Notices by Rachel, Femme Doux Naturel (ykantrachelread@kolektiva.social)

they're disabled, can't work, and have been dealing with horrid chronic pain these past few weeks. they don't hold any real power, and they were just trying to do a bit of good in this fucked up world. and so much of their support network just fucking abandoned them at the drop of a fucking hat.

I'm so sad and angry and uggghhhhh

all of this shit just reminds me of why I'm so cynical about "leftist organizing." there's just so many traumatized people who bring all of their anger and alienation with them into spaces and then lob it at the first tempting target (usually a transfem person when one's available, but almost always someone marginalized and effectively powerless), with predictably destructive results.

@nyx it'll keep happening because, in the eyes of cishet and TME folks, we're "men" who are simultaneously proximal to the patriarchy, and unable to call on the patriarchy once we're threatened.

we're "privileged," and deserve to be held accountable for our "privilege," and yet have little to no effective privilege in practice.

so obviously we have targets on our fucking backs the moment we venture out of our communities.

feeling Big Sads tonight 😟 I just chatted with a friend (transfem, to be clear) for the first time in a couple weeks, and found out that the reason I hadn't heard from them is that they're dealing with the fallout from a Hot Allostatic Load moment.

shit just never stops for us. fuck.

I've seen multiple well-meaning people stating that using the term "HOA" for WP and her inner circle is inappropriate, and I just wanted to address that here.

the use of the term "HOA" to describe the FediHOA is referring not to a specific analogous situation, but instead to a *dynamic.* namely, that of a bunch of Very Concerned Citizens wielding oligarchical power to keep Undesirables out in the name of Protecting The Community. it's similar to using "apartheid state" to describe Israel, even though the oppressed and oppressor class don't map on to South African Apartheid.

I know that so many of us are autistic here, and that we're prone to taking things literally, so I hope this helps in that respect.

funny how an art-focused instance would make it a sticking point to defed from the entirety of the Weird Transfemiverse when weird transfem people are, disproportionately, making some of the most interesting art out there on fedi

but when you consider that WP's own art is mostly bland stoner fractal shit that she calls "mandalas," well, it becomes obvious that that's just one more thing that she's not qualified to judge

I saw a mutual have the take "HRT should be OTC" over the weekend, and you know what? that's a fucking killer take. I couldn't agree more.

the FUD over HRT is 99.9% cis people not being able to empathize with the trans experience, and 0.1% truscum being truscum. any amount of gatekeeping that we agree is "legitimate" is a concession that we're making to the cis.

and if you're gonna come at me with "but but what about detransitioners/what if someone takes hormones for foolish reasons,"

then I don't want to hear it until you condemn with multiple orders of magnitude in veracity the diet programs, weight loss drugs and bariatric surgeries being sold to fat people en masse - and how those are creating a literal epidemic of regrets, complications and preventable illnesses. because that's not hypothetical - it's happening right now, as we speak.

cis people spreading "white trans women" rhetoric: please read this.

"I want cisgender readers who are familiar with how white privilege contributes to the evils of the racist system to recognize that cisgender privilege actually exists, and cisgender privilege is so pervasive that it effectively negates nearly all of the assumed privileges of trans people, even white trans women.

[...]

"I lack even the most minimalist expectations of safety in public that white cisgender women have. Because most of you don’t believe me. You don’t accept that I truly was a little girl trapped in the room with boys, traumatized, assaulted, unsafe, and generally unwanted. At any moment someone can bring violence to me by claiming that I am dangerous or not different enough from a man, and more people will believe them than they should."

https://tuzemi.dreamwidth.org/71243.html

@RenewedRebecca I'm not sure, since I'm not on Bluesky. this is something I heard secondhand through a contact who is, though the contact did provide receipts.

additionally, read the part again about how feminist, queer and social justice spaces will go to any lengths to find ways to frame transfem people as privileged.

sound familiar? sort of like how our asking for access needs on the fediverse, from a project that's supposed to make fedi safer for marginalized people, was immediately turned back around on us to characterize us all as a bunch of racist miscreants for not asking politely enough, or in the right way, or even for asking at all?

would any other marginalized group be treated that way if they asked for an access need in a similar fashion?

I think it's obvious here that the answer is, "no."

I think I should be clear here, because there's been a lot of inflammatory rhetoric coming out of my brain and spilling on to the fediverse this week.

I don't think that the FediHOA are approaching anything with bad intentions or in bad faith. I think they believe that they're doing good, and that they intend to *do* good. nobody involved in this situation is getting up out of bed and going, "today I'm gonna do a transmisogyny (or a racism)!" that's fash shit, and there aren't any fash involved in this drama.

so, anyone treating anyone else like they *are* fash, needs to fucking check themselves. (that's why I have mekka blocked, for instance. dude needs to issue an unequivocal apology for the "trans fascists" shit, like, yesterday, and then I'll maybe consider letting him back on my feed.)

I think that Ro sincerely believes that he's doing good for the Black community and for the fediverse as a whole. however, in the process, he ran into a mile-wide gap in his understanding of social justice (trans/transfem issues). and instead of exercising inquisitiveness as one would expect from an ally, he let his massive ego take over and do the talking for him. and that's led him down a deeply transmisogynist path that I sincerely hope he comes back from.

ditto for Welshpixie and her fediblock efforts, though there's an additional layer there. unlike Ro, who at least knows how to execute a project intended to help people, Pixie is just straight up fucking clueless as to how to do social justice praxis. and not only does she have no inquisitiveness with regard to social justice issues that she doesn't understand - she also completely lacks inquisitiveness with regard to herself and her own behavior. Ro I can see becoming an ally if he does the inner work to get his ego in check. Pixie is just a lost fucking cause unless she has a genuine come-to-Jesus moment.

in both cases, though? well, in all cases, social justice praxis starts with oneself. you can't grow nourishing fruit from rotted roots. inner work is the absolute most important thing that we can do as leftists and people who care about marginalized communities, and the work never, ever stops.

and does it matter that these people are peddling rancid apples while sincerely believing that they taste delicious? hell yes it does. I'm not one of those "impact > intent" people. down that path lies turning yourself into a cop. gaze into the abyss, etc etc.

but the fact remains is that those apples are poisoning people as we speak. and the people doing the dealing need to do better for themselves and our community here.

the 'R' in 'KYLR' stands for Russell Brand

(this post is satire and is not intended to cause actual harm to anyone)

@abolisyonista serious answer: that and a certain other line make it obvious that the filmmakers should've run the script by a few indigenous folks before filming

@goatsarah right back at you 😁 ❤️

@deilann here I was just contemplating how silly it is that a handful of bad actors were trying to use this situation as a soapbox to do racist "The Black Community" is transphobic" shit. because this isn't a Black Community problem and it never even remotely has been.

as a transfem person, I feel SO much safer in poor/working-class BIPOC-dominant spaces than I do in middle/professional-managerial-class white-dominant spaces. in my experience, the latter are WAY more likely to be transmisogynist, because petit-bougie class politics combined with whiteness just train people to be all sorts of bigoted in sneaky, passive-aggressive, polite-sounding ways.

pretty much the only good thing about drama like the past few days is that it makes it clear who will and won't show up for me when the transmisogynists eventually come for me, too, and has allowed me to cull my follows accordingly.

like, this shit isn't about me in particular, and it sure isn't transactional. I don't stand up for my sisters and siblings because I expect anything in return.

but if all it takes for someone to turn on one or more of my sisters and sibs is one or a few liberal transphobes throwing a temper tantrum, then that person sure as hell isn't safe company for anyone in our community, myself included.

@anarchopunk_girl :QueerCatHeart_Trans:

to be clear, "failing to differentiate transfem people from cis men" is literally the root of all transmisogyny.

dude said the quiet part out loud years ago, and now there's receipts.

I think we can put this issue to bed now.

@AnarchoNinaWrites oh look at that, the person sticking their fingers in their ears and going "NUH UH TRANS FASCISTS" is, in fact, just an outright transmisogynist

scratch a liberal, etc etc

there's probably a lot of trans girls on my timeline who need hugs after the past couple of days, and while I can't *actually* give out real-life hugs on the fediverse, I do want y'all to know that I would if I could ❤️