in the summer sunshine

The identity of OP is unimportant because I’ve seen this sentiment all over the place. But when I saw this post I just felt compelled to talk about this mentality.

Most likely this same logic is not applied to, say, politicians. Let’s put aside the fact that there is (unfortunately) no concrete delineation between a person who is merely a “private citizen” and a person who might be in the “public interest.” That’s the kind of distinction that everyone has to subjectively make for themselves.

The “nobody can criticize anyone for any reason” outlook is a childish, hyper-individualistic outlook that contributes to Missing Stair type social dynamics.

Have you ever been in a house that had something just egregiously wrong with it? Something massively unsafe and uncomfortable and against code, but everyone in the house had been there a long time and was used to it? "Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you, there's a missing step on the unlit staircase with no railings. But it's okay because we all just remember to jump over it."

Some people are like that missing stair.

When I posted about a rapist in a community I belonged to, although I gave almost no details about the guy except "he's a rapist," I immediately got several emails from other members of that community saying "oh, you must mean X." Everyone knew who he was! Tons of people, including several in the leadership, instantly knew who I meant. The reaction wasn't "there's a rapist among us!?!" but "oh hey, I bet you're talking about our local rapist." Several of them expressed regret that I hadn't been warned about him beforehand, because they tried to discreetly tell new people about this guy. Others talked about how they tried to make sure there was someone keeping an eye on him at parties, because he was fine so long as someone remembered to assign him a Rape Babysitter.

(Please go on to read the whole “Missing Stair” blog post. It reflects some experiences I’ve had as well!)

I understand that rape accusations and “callout posts” can be used as vectors of harassment. It can also be really annoying for some rando who you’ve never talked to to send you a callout post for some other rando you’ve never talked to. I’ve seen a lot of that on tumblr especially in the late 2010’s. But there has to be some kind of reasonable position on this issue for people who actually want to live in community with other people instead of completely eschewing any kind of responsibility for the community you’re in. And at the same time it’s unsustainable to foster a culture of hypervigilance and paranoia.

You have to use your critical thinking skills, no matter what. There is no easy one-size-fits-all principle you can adopt.

if oop meant, say, 'callout posts' within a discord server or some kind of actual social group, then sure.

there isn’t “clear delineation” of ingroups and outgroups, but often that isn’t true in real life either. the point of the missing stair post is not actually dependent on there being extremely concrete boundaries between tumblr subcultures, which is why i have seen “missing stair” type situations happen on this website before which often blew up into public accusations (and, sometimes, counter-accusations).

“home of false accusations against trans women” is a strong choice of words. Frankly I don’t have any reason to think that’s more common on this website than on any other website, unfortunately. But conversely, you do actually have to be able to take some kind of concrete action when, for example, the accuser and the accused are both trans women, and you know both of them IRL, and your choices will have consequences that affect the rest of all of your lives. that is a realistic scenario.

Two things to consider:

Would it change how you acted in the above scenario if it was a cis woman accusing a cis man? What about a cis man accusing another cis man?

How many degrees of separation away from someone do you have to be before they are no longer a priority for you as a fellow human being?

Do you want to hold everyone in the world at arms length forever? Put everyone in the world in a position of such abstraction, such distance, that it does not matter to you if they are the victim or the perpetrator?

I certainly don’t. I think that’s part of the problem with our (global) society, that too many people act as if they are at a “safe distance” from everything.

so, like, yes, i do kind of agree with you (in the descriptive sense) that there isn’t necessarily “a community” of tumblr, and I often talk about how i do not feel there is “an LGBTQIA+ community” or “a queer community” or “a trans community” or even “a transfeminine community.”

However, that being said, you must also consider the real possibility that the people on the other end of the fiber-optic cable who make funny words appear on your screen might be other human beings.

I’m not interested in the specificities of why the OOP as an individual “participates” or “doesn’t participate.” I’m trying to examine the underlying mindset in general, rather than in specific. (Btw on left-leaning tumblr, nobody complains when someone points out a particular user is a neo-nazi or a zionist. Everyone just hits the block button and moves on. Same with using the “Shinigami Eyes” program that demarcates transphobes.)

it would be NICE if we lived in a world where you had to actually respect someone to have sex with them but that is not actually the world we live in.

You can absolutely be a feminine man and I've no problem with that, but that's not really what a femboy is. There's a reason I hate the term, view it as one of the many fetishizing slurs against transfems, and get grossed out at how other TME queer folks seem to think it's the most wonderful term ever.

Straight men love femboys because they get to fuck a pretty thing that they don't have to respect the rights or even womanhood of! And to be a femboy, you have to be young, it's a label with an expiration date, and there's a reason for that! Easier to exploit!