We have a small, friendly groupchat for radfems & rad aligned women on Telegram. If you're interested in mutual support, friends & discussing feminism, send me a DM! Being 20+ and female is a requirement. š„
radblr can be pretty toxic / draining so I might log off for a while sometimes ā¤ļø
my inbox is open for anyone that wants to talk š
this post will be edited and expanded at times :)
Links to different topics based on my personal opinions:
General
Radical feminist resources
Radical feminist tumblr masterpost sources
What is a woman
Sex binary & intersex masterpost
Radical feminism & Radfem beliefs & illustrated
Why feminism's goal is not achieving "equality"
Why I am critical of gender & trans ideology
My thoughts on female seperatism
Why TRAs compare radical feminism to conservatism
"Radfems are gender essentialists" approach refuted
A glance at women's oppression
The origin of the patriarchy
Why women's opression is sex-based
Gender equality isn't the goal of feminism &
equity over equality
Why we should abolish gender / gender criticism
Dissecting gender / arguing with a TRA
Non binary is invalid
Why systemic misandry does not exist
Why you should be anti porn & more sources
Porn forged the trans movement
Appropriation of Indigenous āTwo Spiritā People in Trans Politics
Why gender disphoria does not exist
Agender identity
Transgender VS Transsexual & The issue with the "true trans"
Men cannot be feminists but they *can* be allies
Why anti drag queens
"But women NEED men to protect them!!" - statistics
#Radblr Discourse
Yes, men need to change
Dissecting 'feminist' blackpill ideology & another elaboration on blackpill feminism
Receipts of blackpill misogyny
Political lesbianism, are lesbians better feminists?
Criticizing lesbians who police osa women on separatism
Advice for women who date men
no separatism = more patriarchy??
Bisexuality / Biphobia in radfem spaces
Biphobia on radblr
Analysis on general biphobia
Another one on biphobia
Why "febfem" can be seen as a biphobic term
Am I not a radfem if I desire romantic love with a man?
The flaws of tumblr separatism
"Why I am not a separatist"
Does radfem mean female separatist?
Would separatists accept osa women dating men if men suddenly ceased to be a collective danger
Radfems can't be male partnered, what other solutions than separatism are there? + another one on that
Another take on the separatist discourse
Rad-aligned misogyny receipts:
(idk I have too many atp... might stop adding...)
Semen change a woman's brain
Osa women are at fault for men invading female spaces
Anon receipts
TRA receipts
Receipts on autogynephilic statements
Crimes of trans identified males against women in female sex spaces
Receipts of trans violence
Terfbreaking receipts
Other topics:
The wizard liz: Spiritual narcissism
Why do men grow resentful of women who love them
Should the government be able to police pronouns
Criticizing immigration in Europe & elaboration & more elaboration
Arguments for pro choice VS pro forced birth
Book recommendations:
Princess: A true story of a life behind the veil in Saudi Arabia
why should being 4b come more natural to lesbians than to bisexual women. bi women can still choose who they date
also, same with osa women, they can still choose to date, just like people can choose who they want to be with when they do. I'm not even saying not to date men, im saying to raise your standards to not include sexists
a standard which no man would ever match tho lol
you're wondering how it comes more naturally to lesbians to practice female separatism or 4b? please just turn on your thinking caps.
Controversial and terrifying thought: Iām a butch lesbian but I like having boobs and have zero interest in getting rid of them :) we exist believe it or not
āI really wish people, particular nonlesbian women, would stop telling me to get a binder or get top because āmasc outfits would look betterā
Iām not getting a major surgery just so shirts will āfit me like a frat boyā YOU are projecting that onto me. Men do not have a monopoly on masculinity. If having boobs makes me āless butchā to you then I fear you donāt fucking know what it means to be butch.
Yes this is real shit ppl say to me just because I am a woman with short hair and pants
why do we continue to see the male body as the standard, I wonder. our bodies are not customizable objects where you can just cut off and snip snap away at it. clothes should fit you, not the other way around. what even is this.
anyone else ever feel like you aren't supposed to be alive right now
like at some point you were 100% meant to die in a freak accident, but something went wrong and that didn't happen. and now you're just stuck as a shell of a person, feeling out of place everywhere you go and wondering if the last few years of your life went wrong because they weren't supposed to occur at all
idk if I would describe it like that for me personally, feeling that I shouldn't be "alive" but life definitely has lost its flavor the older I got. Technically I'm doing well but something is terribly lacking. I'm missing social company, but it's truly hard to find high quality friends and the time to nurture a deep friendship being employed full-time. We live in an era of constant online availability, being under constant media exposure too. I'm just 22 but I'm under immense pressure to have everything figured out now. To have plans each day, to look forward to something every week, even small things. I'm doing good but I don't know what's next or what I should be doing. Most times I genuinly don't want to do anything, procrastinate & then feel bad about it. What I do relate to is that life sometimes just doesn't feel real but like an endless simulation.
but any woman who feels on edge seeing playboy merch, hustler merch, pornhub merch, hypersexualized edits of Marilyn Monroe, or other misogynistic crap is overreacting/a feminā¢zi
Imagine saying you feel unsafe because a store is stocking Harry Potter merch, but women saying they feel unsafe with males in women's spaces are bigots.
when you grew up as a lonely uncool girl it will never stop haunting you by the way. you will meet a cool person at a bar or the train station or at a friend's party and you can wear your most stylish outfit and striking eye makeup and you will swear that they can see through all of the facade and see the lonely terribly insecure teenage girl you used to be who desperately wanted to connect and you will swear that they know that there is like an insurmountable gap between you. this will happen forever
if men were the face of veganism it would be considered a really progressive cool leftist trendy ideology but bc itās women everyone thinks itās an annoying and frivolous waste of time. thatās also somehow super oppressive.
and then I am left to wonder, why is it women and not men and I remember that it is because women are socialized to think about everyone's needs before their own
imagine making a post about how youāre insecure about how your vagina looks and some troon is in the comments is like ālook at me! i get to PICK how my neovagina looks!!!ā
idk where Sam Levinson's Euphoria is supposed to be going but [spoiler alert] I find it particularly amusing how the TIM called Jules was booked as a painter (his friend Lexi recommended him to the company she was working for) and he painted a couple of men with "breasts" and penises and when he was told that this wasn't what they had wanted and to dress up the characters, he ruined it entirely. Because if a man can't paint penises, he shall not paint at all. The project goal was to paint a picnic btw.
I have a TIF friend too, two in fact, and I also have to admit I use their pronouns in public. If itās just me and her, or if weāre with her family or close friends neither of them minds me saying āsheā or even using her old name. But doing so in public has zero use because both of these women pass as grown men. People would just think Iām being funny.
I also donāt get the issue with pronouns that much. Theyāre just words. Same way Iām a lesbian and I go by a male version of my own name which I like more. Iām GC too, but I just donāt see this as the hill to die on. I can understand how a dysphoric person wouldnāt want to be outed constantly in public after years of transitioning. I also wouldnāt yell āher boobs are fake!ā about a friend with a boob job.
I suppose that personally, I just do not see a reason to become friends with trans identified individuals because of the ideology they support. I am empathetic towards people who have already been friends with those individuals before and only later changed their minds about gender ideology, because I understand that it is a difficult situation to navigate and I'd never ask them to cut off their friends and/or a large part of their support system. How important their beliefs/values are to them and how far they can go to keep silent about those and pretend to agree with their friend's delusions, that are tied to gender and trans ideology, is their responsibility to decide. Nonetheless, there is something undeniably hipocritical about posting and sharing gender critical content online and then not practice it, or even doing the opposite of what one claims to stand for.
I'm obviously aware that there are grey areas and other situations in which you would be required not to use correctly sexed pronouns (for ex. the workplace) - but to claim that using chosen pronouns simply does not matter or that it is "just words" is wrong and shows that you have not really understood what gender criticism is all about. "Woman" too, after all, is just a word. Pretending that words don't have meaning and purpose to them, will eventually harm real people, because we let others re-define terms that are supposed to describe and protect a marginalized group. If woman is just a word, then women don't exist. If woman is just a word without meaning or purpose, then anything and anyone can be a woman and for ex. enter spaces designated for women.
I do believe you have some type of double standard when it comes to this topic because on one hand you use their chosen pronouns in public, on the other hand, in private you use their correct pronouns. If pronouns are just words and it is not a big deal, then why are you switching between them in the first place? Why are you not using male pronouns for your female friends 100% of the time, and their newly chosen names too?
The comparison to someone getting a boob job is particularly poor. A woman getting a boob job is still a woman. A woman getting her breasts removed entirely is still a woman. A woman identifying as a man is still a woman. The point is that you can get all of the surgeries that you want, you will still remain the sex you are. I understand that your comparison was meant to showcase that there is no point in outing a trans identified person in public by calling them by their correct pronouns and I agree that this can be a grey-area type of situation, but comparing the usage of correct pronouns that is based on material reality versus intentionally pointing out that someone has had a boob job is not making sense to me.
The irreverence of Jesus Christ by unbelievers! Don't worry, I'll pray for you to turn back to him. Please read up on evidences that the Bible is real via The Shroud of Turin, Dead Sea Scroll, Tel Dan Stele, testimonies of children saying they met Jesus and said he'll come back soon, etc. Honestly, I don't believe radical feminists care about me as a a Catholic woman when I notice how they commit sins found in the Bible, and even encourage other women to follow such sins. None of you care about my my spiritual needs, and you're just bringing other women toward the path of Hell with you all. That's the deception beneath all your claim of "helping women". I guess that's one of the consequences of being worldly
Your god doesn't exist and we don't respect your patriarchal religion as we reject all things that harm women. Your "spiritual needs" being a desire for all women to act according to the misogynistic rulebook that you call the bible is not a "need" but pure entitlement. You can restrict yourself according to your belief, you don't get to do that with other women. Your freedom ends where the freedom of someone else is being infringed upon.
So you only listen to and care about other women you agree with. Thanks for showing me the fruits of your movement and showing me signs that my time to meet Jesus Christ is becoming nearer. I believe I should show you my gratitude. The scripture also states that I must kick the dust beneath my feet and move on from someone like you. So I swear to God I'll move on from you from now on
Apparently, JK Rowling has pissed off a lot of gender critical people on twitter by admitting that she has a trans woman friend she refers to with she/her pronouns because that individual is her friend and she wants to make the said person happy. I think it is so tiring how easily people fall into black and white thinking and fail to learn anything from the cult behaviour of tras. More than two things can be true at the same time: It can be wrong to force people either through law or social pressure to lie and control their speech and it is dangerous and offensive for media and researchers to report and record people's sex falsely. But when it comes to someone's personal life, they can still be free to choose to refer to someone with preferred, although inaccurate, pronouns. Just like they should be free to choose not to do this.
They desperately want to portray us as evil women who want all trans people dead and/or hidden away, and when we try and say thatās not true, they cover their ears.
I have a best friend whoās a TIF, I obviously donāt believe sheās a man but I use he/him and use her preferred name because sheās my friend and I want to be nice. Iāll always use preferred names because I hate my own name and go by a preferred name and it sucks to be called something you donāt want to be called. But again, that only applies for my friends and people I respect. A random TIM online sending me rape threats? Nope.
It is this behavior, instilled in us by female gender socialization, that destroys the lives of other women
By using "chosen" pronouns such as for tifs or tims, you are perpetuating the illusion of their rightness rather than being "polite." This behavior is harmful in any situation where a person engages in practices that are detrimental to them, but others not only remain silent but actively encourage them
It's better to be honest with your tif-friends and tim-fetishists than to give them the illusion that they should retreat into their distorted world
This is especially true for women. By referring to a woman with non-feminine pronouns, you are feeding her internal misogyny. Show her what it's like to be loved as a woman. Show her that being a woman is not shameful or limiting. Don't allow the patriarchy to use compulsive empathy against us, women.
This is not "personal life vs. political life," this is hypocrisy. If you are against fetishists who view being a woman as a costume and consider invading women's spaces a mandatory right, then you are against this. If you desire women's freedom, self-acceptance, and the eradication of misogyny and gender structures, you will not encourage the destruction of the identity of another woman you consider close to you. How can you claim to desire someone's happiness (as Rowling does) when you support their self-destruction and harm to others?
Absolutely correct. The personal is political and it is hipocritical to make "exceptions" that go against one's self proclaimed values. It is not polite but rather harmful to use "chosen" pronouns for anyone; doing so is actively affirming their delusions. The use of "chosen" pronouns should not be something that can be earned through social relationships (being a friend or someone you respect) as it is always wrong, in any case. Does the friend you use "chosen" pronouns for know your political stance on pronoun usage and would they continue to be your friend if you stopped referring to them with those "chosen" pronouns?
You might want to make them "happy" by referring to them how they wish to be referred to, yet, lying to your friend that wants to be told a lie in order to stay in their magical realm of delusion, is still lying.
I really disagree as a former tif. Calling me a she would only make me feel like the very little autonomy and identity I had was being stripped from me. You donāt have to actually believe that tifs are men (because theyāre not), but something about denying a woman her sense of self, however deluded it might be, when it doesnāt harm anybody doesnāt sit right with me.
No amount of āmisgenderingā or disrespect from other people regarding my gender identity made me peak and desist, this was an internal process I went through when I was ready, and that should never be forced upon another person. Itās simply painful and isolating for them and will not work.
You are not lying to a tif or indulging her delusions by calling her a āheā, you are simply accepting that they want to be called that and doing so to not alienate them from female support. If they were insisting you called them a male, that would be a lie, and not acceptable to affirm but that is not what is going on here.
I would argue that itās actually a bad thing to call a tif a āsheā when she doesnāt want you to do so. You are making her feel as if other women (specifically radical feminists) are not safe people (because they interpret misgendering as a marker of transphobic, unsafe people), and that she cannot turn to you for support. It is so dangerous for a tif to be isolated from anybody other than TRAs and to be pushed farther away from the groups that can help liberate her. I peaked slowly through reading radical feminist discussions, not by having those close to me invalidate who I felt I was and push me away from radical feminist spaces and further into trans ideology.
For the sake of sisterhood, just call your tif friends āheā you arenāt suddenly going to make them realize that theyāre a woman and thatās ok by making them feel isolated and disrespected. The last thing a vulnerable, insecure, marginalized woman needs is for the people close to her to make her feel like she cannot be trusted with her own identity.
The goal of using the correct, sexed pronouns instead of "chosen" pronouns is not to change trans identified people's minds about how they identify. I think that most radfems are aware that doing so can or will likely end up with the TIF/TIM being upset. However, abandoning our feminist values and convictions in order to fulfill one's delusion of being called by their "chosen" pronouns does not help trans identified people either. Neither action is ultimately going to change their minds & I believe that using "chosen" pronouns for any person is always harmful as it affirms their belief that their identity is real or valid - while you, the person who complies are just another link in the chain dragging the carriage of trans ideology forward.
It does not matter what your internal feminist values are, as long as you don't act or speak on behalf of them, you are just another face in the crowd that supports trans ideology. Silence is compliance, too. I know that there are certain situations where it might become dangerous to. speak out against trans ideology or situations where you must oblige (such as the workplace where you would otherwise risk to loose your job) but that is not what we are talking about here.
By using either made up pronouns or pronouns that do not match that person's sex, you indeed are actively lying to that person and indulging in their delusions. You do not need to use the explicit words female or male while talking to the TIF/TIM, as she/her and he/him are the respective equivalents that refer to that person's sex.
As an empathetic person I understand that TIFs can interpret someone who correctly uses sexed pronouns as an "unsafe", "transphobic" person and isolate themselves from that person - however, it is never one's responsibility to put up an act just to keep someone else close plus, "unsafe" in this context just means "won't go along with my wishes to be incorrectly referred to", not that they feel actually "unsafe" which would mean being afraid of being subjected to physical or mental abuse.
Using the word "unsafe" in this context is improper and implies something entirely different - not that two people simply disagree about pronoun usage. That type of speech reeks of gender ideology propaganda, which itself is largely responsible for isolating their trans identified followers from anyone who thinks differently, even family members, by labeling them "unsafe to engage with". Even "terfs", women who disagree with the ideology, are labeled that way even when non of our words or intentions are violent in nature.
For the sake of sisterhood, don't affirm your TIF friends delusions. Commit to your values, be kind and offer to talk to her about it & explain your stance. If she will listen, good, if she doesn't, not your responsibility. You can only do so much as to extend your hand, if she won't take it or listen to what you have to say, you don't jump from the sinking ship too. Using the correct pronouns is never disrespectful, the same way as speaking the truth can never be a lie.
Using chosen pronouns isnāt an abandonment of radical feminism because you can simply argue that pronouns are meaningless and it doesnāt really matter what you call someone. I can call a man who wants to be called a she a she, and it doesnāt make me or anyone else think heās a woman just because I said the word āsheā. Itās not really affirming oneās gender or ideology to call them by what they want, itās just being polite and not shoving vulnerable women away from you.
I donāt consider it a violation of my beliefs to call a tif a he because being called a he doesnāt make you a man. Similarly, itās bizarre to call anybody by a name they donāt like just because you donāt like it. There really is no point other than pointless moral grand standing that does nothing in reality to bring someone any closer to feminism and onto further isolates them.
I am not even going to touch your whole thing about the word āunsafeā because you misunderstood what I said and I trust anybody reading this not to need an explanation of what I actually said.
I am not going to sit here and pretend that insisting to a vulnerable woman that sheās a she when she is extremely distressed by that is a moral, feminist action when it does nothing than off-put her, degrade your sisterhood with her, make her see you as an enemy, and affirm your perfect little moral construct with no regards to the effects it has on reality.
Alienating a woman from sisterhood for no reason other than your need to feel morally vindicated over actual, real help and community building is never a feminist action.
i repeat my question in tags, not in tags: it's not about whether you're allowed to call someone something they're not, it's why you want to. "It's not really affirming one's gender or ideology to call them by what they want, it's just being polite." Why is it "not really affirming" but it is "just being polite"? She and her are the pronouns used for females, and he and him are the pronouns used for males. You are agreeing with the person that they are not the sex they are, because it is "polite", but that is not affirming them?
All of the reasons you list for complying with wrong-sex pronouns are ultimately about soothing someone who believes something that is untrue. If your grandma with dementia believes she's a movie star and her mom is the one visiting her instead of her granddaughter, arguing with her is cruel. Her age and condition are such that not pushing back against delusions is almost always the kindest thing to do, and as far as I know has been demonstrated to be the smoothest way of providing care to these vulnerable individuals who can no longer care for themselves. Perhaps of note how distressing this can be for EVERYONE involved--it hurts to go along with a lie, even if it IS for the person's own good.
Trans-id people are not as a rule inherently unable to care for themselves. It causes them great distress to be reminded of something that is immutably true. That is not a recipe for being a functional person. "It's just being polite". It has been expressed why it is rather impolite, in the long run, to lie to someone who has the capacity for reason. You seem averse to seeing wrong-sex pronouns as a lie because reality remains the same, but calling things the opposite of what they are is either a game (where it is implicitly understood one is lying, for fun), or it is an actual lie.
"Alienating a woman from sisterhood for no reason other than your need to feel morally vindicated over actual, real help and community building is never a feminist action." There's myriad reasons, already stated a few times, as to why there is benefit to using correct pronouns even though they are upsetting to you. A TIF has already alienated herself from the women in front of her trying to offer her help, she has alienated herself from herself, and the longer she goes with people walking on eggshells around her to avoid simple reality the worse the fallout is when she DOES manage to deconstruct however many weeks or months or years or decades later. How many people decided it was easier to be "polite" than to tell someone in distress the truth?
There is nothing unkind about calling a woman a woman or a man a man. The fact that so many trans people are as reactive as they are about being correctly sexed is all the more evidence transition is not good for mental health. Reconciliation with reality is not moral grand-standing.
If someone's flipping out about pronouns in front of you and you're just trying to get them in a homeless shelter for the night or whatever, well one there's again the very real consideration of their safety in a wrong-sex shelter that their wrong-sex pronouns indicate, but anyway the point I wanted to make here was ok you can avoid pronouns and use their name or talk sideways if they are too reactive. That still isn't good for the trans person.
Apparently, JK Rowling has pissed off a lot of gender critical people on twitter by admitting that she has a trans woman friend she refers to with she/her pronouns because that individual is her friend and she wants to make the said person happy. I think it is so tiring how easily people fall into black and white thinking and fail to learn anything from the cult behaviour of tras. More than two things can be true at the same time: It can be wrong to force people either through law or social pressure to lie and control their speech and it is dangerous and offensive for media and researchers to report and record people's sex falsely. But when it comes to someone's personal life, they can still be free to choose to refer to someone with preferred, although inaccurate, pronouns. Just like they should be free to choose not to do this.
They desperately want to portray us as evil women who want all trans people dead and/or hidden away, and when we try and say thatās not true, they cover their ears.
I have a best friend whoās a TIF, I obviously donāt believe sheās a man but I use he/him and use her preferred name because sheās my friend and I want to be nice. Iāll always use preferred names because I hate my own name and go by a preferred name and it sucks to be called something you donāt want to be called. But again, that only applies for my friends and people I respect. A random TIM online sending me rape threats? Nope.
It is this behavior, instilled in us by female gender socialization, that destroys the lives of other women
By using "chosen" pronouns such as for tifs or tims, you are perpetuating the illusion of their rightness rather than being "polite." This behavior is harmful in any situation where a person engages in practices that are detrimental to them, but others not only remain silent but actively encourage them
It's better to be honest with your tif-friends and tim-fetishists than to give them the illusion that they should retreat into their distorted world
This is especially true for women. By referring to a woman with non-feminine pronouns, you are feeding her internal misogyny. Show her what it's like to be loved as a woman. Show her that being a woman is not shameful or limiting. Don't allow the patriarchy to use compulsive empathy against us, women.
This is not "personal life vs. political life," this is hypocrisy. If you are against fetishists who view being a woman as a costume and consider invading women's spaces a mandatory right, then you are against this. If you desire women's freedom, self-acceptance, and the eradication of misogyny and gender structures, you will not encourage the destruction of the identity of another woman you consider close to you. How can you claim to desire someone's happiness (as Rowling does) when you support their self-destruction and harm to others?
Absolutely correct. The personal is political and it is hipocritical to make "exceptions" that go against one's self proclaimed values. It is not polite but rather harmful to use "chosen" pronouns for anyone; doing so is actively affirming their delusions. The use of "chosen" pronouns should not be something that can be earned through social relationships (being a friend or someone you respect) as it is always wrong, in any case. Does the friend you use "chosen" pronouns for know your political stance on pronoun usage and would they continue to be your friend if you stopped referring to them with those "chosen" pronouns?
You might want to make them "happy" by referring to them how they wish to be referred to, yet, lying to your friend that wants to be told a lie in order to stay in their magical realm of delusion, is still lying.
I really disagree as a former tif. Calling me a she would only make me feel like the very little autonomy and identity I had was being stripped from me. You donāt have to actually believe that tifs are men (because theyāre not), but something about denying a woman her sense of self, however deluded it might be, when it doesnāt harm anybody doesnāt sit right with me.
No amount of āmisgenderingā or disrespect from other people regarding my gender identity made me peak and desist, this was an internal process I went through when I was ready, and that should never be forced upon another person. Itās simply painful and isolating for them and will not work.
You are not lying to a tif or indulging her delusions by calling her a āheā, you are simply accepting that they want to be called that and doing so to not alienate them from female support. If they were insisting you called them a male, that would be a lie, and not acceptable to affirm but that is not what is going on here.
I would argue that itās actually a bad thing to call a tif a āsheā when she doesnāt want you to do so. You are making her feel as if other women (specifically radical feminists) are not safe people (because they interpret misgendering as a marker of transphobic, unsafe people), and that she cannot turn to you for support. It is so dangerous for a tif to be isolated from anybody other than TRAs and to be pushed farther away from the groups that can help liberate her. I peaked slowly through reading radical feminist discussions, not by having those close to me invalidate who I felt I was and push me away from radical feminist spaces and further into trans ideology.
For the sake of sisterhood, just call your tif friends āheā you arenāt suddenly going to make them realize that theyāre a woman and thatās ok by making them feel isolated and disrespected. The last thing a vulnerable, insecure, marginalized woman needs is for the people close to her to make her feel like she cannot be trusted with her own identity.
The goal of using the correct, sexed pronouns instead of "chosen" pronouns is not to change trans identified people's minds about how they identify. I think that most radfems are aware that doing so can or will likely end up with the TIF/TIM being upset. However, abandoning our feminist values and convictions in order to fulfill one's delusion of being called by their "chosen" pronouns does not help trans identified people either. Neither action is ultimately going to change their minds & I believe that using "chosen" pronouns for any person is always harmful as it affirms their belief that their identity is real or valid - while you, the person who complies are just another link in the chain dragging the carriage of trans ideology forward.
It does not matter what your internal feminist values are, as long as you don't act or speak on behalf of them, you are just another face in the crowd that supports trans ideology. Silence is compliance, too. I know that there are certain situations where it might become dangerous to. speak out against trans ideology or situations where you must oblige (such as the workplace where you would otherwise risk to loose your job) but that is not what we are talking about here.
By using either made up pronouns or pronouns that do not match that person's sex, you indeed are actively lying to that person and indulging in their delusions. You do not need to use the explicit words female or male while talking to the TIF/TIM, as she/her and he/him are the respective equivalents that refer to that person's sex.
As an empathetic person I understand that TIFs can interpret someone who correctly uses sexed pronouns as an "unsafe", "transphobic" person and isolate themselves from that person - however, it is never one's responsibility to put up an act just to keep someone else close plus, "unsafe" in this context just means "won't go along with my wishes to be incorrectly referred to", not that they feel actually "unsafe" which would mean being afraid of being subjected to physical or mental abuse.
Using the word "unsafe" in this context is improper and implies something entirely different - not that two people simply disagree about pronoun usage. That type of speech reeks of gender ideology propaganda, which itself is largely responsible for isolating their trans identified followers from anyone who thinks differently, even family members, by labeling them "unsafe to engage with". Even "terfs", women who disagree with the ideology, are labeled that way even when non of our words or intentions are violent in nature.
For the sake of sisterhood, don't affirm your TIF friends delusions. Commit to your values, be kind and offer to talk to her about it & explain your stance. If she will listen, good, if she doesn't, not your responsibility. You can only do so much as to extend your hand, if she won't take it or listen to what you have to say, you don't jump from the sinking ship too. Using the correct pronouns is never disrespectful, the same way as speaking the truth can never be a lie.
Apparently, JK Rowling has pissed off a lot of gender critical people on twitter by admitting that she has a trans woman friend she refers to with she/her pronouns because that individual is her friend and she wants to make the said person happy. I think it is so tiring how easily people fall into black and white thinking and fail to learn anything from the cult behaviour of tras. More than two things can be true at the same time: It can be wrong to force people either through law or social pressure to lie and control their speech and it is dangerous and offensive for media and researchers to report and record people's sex falsely. But when it comes to someone's personal life, they can still be free to choose to refer to someone with preferred, although inaccurate, pronouns. Just like they should be free to choose not to do this.
They desperately want to portray us as evil women who want all trans people dead and/or hidden away, and when we try and say thatās not true, they cover their ears.
I have a best friend whoās a TIF, I obviously donāt believe sheās a man but I use he/him and use her preferred name because sheās my friend and I want to be nice. Iāll always use preferred names because I hate my own name and go by a preferred name and it sucks to be called something you donāt want to be called. But again, that only applies for my friends and people I respect. A random TIM online sending me rape threats? Nope.
It is this behavior, instilled in us by female gender socialization, that destroys the lives of other women
By using "chosen" pronouns such as for tifs or tims, you are perpetuating the illusion of their rightness rather than being "polite." This behavior is harmful in any situation where a person engages in practices that are detrimental to them, but others not only remain silent but actively encourage them
It's better to be honest with your tif-friends and tim-fetishists than to give them the illusion that they should retreat into their distorted world
This is especially true for women. By referring to a woman with non-feminine pronouns, you are feeding her internal misogyny. Show her what it's like to be loved as a woman. Show her that being a woman is not shameful or limiting. Don't allow the patriarchy to use compulsive empathy against us, women.
This is not "personal life vs. political life," this is hypocrisy. If you are against fetishists who view being a woman as a costume and consider invading women's spaces a mandatory right, then you are against this. If you desire women's freedom, self-acceptance, and the eradication of misogyny and gender structures, you will not encourage the destruction of the identity of another woman you consider close to you. How can you claim to desire someone's happiness (as Rowling does) when you support their self-destruction and harm to others?
Absolutely correct. The personal is political and it is hipocritical to make "exceptions" that go against one's self proclaimed values. It is not polite but rather harmful to use "chosen" pronouns for anyone; doing so is actively affirming their delusions. The use of "chosen" pronouns should not be something that can be earned through social relationships (being a friend or someone you respect) as it is always wrong, in any case. Does the friend you use "chosen" pronouns for know your political stance on pronoun usage and would they continue to be your friend if you stopped referring to them with those "chosen" pronouns?
You might want to make them "happy" by referring to them how they wish to be referred to, yet, lying to your friend that wants to be told a lie in order to stay in their magical realm of delusion, is still lying.
