Quietly Thinking Aloud

sengedolma:

It has become apparent that my post “All I am asking of you is that you identify as existing first.” has been completely misinterpreted. That has got to be at least in part a failing in my ability to write in a fully unoffensive manner. I’d like to apolgize to anyone who read the post and assumed that I was trying to be anything other than empowering. I’ve removed everything on my blog that pertains to it, excepting this. If anyone has any further questions/concers, feel free to leave them in my ask box.
/enddebate

I’m not putting this in your ask box because I don’t think that whether or not a rebuttal appears in public should be up to you.

Your post wasn’t misinterpreted, it was just… wrong. Labeling people as “cis” isn’t an attack on them. It’s removing the hierarchy of normality that gives us “trans” and “non-trans” (AKA, “normal”). Removing the elevated position of cis folks isn’t an attack. If you hear the word “cis” being thrown around with a lot of vitriol… well, removing the word wouldn’t change the sentiments being expressed, would it?

I mean, if a cis person is doing something that provokes a response of pain and anger from a trans person, why would you think taking the word “cis” off the table would change the way it plays out? And why is the bigger problem for you what the trans person says and not the reasons why they’re saying it?

You can say that you meant for the post to be empowering, but if people didn’t feel empowered by it that doesn’t mean they misinterpreted. It means you failed in your goal. The fact that you were starting from incorrect premises (like your take on “cis”) goes a long way towards explaining how this failure occurred.

translucentguy:

ok bottom line is

If you are a transmale and you want to be treated as such, then at least pass as one. jeez i know there are some who are like femme and stuff, thats cool and all. but if you are not going to transition at all then why burden the people of the world to call you whatever pronoun you want. the world isn’t like that. You must conform into the world if you want to survive, that is why we have T or top surgery and all other surgeries to help us.

it is not fair to everyone else who is being treated to transsexualism to be categorized with those who don’t do anything to at least try to transition, or work on being MALE! FTM means Female TO Male. why do you think Trans is in the word TRANSITION!

you can be a femme guy or a anything like that. but at least you are trying to be male! one day femme guys will in the norm. but just flat out biological women trying to say they are male with the way they are now, without transitioning of some sort, then that isn’t right for others. 

don’t be a burden to society its going to literally take YEARS! till transsexualism is recognized as a proper medical condition that society doesn’t have to look down on.

i understand if you cannot transition at the moment, situations are very circumstantial, but if you just flat out say you are male, without at least conforming to some idea of a male, then you are just making your life hell.

be considerate of others, be considerate to yourself, don’t make your life any harder then it has to be

This consideration to others, it starts any minute now…?

strugglingtobeheard:

“if i did it, you can do it to.” i see this on weight loss ads and ads for college and education the most. they fucking piss me off. i think that’s some real white nonsense. they want to be so individualized and make it all about me, me, me but when it comes to differences, they are so afraid they say things like, if i did it, you can do it to. the idea that everyone can do what everyone else can do is absurd. there are many things people can do that i cannot do and many things i can do that other people cannot do. 

this is part of my problem with a society with an individualized attitude and outlook, but it is soooo basic and rudimentary. we have things like bootstraps, just pull yourself up and lift yourself out of any situation and if you don’t you must be a failure. and then ideas like, if i can do it, you can do it to. how do we have these complete different ideas in the same society and use them against people whenever convenient (ex. you are poor? you need to just pull yourself up, if you can’t you must be doing something wrong. see that person, they did it, if they can do it, you can too. but… this completely ignores the fact that we are in fact individuals and that we have different situations, abilities and social positions in society). it works to sell shit. sell, sell, sell. really that’s all. see this woman lost weight, be like her, you will have the same results, cause she could do it.

but it really doesn’t work like that. and i almost feel my experiences and others are degraded when people say it. like, not everyone would have been able to make it through school and manage to keep my gpa during my circumstances and made it to grad school. but you know, i wouldn’t have been able to finish if i was in some circumstances like others i knew, such as a friend who lost her child’s father in a car accident and raised him while caring for her mother, especially if still in my own situation. our situations are different. our places in society are different. i highly doubt a white straight cismale could really get half the places they get if in my position as a mixed Black genderqueer queer person. the weight of that position and their mentality as a white male wouldn’t co-exist, they would die under the weight. and so i feel like when we say shit like that, we just never want to acknowledge the strength in differences. the beauty in the abilities of others and the things we can learn from them by complementing our abilities with others abilities. this isn’t all coherent, it’s really a fucking rant and some thoughts that came with it.

tahlalaliaaa:

koknbawlz:

alexandraerin:

Productivity is not the same thing as accomplishment. It doesn’t exist as a concept to justify anyone’s existence or continued employment or general worthiness. It exists to justify denying these things when it proves expedient to do so.

We are worth more than the wealth we generate for others. We are more than the tasks we can check off on a checklist. We have value that cannot quantified by any metric.

The first thing in life is to do what you need. Sometimes, success means you get by even when the world doesn’t recognize the value of your existence.

Well I sure as shit wouldn’t keep an employee who couldn’t do anything they were being paid to do. I’d consider someone like that a pretty worthless employee.

Not a worthless person, mind-but useless to my business. Why would anybody continue employing someone who wasn’t productive?

This entire post confuses me for a lot of reasons. Are you saying “you’re still a good person even if you suck at your job” or are you saying “You’re still a good employee even if you suck at your job”?

Because if it’s the latter I’m inclined to disagree and consider this entire thing failtastic.

2am rambles on things I feel in my daily life but cannot express because I don’t know enough about it:

I don’t know I feel you’ve missed the point but I don’t think I can do a decent job of explaining it.

I reblogged it because it speaks to me about the personal issues I had with depression and how feeling unproductive because of it made me feel worthless as a whole person. 

I think this is more about challenging ableism and capitalism than what you are saying - sorry it’s late I’m not 100% on the point you’re making. When I reblogged this I was thinking more along the lines that I personally tend to berate myself for not keeping up with the daily grind, not being as far up the ladder as my peers, not having a career planned out etc. I sometimes feel like shit when I think about how I’m not sticking to the path, producing outcomes, grades or profit mostly for other people and I get low if I think I’m not contributing in the ways I have been told I’m supposed to.

I do not feel I have plucked these ideas of self worth out of thin air, it is directly related to the fact our capitalist society encourages this idea that unless we are constantly producing and consuming our existence is less important. I think it puts us in direct competition with each other and contributes to a society where we’re always trying to get the upper hand instead of helping each other out.

I feel the idea of productivity is ableist. How many times have you heard someone speak spitefully about (even talk about killing) disabled people because they “don’t contribute to society”. I’ve heard it a lot. I feel the pressure and all I have to put up with is going in and out of depressive phases and trying to make it through college. For those without the privileges I have it must feel even shittier. The fact is people are made to feel worthless based on their productivity. Whether you would measure an employee’s worth as a human or just as an employee is not the point when it is inarguable that people are made to feel utterly useless to their core if they don’t measure up to this idea of productivity.

Ableism reflects the sentiment of certain social groups and social structures that value and promote certain abilities, for example, productivity and competitiveness, over others, such as empathy, compassion and kindness. This preference for certain abilities over others leads to a labelling of real or perceived deviations from or lack of ‘essential’ abilities as a diminished state of being … Ableism related to productivity and economic competitiveness is the foundation of many societies and their relationship with other societies, and is often seen as a prerequisite for progress [someone here said that]

Capitalism has seeped into our lives so deeply that we don’t even realize what we’re doing when we talk about wanting to be more productive or shame ourselves for not being productive enough. We forget to take time to relax and take care of ourselves because we are so concerned with meeting quotas in our heads for productivity. Do your self-care rituals stand in opposition to your ideas of what productivity looks like? Why isn’t it productive to take care of ourselves? [a really good post I reblogged aaaages ago about this]

So this post speaks to the part of me that realises that deciding to go out and speak to people I’ve never met/telling myself actually I do look nice/deciding I’d rather have some time out to work on a project that makes me happy instead of the one I am obliged to do/saying no to people for a change/cooking for myself is more of an accomplishment and is helping me grow into the person I want to be much more than fretting over my work and feeling shit because I don’t do/earn as much as other people. 

But if you want to interpret it as an excuse for shitty employees go ahead I don’t think we’re on the same page because I hate the whole idea/concept/whatevs of business anyway. (But again lack the knowledge to articulate my opinions hence the rambling. Maybe I should read more.)

You know, you really did a wonderful job of explaining it. I wasn’t speaking purely about ableism — I think the dominant form that our concept of a “work ethic” takes, and how prominently it factors in our values, would be damaging in a society that better allowed for differing abilities.

But it’s definitely something that impacts some people more than others, because of ableism.

Your twin links about ableism and capitalism really cover the basis pretty well. The capitalism one pretty well nails what I was thinking. It’s possible it even helped inspire this post, since I feel like I’ve seen it before. I was aiming for more affirmation than information I’d say is the biggest difference.

hedonisticparadise:

I won’t lie, I idolise Germaine Greer. It disturbs me to know that she was harrassed in New Zealand and people are trivialising the matter by calling it “glitter-bombing”. What happened to her is not “cute” or “progressive”, she is a feminist elder and she was speaking about women’s issues from what I know; no one has the right to derail and belittle her words in this way. She’s not perfect, and just because she is a feminist does not mean she has to be, because feminism is primarily about women and not all facets of social justice. She, like many other radical feminists, does not agree with the politics of transgenderism, but she has never advocated harming them or curbing their rights to do what they will with their bodies. She does not deserve to be disrespected in a public setting because of her beliefs when she is in fact talking about an unrelated issue.

Although I do not feel I have enough knowledge on the issue to delve deeper, I generally tend to agree with the radical feminism movement when it comes to transgenderism. I personally believe radical feminism is a platform for womyn-born-womyn, and it should not be derailed by trans politics. It is difficult being a feminist when the movement has become so politically correct that we must rethink every single word we use lest we cause someone a minor annoyance. We are not privileged as “cis” women, no matter how much everyone tries to convince us we are. This is one of the main reasons I do not identify as an intersectional feminist.

EDIT: I must reiterate that I am a strong believer in gay rights and an activist. My beliefs in terms of transgenderism do not affect my activism for same-sex marriage and adoption rights and queer politics.

And here’s where she needs to stop pretending that she’s fighting for the rights of all women.

OP, here’s a question for you. It’s an honest question and if you’re sincere in your beliefs I’d expect an honest answer. The woman you idolize and you think is beyond criticism bases her odious selective misogyny against trans women on the belief that trans women see women as sexless and that’s why nobody gets uterus transplants. She’s gone on record as saying that if uterus transplants were mandatory part of sexual reassignment, nobody would want one.

Here are some facts:

One, uterus transplants aren’t really a very viable science. There has never been a successful one into a trans* woman’s body, and when I say it’s not viable I mean that in the most literal sense. The person who tried it died. 

Two, the fact that trans* women can’t yet have a uterus or carry a child to term is actually a significant cause of anguish, pain, and dysphoria to many trans* women. If the technology were available, more trans* women would be seeking surgery.

Three, there are many “womyn-born-womyn” who don’t have a uterus. There are even some who were born without a uterus. So the uterus doesn’t really work as a distinguishing trait of womanhood, does it?

These are facts. These are also things that Germaine Greer gets wrong. I’m not asking you to agree that trans* women are women, or that feminism needs to be concerned with trans* women. I’m not asking you that because that implies that trans* women need your permission to exist.

I’m just asking, can we agree that Germaine Greer is wrong about these things? And that she hasn’t retracted and in fact still repeats them?

And if we agree that Germaine Greer is wrong… wrong about facts, wrong about people’s lives… then why on earth should she be free from criticism?

littleorphanammo:

And…it really…oh god, fuck might as well jump into the deep end: It’s NOT AS BAD AS ALL THAT!

What I mean is that in my opinion, based on his account of the series of events, I do not see it as being, specifically, an act of violence against women (though one can argue, trying to kill anyone, including oneself is always an act of violence, but I don’t think anyone would argue that there are varying degrees of violence or malice and intent that are complicated by various psychological states, including addiction and dissociation). I realize that is a very controversial opinion to take. The reality is that they were both very serious drug addicts, enmeshed in a darkness they could not find their way out of. They were all the way in, and so he, overcome by hopelessness at the sight of his life, her life, turned on the gas and tried to kill both of them.

I don’t know how many people know what really truly being in the grip of an addiction is like, what it does to your perceptions; How it turns off that rational part of your brain so completely that acts like that seem plausible, even kind, generous. But this particular act doesn’t strike me as something that neccesarily makes him forever an enemy of women. I think it’s completely disingenuous that bloggers and writers are choosing to condemn him in this particular situation the way they have been; Meaning I think people are implying a victim/victimizer dynamic that may not be there. They were both victims in a very real sense, and no, of course no one should try to kill anyone else (or themselves for that matter) but sometimes they do because they are very psychologically broken. They see it as an act of love. This does not excuse the act and it does not justify it, but it does, if one chooses to allow just a single ounce of compassion, translate and help us understand it. I think it’s willfully self-delusional and unscrupulous to condemn his acts as pointedly an act of violence against women and all that that implies in common understanding, in context of the narrative of the events. I realize that because he was the man, and he took responsibility that there is an element of man v woman in this that is at the base of the violence against women claim but I wonder what would we think if both had been women? If they had been a lesbian couple and one of them had made a unilateral decision to act in the same manner. Because it has happened. What then? Would the way this story is being framed change? Would the outrage lessen? Would we find a way to collectively rationalize the act, or at least sympathize with the actors, in a way we are not doing now? Because I’m left feeling that the answer to all those questions is “absolutely”. And why should that be the case?

And that’s my (no doubt) contentious opinion on that.

You’re asking if it would be a gendered act of male violence against women if there hadn’t be a man? No. So would the outrage be the same if it hadn’t been a man? Probably not, but I think you’re missing something. The reason so much focus is given to the gendered aspect is because of how it connects to his present behavior. This isn’t simply a matter of “In that moment the man committed a cardinal sin and must forever be exiled from feminism for that raw act alone.”

I mean, it’s natural to be shocked at someone almost committing an unforgivable, irrevocable act. But the shock passes, and it’s possible (thought not required) to forgive. The lingering moral horror here isn’t about that shock. The horror is…

Well, to explain this, let’s change more things. Hugo is still a man. Same incident, same man committing it.

But let’s change everything that happened afterwards. Let’s say that in the years afterwards, the perpetrator doesn’t continue to behave in ways that show a paternalistic and controlling attitude towards women. Let’s say that the man in question doesn’t have sex with a woman who doesn’t want it and then work his way through his guilt by assigning her half the blame as co-conspirator in a repeated act of violation. Let’s say he doesn’t have sex with students while sober and then blame all his actions on his “pre-sobriety past.”

In other words, let’s imagine that there wasn’t a trail of evidence linking the man’s behavior while sober and reformed and redeemed to the way he behaved while in the depths of his chemical dependency.

If all that were true, I could imagine there being less outrage. I wouldn’t say no outrage. I wouldn’t even speculate about how I’d feel.

The point I’m making here is that while those who have been accused of being on Hugo’s case are said to be taking events out of context, we’re actually trying to look at everything in context, and that context includes who he is today and what he does today. 

I don’t trust who he is sober. All my knowledge of the attempted murder could be wiped out of my brain and I wouldn’t regard him as a feminist thinker, or even a pro-woman one.

All of that said:

I find your analysis… lacking. That’s the nicest thing I can say about it. It’s not the fairest thing I can say about it, but it’s the nicest one. Whatever he was the victim of, he absolutely was the victimizer of his ex. He makes it clear in his story that when she recovered she felt absolutely violated. Not by circumstances, but by him. By his actions. 

Sure, it can be useful to understand where he’s coming from but if you run someone over, it doesn’t matter what direction you hit them from. They’re still hit.

Past!Hugo can see what he was doing as an act of love. It’s still an act of victimization. Similarly, Present!Hugo can see himself as a man doing good works to help women and atone for his past. It doesn’t make it so.

The dynamics don’t change because his intentions do.

straightawaydangerous:

And I’m insanely sick of all these generalizations that pro-choice people make.

I’m pro-life. I don’t see killing as something that should be a choice. And that’s what abortion is, killing. I’m not afraid of science, I’m not a stuffy conservative, and I’m educated on the issue. I am not your douchebag “anti-choice” person.

So quit making blanket statements that involve me. If you have a problem, unfollow or argue with me in my ask box.

Hi there.

I’m going to need you to go to the doctor and do a few tests for me. There’s a chance that I might need a kidney or some marrow or blood or a heart or lung at some point in the future, and I need you to find out if you’re compatible with me so when the time comes I know if your body will be useful to me. Hopefully I won’t need anything while you’re still using it, but no promises. I mean, my life is sacred. 

Oh, no. You don’t get a choice. See, my life is exactly equal to your life in value, and apparently this means that I’m entitled to use your blood and body to sustain my life.

…unless that’s not actually true. Unless nobody’s entitled to someone else’s organs and blood and you get to decide what to do with your body, in which case, no, you don’t have to put yourself on a compulsory organ donation list… and in which case, it doesn’t matter when life begins or what counts as human, does it?

See, this is where it all falls down: a parent can’t be compelled to give blood or tissue or organs to sustain the life of their already-born-and-walking-around child. Can. Not. Go ahead and say “What parent wouldn’t?” It doesn’t matter who wouldn’t, or why. 

If you oppose abortion, you’re not trying to extend normal human rights to embryos and fetuses. You are declaring that they are more sacred, have more rights than humans… or “other humans”, as you would say.

But you know what the upshot of this is?

If there is a human right that you would extend to fetuses that doesn’t apply to the rest of us, you aren’t saying we’re all humans, you’re saying that the unborn are humans and the rest of us are something… lesser. 

So, yes, you are the anti-choice douchebag that people argue about.

theafrosistuh:

jobolicious:

I’m so anxious and restless right now I’m shaking. My thoughts are racing. But I need to get this rant out before I forget it. I apologize in advanced if my point isn’t clear.

My mom was watching Apocalypto, I caught the end when the European ships come in and it just pissed me off. That man when through all that only to probably end up dead not long afterward because of greedy, entitled white people. Then it got me thinking.

Ok white people, do you really not get it why POC may distrust you or not even like you at all? Do you even follow history at all? History may have made light of our suffering, but the history of how white people have treated us is still in the books. And you know it was wrong. Things may be better now, but the ideals that allowed the mistreatment of POC in the past, still survive today. They survive in all of us and those ideals aren’t kept alive by an equal society. They can’t be.

And considering society is still rampant with inequality, something has to be keeping it that way. And it’s not us. Why would we oppress ourselves? We get nothing, but pain out of it. Even POC who’ve internalized racism in themselves. It’s you. So why would we trust you?

Simply because the concept of whiteness was born, allowed slavery, the trail of tears, internment camps, jim crow, lynching, forcing POC into the ghettos, denying POC education, welfare, healthcare and allowing police brutality to happen. But we’re still supposed to trust you?

And if you still don’t get it, let me paint a picture for you. It’s America and slavery is happening. Image an escaped slave. This slave has been wandering for weeks. The slave doesn’t know where to go. This slave is starving and freezing and if this slave doesn’t find a place to stay soon, the slave will die. This slave sees a white person. Do you think in desperation the slave is gonna hope that white person is one of the “good white people” and ask the white person for help or do you think the slave is gonna hide? The slave is gonna hide and for a good reason. It’d be ridiculous if the slave didn’t.

So again, why would we trust you? Why should it be our responsibility to risk being discriminated against to trust every white person, just in case they might be one of the good ones? You think it isn’t fair? Try being a person of color. The guilt you feel from the privilege of your whiteness doesn’t come near to the feeling of being dehumanized we POC get from the prejudice from white people.

Besides, why do you want a cookie for treating a POC like human beings? It’s something you should’ve been doing all along.

Shout out to that anon from earlier.