Opposition Research

It went at the top from ‘hey, let’s not imply that the predominant abusers of queer people are other queer people, because they’re not’ and at the bottom it ended up with ‘let’s not imply all straights are abusers’, which never even fucking happened.

This is how the responsibility for victimization falls on the victims theirselves. The narrative of ‘hey maybe we shouldn’t say cishet people who abuse queer people are usually not cishet’ shifts gradually over time until it gets to the point where of course this is a problem with queer people. Not the fact that we’re beaten, raped, killed, starved, fired, evicted, and encouraged to commit suicide in a world inimical to our survival. It’s the fact that we’re not nice enough about it.

If a cishet dude looked at what happens to queer and trans people (and the ways it falls heavily on our siblings of colour), and he gave any amount of a fuck about it, he’d be horrified at the people who decided they were deserving of death and he wasn’t, and he’d realize that if it were up to queer people, they wouldn’t fucking choose death for theirselves. And if Pat McCrory came out as trans tomorrow, it wouldn’t change the fact that he’s a fucking cis supremacist, and it wouldn’t change the fact that the institutions created to privilege cisgender people — which, even if they have trans members, require cis acquiescence to exist because of that demographic majority — still exist and still grind people up in its gears.

The four people who bullied me in elementary were, last I checked, happily straight and cisgender, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most childhood and adult abuses of queer and trans folk are by cis and het folk, not closeted trans folk.

People don’t ride the bus or subway to be comfortable, they ride it to get to work, or school, or home, or wherever the fuck they have to be that day. If was suppposed to be comfortable, then there would be more than a quarter inch of fucking cushion on those seats. 

“But I need to be comfortable!“ 

No, you fucking don’t! The bus is meant to get as many people as possible from point A to point B. They can’t do that if you’re taking up more than one seat. I get it though, if you were at home or the only passenger in the backseat of a personal vehicle, fucking do it dude. Take up as much space as you want. Spread those limbs, my little starfish! But the bus is not yours. The subway is not yours.

It is a shared space. That doesn’t mean take up as much of it as you can for yourself, that means take what you need. What you NEED. That’s why I take up only one seat. Not one seat and some of the seat next me because of my junk. And if I can’t, I stand up. Standing up is totally an option on public transportation and is literally way better than sitting down anyway. In my opinion, at least. My ass doesn’t hurt, I don’t have strangers crotches in my face, I feel like I’m in a gum commercial for whatever reason, it’s awesome. 

I cross my legs at the knees.

You heard me right. A non-transitioning DMAB person with a penis and testes and thighs that can crush watermelons from years of rollerblading can manage to cross my legs as tightly as they can go without pain. It's possible, but it takes some finesse, which explains why these assholes can't seem to manage dealing with their own anatomy.

Men do not understand that there is a technique to it, and rather than trying to figure it out, they cross or close their legs without thinking, get uncomfortable as they accidentally get a ball squished, and spend all their time perpetuating this pelvic bullshit instead of learning how they fucked up. Let me point out that the angle men claim they need their legs at while sitting down is somehow far greater than the angle at which they stand up, where men do not walk around bow-legged.

There is no kinesiological reason men need to take up two bus seats' worth of width. If there was, bus seats would be redesigned to accomodate them.

I’ll try to explain the best I can my thoughts on this, because I’ve never actually seen anyone on my dash supporting such a viewpoint.

Because when you headcanon an cis and straight character as LGBT+, you aren’t majorly detracting from the representation of cis or straight people. 

Straight people have representation every where. Turn on tv. Look in a YA book. If there’s a not-straight (or somehow by an even smaller chance, not cis) character, chances are they’re a side character. If the lead seems to be interested in the same gender, it’s often not explicitly stated, or it’s q*eer baiting. 

The little representation that I know of usually doesn’t have bisexual people in it, looking at your example here, or if they do it still has the chance of running the “I don’t like labels” routine, and I can’t think of a single mainstream show or book that has a canonically pan, ace, ply, or aro lead (with maybe the exception of Deadpool as if I recall he was stated out of the movie that he’s pan and I think Reynolds wants it to be more blatant in any future films). 

Who does it hurt to headcanon a straight character as something else? Absolutely no one. If a straight person is that upset about it, they can just look to any of the other plentiful amounts of straight characters out there. Heteromantic heterosexuality has tons of representation. The same goes for trans headcanons- nearly every character in mainstream media that I can think of is cisgender, it detracts absolutely nothing from cis people to headcanon a character as trans. 

On the other hand, it detracts a lot from LGBT+ people to try and make out a not LGBP+ character as straight, or a trans character as cis. Because we aren’t the mainstream always socially acceptable group to portray. Trying to interpret an LGBPA+ character to be heteromantic and heterosexual, imo, is like saying “Yes, you have this character as representation. However, this character’s LGBT+  identity makes me uncomfortable, so I’m going to believe they’re completely cis and straight because you can’t really stop me.”

Of course, no one is mandated to agree with every LGBT+ headcanon. But there’s a difference between not agreeing with it and just shrugging it off- or even blacklisting it if it really annoys you that much- and expressing legitimate annoyance with people for using that character to find comfort and (fan created) representation in.

Short answer: It’s ok to headcanon cis and straight characters as being not cis or not straight because doing so doesn’t try to detract or put into question representation from an under-represented group, and can bring comfort to LGBT+ people. Headcanoning LGBT+ characters as not being LGBT+, however, does detract from an under represented group.

The idea of ‘This character can’t be [x] because they’re [y]’ is based on the idea that there is a single authoritative version of the character, and we’re all arguing about what that authoritative version is. A lot of the time, this isn’t the case, and people making headcanons are simply reinterpreting the character as one of many possible variants given the text of the work(s) they appear in.

That said, the people who talk about how someone can’t be [x] because they’re [y] do have a legitimate gripe from their own perspective. There is no other character like Garnet. There is no other character like Lisa Simpson. There is no other character like Toby Ziegler. (I may have dated myself with those examples.) We talk a lot about the quantity of characters, and that’s important — but what we don’t talk about is the fact that the quality of each individual character matters. There are almost certainly some straight people who have a favourite character, see a popular LGBT+ headcanon for that character, and feel like that interpretation has become the authoritative one, which threatens their identification with that character.

The reason this is threatening to that person, however, is because they believe only one interpretation of a character can be valid at the same time. The people who argue for the straightness of a headcanon LGBT character don’t want to feel like their specific interpretation is being taken away from them, and the people who argue for the straightness of a canonically LGBT+ character are usually reactionaries trying to erase what few LGBT people exist in media out of spite.

This is a conversation I have just finished having with @thesocialjusticecourier. I think it’s necessary to show it in order to demonstrate something.

thesocialjusticecourier:

Not necessarily. People with Downs, or Autism or hell, even better - people who are born hermaphroditic have a medical condition but that doesn’t necessarily mean they need treatment. Some might if the condition has outlying symptoms or creates other problems that need to be handled with medication or treatment - but for the most part they’re just people who were born differently and function differently. Trans isn’t a fashion accessory or a sense of enlightenment - it’s something that happens with the alignment of the brain and the body and then is further aggravated or shaped by upbringing. This brings so many variables into the issue - it’s both societal and biological, so there are a plethora of ways that it can manifest: but make no mistake it is most definitely biological. That much has been proven time and time again - there is no way around it. Our brains have a distinct gender, sometimes that gender doesn’t line up with our bodies, sometimes there’s a partial connection there, sometimes there’s a more complicated series of connections - these are all variables of the same root problem - that root is what we are referring to as the medical condition, the way you experience it is the dysphoria. If you’re experiencing an urge to be something other than your assigned gender, then I would argue you’re experiencing dysphoria. Just because you’re comfortable with it and who you are doesn’t mean you’re not feeling a disconnect, it just means you’re responding to it differently than others would.

opposition-research:

Okay, let’s talk about the ‘fashion accessory’ thing, because I think that’s an incredibly harmful phrase. Not only is it inflammatory, it’s incorrect, and it’s got no place in any debate about transness because it is at best irrelevant and at worst a TERF argument. Nobody decides to become trans as a fashion statement. I have seen no evidence of it. Every single person who has ever been called out for being a special snowflake tumblrina has either been mistaken for DFAB when they’re DMAB (up to and including poring over stolen nudes to debate how the dick was photoshopped on), they’ve been raked over the coals for finding a pronoun set they connected with, or they’ve been excoriated for their ‘made-up gender’, and it’s all anti-trans rhetoric dressed up as pro-trans rhetoric. I may have a nonstandard set of pronouns, I may name myself after a taxonomic clade that includes rabbits because I happen to like rabbits, I may identify as a tumblr gender, I may celebrate my gender in ways you do not agree with, but it is not possible to go from that series of observations to 'this person is making up their transness for attention’, and I will not, under any circumstances, stand for it. Am I clear?

There are many things you believe that I merely disagree with. That one makes me angry. It’s not even an argument. It’s just mean. And there’s no purpose to it but to shit on people who use words you don’t like.

thesocialjusticecourier:

And that’s where our conversation ends. Thank you for your time and I appreciate the insight into your views. I apologize I didn’t respond to your post - but again, I thought it was one of Toni’s posts on an alt and didn’t see the need to respond to it at the time. For the record the reason I’m ending this conversation, so there is no confusion, you just stuck your fingers in your ears, said it’s not true no I won’t believe it, denied a legitimate problem by claiming there is no proof when I have seen proof with my own two eyes. Also, your display about how you can create whatever gender you like on a whim and it should simply be accepted and respected regardless of how silly or harmful to anyone else it may be doesn’t help, neither does the condescending way in which you scolded me as if I was a child or had somehow personally offended you because you did not like my word choice. That said I have none nor do I feel any animosity towards you, I simply do not see a point to a conversation where these attitudes and tactics are being used. It’s a waste of both of our times and I find that very sad, but do not hold it or your views against you personally. This is not me disrespecting or attacking you. Have a good day.

Let me be clear about something.

There is a difference between coming to the conclusion that no problem exists on the basis of the evidence I have found on my own and that I have been given by those trying this argument on me, and sticking my fingers in my ears trying to avoid the truth.

This argument has been going on for literal years. It has been forwarded over and over and over again, with little variation. It’s the ‘ethics in games journalism’ of trans politics, and I use that very deliberately, because it was, at its outset, an attack on labels and the people who use them on the basis that they use those labels. I am going on record, right now, as saying that the truscum movement on Tumblr began the way Gamergate began, as a witch hunt with a flimsy justification, and is exactly as legitimate.

The original form of the argument was that ONLY those who actively pursue transition are trans, and ONLY those who identify under an approved set of gender terms are trans, and ONLY those who use an approved set of pronouns are trans, and everyone else, by definition, is a faker making up their identities for attention. That was the sum total of the argument. It worked backwards from a No True Scotsman argument into an identity garrison beyond which nothing was legitimate or valid.

I was accused of making up my gender solely due to the fact that I identify as genderfluid and because my pronoun set is not he, she, or they. My experience of gender had nothing to do with it. I was never asked about that. I was simply called a faker. And when someone actually talked to me, by and large, they told me that what I experienced was what they would consider dysphoria.

So I was different. I was part of the club. I was fine. It was all those other fakers.

You know, like the DMAB demigirl who was continuously harassed to the point of having their own Encyclopedia Dramatica page and threads on violent transmisogynist forums about them. To the point where people pored over stolen naked images of theirself debating whether their dick was photoshopped. This was done by self-identified transmedicalists.

Or all the actual teenagers getting screamed at by grown men and women over finding a pronoun they identify with, and walking into a war zone as a result.

This was the genesis of transmedicalism in its current form on Tumblr, the birth of the so-called truscum.

And as time has gone on, their arguments have shrunk in some ways and expanded in others. Despite there being, as far as I can tell, no evidence of widespread transness-as-fashion-accessory — despite repeated claims that there are, with attempts to back this up that have never held water — the core argument is the same: That there are trans people making up their identities for attention, this is determinable by reading their tumblr posts, this is justification for medically dysphoric trans people being denied care, that the denial of care is somehow not the fault of the doctors but of the so-called transtrenders, and that this is a major barrier to trans rights.

I agree with none of those premises. I disagree that identity should be, in any way, shape or form, a reason to hold power and influence over anybody, whether it be denying job opportunities, medical care, freedom, or life, and it is not the problem of the ‘fringe identities’ that they are weaponized by bigots as threats to keep others ‘respectable’. 

I accept that some bigot of a doctor has used bunself pronouns to deny care, or that families have used bunself pronouns to deny support. I disagree that if a doctor says that some trans person identifies theirself with bunself pronouns, and that’s why you, who doesn’t use them, can’t get hormones, it’s the bunself pronouns that are the problem — it’s the fact that the doctor is committing actual malpractice, and not treating the patient in front of them on the evidence they present of their own condition. I think if a family uses a ‘ridiculous-sounding’ identity to attack one of their own, that family is being abusive, full stop.

And I disagree, on a lack of evidence despite years of research, that there is a significant number of people making up their identities for attention in the first place. I don’t think it’s possible to see what goes on in someone’s head, and demanding that someone justify the name, pronouns, gender, or other identities they adopt on pain of those identities being denied, mocked, or used as basis for harassment is fundamentally harmful. It’s not only to the trans person theirself, but to anyone who might not want their identity to be contingent on how many other people agree that it should exist.

So here’s my challenge. @thesocialjusticecourier, put the fucking word out. I want the evidence. I want all of it. Bury me in claims of fake trans people. Show me exactly where you believe them to be showing evidence of their fakery. Give me a tally of how many trans people are faking, and how many are not. Show your work.

You want to tell me that there’s an problem, and that it’s of epidemic proportions, and that it significantly impacts the struggle for trans rights? You want to go against everything I have ever seen from the bigoted trans folk trying to tell me and everyone like me how to deal with our own minds and bodies? Do you really want to differentiate yourself from the TERFs in a way other than how many trans folk you want to eradicate?

You want to change my mind?

Put your money where your fucking mouth is.

It was created in response to a fairly ridiculous and lengthy debate between myself, thesocialjusticecourier, and a few other people she brought in. I point this out because it appears one of the mods of transagainsttrenders is SJC herself (Mod Courier). I hope you read this, real-trans-advocacy, because this is who you’ve invoked. For that matter, I hope everyone else at transgainsttrenders reads this, and sees who they’ve gotten into bed with.

The transmedicalist/truscum ideology, as I have seen, is predominantly about advocacy for access to transgender-related medical care. This is what thesocialjusticecourier has told me, in as many words. The argument has some fairly common points that I will now list:

Only those who require medical care due to medically-defined gender dysphoria are transgender. If you do not have gender dysphoria, you should not identify as transgender.

There are those who don’t require that medical care, or do not have medically-defined dysphoria, but identify as transgender anyway, which is incorrect. This group of people are defined as “transtrenders”.

The second group of people threatens the first group’s access to care and support, and this is because of the second group claims the label of “transgender”.

The transmedicalist definition of "transgender” is a political move. It’s intended to homogenize a broad, nebulous, marginalized group into a smaller, more monolithic one that can lobby for specific, tangible things. These things would benefit all of the homogenized group’s members, and ostensibly, do not benefit any of the people they’ve kicked out.

The label “transtrender” is intended to pressure and shame people who, according to transmedicalists, incorrectly identify as transgender in order to achieve this homogenization. The people who are “transtrenders” are not transgender, according to transmedicalists: They are cisgender people who have stolen the label of transgender because they believe it’s trendy (hence the name).

But this is not how the term is used in practice. In practice, it’s used to deny the transgender identity of anyone who is not a transmedicalist. I offer as evidence the fact that thesocialjusticecourier has told me this.

Transtrender: Any person claiming a gender identity that exists outside of a natural gender binary: male, female, bigender or agender. Predominantly those who claim otherkin identities make them trans (they don’t), or those who claim that gender is a malleable choice that can change on a whim or those who claim you can be transgender without experiencing dysphoria. Transtrending also encompasses things such as trans fetishization (outrageous trans headcanons that mock trans identities are part of fetishization and can lead to appropriation).

Dysphoria: Any urge to question or step outside of your gender identity that is powerful enough to effect your daily life: wearing a skirt one time doesn’t equate to dysphoria - but a consistent desire to be something outside of your designated gender I would argue is classifiable as dysphoria. The urge to do this varies from person to person, as do the symptoms of these urges. Some people experience very powerful dysphoria and this can lead to questioning self-worth, self-esteem problems and even lead to self-deprecating actions such as alcoholic or drug related addictions, self-harm and even suicide. Others experience mild to light dysphoria that is triggered by specific things rather than a constant feeling of inadequacy or displacement.

I’ve broken this down before, but the definition of “transtrender” as written here is about claims: claims to have a gender identity transmedicalists don’t recognize, claims that otherkin identities are transgender identities, claims that dysphoria is not required to be transgender, claims that gender identity is a choice. Under this definition, opinions about what a transgender identity is invalidate my transgender identity, whether I fit the alleged criteria for being transgender or not.

It’s not about how I feel about my own body. It’s not about my relationship to my own gender or my assigned gender. It’s about my opinion about how the transgender identity should be constructed. That’s a valid reason to take a label away, according to thesocialjusticecourier.

Drawing this boundary around the transgender identity isn’t about medicine at all: It’s about kicking everyone who’s a bit weird out of a label transmedicalists claim more of a right to than anyone else. It’s about trying to make the word “transgender” mean something simple and palatable to cisgender people so they can advocate for change that benefits them and only them, at the expense of everyone else.

Note also that thesocialjusticecourier admitted, in as many words, that her definition of dysphoria is not the medical definition. The DSM-V’s definition is actually broader than hers in some places and narrower in others, and I have a copy of the DSM-V if anyone would like me to go into detail about that.

These are not medical terms. They’re political ones that transmedicalists want to become medical terms, and they’ve been defined by transmedicalists theirselves based on how much they think it’ll help them gain access to the care they need.

When I asked for evidence of transtrenders, thesocialjusticecourier gave to me, as evidence of transtrending: 

A trans man who wrote a headcanon about a trans variant of Luke Skywalker — one that explicitly mentioned dysphoria.

A group of people who have been given the label of ‘transabled’, on the basis that the cisgender author of the article conflates the two in ways that would be misleading to an audience ignorant of trans issues.

A sexuality, one that merely mentions a non-static gender identity. I really wish I didn’t have to point this out, but sexualities are not genders and do not have anything to do with being transgender.

To recap, none of this is evidence for what I’m asking about in the OP, and the people who might be responding to me in the near future align theirselves with an incompetent hack who has tried and failed to offer evidence, so with that in mind, let me define the terms a little more comprehensively.

I am specifically asking for evidence of people whose gender identity is fraudulent, and I mean that in the literal sense of ‘fraudulent’. I am not asking for evidence of people who have identities you consider to be invalid; I am asking for evidence of people who have knowingly perpetrated a false transgender identity for personal gain. If you don’t understand the difference, don’t bother responding.

While you’re doing this, I’d like to bring up a case of someone whose identity, including their claims of dysphoria, was so intensely disbelieved — despite photo evidence of the estrogen they were taking — that people claimed that they were DFAB and photoshopped a penis on nude photos of theirself. Let me repeat that. People were so intent on claiming that this person was not actually transgender that they pored over images of their nude body to try and find evidence of it.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for a blanket denouncement of that act by all sides as inherently transphobic and harmful to all transgender people before we move on. If you don’t have the basic decency to do that, don’t bother responding.

And then if you could explain why any scrutiny of any person’s stated gender isn’t transphobic while this is, that’d be really swell.

I am also specifically asking for any kind of coherent argument for why the existence of such people necessitates any change in the treatment of people for whom there is no question — even by transmedicalists — about their identity. I don’t accept the argument that any criteria to determine if someone needs care should take into account whether I or anyone else needs the same care. I don’t accept the argument that because doctors use people as an excuse to deny care to transgender people who need it, those people are to blame for the withholding of treatment. I don’t accept that because families use people as an excuse to withhold support from transgender people, those people are to blame for the lack of support.

I don’t deny that transgender people are denied treatment and support. I don’t deny that “transtrenders” are sometimes the stated reason for this. I do deny that the harm caused by denying treatment and support is the fault of the people who have been used, without their knowledge or consent, as an excuse to deny that treatment and support. Bigots will craft whatever argument is necessary to support the conclusion they want.

Cisgender people are to blame for the abuse perpetrated by cisgender people. The doctors withholding care are performing malpractice on the trans patients they deny. The families withholding support from their trans children are being abusive. If you see cisgender people harming transgender people and think other transgender people are to blame, don’t bother responding.

Don’t come to me with the genders you reject on the basis of being outside the range of genders you recognize. Don’t come to me with any group of people who prefix their identity with “trans” without putting “gender” next to it. Don’t tell me it’s my fault your family or your school or your job or your endo fucked you up because they didn’t listen to you about your own identity.

Talk to me about the people who do not reject their assigned gender but claim to be transgender regardless. Talk to me about the con artists, not just the people who disagree with you. Talk to me about the enemy at the gates you keep screaming about.

I’ve never heard of you before now. I doubt @cishits has heard of you before now, or if they have, it’s been because of belligerent posturing like this. What possible benefit could there be to personally taking time out from our day to debate a hostile interjector in a private venue?

If you’re confident in your ideas you can leave them up to speak for theirselves most of the time, because they will withstand challenges regardless of your intervention. You don’t threaten the ‘value’ of any ideas any of us share, not as an individual. You don’t have that kind of power, even if you think you do.

If you believe that we need to debate you, personally, just because you disagree with us, you’re not seeking truth, you’re attacking an ideology that makes you feel threatened. You’ve bought into an entitled, emotionally-repressive mindset that leaves no room for subtlety or nuance. According to you, we need to be eager to rhetorically go outside with whoever asks us to dance — we need to be willing to verbally punch people out on command — or we’re lesser, worthy of scorn and mockery.

I should show this to any TERF who claims you’re not a man. It would change their minds.

Let’s put another spin on it. What do you have against putting your words right out in the open where anyone can see how much of an empty shirt you are? If someone wipes the floor with you on Skype, you get to turn tail and run with no consequences, or claim some kind of victory with little way to prove otherwise. If you debate here, it’s recorded, line by line, and everyone can go through and follow the logic and see exactly who made what mistakes and who really knows what they’re talking about.

If I were following your tactics, I might call you a coward for trying to duck that kind of public accountability, but that’s bullshit, and you know it’s bullshit, because hey, I’m just a random person issuing an arrogant challenge that happens to play to my strengths and that favours my preferred outcome, with very little benefit to you.

Just like you are.

I really highly doubt you’re interested in understanding anyone you want to debate with, but if you are, drop me a line. My communication skills are much sharper in a medium where I can refine my thoughts, as opposed to one where I have to perform my thoughts live, so you’ll get the strongest arguments from me here.

If you want a debate, I’ll debate you, here, on Tumblr. 

If it were anyone else, you'd probably be the first to point all this out, because I've followed you from my main for a while now.

Talking about “guns harming more innocent lives than they protect” implies that a ratio above 1:1 of innocents killed : innocents saved is the point where you would move off your stance. So for every person who dies, someone else is saved.

This means that, extrapolating if 10,000 people die a year in shootings (not a real statistic, I’m using a large number for emphasis), if evidence can be found that 10,000 people’s lives were saved due to firearms, there’s no problem.

I’m going to be charitable and assume that you’re not actually okay with this scenario, because if you genuinely think it’s an acceptable situation to have parity between the people we allow to die and the people we don’t, you simply aren’t trying hard enough. The problem is no longer the “source”, as you put it; the problem is the tool with the 50% fatality rate.

So my question is this: What is the ratio you would be comfortable with? How many people are you willing to see shot and killed as a percentage of the number of people who have been saved by guns before you’re willing to discuss things like gun control legislation? 40%? 1/3? 1/4? 1/10?

I’m wording this in a bombastic way, but there’s a point to it. I’m asking you to think about what you’re actually arguing here. This isn’t merely a matter of numbers. These are human lives we’re discussing. I really don’t care if 50 people in Akron, Ohio were saved by guns (how many do you think were saved from other people with guns, by the way?), it doesn’t bring back the people shot at Pulse.

And let’s actually break this down further: How many people have been saved by high-powered rifles when less powerful guns would not have sufficed? The form of gun matters here. Are you suggesting that you know of evidence that AR-15-style weaponry was necessary to save that many lives?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that assault rifles have not, in fact, saved more lives than they’ve ended, not if you factor out deaths that would have been prevented by any form of firearm. A shopkeeper who happened to have an assault rifle under the counter to stop a robbery at knifepoint probably would have stopped it with a 9mm, bringing a gun to a knife fight and all that. 

I’m going to assume the person I’m talking to is representative of the feminism I perceive in the alternate reality inside my head. I’ll do this right after talking about breaking down shitty narratives, and recognize no irony in this. I have no idea if anyone I’m talking to is a victim of rape, assault, or any other violent crime at the hands of men, but I’m going to assume they aren’t because they’re complaining about things I don’t think they should complain about, and for this infraction they should come to harm. Also, I’m willing to cry ableism in one paragraph and call people ableist slurs in another, demonstrating that I either hate myself or don’t have a great deal of self-awareness.

But all in all I’m probably not sincere about any of this. The longer I call attention to myself, the less time there is for anything more productive to occur. I am fully willing to make a complete and utter jackass of myself in order to attempt disrupting any conversation whose premises I disagree with, because I know I live in a world in which no other consequences are usually possible. It doesn’t really matter what I say, or whether I’m wrong about any of it; all that matters is that I’m loud, and I’m obnoxious, and the thing I don’t like isn’t happening any more.

I may consider myself a free thinker or an iconoclast for doing this. I may even consider myself a hero for standing up to the perceived injustice these conversations represent. At the very least I consider myself basically on the side of good, which means that anyone I disagree with is evil, and therefore anything done to them in the name of good is justifiable. This includes unironically wishing horrific acts on them, because the people I am engaging with aren’t people, or if they are, they’re certainly not worth caring about as human beings.

What I mean by this is that, in the argument over whether or not asexuality is enough to make a person queer or if there is a difference between “queer aces” and “cishet aces”, I have yet to see anyone acknowledge that for a person to not be a “queer ace” does not inherently mean they are a “cishet ace” (forgive the use of the terminology aphobes use, I swear there’s a reason and that I would use something with fewer association if I knew if it). An asexual person who does not identify as any additional queer label may possibly identify as straight. But I’ve seen plenty who don’t not just because they are marginalized, but because it’s fundamentally untrue. These particular people do not experience any attractions and are neither heterosexual nor heteroromantic and will never be het in any capacity, and yet they are also not bisexual or polysexual or gay or pan or anything else either. Because asexuality is fully capable of being its own, complete sexual orientation and is not somehow just “in addition to” a “real” sexuality.

And so in this grand debate that gatekeepers keep trying to have where they claim to welcome ace/aro people as long as they are “otherwise queer” and who imply or outright state that everyone who is not is a “cishet” I’m realizing that even at the most basic level they are talking out their asses. Because in order for asexuality to work the way they insist it does, it would have to be nothing more than a companion identity, a quirk in an otherwise “normal sexuality”. But it’s not. Asexuality is a stand alone orientation that frequently exists completely independent of any other sexuality and which cannot always be combined with other sexual orientations.

I want to be clear, the split attraction model is not to blame for this ignorance on the part of gatekeepers, they’re just using their failed understand to justify their bullshit.

The split attraction model seems like something that a really young community is coming up with to try to explain the variations in their experiences.

Jumping on it as if it’s fully formed, fully explained terminology that works for everybody, and using it to make arguments about all of ace/aro stuff… seems a lot like when TERFs and radfems and truscum jump on different genderqueer terms to say that we’re not really trans or not really queer or that the people we date are not really queer. Just because they can say the language we use implies X or Y.

Because at its core, the arguments above are talking about how gatekeepers talk about ‘if you’re not queer, you’re cishet’, right? The assumption is that you’re cishet unless you prove you’re not.

And on the side of inclusivity, the assumption is that you’re what you say you are, unless there’s some significant reason to doubt it.

I mean, that’s what gatekeeping is, at its core. It’s saying that there’s a specific set of criteria that people need to fit before the gatekeepers let them in, and if they ever somehow change to not fit that criteria, they have to leave. I’ve had people argue with me about this before, but it’s pretty undeniable that this is a process without which gatekeeping could not exist.

And when I think about it, I realize it uses some of the very assertions that, in any other context, everyone involved would agree are bullshit. Well, there’s so many cishets, you know. Straight is the default. It’s natural to assume that everyone you meet is one until you hear otherwise. Characters have to prove they’re not straight before people are allowed to call them something else, and even then only that thing.

Gatekeepers’ arguments accept these premises wholesale, but instead of just anyone, it’s specific groups.

The basic idea is sound, they assert. We just disagree where the line is.

And I’ve always said, in as many words, there is no fucking line.

Nah nigga

@antisjw-garnet doesn’t actually mean this.

I’m not defending them, I’m just saying, their intent is obviously not to defend a position. It’s simply to be contrarian to whatever attention they can manage to get. Their insistence on saying the N-word is literally because people are asking them to stop, and for no other reason, like an eight year old who has been told no and has just realized that they aren’t physically compelled to listen.

They don’t give a damn about the Bill of Rights. I doubt they know what it says. They’re calling up whatever dog whistle or code word they think will get people to keep the attention on them. You can see it in how their arguments are barely coherent grammatically, let alone logically, like an alt-right markov chain.

They’re not the DPS, they’re the tank.

It’s their goal to draw aggro, to use the MMO metaphor, and adjust their tactics to keep drawing aggro no matter how much it contradicts anything else they’ve said. And they’re implacable, because there is no ground to give – their positions are impossible to move them from because they are not interested in listening to anyone but theirself. Their entire goal is to waste your time. They have no identity of their own, no stance they’re willing to stand behind, because they don’t need one; they only need to mirror the people around them, and what they get back is what they want.

They’re a troll in purest form. They don’t give a shit about any of these subjects, of that I can promise you. They don’t know how to argue, and they don’t care that they don’t know. All they care about is being the centre of attention.

YOU also have the right to /peacefully/ protest, and yet your “peaceful” liberal protests involve waving flags and claiming those countries deserve to take over the nation, burning down buildings, and flipping cop cars. Also, masses of white liberal men attacking white women without feminists defending her. That isn’t the right to peacefully protest, that’s brawling and causing riots. The left wing is full of extremists and terrorists.

It doesn’t matter what argument I put out, @antisjw-garnet is just going to use whatever inflammatory rhetoric they think is going to get me to pay attention to them.

Nobody’s claimed they don’t have the right to say what they want. People have argued that it’s unethical, which is a sublegal standard that requires compassion and decency, both of which they show a stunning lack of capacity for. But there hasn’t been a concerted effort to get the word banned and you thrown in prison for saying it.

If you want to say the N word, by all means, say it, I am not empowered to force you not to. But then you have to live with the fact that you’re an asshole who can’t be bothered to curb one iota of your id to facilitate your inclusion in a civil and free society.

And if people decide to exclude your ass on the grounds that you’ve shown it to us, well, guess what, boyo, the first amendment also covers freedom of association, and people are free to avail theirselves of it to walk away from you in large numbers. Weird how we forget about that when we talk about the first amendment.

And I’m not even American.

We’re done here, after this response. As much as your rhetoric might be fun to wail on, because it’s both incoherent and morally repugnant, you are quite simply not worth any more of my time beyond that which it has taken me to make this point.

Take care. I hope you tell everyone you meet of your god-given right to insult black people right off the bat, so they have all the pertinent information to judge your personality and act accordingly.

Nah nigga

@antisjw-garnet doesn’t actually mean this.

I’m not defending them, I’m just saying, their intent is obviously not to defend a position. It’s simply to be contrarian to whatever attention they can manage to get. Their insistence on saying the N-word is literally because people are asking them to stop, and for no other reason, like an eight year old who has been told no and has just realized that they aren’t physically compelled to listen.

They don’t give a damn about the Bill of Rights. I doubt they know what it says. They’re calling up whatever dog whistle or code word they think will get people to keep the attention on them. You can see it in how their arguments are barely coherent grammatically, let alone logically, like an alt-right markov chain.

They’re not the DPS, they’re the tank.

It’s their goal to draw aggro, to use the MMO metaphor, and adjust their tactics to keep drawing aggro no matter how much it contradicts anything else they’ve said. And they’re implacable, because there is no ground to give -- their positions are impossible to move them from because they are not interested in listening to anyone but theirself. Their entire goal is to waste your time. They have no identity of their own, no stance they’re willing to stand behind, because they don’t need one; they only need to mirror the people around them, and what they get back is what they want.

They’re a troll in purest form. They don’t give a shit about any of these subjects, of that I can promise you. They don’t know how to argue, and they don’t care that they don’t know. All they care about is being the centre of attention.