🙂🙃🙂

I have had a laundry list of bad experiences with cishet men. Being harassed by them for gender reasons, for sexuality reasons. I have probably gotten my worst transphobia from cis men, and not just straight cis men. Cis men are responsible for the most physical violence I have faced. Cishet men were undoubtedly the worst group for me to date and I do not think I would date them again. I've been demonized and fetishized and sometimes by the same person. It would stand to reason that cis men cannot be trusted, and have no common ground with me.

And yet cishet men, cis men in general, are not "the problem" so to speak. Many cis gay men have been my biggest allies. A shocking amount of cishet men have protected me, bodily, with their words, with their solidarity. With their legal work. The trouble is that the patriarchy enables misogyny and protects its violent actors, ranking its support depending on how high up the supremacist ladder one is. There are many men, who have been brutalized by their peers for stepping out of line, and become obsessed with maintaining that order, if not for promise of supremacy, then to avoid further punishment. There are also many men who risk every ounce of power and preference to protect the people alongside them. Who challenge notions of what it means to be x. There are people breaking out of the mold constantly, pushing back constantly, and it only benefits patriarchy to think these are isolated cases.

A cis woman was responsible for the worst sexual violence I faced. Cis women have been the most judgy, the most gatekeepy of bathrooms. Women in general have been my biggest obstacle to finding a home in the definition of "woman." I had my scariest bathroom problems with cis men, but had way more issues with cis women. Cis women have been some of my biggest "bullies", the ones who harassed me the most over my conformity--or lack thereof. Cishet women were horrendous to date, and I do not think I'd date them again. I've been demonized and fetishized and sometimes by the same person. It would stand to reason that cis women cannot be trusted, and have no common ground with me.

And yet cishet women, cis women in general, are not "the problem" so to speak. There are so many lesbians who have been so helpful in discovering myself because of their utter commitment to pure acceptance. Ones who didn't understand but knew what it was like to not be understood, so they tried. There are many queer women who have battled hard alongside me and see me as a comrade. There are so many women, queer and straight alike, who have been the easiest to explore gender with. There are so many cis women, half my size, who stood between me and risk. There are so many who have battled in court, in legislation, in orgs, and in the street, for me and people like me. The problem is that in patriarchy, a break from the binary is punished severely, and many women, despite being victims of it themselves, will fall in line and drag you with them. Patriarchy rewards conformity, it rewards binarism, and it punishes dissent severely. There are so many women who have been punished and then turn to self-preservation at the deep cost of their peers, and there are so many women who have been punished and then fight like hell to limit the damage to us all.

This is a very narrow look at the problem--the more axes of oppression, the more often members of that community recognize the pattern and are even less willing to participate in the system of oppression themselves--this doesn't even get into trans infighting--but there are always outliers, and it makes sense.

The more privileged someone is, the more chances they have to reject solidarity because they still stand to gain more power than the rest of us, and still! countless people reject that because they see the value of their fellow people and are not--or no longer--swayed by white supremacist propaganda. And likewise, the more layers of oppression someone faces, the more chances they have to recognize the pattern and see that the system does not offer a leg up to someone like them, and still! there are many people who, the more they are hurt, the less connected they feel to other people, and they ultimately choose self-preservation above solidarity.

There is no category incapable of solidarity, and there is no category incapable of harm.

I do not fight alongside cishet people because I love all of them and have never been brutalized by them--I have. A lot. And still those people do not speak for the whole--there are so many people I've met who exemplify a deeper kindness and stronger sense of solidarity than many who "should" have my back by virtue of shared identity.

What matters is challenge to the system, and there are so many people out there doing just that. Fighting for all of us, and fighting for people unlike them. There are cishet people I know who see the shared struggle of gender oppression, and there are cishet people who don't really see anything in it for themselves to stand up for trans people in one area or another, but do it anyway because they think our struggle is unfair.

We cannot base our liberation theory on interpersonal conflict--ever. It is not reflective of the whole, and there will always be people who contradict this view and surprise you.

There are trans grifters and cishet people fighting like hell for gender expression--you cannot generalize the group, we can only critique the systems in play that reward those willing to uphold oppressive structures, and those who work to tear those systems down, not each other.

Another world is closer than you think

Above is a portion of the Foundation for Intentional Communities’ map of communes, eco-villages, cohousing, etc. around the world. These are communities who are building a life outside of capitalism, based on cooperation, equity, and justice, rather than competition and endless growth. There may be one or more in the city you live in

If you find yourself unable to swallow the idea of going back to “normal,” here’s somewhere to turn. Many of these communities are looking for new members or trying to expand. You can join them

There is another way to live. There is hope

freaky franmaya fantasies part two

Potentially, in some cases of chronic depression, it could just be this bad gut bacteria using a bad chemical commonly found in soap, and stimulating a huge inflammatory immune response - making depression an autoimmune response.

Club Ruins by Martti Kalliala

The above is a video shared by smrchildsadness on Twitter, showing a person participating in a pride parade exchanging a pride flag with a person standing on his (am using his pronoun based on the TikToks/Tweets of what happened) doorway who had a Portuguese flag. There are sounds of cheers and crying and the two people hug each other as they exchange the flags. The man at the doorway then waved kisses to the crowd within the pride parade.

The Tweet says: "NO YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HE WAS WAVING THE PORTUGUESE FLAG BECAUSE HE DIDN'T HAVE A PRIDE FLAG AND THEY TRADED FLAGS AND HE'S SO EMOTIONAL TO GET HIS OWN PRIDE FLAG I'M EMOTIONALLY RUINED"

For context, apparently they were worried that maybe he's a nationalist because he was waving the Portuguese flag and some nationalists opposing the pride march were waving that flag. But upon interacting with him, it turns out he didn't have have a pride flag and he wanted to wave *a* flag in support of the pride march. So they had an exchange and now he has his own pride flag 😭🥹.

The image above is a Tweet by kunwara_ladkaa that says "I'm crying so much right now (Image taken by Manuel Fernando Araújo/Lusa)". The image shows the same man from the pride parade crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

The above image is a Tweet by dudz_zZzz that says "ainda não parei de pensar nele," which according to Google translate from Portuguese to English is "I still haven't stopped thinking about him." The image is a drawing of the person from the pride parade, crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

This elderly gentleman lives alone in Porto, when he saw the march coming up his street all he knew was he wanted to participate, so he ran home to get the only flag he had to wave as they passed by, when they did he was overcome with emotion and called over one of the activists, they hugged and exchanged flags, he felt so overwhelmed that he could only hold it and cry.

This isn't a story about a closeted elderly man, António lives and has been living alone for many years now and that little moment made him feel included in something for the first time in many years.

Says the article:

"The act was "of support”, guarantees the man, especially because “each one is as they are and we are all the same”. “The joy I felt at this moment. I cried,” he recalled, still emotional when looking at the photograph offered to him during this report.

However, even though it reached thousands of people, the moment screams a feeling of belonging, of joy and also a portrait of loneliness as a consequence of aging.

Behind that door, whose image spread across the country, António is the portrait of a condition that affects many others like him.  He lives alone, but the walls of his home are full of memories of a life shared and full of love. “Memories I preserve,” he stresses.

He's not gay, nor does he need to be to support and respect the cause.

“We all have the same color blood. We are all the same.”

Still with an emotional look glued to the photograph that immortalized his gesture at the march, António remembers: “I felt embraced by all of them”. After a sigh, he says: “See this photo? I want to take it to my coffin.”