Ok I've been mulling this over in my head for a while now but I kinda wanted to just air my feelings on this.
I actually used to follow ISFF on an old account and early on with this one.
I liked that she was so transfem positive, especially in a time where I didn't really know many other trans women in my life.
One post was the scene from the PS1 FF7 where Aerith and Cloud are outside Don Corneo's mansion and Aerith tells Cloud he should dress up as a woman to sneak in and her text box was replaced with "I have a suggestion..." I thought was really funny. Cause yeah, Aerith was awful quick to jump to that suggestion.
I was also going through a bit of a difficult time with some trans men in my life and her remarks on trans men and how trans women are treated as a whole felt like they were validating my feelings and frustrations. It stoked my frustrations with cis people, with being a trans person, with being a trans woman in particular.
It made me more confrontational with other people, I was starting arguments, cutting people off in ways I hadn't before. Truth be told, it made me insufferable. I even had some blow-up with a coworker because she made some comment akin to "welcome to womanhood" over something I said. Which admittedly, was shitty and patronizing, but I had a more knee-jerk reaction which ended up starting a fight. Normally I'm more more sensible about picking my battles and starting a spat like this with a coworker is a dumb move because I loved my job and I gotta go to work to pay for my needs and it's not like my coworker was going away any time soon for the same reason. I just needlessly started a bitterness that didn't need to exist when I just could have vented to my friends about it and moved on.
But her positions kept getting more and more extreme, being more pushy about getting men and boys on HRT, being more vitriolic towards trans men as a whole. Then she started the whole TME/TMA discussion which felt like gender essentialism with extra steps the way she talked about it.
Then there was the pedophile apologia. That was the final straw. I read that post and it sent chills up my spine. It was one of the worst possible battles for a trans woman in particular to fight because it would just give terfs ammo for turning people who are neutral towards trans people against us. Yes there are, in fact, people who are neutral about trans people who just see us as regular people, I know cause I work with them every single day. I felt betrayed, heartbroken even, by someone I actually found some comfort in and as a result I distanced myself from her, her group, her behavior.
I became more patient, less confrontational, I patched things up with the trans men in my life and they are some of my biggest supporters and best friends. They are the most ride or die people in my life these days. I have better, healthier relationships with other trans women, I'm less confrontational with cis people, and I became less obsessed with my own misery as a trans woman. I started letting go of shit easier and now, I actually have done way more to persuade cis people into being more open-minded about trans people as whole by being more easy going and not getting on my soap box to talk about my misery to anyone who looks my direction.
I say this because I think a lot of other trans women support her for the same reason. She does an excellent job of making you feel validated. Making you feel seen. Acknowledging your pain and your frustrations.
All of which is good in small doses but the prescribed solution led me to cut myself off from other people, to see anyone but other trans women as my enemy and to wallow in my own misery because all I could see was oppression all around me.
And thatâs the insidious part. It wasn't just that her takes were wrong about trans men or kids, it was that she had perfected a pipeline from 'You are hurting' to 'Burn it all down.' She gave me the language to turn my very real, very justified pain into a weapon that I was pointing at the wrong people. It was just a very loud, very angry fog. The clarity came when I stepped out of it and realized my community was a whole lot bigger, and kinder, than she wanted me to believe.
Cis people still say dumb, patronizing things. Transphobia still exists. But I finally realized that ISFF wasn't teaching me how to survive it but rather she was teaching me how to drown in it.
I get why people follow her. Especially if you're early in transition and you feel like you're covered in wound that nobody sees. She gives you a name for those wounds. But eventually, you realize she's the one telling you to press on them harder to make sure they never heal. I wrote this out because I think there are a lot of trans women who feel that weird, guilty knot in their stomach when they read her stuff now but are too afraid to unfollow because it feels like betraying the sisterhood.