[radfem-chronicles]

[not-the-shinigami-eyes]

"Being a man or a woman is so much more than your biology" he says after listing the most shallow, outdated stereotypes associated with womanhood

[not-the-shinigami-eyes]

[annieisaround]

i wasn't "assigned female at birth". the doctors didn't assign me a sex any more than they assigned me a hair color. the fact that i am female was observed and stamped on my birth certificate. i was female long before that. i was female before i was even a conscious, sentient being. i was female the second i was conceived.

[acetaminofem]

When a man identifies as a woman he gets called as such, a "woman". When a woman is comfortable in her womanhood, she gets called a "lifegiver," a "birthing body," a "uterus haver." You're not "affirming to all," you're affirming to men and men alone.

[samriedel]

This is what I was wearing when he told me I was a man.

This afternoon, I showered (whatever, I’m a writer, we wake up late), shaved my face (like I do every day to avoid as much shadow as possible) and picked out an outfit: today, the leopard-print wrap dress I got at a clothing swap, over a black shirt and tights. I applied my new liquid foundation to my face, thanking my lucky stars I could sort of afford it, since it’s better than my previous hand-me-down powder for adherence and covering the shadow that’s still there after I shave. (Someday I’ll afford electrolysis or laser treatments.) I paid extra attention to my upper lip and chin. Then, the fun part: applying earth tone eyeshadow from my well-worn palette, then eyeliner (I like to use a flame trick I learned to make pencil look liquid, even though I have liquid too; it makes cateyes look extra cool, especially with the leopard print), then mascara. I threw on a little lipstick and dabbed the color on my cheeks to use as blush. Looking in the mirror, I smiled: there’s my girl.

The whole process took about an hour and fifteen minutes from start to finish. I made sure I looked as close to “cis woman” as possible; after all, today I was to go on camera for The Mary Sue, filming an upcoming video about Wonder Woman. Nothing but perfection would suffice. I’d already gotten a few transmisogynistic remarks on my videos through social media in the past–hopefully passing better this time would keep them to a minimum.

When I walked out the door, I was met with an unexpected obstacle: the contractors renovating my building–one of whom I recognized from previous conversations, and the time he fixed my doorknob a week or two ago–had covered the stairs with glue for rubber covers, preventing me from exiting until it dried. Desperate to get to work moderately on time, I threw my bag to the one I knew and began shimmying down the banister feet-first. “Don’t look up my dress,” I chided, with a smile that reflected none of my terror.

I managed to get to the bottom with a minor assist from the contractor I didn’t know. As I collected my bag, one of my new neighbors appeared from whence I’d just came, and stepped on the tacky glue. “NO!” screamed both the contractors in unison, and my neighbor stepped back, frightened. He’d messed up their work. “Can you wait ten minutes until it dries?” they asked, as they had asked of me. His answer was the same as mine: “Uh, no, I gotta go.” 

Then, without warning, the contractor whom I knew spoke: “Can you climb down like he did?”

I would have frozen, but I was late and already in motion–so, casting off the layer of ice which gripped my skin, I tartly replied “I’m not a boy, thank you” and left as my neighbor queried “What, like I’m Spider-Man?” (Answer: yeah, basically.) The last thing I heard was the contractor’s mildly surprised “oh.”

As I walked to the train, I was livid. All of my work crafting my face and body into something pretty and feminine had been for precisely nothing. I couldn’t even interact with one person before being casually misgendered, even at my most womanly. This man had seen me in skirts, dresses, and full makeup on numerous occasions, but for some reason–take your pick: my deeper-than-”normal” voice; my Adam’s apple; my still-discernible shadow; my cock, if he looked up my dress after all–he’d determined that I was not a woman to him, and should not be addressed as such, my visible effort to the contrary.

To my trans siblings reading this: it will never be enough for them, these cisgender men and women who tell lies to our face about their tolerance. No matter how well we pass for cis, no matter how many sacrifices we make, no matter how much time we spend obsessing over our presentation–it will never, ever be enough. We will never be granted the right to be respected inherently, on sight. Not without a fight. And we must be prepared to pick that fight, every single day, regardless of what it takes from us, takes from our quiet, our dignity. Because each time, the alternative is to die a little inside, until one day we wake up and we are dead.

To my cis allies: Now, I hope, you see what it is to be misgendered.

To my cis enemies: We are coming.

photo credit: Alec Bernal. Please do not reshare without credit.

[fairypage-deactivated20190421]

wow surprisingly enough putting yourself through a convoluted and pointless process of femininity doesn’t make you female or guarantee that everyone will treat you as such? who’da thunk it

[lost-and-found-marbles-deactiva]

Also what’s the deal with “I always dress so girly, how could he not know I’m a woman??” like are we supposed to assume that if a male person is wearing a dress that he can’t be male? Dresses and makeup have nothing to do with being female wtf

[cecaeliawitch]

‘I’m not a boy’ is an answer that rubs me the wrong way anyway, bc this is clearly an adult man, why is he using a term for a child?

[auntiewanda]

“It’s not clothes or makeup or gender roles” the genderists cry. And yet that always seems to be what it comes down to. You’re a man in makeup and a skirt, dude. Own it.

[gorgonology]

“I spent an hour putting make up on my male face and someone could still tell Im male! I am So Oppressed!!! Oh no!!!”

BOO FUCKING HOO CRY ME A GODDAMN RIVER !!!!

[radfemlands]

also just to add to this, the top caption “this is what I was wearing when he called me a man” makes me uncomfortable and feels like an attempt to co-opt the anti rape “this is what I was wearing” slogan/campaign. Double fuck off forever, mayhaps? You entitled penis-having piece of shit.

[auntiewanda]

The Tragic Tale of a TiF Taken in by a Trendy Tik Tok Surgeon

This was apparently making the rounds on Twitter today and since it has thousands of retweets, replies, quote tweets and likes I figured my little splash in the pond wouldn't bring it undue attention.

The author of this tale (archive mirror) is still freshly coping with what has been done to her, despite the unscrupulous surgeon (one Sidhbh Gallagher, who draws in teens on Tik Tok and calls herself "Dr. Teetus Deletus") nearly getting her killed by dismissing the complications and even joking about them. I think it's a cautionary tale about why these surgeries are both horrendous and pointless. And that the surgeons lining their pockets from them shouldn't have their licenses anymore.

Of course the terves are still somehow most to blame.

[namelessdaughter-deactivated202]

It may be months or even years before this young woman makes the connection, but she went through this dangerous experience because Dr. Gallagher does “top surgery”.

These trans surgery doctors are all doing chop shop experimental surgeries that they have no idea how to safely perform with no physical ability to reach the result that the patient wants. These aren’t practices that attract disciplined, knowledgeable, compassionate surgeons because those surgeons know better than to do what these ones do.

No woman getting “top surgery” comes out with a man’s chest - they come out a woman who has had an elective double mastectomy and the results look like that. (For example, the young woman in this post requested a “totally flat” chest despite being a plus-sized woman, when a plus-sized man would not have a totally flat chest. She didn’t even want her chest to look like a man’s chest, and the surgeon couldn’t have effectively given it to her anyway.) Men who go in for their version of “top surgery” end up with fake breasts going in opposite directions on a chest far too broad for the majority of women. I won’t even start on SRS, we all know those results don’t even remotely resemble the genitalia they’re intended to mimic.

So when someone goes into one of these surgeries, they’re not getting the best of the best surgeons. They’re getting the bottom of the barrel sociopaths who barely got their license to practice and have no qualms about selling lies and dreams to vulnerable kids to make a buck - and they’re not just making a buck, they’re raking in tens of thousands for each victim they con. To perform these surgeries you not only have to be comfortable lying, you have to be comfortable performing surgeries on people that you know will seriously harm them, that you know will disrupt their bodily functions in major ways, that you know have massive rates of infection and dysfunction and failure, and that you know do not even a little bit resemble the results that your patients are paying you to provide.

Fuck’s sake. The fact that she performs top surgery is the reason that “dangerous experience” happened. If she were a good, compassionate, principled care provider she never would have agreed to do a “totally flat” elective double mastectomy on a healthy young woman so she could “feel more like a man” in the first place. She certainly wouldn’t do 10+ a day on kids starting at the age of thirteen.

[deepsea-archive-deactivated2023]

Men will be in a relationship with a woman that has children for years because they are waiting for an opportunity to play out their sick p£do fantasies. It doesn’t matter how long you know the guy, him and other men have hidden secrets when it comes to children.

To any single moms(or any mother) out there in a committed relationship check on your boyfriend/husbands and protect your children. And to those in no relationship it’s best to stay from men if you want to protect your children and don’t want to go through the trauma.

[larme-kei-terf]

Today on "Do you have any idea what you just said?"

[larme-kei-terf]

^^^^^^

[jacquelinej]

[radfem-chronicles]

[pussy-ache]

edit, added commentary from the notes:

[cloudytomboy]

Trans women will never be free until people stop having strong emotions about penises. Like we, as a society, have got to stop caring about dicks! Dicks have to stop symbolizing maleness, obviously, but they also have to stop symbolizing power, dominance, sexual agency and aggression, violence, and even sex itself. Like trans women can’t be free if the very conceptual presence of a penis represents an intrusion(!) of unwanted(!) sexuality(!) in public life. Like that’s why trans women are abhorrent to both male chauvinists and radical feminists, because both groups have extremely strong feelings about what a penis *represents*, and find the conceptual and actual presence of a woman with a penis to be simultaneously vile and nonsensical because they’ve loaded so much symbolic baggage onto both women and penises.

Anyway dicks are totally neutral body parts and seeing a dick, or a bulge in a swimsuit, or simply knowing that there’s a dick somewhere in the same bathroom as you isn’t harmful or violent

[metzo-the-pineapple-deactivated]

Also for the people saying "oh, what about my trauma!!!?"

That's not our problem. It's not.

I have trauma that is triggered by certain facial hair, trucks, certain names, one of my old nicknames, wheat fields, and more! But I don't make that other people's problem.

And I can't just go to every dude named Mike and say "change your name it's a trigger, don't go outside it's a trigger, shave it's a trigger, do this this and this because the world revolves around me."

What do you do when you have triggers?

You go to therapy. Learn coping skills. Deal with it, because your trauma cannot affect EVERYONE else.

Thanks.

[omnivore-odyssey]

And this right here folks is the problem with individualizing something that is sex based oppression of female people, a structural problem.

Male sexualized violence against females is a structural issue, it is a problem that comes from the structure of female oppression and male supremacy in our society. It is not an individual problem of a bunch of random individuals who just happened to have been harmed by “people with penises.” It is a problem of males having the power to rape females and being given that power by society, because society does not stop rapists nor does it protect women from sexualized violence.

Telling all of us women that it’s simply all in our heads and we should simply go to therapy so that we can be brainwashed into believing that we are safe in all spaces in which males are present, is not only blaming women for our own rational concerns about safety, but it’s also trying to take a systemic issue of male violence against females and make it just an individual problem. Victim blaming on two levels. Impressive.

I don’t have to go to therapy to be convinced that males should be allowed in spaces where I am undressed or otherwise extraordinarily vulnerable. I have a right to spaces in which I am among only other females in specific circumstances in which my safety is a concern.

If I were to go to therapy and the therapist were to convince me that males in general aren’t a danger, I would be raped about five times more, because that therapist would be lying to me in order to pretend that males and females pose the same threat to my safety. Males and females DO NOT post the same threat to my safety. I will not be lied to nor will I perpetrate a lie that males and females are equally dangerous to females.

Our trauma is YOUR PROBLEM. because you are trying to get me to agree to a lie that will leave more women vulnerable to abuse like I’ve experienced. Women don’t need to experience any male violence at all to claim a female exclusive space for ourselves, but it’s particularly egregious that you would go to a group of traumatized sexually violated women and tell them to shut up and submit to any and all males with the penises and the crime stats to back it, into female safe spaces. You are literally trying to victim blame the entire community of a female sexualized male violence survivors who don’t want to open the door for any man claiming a woman identity. This is pure hatred of females and support of male supremacy. Misogyny in its basic form, revamped. 

You are saying; any women who have an issue with being raped or having penises in any and every space where women are vulnerable and naked need to shut the fuck up about their trauma and submit to any male who wants to enter female spaces. You are saying; your trauma about men is unreasonable even though we have the statistics to back up all of your fears, so you need to shut up because some males won’t be allowed to do all of the things they want to do if you are outspoken about your experience of sexualized male violence. You are saying; trans womens entrance to female spaces is more important than females need for or feelings of safety.

You should be fucking ashamed of yourself for talking to rape victims this way, and you are proving every time people like you speak out just how much misogyny is deeply embedded into your psyche, and how little you give a fuck about any woman or a girl who is harmed by males.

[greenwire]

Okay, women's trauma is not your problem. But then your feelings of validation is not our problem either. See how that logic works?

[cloudytomboy]

Trans women will never be free until people stop having strong emotions about penises. Like we, as a society, have got to stop caring about dicks! Dicks have to stop symbolizing maleness, obviously, but they also have to stop symbolizing power, dominance, sexual agency and aggression, violence, and even sex itself. Like trans women can’t be free if the very conceptual presence of a penis represents an intrusion(!) of unwanted(!) sexuality(!) in public life. Like that’s why trans women are abhorrent to both male chauvinists and radical feminists, because both groups have extremely strong feelings about what a penis *represents*, and find the conceptual and actual presence of a woman with a penis to be simultaneously vile and nonsensical because they’ve loaded so much symbolic baggage onto both women and penises.

Anyway dicks are totally neutral body parts and seeing a dick, or a bulge in a swimsuit, or simply knowing that there’s a dick somewhere in the same bathroom as you isn’t harmful or violent

[dhakcjshkvjbd]

The epidemic of sexual violence that male people commit against female people, using their penises, isn’t the problem - no, people’s caution around penises that’s the problem.

It’s never “stop terrorizing and committing hate crimes against the female population and forcing them to constantly be on guard,” it’s never “we need to restructure law enforcement and the justice system so that rapists face harsh penalties and there are quick and effective interventions when males demonstrate sexual aggression toward women.” It’s just “women need to stop having feelings about their own assault and oppression, they’re making penis people feel like their penises aren’t neutral :( “

[divinedionne]

“dicks are totally neutral body part”

This is what all of trans activism does. Declares a new fantasy reality while completely ignoring the present day, material reality of women and girls. And if women and girls dare to prioritize their present day lived experience over the idealized trans fantasy- we’re villainized.

The constant forcing of sex neutrality in a world where women and girls are still victimized and targeted on the basis of sex is nothing less than a form of psychological terrorism.

Notice the message of this post was not about doing anything to stop the rape and assault of women. There is no suggestion about what is to be done about the daily occurrences that cause the penis to be represent an intrusion! of unwanted! sexuality!

The suggestion of for women to just will themselves stop seeing it that way.

All trans activism does is challenge women’s boundaries, sanity and police our thoughts and feelings. Not the patriarchy or male violence.

[girlactionfigure]

[sazandorable]

There’s a French BD/comic series currently being published about her!

[jellyfishjulie]

ladies invented your favorite science fiction subgenres

Margaret Cavendish - Mary Shelley -  Emma Orczy - Catherine Lucille Moore

[ii----------------------ii]

need more WOC on this board

[jellyfishjulie]

You’re right!

Pauline Hopkins - Begum Rokeya - Octavia E. Butler

[ayellowbirds]

in other words, ladies invented science fiction, period.

[profeminist]

TINA BELL'S HIDDEN LEGACY: THE BLACK WOMAN WHO CREATED THE SOUND OF GRUNGE

In 1983, the Seattle band Bam Bam, fronted by a talented, elegant Black woman named Tina Bell, created a sound and lyrical foundation for a genre white men with knit hats and plaid shirts would later make famous as "grunge."

“Did you know that before Nirvana, before Alice in Chains, before Stone Temple Pilots, a Black woman fronted (what is likely) the first grunge band? If not, the reason you wouldn’t know that is in no way your fault; the story has been kept off the record and out of print.

Turns out, in the ‘80s, Bam Bam performed at big Seattle fests, shared bills with popular bands, created videos that made it to TV, and were twice-honored as Best NW Band by listeners of KCMU/KEXP.   

Toying with off-kilter timings and slow, sludgy rhythms nearly ten years before the Seattle sound hit the mainstream, Bam Bam not only provided reference material for the movement, they were the first Seattle band to lay down tracks at Reciprocal Recording– the location of Nirvana’s famous demo session for songs featured on Bleach and Incesticide. 

Evidently, the “right people” had heard them, enjoyed them, and even recorded them! The Melvins even opened for them when Kurt Cobain went on tour as their roadie! The band’s recordings are solid, they’re attractive and talented, with a bombshell lead singer, so, why wasn’t Bam Bam included on Deep Six, the 1986 C/Z Records Seattle showcase compilation that featured Reciprocals’ early grunge recordings?!?!?

Sadly Tina, who fronted Bam Bam until 1990, died in 2012. So, although she isn’t here to share her memories or feelings, people close to her continue to fight for visibility of her legacy.”

Read the full piece here and 

WATCH THIS VIDEO!

[profeminist]

#BlackHistoryFact  - African American Inventor Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner is known for developing the sanitary pad  

MEFeater Magazine 

“She and her sister were both inventors, creating and patenting inventions for household use. Her sanitary belt wasn’t put into use until 30 years after she invented it because the company rejected her when they found out she was a Black woman.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kenner

- @MythjaeComics

The Forgotten Black Woman Inventor Who Revolutionized Menstrual Pads

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner was a self-taught inventor who created the sanitary belt and filed five patents in her lifetime.

“https://twitter.com/MythjaeComics/status/1225209347510358017