it's OK to give a fuck

http://therapyforblackgirls.com 

She was talking about the time in the 1970s and 1980s when she was a young radical dyke and how many of the awesome dykes in the radical scene were trans women. So I asked her if there was ever any problem with TERFs and SWERFs. She didn’t know those words so I described them. Her reply was (paraphrasing a longer conversation):

“Oh, you mean the political lesbians? That’s what we called them at the time, no one really considered them radical. They hated everyone. They hated bisexual women who dated men. They hated us leather dykes and kinky dykes because they thought we were ‘copying the patriarchy’, they hated trans women. None of us in the radical scene liked them. A lot of them later left and admitted that they were straight but were presured to identify as lesbians in that group because being a feminist to them meant cutting all ties with men. They were like a cult. They often lived together and if you didn’t walk the political line you were dead to them. Intense stuff. ”

TERFs began to colonize the RadFem identity as early as 1973 at Radical Feminism’s biggest event: the West Coast Lesbian Conference. The conference was specifically trans-inclusive, but TERFs disrupted the event, demanding that trans attendees be removed. TERF icon Robin Morgan incited violence by telling the TERFs to “deal with” a trans women who was known to be in attendance. 

When a group of TERFs tried to physically assault the trans woman, Radical Feminists stepped in to protect the trans woman. Instead of beating the trans woman, the TERFs instead beat the Radical Feminists. After the TERF violence, the conference still voted to remain a trans inclusive space, but the trans woman left the conference voluntarily to avoid further TERF violence and disruption to the conference.

Perhaps the most iconic Radical Feminist institution was the Lesbian Separatist music collective, Olivia Records. This collective is largely responsible for the rise of women’s music movement of the 1970s. The Collective was trans-inclusive and even helped trans women access trans medical care. TERF icon, Janice Raymond discovered this and began a campaign against Olivia and the trans member of the Collective. This resulted in numerous death threats to the Radical Feminist members of the collective and credible armed death threats against the trans woman. Moreover, TERFs threatened to financially destroy Olivia Records for being trans inclusive with a boycott. 

Even though Olivia voted to remain a trans-inclusive space, the trans woman left the Collective to avoid further TERF violence and disruption to the Collective.

[…]

Most of the media coverage around the MWMF casts this as a RadFem/Lesbian/Woman vs Trans issue. It’s not. The MWMF has come to represent a more nuanced struggle between TERFs who target both Radical Feminists and trans people in the name of Radical Feminism. The evidence reveals that almost from the start, the chances were that “there is still a better than 999 in 1000 chance that most Festigoers would welcome trans women”. 

Moreover, the evidence reveals that the most iconic Radical Feminist institutions were designed to be trans-inclusive, until TERF violence forced trans people to choose between their own safety, the safety of Radical Feminists, the institution itself and leaving the space. As has always been, TERF aggression comes wrapped in the guise of Radical Feminism, for the purpose of colonizing Radical Feminism.

Straight girls who see me as their “gay friend” or who say they don’t care about sexuality but wouldn’t date a boy who’s had sex with a boy

Straight people in general who say “isn’t he really just gay” or telling girls that I’m actually gay and faking it with them

Gay people who say that because I have the option of dating a girl I’m the same as the straight people who oppress our community

Gay people who say I’ll never understand oppression or what it’s like to “actually” be gay

The book Building A Movement to end the new Jim Crow: an organizing guide is free on Amazon kindle today.

If you’re someone looking to get involved in racial justice work and learn some organizing skills for free, this is a good place to start

Thanks @noranelz for the heads up on fb

You really need to see this…

None of this information would’ve been made public if Shirley Weber, a black assemblywoman for San Diego, hadn’t pressed her inquires. This system has allowed officers to racially profile dozens of thousands of people, label 28 babies under the age of 1 as admitting to having gang affiliations, and destroy lives. A black woman is responsible for the public discovery of this. Eliminating racial disparities in office is crucial, and this is an important example of that. 

Kelvin Peña Is Best Friends With A Powdered-Doughnut-Loving Deer Named Money

First off, let’s have our usual refrain: don’t feed the wildlife. It’s not helpful and can lead to all sorts of bad things can like bloat and population imbalances that will cause them to become pests. Deer habituate to people easily - it sounds like ‘Money’ already was, considering Kevin “walked up to him, and noticed he didn’t run away.” And this isn’t just one deer - it’s multiple deer, repeatedly.

Habituated deer are more likely to hang out around houses and eat gardens, get hit by cars… and hurt people.

Let’s examine those. It’s utterly stupid to approach deer, especially in mating season. They will fuck you up - just google for clips of ‘man attacked by deer’ to watch people literally get kick-boxed by deer standing on their hind legs. Loose dogs are often a huge threat to deer, but a good kick can also easily kill your pet. By the way, hitting a deer with your car can really hurt you and destroy the car - be ready to consider it totaled if it’s anything but a glancing blow.

Hopefully your neighbors like deer more than their gardens. See, according to a Maine government website on deer, “even when provided with optimal supplemental foods, deer will continue to browse on shrubbery, tree buds, garden plantings, and seedlings in the adjacent forest. At many feeding sites, deer may occur at densities that are 3 to 5 times higher than “normal” wintering density. When highly concentrated, deer can literally kill all vegetation within their reach in the vicinity (one to several hundred acres) of deer feeding sites.“ So say goodbye to your mom’s petunias or your neighbor’s heirloom blueberry bushes if you’re feeding deer.

When you feed deer, you screw up literally the entire ecosystem around them. They frequently stop migrating because they don’t need to, which means that certain areas don’t get grazed and have overgrowth problems and your area has too many deer because they don’t die off in the winter (nature’s built-in population control). This leads to a spike in predators in the area - big, toothy predators people don’t like in suburbia - and overgrazing, which in turn effects the survival of lots of other local species. Not to mention you’re screwing with natural selection by removing competition for the best food, so over time the lower quality makes whose genetics actually are detrimental to survival will not be weeded out. But hey, you’re getting warm fuzzy feelings, right?

Except… you can kill deer easily by feeding them. If you start feeding deer at the wrong time in the winter you can actually help them starve faster because you screw up the microorganisms in their stomach that need to be optimized for low quality browse, not human food. If you feed them sugar and they bloat, they die. If you feed them too much at once, they can die. If you feed them spoiled grain or moldy things, they can die. You can cause malnutrition in an entire population by drawing deer to a feeding site but not feeding them enough - they’ll stop grazing normally. High concentrations of deer also makes them a super effective disease vector.

I don’t think one could wake up to find out worse news than this…two women killed in one day. Both Black - the group that is oppressed and disrespected the most in our country..

#SkyeMockabee   #KorrynGaines   #SayTheirNames