— reblog ≠ endorsement of a person's entire blog, i do not go through people's blogs before reblogging something. just because i enjoy a certain piece of media does not mean i agree with every message it sends or the personal beliefs of the creator.
- marsha p. johnson repeatedly identified as a gay man and drag queen and survived into an era where the language did already exist if he chose to identify as transsexual. he explicitly stated that he was not transsexual and claimed that all transsexual people were also homosexual.
- sylvia rivera did identify as a transsexual woman (and made disparaging speeches about lesbians). she was not an ally to lesbians. lesbians and transwomen have not always been allies.
- neither of them were there when the stonewall riots began, according to marsha’s own testimony. sylvia was sleeping off a drug trip on a park bench, and by the time marsha arrived at stonewall, the riots were already in full swing.
- storme delarverie, a mixed black gender-nonconforming lesbian and drag king, may have been the one who incited the stonewall riots. she never identified as a transman despite surviving into an an era where the language was made accessible to do so. accounts differ as to who started the riots.
- stonewall was not a special haven for trans people and drag artists, it was just some bar where gay people met up. by all accounts, it wasn’t even a good bar.
- pride as a festival and parade was invented by gay men, lesbians, and bisexual people. fred sergeant is one of those gay men, and he has been beaten (in recent years, as an elderly man) by trans people and their allies due to his views on medical transition. non-homosexual trans people were unheard of in this era.
- this is just united states history, and not even the beginning of gay rights activism in the united states alone. the rest of the world didn’t necessarily base its gay rights activism on stonewall.
⚠️ radfem psa 🚨: femaleness is classified by more than just karyotypes.
so, i see a lot of people on radblr classifying femaleness solely by karyotypes (XX or XY chromosomes), and i understand why. we’re often told by gender ideologues that we are “obsessed with chromosomes,” that sex is actually a “spectrum,” and that to classify a woman as a female is to “reduce women down to our genitalia,” and that this is a bad thing. so of course, we’d want to find something other than reproductive organs to classify femaleness by, and the karyotypical dichotomy is an easy way to fit their moving goalpost, right?
the problem with using karyotypes as a way of classifying sex is that chromosomes are… er… wonky. while they’re typically reliable for a large percent of the population, people with rare conditions know that “typically” doesn’t mean always, and this pokes a hole in the radical feminist argument that gender ideologues have been sticking their fingers into to call radical feminism “ableist” for DECADES.
it’s time to fill this hole in our argument, be more inclusive to intersex women, and strengthen our feminism all at once. it’s time to make a more all-inclusive definition femaleness. but to explain how we can do this, let’s get ourselves familiar with the human (and most other mammals) sex-determination system.
the XY sex-determination system is the sex determination system that humans and most other mammals typically use for genetic sex differentiation. this produces our beloved, simplified dichotomy: XX = female, XY = male. this is, mostly, how the public has come to know sex to work, so i don’t blame radfems for saying what you do about XX chromosomes. however, this is the source of the hole in our argument for gender abolition and sex recognition, mainly because nature does not (and never will) truly care about simplicity.
maleness as we know it (testicles, penis, male puberty, etc) is mainly determined by the presence and full functionality of a sole specific gene on the Y chromosome, that gene being the SRY gene. the functional SRY gene is the determining factor in whether several other genes can facilitate male gonadal (testicular) development.
if a karyotypically male (XY) person has any* defective proteins within this gene that would cause progressive primordial germ cell loss (such as a mutation in the SF1 factor, WT1 protein, or an extra copy of the DAX1 male development antagonist, just to name a few), or any of the genes that SRY upregulates (such as the SOX9 gene) are in any way defective, or their Y chromosome lacks this gene completely, this person (chromosomes still intact) will still develop into a female, a process known as XY gonadal dysgenesis. this is a condition known as Swyer Syndrome, and it affects ~100,000 people worldwide.
this population is small compared to the general population— but these are females. they have mostly functional female reproductive structures (vulvas, vaginas, uteri, fallopian tubes, etc.), but their ovaries are often underdeveloped, and contain little gonadal tissue. these are called “streak gonads,” [pictured below] and people with them are at a MUCH higher risk of developing gonadoblastoma, a type of cancer that is so small and hard to detect, that they often remove these in infancy.
people with Swyer Syndrome cannot go through puberty unassisted, as their body does not develop adequate levels of estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone to invoke any type of puberty. they’re often infertile (but can have children via egg donation and IVF, as they have functional wombs), have low bone density, and often don’t find out about their condition until puberty. they are assigned female, look female, are raised female, and are female, despite their chromosomes.
they face sex-based oppression, as well. because they have female bodies, they have the same under-researched, misunderstood, demonized sex organs and characteristics all females do, PLUS face the additional oppressions faced by disabled women of all conditions, especially disabled women with rare or under-researched disorders. there has been one successful Swyer syndrome pregnancy without reproductive assistance, which means that there have likely been countless unsuccessful ones— which means they are absolutely affected by female reproductive issues, and deserve to be acknowledged in our feminism when we talk about these things.
Swyer syndrome isn’t the only condition that would cause a biological female to have incongruent (non-XX) chromosomes. other syndromes causing chromosomal karyotypes other than XX include:
Turner Syndrome, X0 [affects ~780,000 globally]: caused by a single X chromosome, 45,X0/46,XX mosaicism, or a small piece of the Y chromosome in what should be an X chromosome. causes a variety of health issues.
Trisomy X, XXX [affects ~4,000,000 globally]: causes a female to have an extra X chromosome. fewer than 10% of those with the condition know they have it. causes a tall stature, skeletal abnormalities, and minor neurological difficulties.
Tetrasomy & Pentasomy X, XXXX/XXXXX [affects a combined ~123,800 globally]: causes a female to have two/three extra X chromosomes. both cause a variety of symptoms, and are rare enough to be put together for this point.
when we talk about a typical female karyotype being the only factor in what makes someone a female (even in jokes, such as “XYs dni”), we exclude all of these FEMALE people (AND MORE) from this definition. not only that, but we include karyotypically female anatomical males (such as those with De La Chapelle Syndrome) in our definition of female. and when we’re up against a culture of gender ideologues with two sides— one where inclusivity is the deciding factor in truth (TRAs), and the other where inclusivity for females is laughable and proof of natural female subordination (traditional gender ideologues), it is vitally (and arguably fatally) important as gender abolitionist feminists for our definition of “female” to include some of the most vulnerable and underrepresented among us, including disabled and intersex women.
so how do we include all females in our definition of female, without sacrificing simplicity? well… it may not be quite as simple, but i think there is a solution.
see, a typical anatomical female produces larger gametes (ovum, or egg cells) than an anatomical male’s (sperm cells). now, we know some anatomical females don’t produce ovum, but nearly 100% of anatomical females’ bodies are developed towards the production of ovum.
“During sexual reproduction, each parent animal must form specialized cells known as gametes...In virtually all animals that reproduce sexually, the gametes occur in two morphologically distinct forms corresponding to male and female. These distinctions in form and structure are related to the specific functions of each gamete. The differences become apparent during the latter stages of spermatogenesis (for male gametes) and oogenesis (for female gametes)....After oogenetic meiosis, the morphological transformation of the female gamete generally includes development of a large oocyte that does not move around....The ambiguous term "egg" is often applied to oocytes and other fertilizable stages of female gametes....Spermatogenesis and oogenesis most often occur in different individual animals known as males and females respectively.” -Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition, Vol. 1, Pg. 16-17
so… bodily development towards the production of ova would be the defining factor in femaleness, would it not?
so we have our answer:
a female is an organism who’s sexual development is naturally fashioned toward the production of ova, the larger gamete of the two possible gametes produced. whether or not she is truly capable of this is irrelevant. females typically have XX chromosomes, but this is not always the case, and females with other chromosomal makeups are still female, so long as they are naturally developed toward producing the large gametes of their species.
or, for simplicity: females, when healthy, produce ovum.
this has been a radfem psa: include women with DSDs and chromosomal abnormalities in your definition of female, for the sake of thoroughness and female solidarity!
fin.
this post is a shortened, edited, and cited version of a wonderfully productive conversation i had with the brilliant and well-spoken @dateagirlwhoisweird, where we went back and forth about our view of the definition of “female” and what it means for women with DSDs and women with chromosomal abnormalities. i highly recommend you go read the full thread and follow her, she’s so sweet and intelligent as all hell, and i had a great time sorting out our differences in perspective in this conversation with her.
thank you so much for reading this till the end, it means the world to me that people genuinely read and appreciate my work and repost it. i love all my mutuals, and every wonderful woman on radblr who i can have conversations with, especially when we can productively disagree and find a path forward together 🖤🖤
So this is the answer to an ask that @wild-wombytch has sent me, and I chose to answer it in this format because the original ask contains a link to a post that I'd rather not share, to maintain respectful of OP.
Thank you, I'm fine! and cool that you like the cat pictures ❤️ I'll make a separate post for you just containing cat pictures
and thank you so much for saying that! ❤️❤️
yeah, so @wild-wombytch refers to a post that deals with a person who got a tumor from HRT. They have made a post in a mainstream trans subreddit and the people on there got mad at them, because they didn't want to recognise the downsides of HRT:
So this is just a whole other level. People hating on OP because they got a brain tumor is so despicable. These people can rot in hell
(Also, if you want to use my post to make fun of OP for having a brain tumor, enjoy getting blocked 🥰 I try to make this a welcoming place for people who are transitioning, detransitioning or having problems with their medical transition. If you can't handle that, please fuck off)
The specific kind of tumor this person is talking about, a pituitary brain tumor, is (as stated) probably linked to HRT in trans women. This reminds me of the myriad of posts by trans women talking about galactorrhea. Galactorrhea refers to the spontaneous lactation without having given birth or breastfeeding a baby, which can occur in women and men. And what is the most common cause for Galactorrhea?
the most common cause of galactorrhea is a benign tumor in your brain. Even though benign tumors are not as dangerous as cancerous tumors, they can still cause severe dysfunction over time, because they can still grow slowly and compress vital areas of the brain. It's definetly not a topic to be joked about.
I was able to find a ton of "I am spontaneously lactating as a trans woman, is this normal"-posts in the span of seconds. Remember: Galactorrhea, a condition that is most commonly caused by a brain tumor. And what are the responses?
keep in mind: this person probably had not only been lactating, but even had blood in their nipple discarge. Up to a fifth of women who have that sign of discharge have a malignant cause for it - I can't imagine that the prospect for biological males on HRT is much better.
so yeah, instead of telling them to go see their doctor or anything, they link them to r/AdultBreastfeeding - it's a fetish subreddit for people who have a lactation fetish and want to induce lactation.
I mean, a large amount of the stuff I post here is kinda funny and absurd, but if you get a bit deeper in these online echochambers, it gets really dark real quick. Where did we go from "everyone should live their lives as they wish" to "downplaying brain cancer to own the terfs"? And this doesn't mean that every trans woman should immediately stop their HRT just to prevent that from happening. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm just saying that these people genuinely don't seem to care about anything other than their ideology, and even medical professionals are seen as "lying" and "bigoted", and people with brain tumors are accused of "attacking the trans community". How is this not a cult??
Also, I wish the person who made the original post all the best :) I hope they find people who support them and help them heal
Here's the actual, dull quote from the website: "The J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund (JKRWF) offers legal funding support to individuals and organisations fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces. It provides women with the means and confidence to bring to justice cases that make legal precedents, force policy change, and make positive contributions to women’s lives in the future."
It's so telling when you have to cherry pick and misrepresent quotes in order to further your agenda.
If you have to reword "protecting women's sex-based rights" to "removing transgender rights" then it's clear people need to understand that the trans movement is inherently antithetical to women's rights.
A conservative man could just as easily reword it to say "remove male rights".
This is just misogyny.
Have we all realized yet how profoundly misogynistic trans activists are? They are MAGA levels of misogynistic, and yet I'm supposed to believe they're "progressive" and on the "right side of history" when they say a woman opening a women's shelter is taking someone else's rights away. Fucking INSANE.
under the rules you’ve made to include trans women, you have ushered in every type of man. so they actually are entitled to declare for the wnba draft, because of the rules you guys have made. this doesn’t prove your point. you guys wanted males to be included in female sports on the basis of self described identity, and that’s what you’re getting. you have created a world in which males are entitled to be included female sports. this is what you wanted. “the issue isn’t trans women it’s cis men” do you fucking hear yourself? why is it a problem for cis men to try to join the wnba but okay for trans women? if one is a problem then both need to be a problem in order to be logically consistent. and if you say they should have to be on hormones for a few months before competing, okay sure so a cis man who fully identifies as a man can take estrogen for a few months and then compete with women? or is it identity based? make up your mind and figure it out because these men are making the enormous gaps in logic very clear and you guys are doing insane mental gymnastics to try to deflect from this gotcha moment
Correct, male socialization is something that happens *to* you, you don't get to choose it. Just like no one chose to be born in the United States, or be born straight or white or rich. You were born into a system that wants you to act in ways that affirm the system, and you must understand it lest you perpetuate it.
If you made this post about any other oppression system on Tumblr it would be shot dead by leftists on sight.
"White privilege is such an evil rhetoric. Yeah I guess being born white and being taught I'm better than Black people at the age of 5 is my fault and I'm evil for it. Yeah I guess having a white childhood I never asked for means I'm a danger and I should perpetually apologize for it." -> immediately recognizable as bullshit racists say
"Straight privilege is such an evil rhetoric. Yeah I guess being straight is my fault and I'm evil for it. Yeah I guess having a straight childhood I never asked for means I'm a danger and I should perpetually apologize for it." -> immediately recognizable as bullshit homophobes say
But stuff like this gets posted and acquires 2k likes.
Male socialization is not even specifically attacking MTFs but they have successfully guilted everyone into being scared to believe in it.
ngl i posted this before but it flopped HARD and i got scared that something was going wrong with my account ... so posting again my noelle emoticons...
the idea that kink is somehow safe from critique and prejudice or harm is so fucking funny. ah yes bodies, desire, and power, three things that have famously never been utilized in harmful ways. great news everyone yes we are all existing in complex systems of oppression and violence BUT!!!!!! it’s on pause when we are horny
conservatives call gay sex taboo and disgusting and that is bad
okay yes
Therefore it is praxis to support all taboo sexual practices no matter what they are because being taboo automatically is anti-conservative and therefore progressive
okay no
The american government pumps out so much propaganda about china that is blatantly misleading
Okay yes
Therefore the solution is to start consuming china’s government propaganda unquestioningly
Okay no
People who are overweight are mistreated interpersonally, societally, and by the medical system
Okay yes
Therefore it is praxis to get as fat as possible and all health risks are fake
i hope she sues the hospital and him to hell and back, gets paid, and can move somewhere else. this is so fucking sick. if any of her colleagues ARENT completely spineless misogynistic assholes who dont care about black women they need to back her and threaten the hospital with a two weeks notice over this. how are you supposed to do your work if youre not allowed to use correct medical terms and have to expect patients attacking you and facing zero repercussions.
i’ve seen this user post this photo as a sort of reaction image a couple times now and it makes me laugh every time. because this is the incredibly elusive marbled cat and they really do just have a tendency to look so pitiful, guilty, and empty in the head. so here’s some more photos of them looking like there’s just one marble bouncing around their skull:
