I'd rather be a cyborg

This may end up being one of my longer posts, and possibly the most important post I'll ever make. If you're reading this, I beg you to save it so you can find it whenever you have time to take out of your day and read it in its entirety.

Since it was mentioned in a post I saw yesterday, I'd like to leave a couple of videos from The Alt-Right Playbook series by Innuendo Studios. This video below is the one that was explicitly referenced in the post. It's less than 5 minutes long.

This next one is one that very well illustrates a specific bad faith rhetorical strategy that originated in very right-leaning online spaces in the early to mid 2010s (mainly 4chan and Reddit) and was then disseminated to other social media with more politically diverse userbases when the channers and redditors started using it (among others discussed in the series) to obfuscate, silence, or "takedown" arguments by progressives. I'm highlighting this particular one because I think it is very commonly used now on Tumblr among users calling themselves "transfeminist" in a way that destabilizes and obfuscates actual feminist analysis. (I don't think everyone who does it is equally aware of what they're doing - this is a strategy that does not require a complete awareness of its results on the part of the user. However, many people who use it do very well know what they are doing and feign ignorance, as the strategy is one that has plausible deniability built into it. The video goes into this.) The video is 18 minutes long.

I would sincerely recommend anyone who considers themselves a progressive and who frequently comes across bad faith arguments made by people who try to smuggle in regressive ideas in the form of quippy statemens, "owns", gaslighting, goalpost-shifting, etc. to watch the entire series. It has many parts but most of the videos are pretty short and the whole thing is really digestible and simply phrased.

More specifically to the topic of this blog, the recent trans community """infighting""" is one where a contingent of 4chan and old-school Reddit expatriates have been pushing increasingly antifeminist beliefs into the previously relatively progressive and feminist demographic of queer and trans Tumblr users, moving the overton window slowly but surely to the right on issues like rape culture, domestic abuse, reproductive oppression, and the way gendered socialization produces unequal consciousness and thus unequal material results, while gradually discouraging direct engagement with the history of feminist political action and feminist theory and literature.

Now, I guarantee you that I have been online for longer than at least 80% of the people reading this. This is both because I am old (#MillennialCringe) and because I, like many nerdy girls and "girls" of the 00s, was a very early adopter (never let them tell you that the internet was solely or mostly male until X recent date. It's a sexist lie.) So as someone who has been online for a very long time and has been immersed in online political discussion for almost as long, let me tell you, the Internet's historical memory is extremely short.

The reason people who unironically believe in things like AFAB privilege, that "people with a vagina can get justice for rape if their rapist is AMAB" (quite literally the opposite of how rape has worked for the entirety of human history, BTW!), that cis men are closer to being "TMA" than anyone AFAB or even cis men are TMA (where to be "TMA" is to universally suffer the most severe gendered victimization and violence, since "literally everybody AFAB has privilege over ["TMA" peope]"), that "there is a type of power that AFAB people hold that cis men don't" due to "having access to cis womanhood", who proclaim their "little fondness for cis women as a class" while having "no quarrel with the cisgender men", who argue in favor of introducing "nuance" to the condemnation of a rapist as an offender and wonder whether it is even possible to know if or when rape has occurred, who perpetrate the classic MRA talking point of "false rape accusationss", can insist that they are the indefatigable feminist activists being harassed and persecuted, while the people who point out the physical, psychological, medical, legal, economic, reproductive, occupational, and sexual damage that being classed as female has come with for the majority of human history* are maligned as "MRAs", or "gamergaters" with so little pushback from anyone, is that the true nature and history of those fascist, racist, and antifeminist movements has been memoryholed, even as little as <15 years after they happened. At the same time, its agents have demonstrably succeeded in normalizing their language and beliefs throughout the entire Internet, to the point that the average Twitter or Tiktok feed of 2026 looks not unlike the front page of /pol/ in 2014.

I believe it has at this point become fundamental for anyone who considers themselves a progressive to actually educate themselves on the history, tactics, demographic makeup, language, and aesthetics of those movements. This is especially true for anyone who considers themselves a feminist and who wants to spread feminist beliefs, participate in feminist analysis and work to end sexist oppression. Sexism has always been one of the chief values used to attract people, mainly white cis men who felt disenfranchised from masculinity, to these environments and radicalize them. (The other big one of course being racism.) Here is a video in the Alt-Right Playbook series on how such radicalization worked in detail, it's longer than the others but very important, please, please watch it.

It's especially important to note that I don't believe it to be a coincidence that these movements gained traction not thanks to platforming or support from "classic" conservative hubs but thanks to the radicalization and infiltration of nerdy online spaces with a predominant white male presence. It is equally not coincidental, in my opinion, that to the sexist, racist men in these communities, Tumblr was seen as the stronghold of the annoying, whiny, self-victimizing feminists. This was due to the fact that Tumblr (and some other often female-created and female-moderated fannish spaces, like FF.net, LiveJournal, and later Ao3) was where all the nerdy girls and women ended up gathering, in order to be able to discuss nerdy interests somewhere where they wouldn't be subject to misogynistic harassment. All of this takes on even more significance when you remember that Gamergate, and the broader culture of anti-feminist movements it both was an early part of and further sparked, started specifically as a reaction to feminist journalist critiquing sexist ideology and content in video games, and more broadly to the growing voice of women in the culture of nerd hobbies.

(From Meme Wars, Chapter 3: Gamers Rise. Full citation below)

(From "Right-Wing Extremism in Mainstream Games". Full citation below.)

One last thing I want to note is that many of the antifeminist talking points and stereotypes - and their related imagery - that were created at the time by these communities seem to have been recycled into talking points and imagery that is now used against transmasculine people and NB people AFAB (though they do of course still get used against women.) There is a clear and straightforward lineage that can be traced from the "hysterical feminazi" to the "whiny bitchboy transandrocunt", from the "crazy bitch who wants to cuck videogames" to compensate for her inferiority to the "power-tripping TME using AFAB privilege to censor TMA expression", from the "cringe fat SJW screeching about being lithosexual" to the "ugly theyfab with giant tits who thinks pronouns make them oppressed" or "delusional dyed-hair pooner with zippertits and fandom brain." The place where this lineage can be seen most evidently is in the wojak-style cartoons produced in these sort of spaces, where the aesthetic similarity and the correspondence of the language use highlight the fact that there is a direct continuity between the antifeminist 4/8channers and Redditors of then and the antifeminist, anti-transmasculine, exorsexist posters of now. The latter's ideologies still often start off on Chan boards, and eventually spread to Reddit and Twitter and Instagram and Bluesky, with the difference that they now use Tumblr as an inbetween step to proliferate and solidify their ideas, having at least partially supplanted the native userbase of Tumblr ("woke snowflake SJW" types) but having retained the website's function as a petri dish for percolating ideas about LGBT/queer identity and feminism before they get "trickled down" to the rest of the LGBT/feminist internet. At the bottom of this post I will leave some images as examples. (TW for virulent misogyny, transphobia and racism, and for self harm scars)

This first video is a 4 minute long video from the series outlining another rhetorical strategy, one that I see self-proclaimed “transfeminists” of all genders use all the time against transmasculine and nonbinary people trying ti speak of their oppression.

The next two are historiographical videos, telling the story of Gamergate and adjacent movements in the early 2010s. The first one is about the vicious misogynistic and racist harassment of Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist media critic with a relatively small Youtube channel and website in 2012-13. Sarkeesian was later also dragged into the “true” Gamergate of 2014. The video is only 9 minutes long.

This last video is much longer at 50 minutes, but it’s in my opinion an important and necessary watch. It tells the story of 2014’s Gamergate, starting from the harassment of game journalists Zoe Quinn, sparked by her abusive ex boyfriend on 4chan and blown up through private IRC chats.

Diné Weaver Venancio Aragón

"From researching historic twill patterns in museum collections to dyeing wool with Kool-Aid, Diné (Navajo) weaver and instructor Venancio Aragón interlocks research and experimentation to expand the visual and technical vocabularies of Diné weaving. Working on the Diné upright loom, Aragón is part of a generation of Diné weavers who reinterpret ancestral knowledge through experimentation, carrying the medium forward on their own terms. As he stated in our interview with him, “I am not a purist.”

Based in Farmington, New Mexico, Aragón is trained in cultural anthropology and Native American and Indigenous studies, currently teaching at Diné College, the Navajo Nation’s tribal college. Before transitioning to full-time weaving and teaching, Aragón worked as an interpretive park ranger at the Mesa Verde, Aztec Ruins, Bandelier, and Petroglyph National Monuments, where he led tours and developed public education initiatives. He was born to the Tó’aheedlíinii (The Water Flow Together People) clan and born for the Naakaii (Mexican people). His maternal grandfather is of the Tsénahabiłnii (Sleeping Rock) clan, and his paternal grandfather is of the Naakaii (Mexican people)."

This is from 1966 and you can see over a hundred photos on the NYPL digital collections website. It is absolutely gorgeous. These are just a few of my favourites.

Plus Puck's face here:

care for gaza - focuses on providing food and essential supplies. donate here or here.

connecting humanity - securing internet access via donations of virtual sim cards (esims). if you can't afford a whole plan yourself, crips for esims is a communal pool that will use your donation to purchase and maintain esims

gaza soup kitchen - provides food, medical care, and classes for children. also has a gofundme

glia gaza medical support initiative - provides medical care through field clinics and tents at hospitals. donations can also be sent through their website.

ele elna elak - provides clean water, food, clothing, and shelter. they also have a gofundme

life for gaza - raising money for the gaza municipality to repair water and waste management infrastructure

taawon - partners with local civil organizations to provide food, water, medical care, shelter, and basic supplies

the sameer project - running various initiatives providing tents, medical care, and necessities. they have their own encampment project focused on sheltering families with children, sick and disabled members, or members in need of perinatal care

islamic relief worldwide's gaza emergency appeal - provides food, water, hygiene kits, medical supplies, and psychological support

baitulmaal - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, shelter, and medical supplies

gaza mutual aid fund - distributes food, hygiene products, water, and other essential supplies, including financial support. run by @/el-shab-hussein's amazing friend Mona. updates can be found on her instagram.

hygiene kits for gaza - provides hygiene supplies including menstrual products, wipes, and toothbrushes/toothpaste

anera - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, hygiene supplies, medicine, blankets and mattresses, and psychological care

palestine children's relief fund - provides supplies and support with a focus on children. also has an initiative for lebanon

dahnoun mutual aid - provides water, food, tents, baby supplies, financial support, and other necessities. updates can be found through their instagram

The reason it was so important for narrative purposes, was that the plot concerns the visit of the Astronaut, in his completely opaque spacesuit, to a planet populated entirely by self-aware robots (originally from Earth) who have built their own society and are petitioning to be allowed to interact with Earth again as equals.

They have a democratic government and free choice of careers etc. as the orange robot serving as guide tells the Astronaut.

The Astronaut notices that there are two different types of robot on this world; the orange ones, who are in charge, gifted access to all information and facilities. and the blue robots, who are seen as more limited in function, have less access to information and resources, and are not allowed positions of power or as wide a choice of employment opportunities. Even transportation is segregated.

The Astronaut investigates further and discovers that the blue and orange robots are actually structurally identical, there is absolutely no difference between their potential or capabilities, and it is only because the orange robots are instructed by their Educator system to consider themselves superior, that the difference exists.

The Astronaut tells the robots they are not ready for re-alignment with Earth, until they come to terms with their own unfairness, and how Earth had had to deal with this issue themselves. When that time comes, the robots will be able to ally with Earth.

Then he leaves in his spaceship, and it's only in that one final panel that we see the Astronaut is black.

Not subtle, nor should it be, but for 1950 this was a breathtakingly powerful statement, perhaps the first of it's kind in the genre.

The American Dream (Enhanced Edition).

Oh, guys, we just need a little to get to the middle of our goal We are close to 15,000 We need less than €820 Come on, guys! We just need 2% To reach 50% of the target.

And if you also hadn't heard of her go read this because uhh... Holy Shit

This story sounds like it could have been a brilliant exploration of gender and warfare and violence but instead it was attacked by people who didn't know how to confront a story that made them uncomfortable, and the author faced horrible consequences.

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

When the detail that the writer was a trans woman (and a specific one people knew) had filtered into common knowledge, the consensus of the vocal detractors was that she had done Nazi actions equivalent to being a Nazi that hurt every trans woman, and it was their responsibility to terrorize her. When she ended up suicidal and swore off writing, that was viewed as a great victory against an enemy of trans women. (Not dissimilar from people harassing Jewish actress Aya Cash for portraying a Nazi on The Boys.)

Also, people like to single out N.K. Jemisin for participating, but she was pretty much doing what people expect of an ally: following the leading voices of the relevant minority, repeating their messages, and using her social capital to boost theirs. The problem was the trans women leading the mob. I find the presence of trans woman author Alexandra Erin more objectionable because she was run off Tumblr for being into vore and bondage and because she liked a post from a black submissive woman showing off a collar, which was framed as her wanting to enslave black people, so you would think she'd be sympathetic to a trans woman author stigmatized for being into edgy humor. Instead, she likened the story to firing randomly in the air and hoping only bad people would be hurt, when it should be clear innocents would likely be hurt, making the whole endeavor harmful. (Like being open about liking controversial fetishes on Tumblr?)

Edgy humor sets off mainstream leftists like Daleks sighting an enemy.

Like, how many times can we see a marginalized creator get torn to bloody shreds by other marginalized people and well intended “Allies” who never actually looked at the evidence themselves and just went off what “the affected group” was saying? The queer experience is subjective as hell, and I can’t imagine any other marginalized experience is different. Maybe we should stop mob harassing people for making something without looking at the thing ourselves.

Because there was little biographical information available about its author, the debate hinged on one question: Who was Isabel Fall? And that question ate her alive. When she emerged from the hospital a few weeks later, the world had moved on, but she was still scarred by what had happened. She decided on something drastic: She would no longer be Isabel Fall. As a trans woman early in transition, Fall had the option of retreating to the relative safety of her legal, masculine identity. That’s what she did, staying out of the limelight and growing ever more frustrated by what had happened to her. She bristles when I ask her in an email if she’s stopped transitioning, but it’s the only phrase I can think of to describe how the situation appears. Isabel Fall was on a path to becoming herself, and then she wasn’t — and all because she published a short story. And then her life fell apart.

...

After she checked out of the hospital, Isabel Fall ceased to be Isabel Fall. “I had a few other stories in the works on similar themes, and I withdrew them; that is the most concrete thing I can say that I stopped doing,” Fall says. “More abstractly, more emotionally, I have stopped trying to believe I am a woman or to work towards womanness. If other people want to put markings on my gender-sphere and decide what I am, fine, let them. It’s not worth fighting.”

That makes me so fucking angry every time I think about it that I want to spit or cry.

I have not been the subject of the level of intense, sudden, overwhelming attention that she has; I have been the target of a lower-volume, sustained campaign, and there is a reason that I call it "the acid fire hose." That shit will strip the fucking flesh from your bones.

So yeah. Of course indie authors flinch.

2. The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within US Slave Culture by Vincent Woodard

3. "Abolitionists turned the tables on Europeans by accusing them of being cannibals when they ate sugar tainted with the flesh and blood of slaves."

here's the intro

light thats not how the book works

MICROSOFT TEAMS