Away

The more I reflect on it the more I believe this person knows me and knew this minimalist take would particularly piss me off. The fact this is on a throwaway account with this being their only post really enforces that. 

Proship has never meant anything except a combination of three ideas:

Ship and let ship (your ships don't harm me and vice-versa) and YKINMK (your kink is not my kink, and that's okay; my kink stories don't harm you and vice-versa)

Harassment over fiction is not acceptable

Censorship of fiction is not acceptable either

MAGA

Deeply concerned about "protecting children."

Insistent on removing "problematic content" from shelves.

Happily harass, doxx, threaten, and persecute anyone who disagrees with them.

Insist that because they've heard stories of appalling behavior from individuals in a group, it means the entire group does the same thing.

Double down rather than consider they might be wrong about something.

Antis

Deeply concerned about "protecting children."

Insistent on removing "problematic content" from the internet.

Happily harass, doxx, threaten, and death-bait anyone who disagrees with them.

Insist that because they've heard stories of appalling behavior within a group, it means the entire group does the same thing.

Double down rather than consider they might be wrong about something.

As someone who used to be a lot more Anti, I gotta say: SHUT UP AND THINK FOR YOURSELF. Listen to the other side. THINK about why they believe what they do. RESEARCH for yourself.

The moment I stopped arguing in favor of "hiding" certain content behind walls, when I got tired of fighting and just stopped... that's when I started to think. And reassess my beliefs. It's always possible to change your mind, and if you're sincere about it and own up to your mistakes, a lot of people will be willing to accept that.

In particular, wanting to protect kids from "pedos" is a good thing. Just make sure you understand the definitions of "pedophilia" first. And I don't mean the semantics between pedophilia and hebephilia and whatever else. I'm not even going to argue about the fiction vs. reality aspect, even though that's a growing problem. I mean stuff like "any age gap whatsoever is pedo even if they're both adults" and "if you've ever seen characters as kids, any relationship between them as adults is pedo." That's unsound and unhealthy thinking. Don't follow the dark spiral downward. Please.

Another thing I've seen more and more is that there are "confirmed" pedophiles among the proshippers and thus every proshipper is either a pedophile, an apologist, or too stupid to recognize the truth.

Buddies. Friends. THINK about it. Do you know what other groups have "confirmed" pedophiles among them? Probably all of them at some point or another. I'm sure there are some in the Anti ranks. There are absolutely some among the conservative politicians y'all love to echo. And among the libs. And in the clergy. The schools. The military. Customer service. Musicians. Artists. Even if the numbers are vanishingly small, they still exist. Does that mean ALL of those groups are rotten to the core? Are all of them equally bad or ignoring the truth?

Pedophiles- REAL pedophiles who target REAL children- exist everywhere, and the vast majority of them aren't obvious about it. Are you going to live your whole life in paranoia, suspecting everyone around you of being a kiddie diddler? Gods, that would be exhausting.

Anyway, that's the kind of extreme paranoia MAGA wants: everyone living in feat of everyone else. Any slight difference between "you" and "them" could be a sign of danger. The "illegals" are out to kill you and steal your job. The "welfare breeders" are stealing all your money. The "queers" are pedos who are grooming your kids into being perverts like them.

That kind of extreme paranoia also works in favor of the Anti movement. "Us," the Good and Pure vs. "Them," the Immoral and Perverse. I'm still convinced Antis are just a subset of MAGA who are lying to themselves.

"Nuh uh! I'm gay and I support gay rights! That's nothing like them!"

DO you support gay rights, though? Or do you only support the "good" gays who do gaying the "right" way? Do you really support trans rights or do you make exceptions regarding who is "allowed" to be trans and how they live that?

If MAGA started banning books that contained the kind of "problematic" content you hate, such as books featuring age gaps or ones dealing with rape, would you object? Or would you cheer them on? No hair-splitting allowed. No trying to draw a line between books that "fetishize" immoral things and those that try to help folks who have suffered unspeakable crimes. They're one and the same, because one person's definition of "fetish" won't be the same as another's. Just as one person's definition of "illegal content" might include queer topics while another person's won't.

ALSO: I just showed this post to my roommate, who is an MD at a clinic that specializes in care for the LGBT community in the Baltimore area. I asked her  whether hormones were responsible for the difference in the “male/female” symptom arrays. I asked how that would apply to her trans patients (which, she treats a LOT of trans patients). She said, basically, that the longer you’ve taken testosterone the more likely you are to get the intense chest pressure and the arm pain, versus the upper back pressure and shortness of breath.