#cos is thinking

[cosmicconstruct]

Okay I've been trying very hard to restrain myself and not get involved in discourse but like-- y'all know androphobia affects more than just trans men, right? In my gender studies classes it usually comes up first to discuss the villainization of Black masculinity and the portrayal of Black people as uniquely masculine in the "wrong" way. Even in the context of trans people, trans women usually get brought up first because of the right-wing rhetoric painting transfemmes as predatory men. And androphobia isn't supposed to be a 1:1 correlation for misogyny-- that's why we don't use the term misandry. At least as it's used in my classes, androphobia is about weaponizing percieved masculinity against someone who is in some other way marginalized, regardless of whether that person is even a man-- Black women and trans women are frequent targets of androphobia!

And it fucks me up to see people painting discussions of androphobia as speaking over transfemmes, because we're missing an opportunity to explore the elements of the social imagination that underpin our collective oppression. The idea that being male, amab, masc, on T, etc. makes a person evil, violent, scary, predatory, etc. is used against transfemmes and transmascs alike; it's used against intersex people; it's used against cis butches; it's used against people who aren't even queer! But instead of criticizing a facet of our shared oppression collectively, people on here are arguing about who has the right to speak up about their own experiences. It's so fucking disheartening, and it makes me long to be back in the classroom, where people with a wide variety of personal experiences are so much more happy to listen and learn from each other.

[cosmicconstruct]

Friendly reminder to everyone that RFK is pulling directly from the Nazi playbook when he talks about eradicating autistic people because we don't pay taxes. Follow-up reminder that the correct response to this is not "some autistic people pay taxes" it's horror at the notion that our government is talking about getting rid of people purely on the basis of how productive they are for the government. People talk a lot about how aspergers is a term made by the Nazis. They say it was to separate "good" and "bad" autistic people. What they never mention is that the difference between these designations was being sent to a labor camp versus being killed. Being low support needs or high masking does not make any of us safe. We all need to talk about this beyond "Lol he thinks we don't pay taxes".

[cosmicconstruct]

I think I just put something together. I've been thinking about allistic culture and the fact that allistics often take genuine questions as an attempt to invalidate. For example, asking for clarification about a task at work being met with "don't question me," or asking what you did wrong when someone is upset with you being met with "you should know." And the thought struck me that this particular facet of allistic culture shares roots with my struggle to get my own boundaries met, especially when my boundaries are unusual.

Because if me not understanding someone's boundary is taken as me invalidating it... that implies that allistics tend to, on some level, believe that any boundary that is not easy to understand is invalid. "Why would you need that" is said dismissively to me when I say I need a break from a family gathering; "what did we even do" is said dismissively when a party gets too loud and I become selectively mute, so of course when I sincerely ask what I did or what someone needs, that can be taken as dismissive, too.

Worse than the communication issues it causes, I worry about everyone, autistic or not, growing up in a culture that says it's wrong to have needs that need explaining. I worry about the implication that everyone should have relatively the same boundaries, and I also worry about the notion that respecting boundaries and meeting needs is not something worth putting in effort to communicate about.

[cosmicconstruct]

I know "it's so brave that you're wearing that even though you're fat" is usually backhanded anyway, but I think what bothers me most about it is that it assumes that no one ever heals from the effects of beauty standards. Bravery implies that I'm scared. I don't find wearing clothes that show off my fat and stretch marks scary. I find it fun. I'm not brave; I'm happy. And implying that wearing certain clothes or doing certain things as a fat person always requires bravery implies that that kind of healing isn't possible. I don't want people getting that message.

[cosmicconstruct]

Ableism often comes from the same place as "I'm not racist, I just want black people to (act like white people)" or "I'm not homophobic, I just want gay people to (act like straight people)", which is to say that it comes from humans' base rejection of people that do not remind them of themselves. Part of why it is so hard for disabled people, especially mentally ill people, to gain footing as a movement is because it is harder for us to make the "just like you" appeal. The "just like you" appeal also leads to huge chunks of communities being left behind, not just within groups of people but within individuals who give up a part of their identity for safety from the majority. There are no true victories until people can look at someone whose existence seems completely alien to theirs and still call them a neighbor and a friend.

[cosmicconstruct]

Thinking about degrees of reality with psychotic disorders, because like, the things that I see aren't real, but the fact that I see them is real. My delusions and hallucinations are real experiences even though they don't represent the common, shared reality. Remembering an episode isn't the same as remembering a dream or a movie you watched; it feels the same as remembering anything else you did/experienced because delusions feel the same as any other experience while they're happening. I have flashbacks to some of my delusions that are worse than the flashbacks I have to certain real-life experiences-- because those delusions are also real-life experiences, and being able to tell myself after the fact that it "wasn't real" is a minimal comfort at best and feels like gaslighting at worst.

Most people's closest experience to paranoid psychosis is feelings of anxiety or paranoia, and so they have the gut response of "Oh, but your delusions aren't real" because that's what they say to themselves to calm down when they're anxious/paranoid. Most people's closest experience to grandiose psychosis is overestimating themselves, and once again their instinct is to give a reality check because that's what they would do for themselves. But "Oh don't worry, there's probably no one in your house" doesn't help when I am looking at someone who is in my house, or when I can vividly remember the person that was in my house last Friday. Most people are used to deluding themselves, something that they can stop doing if they work at it, but this shit is just happening to me and it will continue to happen and there's nothing I can do about it. So it kind of is necessary to treat me like someone whose house gets broken into once a week, because I kind of am that someone.