Straight up wolfing it.

TO EVERYONE ELSE:

A series of ten reblogs is about to follow, since you can only have one poll per reblog. Please answer all ten polls. If you don't see them all, check the notes (this shouldn't take me long so if it's more than like, fifteen minutes since I posted this one they should all be there.)

- It was buggy. Tags not showing up for an OP past even an empty reblog did not appear to be intended (or at least, it was not mentioned in the announcement), and is a MAJOR problem. Specifically, it undoes the major update from around 5 years ago which was heavily praised by the userbase (one of few tumblr updates to actually be widely well recieved) which allowed a poster to see tags in their activity feed. If this was the only problem, they could have launched a bug fix. Same goes for not being able to turn off reblogs.

- Userbase unity? Well, maybe. Specifically - the userbase had a swift, harsh, and overbearing response to this update. Most of the complaints were the same: this will exacerbate harassment, this will disrupt the flow of communication, this will make it impossible for someone to maintain their posts. Big names in the tumblr ecosystem came down hard, fast, and with significant concern: if this stays in place, I will have to leave - this place will not do what I need it to do. Much of the userbase said the same, sharing alternate blog hosting sites and doing the thing we always do when this ship looks like sinking. Additionally, their replies and feedback forms were obviously being flooded. This put real pressure on their workers in the office, which puts financial pressure on the company. I think the most disrupting tactic though, was going offsite. I checked out their instagram and twitter comments; they were flooded. This is something we Don't Usually Do when we're just whining about the newest change. Usually we stay here to complain but we make do with the change. This, I think, is the thing that signified people weren't just whining but were actually for real pissed. And then of course...

- Five hours before the roll-back announcement, an article drops. That kind of bad press is the nail in the coffin for a dying company like tumblr. I imagine several concerned meetings somewhere in those five hours.

"why are you barging into trans men's spaces to bully them?"

i'm a trans man. i'm not anywhere i'm not already welcome.

"why are trans women allowed to have their own specific term for their oppression, but trans men aren't?"

in greater society, men are viewed as the default while women are viewed as the other. women are subjugated under a patriarchal society. this is the foundational concept of feminism, that women deserve equal treatment as men. society also views cis as the default and trans as the other.

trans women's experience differs from trans men in that they experience intersecting oppression, both as trans people and as women. the term "transmisogyny" was coined to describe exactly this.

trans men experience gender based oppression on the basis of being trans. the term to describe the oppression of trans men is transphobia. "transphobia toward trans men," if you want to really be specific. there is no way to create a word for that without directly implying cis men also face gender based oppression.

"i can't believe you'd say trans men aren't oppressed."

this is not what i said.

like i said, i'm a trans man. i grew up ostracized as a teenager for expressing gender in a way that wasn't "normal." i've had family members tell me, to my face, that they'd be happy if republican politicians stripped away my right to hormones and surgery. i've been denied jobs after telling hiring managers i am trans. i understand this intimately, i've dealt with it my entire life.

this is a semantics issue. guys are ascribing trans men's oppression to the term "transmisandry." and then, when people say transmisandry doesn't exist, that gets interpreted as "trans men do not face oppression" rather than the actual, intended point of "misandry does not exist because men are not oppressed on the basis of being men. therefore, trans men's oppression is based on being TRANS, not as men."

"trans men experience misogyny since they're afab. shouldn't they be allowed to use the term transmisogyny to describe that?"

trans men should be included in things like abortion rights and discussions of menstruation. we agree on that.

i'll try to draw a parallel. a common form of gay male homophobia is to say things like "anal sex is unnatural. men aren't supposed to have sex with each other because they both have penises." but some trans women have penises and have anal sex. should straight trans women be use the term homophobia to describe disdain towards the type of sex they have? the answer to that is: sort of.

misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, intersexism, and so on all exist in this big, ugly, interconnected ball. they all stem from the same idea: there is an ideal standard that all men and women should adhere to. any deviation from this norm should be met with social stigma and violence.

this is why the mainstream terf movement is closely tied pro-lifers and right wing pundits. when you define womanhood with a set of strict, natal rules, you also attract the type of asshole who is against women's liberation, against queer liberation, against intersex visibility.

anyways. another semantics issue. transmisogyny does not just means "transphobia + misogyny." it is specific to trans womanhood, which is why trans men should avoid using the term to describe their experiences.

"but cis men do experience gender based oppression! what about gender non-conforming men?"

see my above point regarding misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and intersexism all being connected. if a man is experiencing oppression, its likely tied to one of these.

"you sound like a terf, op."

i am saying trans women experience misogyny because they are in the social class of women. this is the opposite of what terfs believe.

"we should kill op with hammers because he uses reddit."

I keep seeing this post going around so, for folks who want to know why not, here’s a chemist’s hypothesis:

-Human saliva has an average pH of ~6.7 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3800408/), which is pretty neutral.

-Monster energy has a pH of ~2.7 (https://patientconnect365.com/DentalHealthTopics/Article/Energy_Drinks_and_Your_Teeth_Should_You_Worry), which is quite acidic but not dangerous, except to your tooth enamel if consumed in large quantities.

-Rainbow sour belts contain malic acid (a common food additive as a potent acidifier and sour-flavor agent), citric acid (another common sour flavoring in pretty much everything) as well as ascorbic acid (aka vitamin C, used here mainly as a preservative). (https://candypros.com/products/sour-belts-bulk-rainbow)

-All of these acids when added to water would normally release their protons (H+ ions), thereby making the water solution more acidic. However, a chemical constant of these acids called the acid dissociation constant (pKa for short) indicates the pH of a solution at which acids are most likely to keep or release their protons. The pKa’s* of these acids are higher (3.4, 3.1, and 4.2 for malic, citric, and ascorbic acids respectively) than the pH of the solution (2.7), which essentially means that the acids can’t release their protons and all that acidic potential is trapped in the solid formulation of the candy.

-There’s also some evidence that sugar decreases the solubility of acids in water solutions (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3411471/ only sorbic acid is discussed here but it’s relatively structurally similar to the acids in discussion). The undoubtedly high sugar content of both the Monster and the candy therefore may contribute to the accounts of the sour crystals bubbling/floating on top of the solution instead of dissolving.

-Malic acid in particular is notorious for causing mouth irritation when eaten in high quantities.

-Thus, I can imagine that upon consuming the battery acid spaghetti, not only is the mix itself quite potently sweet/sour, but also the solid malic acid coming into direct contact with your mouth quickly becomes painful, and as the solution mixes with your (pH neutral) saliva the trapped acidity of the malic/citric/ascorbic acids is dumped into your mouth and esophagus, creating a sensation that I can only imagine is similar to consuming actual battery acid (pH = 0.8).