i’m inclined towards disgust and i don’t really feel disgust towards trans people, so i can tell you the role disgust plays in my radfem ideology. when i first got on the internet and discovered trans people, i was wholeheartedly supportive and did not feel disgust at all. in the intervening decade or so i hit puberty and was sexually harassed regularly to different degrees by strangers and friends alike, until i developed a strong and finely honed instinct for sexual predators. i’m not saying it never led me wrong - i can’t prove a negative, after all, if i listen to my instinct i avoid interacting with the person and never get the opportunity to be proven wrong - but when i do ignore my instinct for other reasons, i usually end up regretting it.
i was a rationalist first and a radfem second, and when i was younger i tended to look at things from a logical perspective and assume good faith when analysing what someone says instead of making assumptions based on gut feelings i can’t prove. this resulted in me being groomed and taken advantage of.
for whatever reason, a number of trans women trigger this instinct in me. it could be a false flag but out of self interest i choose not to overcome this bias. there used to be a sub r/itsafetish that documents examples of trans women fetishizing womenhood but it was banned. even now, on trans subreddits, you can see examples of transwomen being sexually aroused by things like wearing a bra or sanitary pads.
(its not fair to generalise trans women based on them, but i draw a line between my beliefs personally and my beliefs in the - for lack of a better word - realpolitik sense. for instance i think that trans people should be able to use whichever gender-specified facilities they feel comfortable with without fear, but i also think that realistically i think that homeless shelters, dormitories, prisons and such should be based on biological sex and not gender. there are enough examples of trans women raping other women in female prisons that i personally think its not worth the risk.)
but i digress. radical feminists as a whole are women who understand the role of instinct and disgust in keeping you safe. sometimes these instincts are a reflection of personal biases or societal constructs, and sometimes not. that’s why there’s also a lot of emphasis on resisting and noticing emotional abuse, in particular gaslighting, as well as validating people who establish boundaries over any minor reason whatsoever out of discomfort.
that’s the difference terfs have from conservatives. at it’s core, it’s still a kind of bleeding heart emphasis on emotions. conservatives use their emotions for rhetoric but don’t validate feelings the same way. terfs’ beliefs are rooted in their emotions but their rhetoric is less “isn’t this disgusting? do you really trust these people around your daughter?” and more relying on empathy/sympathy like “i knew this trans person and this happened”.
i’m sorry if my messages made you uncomfortable. i deliberately follow trans people in addition to radfems so i don’t end up in an echochamber. (i also follow r/sneerclub in addition to r/rational, and slatestarcodex in addition to r/catsaysmao.) i hope you won’t go out of your way to block me.
i mean...i think "i can tell if people are dangerous based on vibes, i dont hate [group], they just give me dangerous vibes" is like...one of the main types of prejudice? like. literally for thousands of years people have been saying "this group is going to harm our fragile women, we need to hurt them to stop that". like. i think it might be useful to take the outside view here, and think to yourself what about this feeling would be different than a white woman who thinks black men are a threat to her, and so shouldnt get to use the same train car or whatever. like whatever if trans women skeeve you out you shouldnt *force* yourself to interact with us, obviously. but like. i dont think you should accept that feeling uncritically?
i guess the core of this is like. i dont believe that your "instinct for sexual predators" is actually finely honed. i think its probably sending a ton of false positives. like maybe recall is high but precision is bad.
