#monetizeyourcat

[centralkvetchmonolith]

Every time (EVERY TIME) someone writes "minecraft youtuber" via initialism I think it's 2015(?) again and they're talking about a canceled gender theorist with a minor cult of personality

[werewolfchoir]

I noticed that old posts I made on here about Tumblr user monetizeyourcat (MYC) have gotten a couple notes each, and also that they come up when you search her username on Tumblr. I wonder --why-- people are searching for commentary about her now? I admit-- it makes me kinda uneasy to think about people rubbernecking defunct scene bullshit under the guise of holding someone they’ve never interacted with accountable in an abstract way (or worse, by harassing her or creating some kind of KF-style dossier). So here’s some context for my previous posts.

For the record, I basically stand by those posts, but I haven’t been anywhere near MYC’s online circles for years. I don’t know what she’s up to (though after I posted them, I received testimony from a different ex about being abused by her and also largely unaware of her participation in Tumblr circles). (I’ll redact this if the person described here asks me.)

I don’t know about MYC’s current views or advocacy for them, and it remains very possible she’s recanted the ones I discussed. Frankly, I don’t really care if she holds these views as an individual-- I care more about her capacity to persuade other people to adopt similar views. It’d be nice if she acknowledged the (indirect) moral pressure she exerted on trans men around her and the damaging emotional consequences of trying to revise one’s gender identity (both internal and social) to fit an ideological mold. I believe it’s misguided and wrong to ask trans men to disidentify with manhood, to socially detransition, etc. I believe that her confident, repeated advocacy for these views under a banner of (trans-inclusive) radical feminism harmed specific trans people around her.

But I didn’t post with the intent of holding her accountable for those views and afaict they aren’t particularly influential ones anymore. (There are also far more people who believe in some generic transphobic radfem version of this, as Ky Schevers addresses in her writing about ideological detransition.)

 In terms of live issues, I’m frankly more concerned about MYC’s abusive and manipulative patterns towards partners-- I have no idea if MYC’s put any effort into changing her behavior in intimate relationships or even acknowledging the way she’s harmed others. I sincerely hope that she’s on a trajectory towards taking responsibility for and changing those abusive patterns, but as a stranger on the Internet I’m not in a position to litigate that.

 I will note that I believe everyone deserves dignity, and I don’t condone the harassment of MYC-- it only creates more suffering without repairing harm. 

[artists-table]

ITAP of a sunset via /r/itookapicture https://ift.tt/2ldiAJq by MonetizeYourCat

[werewolfchoir]

I know we're all over this moment, but boy oh boy the MYC era emphasis on the choices you make (around transness, in this case) simultaneously being 1) personally liberating and 2) the only ethical individual choice and 3) good for The Collective troubled me. Especially in a context of actually demanding considerable personal sacrifice-- asking people to stop identifying as men and to reject their desire to do so as unethical, for example, as the bare minimum for being a decent person. But don't worry, just remember that it's life-changing and liberating and wonderful for you to be trans, so long as you subordinate your actual desires to the good of the collective. It's a toxic ideological combination when it doesn't admit of exceptions or recognition of internal contradiction, and MYC's circle adopted it to a dogmatic extreme.

In my mind, there's a link between this awful ideology and other people in this period insisting on 1) transness as liberating and fulfilling for most everyone, even though most people did that in a lot less cultish a way. Yes, it feels bad to resent their rhetoric, because the people in question weren't responsible for the most harmful ideas of that time (which I see as pressuring people to make these choices based on selling them as ethical requirements). That's complicated by the fact that people I respect-- including people I count as friends today-- unfortunately adopted the MYC ideology then, which they sorely regret, even if they weren't its most vocal proponents. So I associate their championing of 1) with the other, shittier ideas (and that's maybe unfair to them).

But to be honest, I also find 1) shortsighted and harmful in a sense. Not because I believe in identity gatekeeping or that we should counter trans positivity with dogmatic pessimism, but because I think that transness is a marginalized social category. So defining it in terms of its liberating potential actually obscures a lot of the things that --constrain-- trans lives, which aren't inherent and etern but which you shouldn't dismiss as incidental either. So while there is value in "Yes, you can transition!" and diversity in trans narratives, treating it as universally liberating fails people at times.

[werewolfchoir]

At the height of the MYC era, I experienced one of the worst mental health crises of my life. MYC, of course, didn't do that to me. But she still had a tremendous influence on trans subcultures at the time, in ways that spilled into my offline support systems.

At least two people I knew irl, whom I considered myself in Community with, adopted her line on trans men. One of these people was a close friend, whom I forgive for their actions in this period. (To said friend: you don't follow this blog, but I'm willing to address any concerns this post sparks should you read it.)

I'll expand on the ways that I participated and benefitted from this ideology in another post, but I do want to now that when I call the dogmatic adherence to those three beliefs toxic, I'm speaking in reference to my own life. It fucked me up to hear how transness could liberate me, in the same breath as someone harshly constraining many of those same choices, moralizing about my desires, and demanding I subordinate my well-being to the collective. (But don't think about it like that, bc personal needs and political liberation never conflict. If you disagree, you just don't understand my ideology well enough.)

I know of multiple isolated, mentally ill trans men or transmasc people who felt pressured by this ideology in the same way, in spaces that supposedly ~affirmed their transness~.

Maybe it sounds like a cold take bc yeah MYC bad, as an ideologue and as a perpetrator of IPV, but I think there's potential for harm when you have those three ideas together in a way that doesn't come apart. Meaning that these problems don't necessarily end when you oust a bad actor. And I don't mean to sensationalize these ideological problems, to put them on the level with someone who's done serious harm to people around her, but it's valuable to think through the parallels even in situations where there isn't an abusive person w/ a cult of personality.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Do consider the following:

Keanu Reeves breakfast yogurt fusion

I really wonder what is going on in the heads of people who think this is an OK pitch

[artists-table]

ITAP of a girl on a dune via /r/itookapicture https://ift.tt/34RbOez by MonetizeYourCat