Notices by Rachel Thorn (rachel_thorn@queer.party), page 6

@RachAirStailc I don't know, and I'm glad it's not my job to save them. If what you say is true, they're a lot like the supposedly rational conservatives who jumped on the Trumpism bandwagon because it seemed pragmatic to do so, and now they can't get off because they're more afraid of their own supporters than of Democrats.

@rain Thank you. That's what I thought. I haven't tried the advanced web interface yet. Multiple columns mess with my A.D.D. brain.

In retrospect, I see I had (rather intensely) internalized the transphobia of the 80s feminist scene because I desperately wanted to be a Good Feminist.

I still try to be a Good Feminist, but the definition of "Good Feminist" has changed. What we now call "White Feminism" was absolutely the norm, then. White feminists paid lip service to the concenrs of women of color, but there was always a passive-aggressive "not all white feminists" vibe.
The term "intersectionality" wasn't coined till 1989.

I was fairly deep in the alternative/left/punk/feminist/anti-Apartheid community at Penn State, and I knew of only one out transwoman. IIRC, she generally steered of the campus feminist scene (which was my main scene). It may have been because she felt would not be embraced there. I myself was confused and deeply closeted, and tried rationalize my feelings by saying to myself and others, "Well, I don't feel like a man because I'm conscious of patriarchy and hate it."

I think it's hard for folks who weren't there to imagine how taken-for-granted anti-transsexual rhetoric was in 1980s feminism. There was no WWW and all I knew was from the books I read and the feminists I personally knew, but from what I could see, the disagreement was not over whether or not trans women were women, but rather whether trans women were dangerous enemies or poor victims of gender tyranny. Most of what I witnessed was the latter.

@RachAirStailc It's become their "brand," I suppose.

@lunasspecto Thank you!

Question for members of queer.party: Does anyone know if it's possible to follow hashtags on our instance?
Also, please don't change "Toot!" to "Publish."

I see people are still using "neoliberal" wrong. Neoliberalism is contemptable, to be sure, but it does not mean, "people who are left of center, but not far enough left for my tastes." The dictionary is right there, folks.

@elilla Well, that was me. I was an androgynous "boy" feminist in the 80s, and didn't come out till I was almost 50. 30+ years wasted pretended to be a dude. I even listened to and read some of the anti-transsexual rhetoric back in the day, and thought, "Well, if she says it, it must be true. I think I will just keep these feelings to myself. Clearly I am just confused."

@ExabyteProtogen Oh! Thank you for scratching that itch ofmine.

Mine (I'm on queer.party) still says Toot! I actually wondered if that might be it, but looked and saw that mine said Toot! and not Publish, so I figured it must be something else.

Would someone be kind enough to explain the "publish" meme that seems to be making the rounds? I keep seeing jokes about "publish" and have no idea what the reference is. Someone help Auntie Rachel out here.

@Schnipsel Yeah, I know plenty of non-famous feminists who did not question the transphobia of the 70s and 80s at the time but explicitly reject it now. But the big names are still stuck in 1972.

@lolennui Did you settle on one? I'm quite happy at queer.party.

Are there any examples of outspoken transphobes repenting? There must be, but I can't think of any. The one old school, Baby-Boomer radical feminist I can think of who explicitly rejects transphobia (Judith Butler) never embraced it to begin with, iirc. Robin Morgan sadly still clings to her brand of "Transphobia Lite." And of course that one who was known ONLY for her virulent transphobia is still doubling down in her dotage.

@Seij Yeah, that was awkward. I just deleted it.

@romuluscalicot I can ask my old gay friends. I hadn’t heard of that, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

@kamiten And now your tongue is numb.

@YoWatShiinaEsq The other day I read a horrible “scholarly” paper on manga in which the author made this stunning statement without evidence: 「人を殺したくなった」ということの裏には、漫画・動画の影響が多大であると思われる」. I presented this to my students as an example of ずるい Japanese that they should never use in scholarly writing. 主語がない！?

@studiofox Maybe this just art students in Japan or maybe just in my university, but I swear I see variations on this every year at our senior’s graduation exhibit. “The deadline for senior projects is three days from now, I can’t graduate if I don’t submit one, and I still have no idea what to do…. WAIT! WHITE PAINT! THAT’S IT!!”