also if you wanna combat the “women in the past only crossdressed because of misogyny!” you have GOTTA read chapter 11 in Transgender Warriors where leslie feinberg does such a good job constructing an argument against this kind of radfem reductionism
“"No wonder you’ve passed as a man! This is such an anti-woman society,” a lesbian friend told me. To her, females passing as males are simply trying to escape women’s oppression- period. She believes that once true equality is achieved in society, humankind will be genderless. I don’t have a crystal ball, so I can’t predict human behavior in the distant future. But I know what she’s thinking- if we can build a more just society, people like me will cease to exist. She assumes that I am simply a product of oppression. Gee, thanks so much.“
"First, let’s talk about who can pass as another sex. My same friend reminds me periodically that she too might have passed as a men a century ago to escape women’s oppression. She stares right past my gender expression as she speaks. […] I don’t want to burst her bubble. Everyone deserves untrammeled dreams. But I want to tell her that, in the dead of winter, if she was bundled up against the cold, with a hood or hat covering her head, some man in a deli might call her "sir.” But could she pass as male on a board ship, sleeping with and sharing common facilities with her fellow sailors for decades and not be discovered? Of course, hundreds of thousands of women have dreamed of escaping the economic and social inequities of their lives, but how many could live as a man for a decade or a lifetime? While a woman could throw on men’s clothing and pass as a man for safety on dark roadways, could she pass as a man at an inn where men slept together in the same beds? Could she maintain her identity in daylight? Pass the scrutiny of co-workers? Would she really feel safer and more free? How could females have lived and been accepted as men without hormones or surgery? They must have been masculine; they must have been trans-gendered. If they were not, how could they pass? We don’t know how each of the thousands who passed from female to male over the centuries would define themselves today- whether as transgender or transsexual or drag or any other modern definition. The point is that their gender expression allowed them to transition. I just don’t believe that the debate about why “women pass as men” can be understood only in the light of women’s, or of lesbian and gay, oppression. It has to be viewed in the context of trans history in order to make sense.“
"Look at George Sand, the nineteenth-century novelist. It’s true that she could not have published without a male nom de plume at that time. But if that’s all there was to her identity, why did she wear men’s clothing? Why was she attacked for masculine behavior? And if it was just a question of lesbian oppression, what was she doing in bed with Chopin? If passing from female to male is simply motivated by the need to escape lesbian oppression, then why have females who have passed as males chosen other men as lovers?”
“Finally, if so many females have passed as men only to escape women’s oppression, then why have so many males passed as women? While it is biologically easier for a female to pass as a young boy than for a male to pass as a woman, there are many, many examples in the modern era of those who passed from male to female.”
“We have not always been forced to pass, to go underground, in order to work and live. We have a right to live openly and proudly. When we are denied those rights, we are the ones who suffer that oppression. But when our lives are suppressed, everyone is denied an understanding of the rich diversity of sex and gender expression and experience that exist in human society. I have lived as a man because I could not survive openly as a transgendered person. Yes, I am oppressed in this society, but I am not merely product of oppression. That is a phrase that renders all our trans identities meaningless. Passing means having to hide your identity in fear, in order to live. Being forced to pass is a recent historical development. It is passing that is a product of oppression.”
i think all quiet on the western front and the lord of the rings are in direct conversation with each other, as in theyre the retelling of the same war with one saying here’s what happened, we all died, and it did not matter at all and another going hush little boy, of course we won, of course your friends came back
someone should remake lord of the rings as a grandfather telling a fantasy story to his grand child with flashbacks to world war one showing the dead boys and men the characters were based on. grandpa why didn’t they just fly. because they didn’t. they didn’t.
i’m fine
I will never get over how Tolkien & Lewis took the horrors of war and spun them into fantasy.
Shivering in the trenches dreaming of cozy hobbit holes, shaking as bombs pockmark a forest and imagining each shallow mud-filled crater contains a new world—that maybe there are still as many beautiful things in the universe as there are bombs—that maybe the world is bigger than this moment and this ugliness and one day this will be a peaceful forest again full of small ponds.
I mean look at these photos of the shell craters in Sanctuary Woods, near Ypres Belgium and tell me it’s not the Wood Between The Worlds:
Are you a Florida-born trans person who has had your birth certificate ammendment stalled?
It is looking very likely that the State of Florida is refusing to amend trans birth certificates, despite name and gender marker changes currently being legal and having been honored in the past.
My own expedited request has sat aside for “legal review” for over 6 months now.
If this is also happening to you, please contact Equality Florida. There may be grounds for a lawsuit.
In the meantime, get your passport asap. In most cases, it can be used in lieu of a birth certificate when additional ID is needed and it allows you to self-ID for gender.
Check your conspiracy theory. Does it sound anything like this?
There is an ancient global conspiracy plotting to create a one world government.
The one world government will be headed by a single leader.
The conspiracy intends to make everyone follow a religion it created.
The conspiracy is trying to destroy all true religion/spirituality.
The conspiracy deliberately stirs up conflict and starts wars.
The conspiracy deliberately does whatever it can to confuse, exhaust, and demoralize the people.
The conspiracy creates and/or manipulates art and entertainment to control and brainwash the masses.
Liberal politics (EG, religious tolerance, equality) are part of the conspiracy.
Communism and collectivism are part of the conspiracy.
The conspiracy manipulates the economy to our detriment.
The conspiracy wants to do away with the gold standard.
The conspiracy wants to do away with the free market.
The conspiracy intends to tax the rich, which is bad because taxes are just legal theft.
Teaching people about the mistakes and atrocities committed by governments is part of the conspiracy.
The conspiracy creates new religions and spiritual movements to further their agendas.
All secret societies (EG, Freemasonry) are part of the conspiracy.
Presidents are manipulated puppets of the conspiracy.
The conspiracy manipulates anyone with a high political position.
The conspiracy grooms world leaders.
Agents of the conspiracy are planted everywhere, in all levels of society.
The conspiracy kills anyone who might expose their plans in ways that no one would suspect are actually murder.
The conspiracy follows/uses the Kabbalah.
Literally all of these were claimed in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, an antisemitic hoax created by the Okhrana. It was used by Nazi Germany to justify the Holocaust, and today it still serves as the blueprint for most conspiracy theories - even if modern conspiracy theorists try to hide it, downplay it, or rationalize it with another, equally absurd conspiracy theory.
I’ve been telling people for ages now, it’s virtually guaranteed that if you dig into it enough any given conspiracy theory will turn out to be antisemitic no matter how harmless or silly it first appears.
