Notices by Tattie (tattie@eldritch.cafe)

@Impossible_PhD I train with bladed weapons (well, blunt ones) every week, and the thought of using them in self-defense is fucking stupid. Like what's the plan here? You get jumped and then expect to have a minute to pull a knife out of your bag? Or walk around with one in your hand whenever you feel unsafe, thus pre-escalating any confrontation? A knife is an offensive weapon, not a defensive one. They only get more people hurt.

No, your first plan should always be to de-escalate and defuse the situation. Keep your hands low, make it clear you're not interested in a fight. Don't brandish anything at anyone.

Your second plan, if you can, is to run. Keep an eye on your escape routes, don't let people back you into a corner.

Only after both those options are exhausted should you turn to fighting. And the only "weapon" I'd recommend is a good stout umbrella. It's not perceived as a weapon, meaning you can still de-escalate with one in your hand. You can give someone a swift knock in the jaw or round the head to daze them, or you knock the knife out of their hand, and then you run.

Self-defense is about getting away safely, not escalating a confrontation into a fight.

Reactionaries:

• deeply terrified of the "woke mind virus"
• go out of their way to catch actual viruses, because "they have an immune system"

@subbak @augmentedrobot done!

I can't believe the pack instructions only say to boil the gnocchi. Why would you deny yourself this? #food

This whole discourse of course also erases those who identify neither as transmasc nor transfem, who don't fit into this symmetry at all, and whose experiences can be all over the place. The trans experience is far more complex and variable than even most trans people credit it as.

There's a phenomenon that causes transmasc and transfem discourse to sometimes rub up against each other, and that's something I'd like to label false symmetry. This is basically the premise that since we're going in "opposite gender directions" our experiences must somehow be opposite.

There's a popular oversimplification I see going round a lot that says that due to societal misogyny, feminine is seen as the worst thing a boy can be, whereas masculine traits in girls are lauded. Too many transfems see this and assume therefore that transmasc childhoods are so much easier than theirs, with every departure from femininity laughed off with a gentle "oh she's such a tomboy".

No. Listen to actual transmasc experiences.

I've also seen transmasc folks talk about being silenced, talked over, threatened for being a "girl", as if it were a completely alien experience to transfems. Again, no. My friends, that was something I very much experienced as well.

It shouldn't be that big a leap to understand that childhood is pretty shit for any trans person. But oh! The draw of symmetry.

Similarly, our presents, our futures. Transfems feel keenly how misogyny crystallises against us as we transition. We see how we are barged past and patronised and stared, a far more immediate and automatic misogyny than we're accustomed to. And we sometimes presume that our transmasc friends are "transitioning into privilege", gaining the immediate respect that we're losing.

And, like, maybe there's some experiences that correlate to that expectation? But I see many more transmascs transitioning to visibly queer, soft-spoken guys that aren't rewarded with freely-given masculine respect.

The term that leads to the stickiest arguments is that of "female socialisation", which many transmascs vibe with as a description of how they were (and continue to be) policed. But! So many transfems bristle at this because of the fear of being branded "male-socialised" by symmetry, which let's be clear is a term which TERFs have absolutely claimed as their own by now, as a weapon to silence us.

I reject the false symmetry. I accept that many of my transmasc friends feel they were female socialised. I personally feel I was socialised as a weird genderless creature that was only celebrated for its academic achievements and told to shut up in any other sphere of life. 🤷♀️

Because gender isn't symmetrical, actually, and privileges are only awarded to a subset of men who can actually perform masculinity "right". And we are all on strange and complicated journeys where we're perceived as female, male, neither or both, and policed in contradictory and ever-shifting ways. In that way our experiences are far more similar than we are opposite.

Ope.

Zeph: I'm hungry mama, feed me!

Me: I just fed you

Zeph: I ate it all already and I'm still hungry

Me: there's still food in your bowl. Look

Zeph: there's only food in the right bowl. I like the food from the left bowl. It's much tastier

Me: sighs, picks up both bowls, switches them over, puts them back down again

Zeph, staring at bowls: what... the fuck... just happened? 🙀

The political left's definition of a woman is "whoever decides they are one", and the right derides us for it.

But with the Olympic boxing "controversy", they've let slip their own definition: a woman is whoever they decide is one. And no pesky facts about what anatomy you have, or what it says on your birth certificate, is going to stop them coming for you if they decide you're on the wrong side of that line.

They are fascists, and they must be stopped.

Sigh. Another day on Fedi...

I'm not saying there's not room for discussion of how certain language and concepts might be problematic. I'm not saying transfems are perfect angels, either, 'cause we aren't.

But... it's super obvious how transfems are routinely singled out for incredibly tenuous infractions. How our words are interpreted in the worst possible way. How personal it is made, how public, with such invective. How we're expected to publicly grovel and beg forgiveness to avoid punishment.

It's not about sparking a constructive conversation. It's about the visible glee in taking us down a peg or two. It's transmisogyny.

And sad to say it's not just cis people doing this. And some of it is even started by other transfems.

And yeah, also, sorry to say, it's particularly bad for transfems of colour. Because "putting them in their place" has always been a racist phenomenon, and the two are multiplicative. I've seen it happen to friends.

This is a culture issue on Fedi but also so many other social media sites, for so many years. And frankly it's hard not to trace a line all the way back to the original TERFs, finding excuses to exclude trans women from their womyn's festivals. Oh, we're "socialised violent", we're appropriative, we're narcissistic, we're problematic in one way or the other.

Nah. Fuck it. Let's stop playing this game. Transfems are good and compassionate and thoughtful and cool, actually.

@goatsarah some victims lose 25 billion dollars buying a previously well regarded social media website and turning it into a shithole, just because trans women exist.

Fear us.

@goatsarah welp, I was meaning to post this at some point anyway:
https://eldritch.cafe/@Tattie/112838374730432971

@HauntedOwlbear oh yeah, I definitely prefer smaller groups and less busy chats.
And while l rarely reach out to someone 1:1, I frequently enjoy such conversations when they do happen.
@oddtail

@HauntedOwlbear no, it's good. I'm happy for this to be a general conversation, especially if it helps @oddtail find people who prefer to communicate/socialise like her.

Just please believe me that the original conversation came from a place of compassion and was never intended as judgment! I'm autistic myself and try never to fling around words like "normal". ❤️

@HauntedOwlbear I never said it was "not normal". The words I used were "not common".

I do in fact have some friends who like to reach out to me 1:1, and that's normal to them and I love them for it. But most people I know never would unless they specifically needed to ask me something. 🤷♀️
@oddtail

Zeph has been sitting in the exact same position with the exact same expression for minutes now.

Either there are birbs outside the window, or his brain needs rebooting.
#CatsOfMastodon

It is important to remember though that it's not safe for all of us to be out as trans! Nor should anyone be pressured to come out today. If you're not out, you matter, you are part of our community, you are loved, and I'll be twice as visible today on your behalf. :heart_transgender:

There's absolutely nothing wrong with folks having a "non-binary phase" before deciding they're just a trans woman/man. Sometimes identities do shift; that's something to celebrate!

But for god's sake that doesn't mean that every non-binary person is on that same trajectory. Do not imply to us that it's "just a matter of time" before we embrace the binary. It's patronising and invalidating.

There's enough pressure from cishet society to conform to the gender binary in order to be accepted. We don't need more of the same from our own community.

Non-binary people deserve a space to define and explore our own identities, play with presentations, in our own time and our own terms. Some binary trans folk, respectfully, need to learn to be more comfortable granting us that space, that autonomy.

Even those who had a "non-binary phase" themselves. Especially them, in fact. 🙃

Medieval writers: "a woman's natural state is lustful, whereas men are born with more restraint."

Modern media: "a man's natural state is lustful, whereas women are born with more restraint."

Medieval writers: "...?"

Modern media: "Oh yeah we kinda flipped the whole thing around."

Medieval writers: "Most puzzling. You are still finding it a way to make it women's problem to deal with, though, correct?"

Modern media: "Oh, yes, of course!"