Aquarianisms

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

This, too, is a trashed bathroom; young queer people living through hell and having precious little control over their circumstances or the world in which they exist can affect something by using the language of social justice as a cudgel on their would-be allies, as well as getting a brief feeling of power over someone else by doing it.

There is a reason why there is a more modern antisemitic caricature of "the college educated coastal elite trying to erode at western masculinity and femininity" and it's literally, in part, because of Jewish led transfeminist action. It is a caricature that exists in dialogue with longer standing antisemitic stereotypes, but we're talking specifically about the modern iteration of it.

It's because of Leslie Feinberg's action, mobilization, and writing in the late 70's through the early 00's as a vocally Jewish transgender feminist. It's because of Judith Butler's essay "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution" and their book Gender Trouble in the 90's. It's because of Bornstein's books Gender Outlaws and Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, the second of which was worked on in collaboration with Jewish trans man S. Bear Bergman. It's because Riki Wilchins has been an active part of trans and intersex feminist action for decades despite you probably not knowing hir name.

Wilchins co-founded Camp Trans with Feinberg. S/he co-founded Transsexual Menace with Denise Norris. Wilchins coined the term "genderqueer" and s/he also helped lead to the foundation of Intersex Awareness Day thanks to hir work with intersex activist Cheryl Chase and the Hermaphrodites With Attitude! protest group. Wilchins has been a backbone of trans and intersex activism since the 90's.

All Jewish nonbinary people from different assigned gender backgrounds working towards trans liberation and solidarity. For decades.

Shes a Jewish genderqueer trans woman* that has contributed a lot to the conversations surrounding: the gentrification of San Franciscos gay neighborhoods, sex work, hiv activism, disability, abuse, and incest.

If youve read the anthology, Thats Revolting! Queer strategies for fighting assimilation! Or, why are faggots afraid of faggots? Or The end of San Francisco then youre already familiar with her work.

Her work is particularly important, because she’s talked a lot about doing survival full service sex work during the 90s, and there just isnt a whole lot of people who have documented those experiences publicly for obvious reasons.

This also ties in to what op is talking about-a lot of the anti sex work conspiracy theories that go around are about Jews forcing goy in to a life of “depravity” and “pulling them away from god in to a life of sin” etc

So, when you, as a jewish genderqueer queen faggot* talk openly and publicly about doing sex work people are quick to go straight to all of that.

But anyways, yeah, shes part of this legacy too.

au where the third and ninth houses trade cavs for a little bit

- guy 1 (a friend) threw a tantrum and cut me off when I called him out for making light of a situation in which I had been scared for my life (older man on the bus at night was staring at me fixated the whole ride)

- guy 2 (also a friend) started hitting on me despite knowing that im a lesbian, tried to make me pity him for never getting women, made incel comments about his height and MY HEIGHT, and went as far as to say "i wish you had met me when I was a girl bc you would've liked me"

- invited me over to smoke a joint at his place. i got sick (i think it was stronger stuff than I was prepared for) and started throwing up, but his booty call was on the way over, so he started pushing me out the door even though i was in absolutely no state to take the bus. I'm lucky I made it home safe that night

- realized he was bi, after having been out and proud as gay for years, due to catching feelings for his straight (girl) friend. when she didn't take well to the revelation that her gay BFF was actually in love with her, he framed the situation to me as her being the unreasonable one

Blouseless coord for morning errands, bagels and coffee! With the heat and humidity at full power, I see a lot more blouseless coords in my future <3 featuring one of my favorite pieces

image description in alt text and below