Vibrancy Victoriam

System blog, mostly reblogs. About Us + BYF | Tags

[dabwax-deactivated20250410]

I can't wait to punch up this video essay a bit bc like.

Why do so many queer folks think "cis boys with gynecomastia" 1. Were not studied like lab rats by John Money as hermaphrodites 2. Would all want their tits removed because they all are binary cis guys, ignoring that most of them are 15 and are riding the waves of peer pressure and pressure from every aspect of society to not be intersex

River Gallo, Salvadoran filmmaker, actor, and intersex activist, was born with a penis but no testicles. As a kid, they were told they'd have prosthetic testicles implanted to help them appear more like an average male. As a teen, the surgery happened. I can only assume that, at the time, they sort of went along with it and agreed that it'd help them, because they were raised being told "You are wrong but this will fix you." I also agreed to shit as a teen under that pressure.

Nowadays, River presents their gender like this and feels upset and violated that they were pressured into a surgery they never wanted nor needed:

So when you're talking about "cis boys with gynecomastia" getting surgeries they "wanted" as teens, you're reinforcing systemic intersexism AND transphobia. Why assume all of these kids would be cis in the end? Why assume all cis people wouldn't be okay with their sex not conforming? I'm literally in that latter group and I was forced onto sex normalizing hormones as a teen that I consented to under coercion. Why is systemic intersexism reinforced within the queer community?

Why the fuck do trans people especially keep saying "cis boys with gynecomastia" like. Say intersex. It's not a dirty word. And given around 40% of all intersex respondents to a Trevor Project survery were cis (meaning 60% weren't cis) yall are really fucking up by saying shit like that.

[mariasklodowskastwixbar-deactiv]

Hey op, sorry as this is probably a really dumb question but is this post about the group of people who are intersex and identify as "cis boys with gynecomastia" or is this about non intersex people forcing that label onto intersex people in order to hurt or push them into unwanted surgeries?

[dabwax-deactivated20250410]

This is about how both Contrapoints and Alexander Avila have cited "cis boys with gynecomastia" as examples of cis people getting "easier access" to "gender affirming" surgeries in their arguments in favor of trans kids getting surgeries, using us in a particularly violent and dehumanizing way and thereby shooting themselves in the foot but 99% of their audiences are ignorant as fuck about us too so they'd never think twice about this intersexist bioessentialism. Meanwhile saying THIS directly before using "cis boys with gynecomastia" and never once acknowledging intersex people or our activism once, despite our community having recorded footage of activist meetings going back to the 90s:

This is about how perisex trans people make the assumption that every child assigned male would want surgery to remove his breasts if he started growing them. This is about casual bioessentialism and intersexism in the trans community and how genuinely blind all of you are to it, because of COURSE you'd want to make your sex traits binary so you're not degraded and dehumanized every single day. It's shocking how fucking often I have to wave a fistful of peer-reviewed articles of advocates and activists begging people to give a shit about us in a real way and I still can't even get past trans people being casually bioessentialist or even see when it's happening!!!!

Why is the baseline assumption that a man would absolutely 100% hate having breast tissue? Is it because we've arbitrarily assigned GENDERS to PHYSICAL BODY TRAITS that have always been vastly diverse? Isn't that fucking weird considering 95% of all infants born with ambiguous genitalia are subject to sex-normalizing cosmetic surgery that leaves damage? Why was my clit destroyed for being "too long" as a baby? What medical issue was it causing, and why now do I have to endure sexual dysfunction due to that? Because a girl wouldn't want a micropenis, duh! No girl would want that!! Why is my beard as automatically seen as "man" so aggressively that women who have known me my entire life started acting like I was an aggressive man when i stopped shaving what had been growing for longer than I knew them? Why are queer people so fucking bioessentialist and intersexist is the point here.

If they would have offered me labioplasty to make my pussy look more normal at age 15, I would have taken it. If they offered me facial feminization surgery, I would have taken it. Electrolysis. All of it. Because I was raised in the same society as all of you that tells us that sex traits must adhere to a white supremacist binary structure otherwise we are monsters that literally get thrown in dumpsters or sold to circuses in ye olde times. Nobody had to tell me to start shaving my face every single day at age 11 - nobody KNEW I was doing it. I knew what I had to do to fit in. So do these INTERSEX boys with gynecomastia. We opt in for shit that we never actually decided for ourselves because it's our only option as children. Ever. And as adults, even gender clinics refuse to medicate us because they don't understand our physiology. It's exhausting. I'm tired tbh

[status-quo-hater]

Perisex trans people love to say they don't think of AGAB as synonymous with "biological sex" and then turn around and get pissed off at an intersex person AMAB for identifying their manhood as transmasculine because "you can't transition from male to male you're just cis"

And I'm just standing here like what the fuck do you think intersex means and what the fuck do you think AMAB means then 🧍🏻‍♂️

[aro-culture-is]

aro culture is making peace with the fact, whether or not I come out as aro, I will struggle to be understood. Not coming out causes people to think I'm calloused. Coming out causes people to lecture about romance to me. It's like damned if I do, damned if I don't, and I wish it wasn't like this. Sigh... I wanna cry.

honestly... I was chatting with someone earlier today and recounted going to a queer event in 2017, and having a terrible time with aro and acephobia from a group leader, and the rest of the leadership wanting to improve the situation, but knowing nothing at all about the a-spec.

the leader of the queer resource center at my college now, in 2024, is ace. she runs an a-spec affinity group weekly. things get better, slowly but surely. we will live to see a-spec identities become known.

[wiltkingart]

Why do you make everything gay/trans?

why do i wake up in the morning and enjoy the sun on my face the fresh air in my lungs. why do i wonder at the intricacies of nature when i wander among trees. why do i delight in the colors of moss and the muffling qualities of loam like snow. why does my heart alight at the sound of rain, the weight of a storm. why do i smile at the sight of squirrels and birds and gasp at the glimpse of deer or elk. why do i roam. why do i open myself to all that can be known. why do i feel warmth in the presence of friends and curiosity in the presence of strangers. why do i tend gardens and visit oceans. why do i persist in pushing this aching body forward, day after day. why do i live

[tokay-blog]

[t-shrit]

for a satire news site they hit the nail on the head

[worldohworld-deactivated2019032]

Holy fuck

[indigipunk-deleted-deactivated2]

Something I learned in my brief experience with a journalism class is that The Onion is a prime example of truly successful satire.

All the times they “hit the nail on the head”, they are in fact achieving satire’s ultimate goal. To examine something free of bias, in a way that people are less likely to be sensitive toward a harsh reality.

Under the frame of a joke. Don’t discredit the work of the people behind The Onion just because they make you laugh. They know what they’re doing. And what they’re doing is important. They’re forcing people to rethink the way our system works without wasting the energy on big explanations, and it’s working.

[p0is0n-is-th3-cur3]

Having dreams crushed by disability is such a deeply traumatic experience, the realization that you’ll never be able to do the thing you want most in life because your body isn’t able to handle it. Waking up the day after you received the news and feeling that utter sense of heartbreak in your chest. Watching people go on and do those things while you sit on the sidelines, forced to watch bitterly. That feeling of being trapped, imprisoned by your inability to do what you love. The grief, the anger, the sadness. All because your body doesn’t allow you to.

[veluigi]

for me this isn't just personal, it is generational. i feel my dad go through this since i was a kid. i feel my mom fighting this now. i feel my sibling live in fear of it just is i did. i guess i shouldn't be fucking surprised

[dukeofankh]

If your vision for the deradicalization of right-wing men begins and ends with "other men telling them that that's gross and to stop it" then I'm sorry, you do not understand how masculinity works.

"Men who hold patriarchal status" and "men who are feminists" are two groups who overlap less than you want them to. I'm sorry. That's not solely because men are so happy with patriarchal status that they don't want to risk it by policing misogyny/queerphobia/racism, It's because being misogynistic, queerphobic, and racist, end expressing other forms of toxic masculinity(and often abusively so) are part of how people establish and maintain patriarchal status. The men who have the ability to stop this via nothing but peer pressure are the very people who are doing it. That's by design. And engaging in feminist intervention is, in and of itself, usually the abrupt end of that status and its associated power to persuade misogynistic men.

Like, I have worked in blue collar jobs as a notably queer person. It was pretty much a constant deluge of verbal abuse. In my experience, most blue collar work environments are exploitative, abusive, and bigoted, and very gleefully so. On the occasions I have spoken up about someone saying something that was super fucking out of line (asking me which of the girls walking by was hottest. We were installing a portable classroom at a middle school), believe it or not, they completely failed to be shamed! Because nobody else on the crew gave a fuck. *I* was the weird one. They ghosted me. A full blown company ghosted me. I suddenly didn't have a job anymore because they just straightforwardly stopped telling me where the next job site was.

Like, this doesn't mean that it's your job to do it, but this vision you have of these big groups of men where everyone is on the fence and there is precisely one shit stirrer who can be shut down by a brave feminist man who can single handedly set the example for all these other guys...you are high. You are describing an "everybody clapped" level absurd scenario. Most of these truly virulent misogynistic guys either have zero friends, because, you know, our society is atomized to fuck, or they are in a group where the feminist guy is actually the weirdo who can be shut down and ostracized much, much easier than the misogynists, because there is no such thing as a man misogynists respect who stands up for women.

You might be saying "well, we're talking about longstanding personal relationships, actually. Like, they need to have to want to spend time with you and then, as a side effect, you can mind control them out of being a threat to us."

Problem with that being:

1: Many feminist men also have no friends, see the atomized society above.

2: Feminist men already stopped hanging out with men who make rape jokes because why the fuck would we want to spend time with them.

3: That isn't just because we respect women so hard. We are in many cases talking about men who are also deeply queerphobic, heirarchical, violent and abusive to other men. What initially drew me to feminism and women was a lack of heirarchical squabbling and constant bullying, and the ability to be openly queer. A lot of men who came to feminism did so because they knew that the patriarchy was not a place they would find success or acceptance. These are not the men who are gonna be able to change right wing minds.

4. Men do not view themselves as a monolith. There is no universal brotherhood of men. The actual meaning of the term "Fragile masculinity" is that men are constantly expected to prove that they are deserving of the status of being a member of their own gender. There are large swathes of men--including most of the men who you'd look to as examples of good, feminist men who you want to undertake this project--who are considered failed men, sissies, f****ts, soyboys, ect. They are. Not. Going. To. Convince. These. Men. Of. Jack. Shit. Much less successfully *shame* them. Jesus.

I know all of this sucks. I know it would be cool to be able to just point at a group and have them be responsible for the work. But nah. It's gonna have to be a societal project, one that will probably outlast all of us. Sorry. The thing you want these men to do is, absolutely, the morally correct thing to do. But presuming that it would be effective is, and once again I am so sorry about this, just ignorance of how these social groups function.

[horonotes]

Some of the replies on this are driving me up the wall so, here we go.

To all the folks saying, "so what do we do, then?" and demanding a random ass stranger on Tumblr give them the answer to Solve Misogyny:

I think maybe you're not ready to be a part of this conversation or solution. Practice developing your critical thinking skills, go read a book. Maybe one with average sized paragraphs.

But since you're already here, OP did tell you something. That it's a societal project. That, like it or not, everyone living in a patriarchal society has a role to play.

"But why should I have to hold the hand of my oppressors?!" Good news, you don't! If you don't want to or have the ability to try to de-radicalize people, that's perfectly fine.

That just means your role in this is to Stop Involving Yourself. Stop engaging with sexists. Stop dunking on them online. Stop going on their podcasts. Try not to engage with them irl if possible. Focus your feminist activism away from hating men and towards supporting women--donating to women's charities/shelters, volunteering for women's organizations, etc. etc.

Even if, in your heart of hearts, you believe that men are fundamentally the cause of all evil: stop telling them that. Stop making de-radicalization work harder for the people who want to do that work.

"That's not fair!" No! No it fucking isn't! Sorry!!!!

Listen. I'm AFAB trans. I grew up in the conservative American Midwest. I've had to have some uncomfortable, unsafe talks with transphobic and sexist people--I also have certain privileges that give me the ability to do that. For fuck's sake I'm out as trans in rural Japan right now.

It's not fair that I have to single-handedly field some extremely invasive questions. It's not fair that I have to be out to people who very well might prefer me dead just so some ignorant people have the chance to learn that I Am Also A Human Too.

It's not fair, and it's not fair that I have to do this work and can't just pass it off to cis-folks.

I would also argue, maybe controversially, that it's not fair some people, through nothing but genetic lottery, ended growing up in a time or environment where they had bigoted beliefs burned into them, and now they're having to do the hard work of unlearning it, possibly decades and decades after the fact.

Neither is fair, but it's the reality and responsibility that comes with sharing a society of people with wildly different life experiences.

And let me tell you, it is so much easier to get someone to let go of bigoted beliefs when the people they've already been trained to hate aren't also, at the same time, telling them they're the scum of the earth.

I don't know if you've ever been yelled at, but have you noticed sometimes you're less inclined to listen to someone who is yelling at you??

So no, you don't have to hand hold them. You don't have to be besties. You, individually, are not obligated to fix men every time you encounter a shitty one.

But if you really want to help with undoing patriarchy (and other forms of bigotry), that starts with not stepping on the toes of people already doing the dirty work.

[genderqueerdykes]

if you or someone you know gets upset because you think it/its pronouns are inherently dehumanizing:

you or someone you know routinely uses "he" or "She" for inanimate objects or unsexed animals, meaning: biological sex unconfirmed. sex cannot be easily determined by looking at the animal. people use "he" for bugs and spiders for no reason. people use "She" for small or skinny dogs and "he" for big and threatening dogs for no reason. people will call computers he or she for no reason. people will refer to their cars and boats as she. people will prefer to their phones as he. it doesn't fucking matter, we don't do this with just it/its.

people use people use he/him to dehumanize trans women and fems and she/her to dehumanize trans men and mascs every day. people use she/her to dehumanize feminine gays and he/him to dehumanize masculine butch lesbians. people use he to be rude to masc cis and intersex women and she to be rude to fem and intersex men. intersex people in general are constantly dehumanized by he and she.

if you think it/its is this bad, it is because you use these pronouns to dehumanize people in a genuinely dangerous way, and that's your issue to work through. it/its is not any more inherently dehumanizing than she/her and he/him.

[johnnyslittleanimalblog]

[amvs]

this is so sweet 😭😭😭

[girlwith15cents]

[partypuppy-nastja]

The problem: a lot of people (especially, but not only, cis women) see us as guests in womanhood. Welcome guests sometimes, but guests nevertheless.

One which note, they even welcome us, "Welcome to being a woman" if we mention something typically associated with womanhood that often as not is not even remotely new to us.

Sometimes our name is on the guest list; sometimes it isn't. Sometimes they send enthusiastic invitations to womanhood, all ready to feminize the next potential egg in the line. Sometimes they feel we've overstayed our welcome in womanhood, and make that our problem.

[transmisogyny-explained]

[Image Text: “the ‘trans women are women’ leaving people’s bodies when a trans woman has opinions on being a woman” /End Image Text]

[balaclava-trismegistus]

Preoccupied by the way polyamory is treated with hate. I've gotten hate for even approaching the subject in the past. There's so much violent rhetoric and ideation surrounding it, so much genuine bigotry and prejudice towards people who practice it. But if you mention that, you get met with dismissal. It's not a big deal. You're taking it too seriously. Who gives a shit. Get over yourself. It is something that people respect so little that they refuse to even see it as a legitimate identity. Even left-wing progressive types will make jokes tantamount to thrashing blue-haired SJW snowflakes when it comes to polyamory. They're gross. They're weird. They're always cringe. It's never the people you want to be poly. I would rather kill myself. You'd think simply changing the structure of a relationship wouldn't be a problem, but even the most ardent defenders of equality can begin to say some pretty awful shit. Problem is, fundamentally, it is not seen as legitimate. It's not seen as deserving respect. There's all this handwringing about how these relationships are doomed to fail in order to justify this kind of thought and speech. It's bizarre to watch unfold. Frankly, it's the same sentiment and a lot of the same jokes as those cracked about nonbinary people. We're at a point where we've firmly accepted that everyone has a right to do what they want within the structure of social norms, you can take any side you want and do it with whoever you want. But as soon as you step outside of those norms, as soon as you go beyond the boundaries of social convention to find what suits you personally, everybody becomes a bitter reactionary.

[genderqueerdykes]

my heart goes out to every bisexual who gets told they're "just straight" or "just gay". my heart goes out to every bisexual who gets told bisexuality isn't real. my heart goes out to every bisexual who has to pick between being viewed as all gay or all straight. my heart goes out to every bisexual who has to present as gay in order to be seen as queer. my heart goes out to every bisexual gay and every bisexual lesbian who gets told their identity isn't real. my heart goes out to every trans bisexual who has their orientation invalidated because they are trans. my heart goes out to every bisexual who is demonized for being sexually active for one reason or another.

my heart goes out to every closeted bisexual. my heart goes out to every bisexual who can't come out. my heart goes out to every aro and ace bisexual who get harassed by those around them for being sexually promiscuous because of their bisexuality when they don't have sex or partners. my heart goes out to every bisexual who ever has their bisexuality called into question. my heart goes out to every bisexual who gets told to not show up to pride or queer support groups because they're "in a heterosexual relationship." my heart goes out to every bisexual who views all of their modes of attraction as queer and those around them do not respect that.

my heart goes out to every bisexual. it is a challenge to be seen correctly as bi, and to not be harassed, mocked, or belittled for it. i see you for who you are- you are allowed to define your bisexuality. someone refusing to see you as bi doesn't mean you're not. you shouldn't have to prove your bisexuality or perform it for anyone. it's not up for debate. i hope things get a bit easier for you soon. you are bisexual no matter what anyone else says

[genderqueerdykes]

i love you, trans women who are also men. i love you, trans men who are also women. much love to you if you're non binary, bigender, multigender, polygender, genderfluid, genderqueer, intersex, two spirit or whoever else you may be, you are loved and an important part of our communities, especially if you're girlfags, boydykes, lesboys, girlgays, gays, lesbians, sapphics and/or achilleans. love you all, stay safe

[falconwhitaker]

What patriarchy does to masculinity and femininity is the equivalent of what humanity did to those dogs with the faces so flat they can't breathe: it contorts them both over long periods of time to fit a standard it invented while causing indescribable amounts of pain and suffering.

[fleapit]

"cis men dni" are you ready to come out of your "no boys allowed" treehouse yet. its time for lunch.

[xxacidnekoxx]

"trans man are allowed in the "no boys" treehouse! OwO"

Me: yeah I'm sure I will feel really safe and totally not misgendered up there (sarcasm)

[leveractionlesbian]

gonna politely disagree with this one here, if yinz wanna correct me on any of this that's fine, but it feels like most cis dudes live their entire lives never (knowingly) experiencing the butt-end of misogyny. like idk it feels wrong to die on the hill of "women who are tired of cis men's entitlement and ineptitude should learn to just deal with them"

[starfieldcanvas]

it's not that women can't be tired of cis men. it's just that... what exactly is the alternative to learning to deal with >40% of the global population? are these tired women gonna go live in a separatist commune that never has any live births? women (usually radfems) do try that sometimes, but...without connections to the outside world it's hard to keep your numbers up as the group ages and sickens, and if you do have connections to the outside world then you have to learn to deal with men.

separatism simply is not a very sustainable or scalable solution. hence the sardonic question about being ready to come out of the treehouse yet.

the "cis men DNI" approach is, bluntly, the suicidal version of women's rights. it's announcing you've given up on a better world and you merely want to die in a lesbian separatist commune in rural france raising charming cottagecore alpacas while you wait for global warming to kill us all. it's a dead-end ideology.

here is an essay about cis men i think everyone who considers themselves a feminist should read in full:

I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out.

NOTE: Wow, I wrote this piece anonymously and privately and did not intend for anyone else to actually read it. It was a way for me to vent…

this put so many simmering things into words for me and challenged my perspective as well. i think a lot of people who consider themselves pro-trans feminists could stand to be challenged by this piece.

[onix]

"She is furious. She tells me I am a straight cis male and I need to shut up and listen. What she is really furious about is being contradicted by someone who, according to their facebook profile, has a lower ranking on the discourse clearance chart than she."

"But I know I am not straight, or cis, or a boy. I am nothing so simple as that. I am a girl who has been through a lot of shit and who has grown into symbiosis with her boy suit. But what else I know is that my point is my fucking point. Do I even want to convince someone who will only listen to me when they’re told by the rules that they have to see me as a girl?"

"More than a few out transwomen have told me, privately, they they are uncomfortable with these things, but are afraid that speaking up about it would cause ciswomen to like and trust them less. “I play along,” one of them told me, “because in the queer community the only people who defend cisboys are cisboys. I don’t want to give up finally being read as a girl.”"

-

Some of my favorite parts of this. It's a bit long, but genuinely I think it needs to be required reading.

[genderkoolaid]

if you ever catch yourself implying that the patriarchy encourages transmasculinity in any way, you not only fundamentally misunderstand transphobia but also apparently have selective memory when it comes to basic aspects of misogyny