why do people on this hellsite have “terfs don’t interact” in their description but send terfs who have never interacted with them an emoji when they block us??
i don’t really make a lot of personal posts on here, but something really nice happened with me and my gf having to do with radical feminism!
this is very long and rambly oof
to preface this, i have a brother and sister whom i am very close to who are extremely invested in queer theory and MOGAI and other things like that. they have bullshit orientations, like my brother is generfluid pansexual and my sister is nonbinary panromantic asexual. for that reason, i don’t really talk about my ~terfy~ views irl and try to remain anonymous on here because i’m afraid of being estranged from them. i understand that’s quite spineless of me but i’m kinda hoping they’ll come around, my brother is 18 and my sister is still a minor. i supported that shit when i was younger so part of me wants to believe that they’ll gain some common sense. i’m also the oldest in my family so i’ve just always taken care of them so it would be very difficult for me and them if i distanced myself because of my radfem views.
my brother and i are already on sort of thin ice because he told me i was transphobic and not a real lesbian for being a lesbian who doesn’t want penis in her life. my sister is much more understanding and supportive of me as a lesbian but believes straight aces are LGBT and that kind of thing.
again, i understand that it’s not right that i risk emotional estrangement if i share my views but anything can happen and i have hope for them.
NOW THAT I SAID ALL THAT, my gf and i have been dating for about 6 months and have known each other for almost a year. in the past she dated two trans women, both of whom were extremely abusive, emotionally and sexually. one coerced her into sex at 14, and another ended up being a rapist. after dating the rapist, she refused to date any more trans women because of her experiences and was driven off social media by the trans community.
i was scared that she would break up with me if she knew my radfem views. this obviously wasn’t a good mindset to have, but i know better now. throughout our relationship we’ve had small conversations about trans women with toxic masculinity and male privilege and she agreed with me on everything. i was just nervous to share all my views because of my experiences with my siblings.
we were just talking and she asked me if she could say something that’s “kinda transphobic.” i told her that it’s probably not, and she started talking about how trans lesbians still experience male privilege, how they feel entitled to womens’ (especially lesbians’) bodies, how they never experienced what it’s like to be ashamed of your attractions, etc. she also revealed that she was never actually attracted to trans women and was pressured into dating them because she didn’t want to be lesbian, which is why she thought she was asexual while she dated them. i was taken aback because i had no idea she had the same views i did.
we found out that we were both afraid to tell the other our radfem views because we were afraid the other would think what we thought was transphobic and end the relationship.
this was a growing experience for us. i understand that we should have just talked about it in the first place, but i suppose our experiences and fear of being witch hunted held us back. we’re falling more and more in love every day and we have a better understanding of each other, and are more open with our beliefs now and have really nice political discussions.
i’m just so happy that we’re not scared anymore and that everything worked out for us. i love her so much and we’re both trying to get more comfortable with being lesbians despite hatred from the trans community. we’re growing together and i’ve never been happier.
this semester i decided to enroll in my university’s women’s college and live on the women’s campus and i’ve never been happier at school! i feel so much safer walking around at night and waiting for the bus since it’s mostly women here.
The Watchler family moved from Cleveland, the birth place of their second child, Carol Watchler--March 4, 1942 at St. John’s Hospital. Nearby her grandparents house in Rocky River, OH, lived a toddler-aged Carol Watchler atop her tricycle.
Watchler must’ve been between the ages of two and three when she rode her tricycle, for she was newly three by the time the family drove their vehicle into the celebratory end of World War II, May 8, 1945. “We were all bundled in the car where the confetti poured. I remember buildings,” shared Watchler.
Glancing through the computer screen, Watchler nudges the camera to continue the interview. “Is that okay? Can you see me?” she inquired. Observing the brim of her royal blue fleece, Watchler sits beneath a painting in the home she has kept in lieu of the many gifts of artistry she and her late partner, Women’s Rights, Reproductive Rights, and LGBTQIA+ Rights activist, Ann Baker have been gifted over the years. Watchler, also known as the original camp fire kid form her girl scout years, lives in a deep collection of life, spirituality and love.
Watchler grew up in a household of three sisters and a younger brother, navigating the world as it be, full of outdoor life, music, and justice. Watchler’s parents invested in her future. From the time the activist was 12-years-old, she tested out of seventh into her final year of middle school. From this, the Watcher family gave their full support. This support would eventually grow even more bountiful.
Not always understanding their daughter’s sexuality, 1998 was the year Watchler’s father would stand on the lawn of her Roosevelt, NJ home to announce his support for his daughter’s 25-year partnership.
However, when the time came to begin college, Watchler decided she wanted to join a convent. Having already spoke to her mother about delaying college for ministry work, the young activist, would soon have to tell her father.
“That was my first time coming out,” said Watchler. A moment in 1959 that would assert where she would aspire and inspire onward.
Watchler’s attention to ministry work surrounds the belief that we as conscious beings in the journey of evolution are continuously revolving toward the reality of a community of love. It was in that time that Watchler’s advocacy work would only grow and intersect.
In 1966 Watchler began to teaching math, science and religion in an all Catholic girl’s high school. Her extensive teaching career took the educator to all new insights of righteousness. Within Watchler’s 37 years of teaching she received the NEA Virginia Uribe Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights and the NJEA Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights Award, and eventually would leave ministry work to live with the love of her life.
It was in 1973 that Baker and Watchler would move in together. Their move would ignite much of Watchler’s future in activism and advocacy. “I didn’t want to push you,” Watchler recalls Baker saying. “I knew that being with Ann was the right thing to do.”
The pair moved into Trenton, NJ where Carol would work for Trenton State College (now known as The College of New Jersey).
A true dynamic pair, the fierce activists would work day after day. “I would have a call at 7pm, a call at 8pm, a call at 9pm, and a call from LA or San Francisco at 11pm,” reminisced Watchler. Today, she is still this active at taking calls and completing workshops for LGBTQIA+ equality for the future of education in America. This transition as an educator continued in Watchler’s position as Co-Chair of the Gay Straight Education Network of Central New Jersey brought her many organized opportunities.
The annual GSA Forum began 17 years ago after a student and activist peer of Watchler would face discrimination from their school. The youth would introduce Watchler and HiTOPS LGBTQIA+ Coordinator and Health Educator of the time Corrine O’Hara. With the Trans youth forum manifesting over these years, hundreds upon hundreds of LGBTQIA+ students, educators, allies and parents from all over the state come together for change and community.
At 78-years-old, Watchler has since become the Community Outreach Coordinator of the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice in Princeton, NJ where she continues to influence, inspire the needs and rights of LGBTQIA+, black and brown lives, education, women, ministry, politics and all the intersections that take massive life tolls on worldwide disenfranchised communities.
“Does your husband know you’re doing this?” That was one of the questions Democrat Jillian Gilchrest faced when she went door-to-door across West Hartford, Conn., in her first political campaign ever. “Yes, he does, and he supports me 100-percent,” Gilchrest told the skeptical man.
Skeptics were decidedly outnumbered in the August primary in which Gilchrest defeated a 23-year incumbentfor his…
