition of "woman," no matter how sorry you feel for him, then you aren't gender critical.

[gendercriticalthinking]

I'm a radfem but I have a boyfriend too. I don't talk about him online 1) obviously nobody wants to hear about men in radfem spaces, especially lesbians, which I don't blame them for 2) some people on here are really just not normal about it and I don't want the drama 3) I personally think you can have a bf and be a radfem if you have strong, uncompromising boundaries when it comes to sexism and not tolerating it. Idk, I feel weird about lying about it but I also don't want to invite issues when we attract so much hate for our beliefs as it is.

That's absolutely understandable, and I agree! Women, and lesbians especially, deserve to have female-exclusive spaces! It's just a little off-putting to come into a space where everyone says "my feminism is for all women!! female solidarity!! i center women first!!" and then something most women have in common and is innate to them causes multiple rounds of controversy???

2. Like that's the thing though!! If you want to be a feminist, and you claim sexuality is innate, how can you not be normal about the most common type of female sexuality. Yes the vast majority of men are awful and not worth being in a relationship with, yes I do think most women would be happier alone than with the average man, especially right now. But why is the conclusion here "het women bad and stupid, i laugh at your suffering because it's your fault for not listening to me as i berated you" and not "let's help women understand they're allowed to have standards and boundaries, and that they don't have to be in a romantic relationship to be happy"???

3. I'm not a radfem and haven't read much primary-source info on it outside scattered quotes posted here, so I can't say whether or not having a boyfriend/husband is incompatible with it or not. Either way, the fact that you and I and other women feel weird/guilty/uncomfortable about talking about one of the most important people in our lives is a huge red flag to me. Either something rings true about radfem criticisms of het relationships and he might need to go, or something really stinks on here. Or both, I guess. But again, helping women figure out their worth and their standards does a lot more good than telling them "your whole life you just listen to what random men tell you to make them happy. that's bad. now listen to what i, a stranger, tell you to do to make me and other women happy." She still is operating on female-socialization autopilot where her personal beliefs and boundaries don't matter, it's just that she's doing it for you and other women instead of men. Which is progress to some people I guess???

Overall I think it'd be better if radfems with this mindset called themselves lesbian feminists instead of radfems, since their beliefs align with that strain so much. Or make up a new name for it if they want idk. But either way, they're putting women off feminism as a whole and making things worse as a result (and if you point this out to them they often don't seem to care, having a "fuck those dick riders they don't deserve to be happy then" attitude, which again, odd way to react if you claim to be a feminist).

Like if giving up makeup--an optional hobby that's something even women who like it are sometimes willing to admit is expensive or annoying or time-consuming or uniquely targeted at them--is still a sore topic to a majority of women, how tf do they expect "suppress your innate sexuality" to go over??? And it'd be one thing if it were just Some Ladies Online, but uhhhh there's a history here. Multiple books were published touting political lesbianism as praxis. It's A Thing and you should probably talk about it more than you do if you actually want the women you mock to engage with the movement and leave their abusive male partners!

(For the record, I'd be over the moon if women stopped wearing makeup every day and never felt the need to again... but it's so easy for me to say and think that when I never liked it in the first place. To me, small things like getting women to admit part of the reason makeup makes them feel good is because it's a societal expectation for them to wear it, or if they slowly start feeling comfortable wearing less of it or less often in public, that's real progress that could never come about from hardline cold-turkey-now-or-you're-antifeminist guilt tripping. Much like transgenderism, regardless of how it makes the people involved feel, at the end of the day reality and actual progress is most important, and if believing/talking a certain way doesn't actually get us anywhere then it's time to try something else.)

I wish I could remember the user on here who wrote about this in her tags, but it comes down to "You say you believe misogyny is pervasive, near-invisible, taught to us in such a way that we believe it without realizing it, and extremely difficult to fight back against, yet you're so impatient and unkind to women who don't snap out of it the moment you dump extremist tenets on them. Do you need a reminder of why feminist is an uphill battle, or do you not actually think it is?"

I've said this before, but it feels like they've turned feminism into their own version of NLOG, where lesbians and febfems and celibate women are the True And Wise Women and the rest of femalekind are the vapid selfish Other of the "other girls" giving the True And Wise Women a bad rep and causing their undeserved suffering.

TL;DR Feminism that cares more about hating men than helping women gets us nowhere.

[gendercriticalthinking]

After seeing the same issues I've had with certain radfems' beliefs keep cropping up over and over, especially among popular blogs, all the while getting very little pushback, I've decided I'm going to abandon this blog. I'm still 100% gender critical, I still believe in and try to practice feminist ideals. I don't think either of those things are related to or must end up leading to ostracizing, or even victim blaming, OSA women for being OSA.

In my post about my ""brother"", he's actually my boyfriend. I wrote it that way because I felt like I'd be seen as a bad person for having a boyfriend on here. I'm not alone in noticing this. Literally just an hour ago I got privately messaged by someone who agreed, who said she didn't feel comfortable saying so publicly. This is not the first time this has happened to me.

This

If you're gonna act confused about how transgenderism can brand itself as feminist while simultaneously shitting on half the population, how are you radfems not doing the same right now?

A ton of women on here left the trans movement because we got fed up with that, and the hypocrisy of blaming women for men's problems, the misogyny of implying social issues can be solved by women changing their sex lives to make other people happy, the incompatibility of saying "you can date whoever but based on the sex you date you will be judged for it" with the fact that sexuality is innate. We're tired of it and we're not going to put up with it.

If you feel the same, send me an ask or DM and I'll reach out. It doesn't have to be this way. This is not feminist, nor what being gender critical is about. Just because you feel like something is feminist and believe it's feminist praxis doesn't make it so. You are not immune to internalized misogyny.

[afrodyketee]

No offense but when I was in the trans cult they basically…lead kids to suicide or suicide ideation? Like if your parents don’t accept you and use your pronouns and let you transition, you are no longer safe there. Your life is in danger. You have to run away. Where can you run to? Make a GoFundMe. You’re homeless now. Or you don’t have the resources to leave. What else can you do? Idk but like it’s ridiculous but that’s the narrative they put into minors heads (mine) ? They emphasize the whole world validating you and when they don’t THEYRE the problem, they’re why you’re dysphoric and unsafe. They make kids feel helpless and hopeless. They exacerbate issues. No wonder those kids are so mentally fragile??? What kind of community promotes this???

[blocktostaysafe]

groomers

[sick-sad-world-revolution-now]

And what’s so interesting is that the same doesn’t happen when it comes to same-sex attracted kids. We’re then told that it’s going to get better, that it sucks to not have supportive parents but that sometimes they accept it with time, that it’s okay to take distance with your homophobic family but to do it when you’re financially independent, that it’s perfectly reasonable to stay in the closet if you’re dependant from your family and it’s for safety reasons, etc. The difference is huge and must be acknowledged because the way we’re treated as young LGBs seeking psychological help/support is done mostly in a safe way whereas kids who start to question their “gender identity” (whatever that is) only get to follow a more and more dangerous path that is constantly pushed in their way.

[magnetictapedatastorage]

Exactly! There wasn’t any of this “if they don’t accept it in zero seconds that means they want you dead” bullshit. “It gets better” meant a LOT of things.

[nenalikey]

When I was young, we were told that even if we waited until a safe time to come out, it was likely our parents would struggle to accept us at first, even if they’re open minded and good people. We were told it’s often more difficult for the same-sex parent who may wonder if they “did something wrong “ or “weren’t a good role model” etc. we were told that even in families that reacted poorly and rejected their gay children, they tended to come around and accept them in 4-5 years (average). I don’t remember the exact numbers or studies but I remember that kind of information circling and how it might take a few years for them to be comfortable around your partner but that you had to be patient and keep in mind how far they’d come from total rejection.

Those are the expectations that were set for gay kids. Why is it all the opposite for these opt-in identities? Possibly because they ARE opt-in, and fads that appeal to their preteen/teen sensibilities. If they told kids to wait until they become adults to talk to their parents about it, these “trans” kids would grow out of the trans ideation before they even got a chance to “come out “ and make a fuss. That’s why they have to kick up a fuss immediately and demonize anything less than complete capitulation. There won’t be “trans kids” otherwise and the whole number will plummet.

The AGPs spearheading the movement need the lie that trans identities are innate/immutable/ whatever their current line is. The AGPs need the kids to destroy themselves so they can get off on how -valid- they are.

[bluerotundas]

i recently stopped working in abortion care (i want to write about that decision, but not right now) but i was going through my old drafts and i wanted to expand on this:

something i’ve been thinking about a lot, especially in relation to my job, is the relationship between women’s quality of life, feminist consciousness raising, practical feminist action, and the language used to describe male violence (and the culture of, etc) that can sometimes revictimize and alienate women who have experienced it. by this i mean: when i have a patient who discloses to me that her unwanted pregnancy is the result of her partner slipping off the condom, does it actually improve her quality of life or increase her safety if i insist that we call her experience rape by deception or assault? would she perhaps be better served if i choose to mirror the language she uses to describe it, even if i disagree with how she wants to name that experience?

in my experience working with women who are often subjected to what i might term “casual” sexual violence (things that are often perceived as innocuous or common by many women, like condom tampering or emotional manipulation to receive sex), many of those women feel resistant or even defensive when other people call those experiences rape, or assault, or even harm.

in my experience, many women will acknowledge how their experiences affect them personally (how it made them feel, what it cost them, how it has made them view their partner) but they will not politicize their experience by naming it as and contextualizing it within a culture of male violence. this is perhaps not a feminist approach. however, in my experience, most women will do whatever they can— including creating linguistic loopholes through which they can obfuscate the reality of male violence in their lives— to survive their experiences in the moment. women will sometimes lie to themselves and others in order to keep living. while it is perhaps not the most sustainable survival tactic, i think that feminists should be cautious of dismissing this approach as strictly anti-feminist and solely patriarchy-serving. women have an incredible talent for prioritizing their own survival through the trauma at hand (the traumas that often follow as consequences of male violence: having an abortion, needing housing assistance, filing for divorce, seeking mutual aid, navigating healthcare as an abused woman). just because that ability to survive and cope sometimes comes at the cost of the recognition of the role that patriarchy (and its iterations, such as male violence) plays in their circumstances does not entirely negate the net benefit to women’s lives of being able to continue functioning in day-to-day life, being able to make clear-headed decisions about the impacts that materially affect them in the aftermath of patriarchy (can i actually stay pregnant? do i want to?), and, in some cases, moving through life without the psychological experience of having been victimized.

i think that as feminists, especially when we work directly with women impacted by patriarchy in real and painful ways, in the aftermath of that impact, there is an impulse to lead the horse to water and make it drink. there is an impulse to make the woman acknowledge that this isn’t her fault by pushing her to name male violence. there is an impulse to lead by example, to name it for her. i have certainly felt this impulse in abortion care. when a woman begins to cry, explaining that her partner knows she cannot get pregnant because of a life-threatening medical condition yet refused to wear a condom because it doesn’t “feel as good” for him, my own anger at her situation spurs that impulse. yet my experience has shown me part of effectively aiding women in crisis is prioritizing her own feelings, emotions and outlook over my own. that is, in my opinion, a radically feminist act, and one that is perhaps the most effective when consciousness-raising.

when i told women like that, “That’s horrible! He assaulted you and put your life in danger!” I was, effectively, ending the conversation. I was closing dialogue by imposing my interpretation of her circumstances over her. now the woman may regret sharing her story with me, she may feel pressured to hide her situation in the future, she may feel pressured to defend her partner, or she may begin to recognize her own cognitive dissonance about her situation at a time when she is not mentally prepared to face it. my prioritization of my own beliefs about her experiences may, ultimately, make the experience of having her abortion a lifelong trauma because i have forced her to reckon with her experience of male sexual violence, my own judgement of her relationship at a time when she chose to be vulnerable, and the experience of having the abortion all at the same time.

by contrast, when i began telling women like that, “I’m really interested in how that’s impacted you. How do you feel at home with him? Have you been considering birth control because of this? How are you feeling about the decision you’re faced with because of your partner’s actions?” I am opening the dialogue by demonstrating my interest in her thoughts and feelings about her experience. when i was careful to mirror the other woman’s language about her experience, i was often able to collaborate with the woman to find her helpful and harm-reductive solutions to improve her quality of life. sometimes, that meant getting her a birth control method that her partner couldn’t detect. sometimes, that meant sending her home with a supply of Plan B. sometimes, that meant connecting her with a social worker and creating a plan to safely exit her relationship. sometimes, it meant sending her to a prenatal specialist because she wanted the pregnancy regardless of the risk. this approach is very hard— it’s frustrating, it’s infuriating, it’s suffocating. it’s not satisfying or cathartic. it’s especially difficult to take this approach when working with very young women and girls, when working with those who are not health literate, when working with those who are religious or socially conservative.

but that is the real, on the ground, hands in the mud feminist work. it requires me to acknowledge that i do not know better. my deep knowledge of feminist literature and my own personal convictions about patriarchy and feminism do not mean that i can teach a woman anything about her own life. i have to acknowledge that i don’t know better even when i do literally, objectively know better. part of doing feminist work with the general female populace is acknowledging that while my feminist framework can shape the way i approach women’s issues, i will never connect to women, gain their trust, build a relationship, or meaningfully support them while telling them how they should think and act in their lives. this framework is mostly useful for those engaging in real-life work with women but i encourage those of use engaging with random women online to also use this framework. for anyone interested in learning more about this approach to feminist work, i would strongly recommend “Decision Assessment and Counseling in Abortion Care” by Alissa Perrucci.

[shellstrop420]

[radbutchfeminist-deactivated202]

If bitch isn’t a misogynistic slur because “anyone can be called one” then explain the ‘no bitches’ meme where the word is quite literally used as a replacement for women.

[scum-man-of-pesto]

"Bitches" and "women" are used interchangeably in so many contexts. It's everywhere in top 40 songs. It's wild to claim that it's not a gendered word at all, esp when the literal meaning is "female dog". Like if u don't care about using slurs, then just admit that. But don't try to pretend like it's not one. The fact that it's widespread and normalized doesn't make it not a slur, it just shows how deep sexism is still ingrained in our culture.

[radishpanda]

I would also like to add that "anyone can be called one" isn't really true either, because calling a man a bitch is different from calling a woman a bitch. When a woman is called that, it's because she was mean, voicing her opinion or saying no. When a man is called that, it means he is weak (men call each other a little bitch to mean coward) and they're comparing him to what they think a woman is, aka weak. It always mean woman, they just don't wanna admit it.

[sincerelyyellingback]

[sleep3r4gent]

gen z progressive kids are soooo confident that they're ~good~ and therefore can never be cancelled like they'll really say "uhm the creator of the 14th lesbian flag is problematic (didn't use the correct emoji pronouns on Twitter, allegedly because 'they're iphone exclusive and I use android' 🙄) so please use this color blind looking ass flag I did in paint in 2 minutes!!". like do you not realize the position you've put yourself in..? you are next in line for extreme scrutinization and cancelment do you not realize this?? I can only conclude that they sincerely believe everyone who has been ever cancelled 100% deserved it and is just in a category of "bad person" that they themselves are not, of course, and therefore cancelment is impossible and absurd. absolute morality but it's twitter instead of god

[cactusradical]

the problem with black and white purity-based morality is that the line of what is acceptable will always shift. once you've gotten rid of the 'really bad people' you end up with a group of solely 'good people' but soon some of those people will transgress a less important moral standard and now they're 'bad people' who have to be ousted as well. the pool of people who are acceptable becomes gradually smaller and smaller until any minor 'wrongdoing' is enough to make you a pariah. online leftist spaces are so rabid because they treat their political and moral views as a religion with equally rigid behavioural norms.

[lavendruidic]

Twitter being incredibly fucking sexist while wholeheartedly convinced it's revolutionizing gender, here we go again

[divinedionne]

Power hierarchies being disembodied from the male/female form so they can continue to exist with less scrutiny is how status quos adapt and preserve themselves despite mass consciousness raising.

Calling male dominance and gender stereotypes “a vibe” is just a way for patriarchy to go stealth mode.

So the gender and role hierarchy will continue to exist to overwhelming support systems of male dominance but because it’s now “a vibe” people will lose the language to name it and pin it down and expose what’s happening. It will be like chasing smoke.

Patriarchy has double ended humanity. Liberal leftists who promote these ideas are securing and locking in the future of patriarchy- ensuring it is fully adapted to modern systems. While trad fans preserve its essence.

[divinedionne]

This is what gender fan’s fundamentally don’t understand- a man saying “I’m feminine and pretty and dainty so that means I’m a girl” is not contradicting patriarchy. It’s literally right on message: femininity and being an ornament = girl/woman.

They will gladly let the males who failed to embody masculinity call themselves “women”. In the face of high scrutiny against gendered systems this is a very good outcome.

Once wife = mothering/support role that is in service of the breadwinner/leading role the essence of patriarchy is preserved- it means men can continue to do with their doing and evade criticism by saying they’re just doing a natural role. This is IDENTICAL to what traditionalists say - that’s it a natural role- not a hierarchy specifically put in place to benefit one over the other.

[frutee]

THIS IS ECACTLY WHAT IVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT

how the words “man, woman, king, queen, girl, boy, bitch, bestie, mommy, daddy, etc” and other gendered words are being used in ways that SOLIDIFY sexist stereotypes in ironic ways that end up just perpetuating the cycle.

using the words mommy, daddy, babygirl, etc to mean VERY SPECIFIC “VIBES” and those vibes are the sexist stereotypes.

i need to comment more on this later but i have so many thoughts and examples of this, i see it all the time.

[gendercriticalthinking]

hi, agender non-binary person here interested in gender critical feminism! i was wondering what your take was on people being uncomfortable with certain pronouns (he/him, she/her).

how do you feel about they/them pronouns, or neopronouns?

Hello there! I apologize so much for not answering your ask in a timely manner!! Responding to people on social media still makes me a bit anxious and stressed so I usually ignore my notifs even though I really shouldn't haha

Thank you for your question, and for being open to listening to gender critical people!!! It's an important and admirable quality to have, and especially worth praising when you and others have outright been told to not interact with gc people/radfems at any cost! So yes, thank you for that! :)

As for your question (which is a good one!) I originally wrote this very long rambly reply and saved it to my drafts hoping to make it coherent one day. But then recently something happened that made me realize something about human nature in general that directly ties into how gender identities and discomfort/enjoyment of certain pronouns came about:

My brother has always loved nature, especially animals. The reason his favorite color is green is because it's the color of plants: trees, jungles, the places animals live and eat and get to be free in. He's so obsessed with green that seeing something green, anything green, compels him to go " :O !!!! Green!!!"

Because he loves nature and animals so much, he's also a vegetarian. And not just in a "eating animals is bad for the environment" way, but a "it disturbs me on a visceral level to see, smell, or be near meat" way. I have to clean up my bowls and plates that I eat meals that have meat on (I mean, I'd do it anyway because you should pick up after yourself but you get what I mean) because the thought of touching a utensil that once came into contact with meat, even if I ate that meat and it's gone now, carnally disgusts him.

He loves animals, and he wants pets. He'd never ever malnourish a pet just because he has a problem with meat, but it'd be a real emotional challenge for him to feed a carnivore wet meaty food and/or live prey every day. (The token family dog was always fed by our parents or me; he'd be okay if our dog liked dry food but he doesn't lol.)

So I researched the options out there for herbivorous pets, and I found a couple species of lizards (he loves lizards in particular, partially because they're often... green) that eat an exclusively plant-based diet! I showed them to him and he was definitely on board... but alongside the herbivores we found a species of lizard that's a bright, vibrant green and makes a great pet, but they need to eat (preferably live) insects.

He's over the moon about the green insectivore lizards. Once he learned they existed it was over for him. They're all he wants, he's 100% sure. And it's for a lot of other reasons besides the fact that they're green, but... they're green. There are no herbivorous green lizards that make good/easy-to-care-for pets. On some level, he cares more about the green-ness than the vegetarianism.

Why is that?

It's because humans are obsessed with creating symbols to represent ideas. So much so that they often get more attached to the symbol itself than the thing it's supposed to be a reminder of. It's like a self-made Cloth Mother that's built to look like the Wire Mother, but comes with none of the substance or nourishment.

Green represents nature and animals coexisting peacefully to my brother. The emotion the color green instills in him as it reminds him of the things he loves is so powerful it surpasses his enjoyment of the literal thing that the color represents to him.

I'm just using him as an example, but everyone does this. Your favorite childhood shows make you happy because they're nostalgic and reminds you of being a kid first and foremost. They can be well-written and artistic and enjoyable underneath that feeling, but the simpler time they mentally take you back to is what you love about them. Your favorite characters, the "he's just like me fr" ones you read fanfic of, are ones that remind you of yourself and/or ones that you're attracted to. They can also be fun to analyze and have interesting personalities and be great meme fodder, but at the end of the day they represent something to you beyond their objective qualities.

.

So. If we live in a world where women are treated as lesser to men, not fully human, accessories to the actual thinkers, and we use "she/her" to refer to women, is it possible your hatred of hearing those pronouns is because they represent the idea that the person saying them to you sees you as inferior, vapid, incomplex?

If you're in a community where being a female who goes by "they/them" or "it/its" or "he/they" means you get to be who you want to be, who you truly are, enjoying everything life has to offer instead of being restricted to a role someone else made up for you, why wouldn't you like to be called something other than "she"?

When the majority of people who go by "she/her" in your spaces are amab people who constantly, vocally fetishize and dehumanize people with your biological body type (with a few afab people who don't seem to act like you or share your interests sprinkled in) why would anyone as smart and complex and kind to yourself as you ever like being called "she"?

Do you have an innate discomfort with certain pronouns because of dysphoria, or do you hate what the sound of them represents, reminds you of, that they're telling you what other people think of you? Do you enjoy being called certain pronouns because of euphoria, or do you like what the sound of them represents, reminds you of, that they're telling you the people who use them must listen to you and care what you think and support you being who you are?

What's my take on pronouns? They're symbols that represent the type of person you are and want to be. They mean something important. They tell a lot about a person. They're not something to play around with and try out for fun like they're clothes. They're not something you can make up out of thin air and pretend they have no connotations attached to them other than an Aesthetic TM you like.

Nor are they an escape from the problems of the world: the baggage comes with them, I'm afraid. It's a lot easier to change your bio and Discord server role than to change people's minds, especially ones belonging to those who hate you. That doesn't mean it's better or it works, just because it's feasible for you to do.

Whenever you feel a certain way about hearing "she," know that countless other women feel the same way as you. And know that leaving "she/her" behind doesn't mean you've found a cheat code out of being victimized and belittled, you've only left women like you behind instead.

[harrypotterfuryroad]

we’re losing the plot in ways previously thought impossible

[marmorada]

free tra racism compilation

Did you know racism is a flavor enhancer

til obsessively vomiting your racism onto the page is “working on it”.

Racism is just scared white baby boys having a lil cry and not a real issue

The idea that he ever regretted or renounced any of it is an actual lie btw like these people are making shit up right here, in the moment

[gendercriticalthinking]

fucktufetru's tags are on point

[gendercriticalthinking]

have you read Who’s Afraid of Gender?

it’s about you

Oh shit a popular author wrote about me??? That's awesome

Anyway

Gender was created to subjugate women and it continues to do so, so I would say I'm more "angry" at gender than "afraid" of it.

It's a bit ironic to hear someone who's supports a movement that literally tells people to not interact with people who disagree with them, don't read their posts, don't reblog them, remind you how they're "directly responsible for suicides/genocides," etc., just generally instilling paranoia in its members, say I'm the one afraid of you. I'm not. I read your posts and books and know what you believe. I talk to you, I'm friends with you. I used to be one of you.

[soihaveamilliondraftsright]

Do you know what would help with girls and women identifying as trans due to over sexualisation of their bodies…? The widespread availability of gender neutral, non-sexualised clothes. They should be sustainable, cheap and easy to get.

This should be something that feminism focuses on. Right now the only way to get non-sexualised clothing is to wear men’s clothes or find gender neutral clothing. Only one of those options are built for the female body.

[i-love-feminists]

And not as a third gender option. FOR women. For women, because having all the women's options be sexualized STILL and introducing the nonsexualized third thing that women could wear if they want does not solve the issue.

[blackcoffeegrl-deactivated20240]

Using dissociate instead of zoning out. Describing a hobby as a hyperfixation. Saying nonverbal when you want a bit of quiet. Saying intrusive thoughts because that must mean an urge like to buy coffee or hair dye. Do you know feeling off sometimes is a sign of autism? Lying is gaslighting. Everyone I dislike is a narcissist.

[frutee]

do you ever forget what you came to this room for? thats adhd. do you ever have trouble doing your homework or disciplining yourself to do hard tasks? thats autism, adhd, or some sort of productivity processing disorder. no way you need a dopamine reset, no way self-discipline is a skill that needs to be learned. do you ever dislike the way people treat you based on your sex? ever feel jealous for other genders or styles? ever wish you were born as the opposite sex? thats gender dysphoria. you were born in the wrong body. do you ever get tired talking to strangers or people who aren't your friends? introvert autist. do you ever like things a specific way? thats ocd. do you only like to have sex with people you have a personal connection with? youre demisexual. thats not normal at all.

[there-are-4-lights]

i literally cannot get over how HER sent an ad for microdosing testosterone to its users. Not just the trans/nb ones, every lesbian and bi woman using the app. How is this not a "microaggression"

[there-are-4-lights]

anyway in a few decades when people ask what the early 2000s was like this is what im gonna say

[there-are-4-lights]

its so uniquely evil that i cant even imagine a heterosexual equivalent. advertising plastic surgery to women who get fewer matches?

[gendercriticalthinking]

Starting to think NLOG criticism has lost its meaning, and even has become hypocritical: it's women seeing other women say "I'm not like the other girls" and going "I'm not like the girls who say they're not like the other girls."

Both think there's a group of women and girls who are inherently vapid, incomplex, and self-obsessed that they can't relate to or are worth hating: "NLOGs" think this way about gender-conforming women and girls, and "anti-NLOGs" think this way about "NLOGs."

The point of criticizing girls and women who say NLOG was originally "there are females out there like you, you are not alone, women and girls are as varied and complex as their interests, and putting other females into a 'everyone is a self-centered bimbo except for me' box prevents you from ever finding this out and making female friendships." But now it's become "you're not special you idiot, no one cares what you think, you're a carbon copy of every other self-centered teenage girl, everyone who says NLOG is a moron and I'm so glad there's a small sane group of women who know how stupid the NLOG mindset is like me :-)"

The latter women think they're feminist, all the while they're pushing other women away because of surface-level guesses about what kind of woman they are, just like the NLOGs they hate.

[pillarsalt]

Gonna be honest, maybe I'm missing something, but this doesn't seem like a big deal to me. She's saying she supports 4B, not that she's somehow participating while still married to a man. You're all going to be very disappointed if you expect every normie hetero woman who learns about 4B to immediately get a divorce from the husband she obviously loves lol, no matter how corny and delusional you think she is about it.

[gendercriticalthinking]

(Before my rant, I have to point out how telling/revealing the OP's "satire" is with how she went about it. First of all, the whole concept of wanting to make fun of women who are learning about non-liberal feminism for the first time, or are in a relationship with men by choice: why? Strange idea. Unwell mentality. Over 13k likes for a woman mocking other women. And it's "feminist" somehow, because you're on "Level 5 Misandry" and think normies not even getting on Step 1 are inherently stupid or antifeminist or something. I'm getting ahead of myself.

But the super revealing part to me is that the satire isn't even correctly imitating the thing you claim to be mocking!!!

Women cannot practice 4B while being in a male relationship, yes, anyone who claims that is misinformed. [Which, btw, again, being misinformed is not something worth mocking!!! If you think it is, literally why would women want to learn about radical feminism if all they see from the community is you guys making fun of women who are trying to learn??? But again, I'm getting ahead of myself.]

The satirical woman being mocked here isn't even claiming to practice 4B though!!! You're literally just mocking the concept of women trying to learn about feminism, regardless of whether they even get anything wrong about it, and/or the concept of women being happy in their relationships with men, regardless of whether he's abusive.)

Every time I come back to this website of feels like there's another round of radfems on here showing their claimed female solidarity is on a razor-thin edge for "normie" women (if it exists at all).

How is your feminism for women or helping women if you view the vast majority of women as stupid/traitors/deserving of misogyny/the main cause of misogyny's perpetuation/etc??? You make fun of TRAs for sidelining all women by centering men in their "feminism," meanwhile you're sidelining all but a small handful of women you only know online (that you probably wouldn't get along with and would also sideline if you knew everything about them irl).

If you care more about hating men (and the women who love them) than meeting women where they're at*, your "feminist mindset" is just as male-centered as liberal feminism.

But thank you pillarsalt and women like you on here that are speaking up about it. It's upsetting it has to be said, and even more so that those of us saying it genuinely feel stressed/worried to do so, but those things are proof that it needs to happen. I and so many other women left the TRA community because we had serious concerns about it (especially regarding the treatment of women in it) that we knew were forbidden to ask about, and if you don't see the similarities here, and believe "well I actually care about women unlike TRAs so my feminism can never be misguided or misogynistic like theirs", then idk what to tell you.

I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to how the mindset of "the only guaranteed solution to male violence is having all women stop interacting with men period, and if they don't then the continuation of misogyny is their fault and any abuse they suffer is deserved" is not literally the same logic as "the only guaranteed way to prevent pregnancy is for women to never have sex with men period, and if they do and get pregnant then they need to carry the fetus to term because they need to suffer the consequences of their actions."

*Disclaimer I shouldn't need to have: I am not talking about women who directly cause and/or facilitate violence and abuse against other women and girls (and even then their actions, as well as their intentions/motivations and the scope of them, are not at all comparable to men doing the same). I'm talking about nearly every woman on Earth: women who have never heard of Atwood or Dworkin, women who hate having to keep up with the trappings femininity but hate the thought of not knowing who they are without it even more, all of the world's Jakeys' girlfriends. If your feminism doesn't care about most women, if your praxis involves mocking women in abusive relationships and women in happy ones and single women who want to date men alike, who the hell is it even for.