Phoenix Egg

The number of times I have been delighted by witty banter only to find out later that I was “Flirting” is both unfortunate and disappointing.

I found out several of my female coworkers were planning on trying to get our male coworker to ask me out because “You guys kept flirting” but I was like “We were literally just goofing around. Like we literally just told jokes to each other. Literally just stuff that friends do, the same stuff you and I do.” I was definitely 100% NOT flirting but everyone thought I was

This might be a good time for Ms. Psych degree here to step in and let ye all know that People Are Unable To Identify Flirting. There are double-blind studies to support this, if you instruct participants to flirt or not flirt with another participant, neither the second participant nor onlookers are able to accurately tell which instruction the first participant was given. Even if you get the flirting participant to rate their attraction to the person they’re flirting with, and only count trials where people are either flirting with people they find attractive, or not flirting with people they don’t find attractive NO ONE CAN TELL WHO IS FLIRTING OR WHO ISN’T.

I’ve heard that people actually have a *less than 50% chance* of guess whether someone is flirting or not.

Thank fuck this isn’t just me failing at humanity

SagePub has one such study here, dated 2014. There might be more recent work, however.

oh thank God! I also thought it was just me.

every time people bring up evil shit that facebook has done i think about how it’s fucked that nobody in facebook’s administration has faced any sort of justice for their part in carelessly disseminating pro-genocide propaganda. a little crazymaking that people don’t bring that part up more often tbh

isn't it so crazy how tmes love ""trans inclusive misogyny"" and see it as something hilarious and gender affirming but suddenly when it's trans inclusive ""misandry"" it's not funny at all

they should make it easier to get bottom surgery

special mention to how the BMI requirements are horrific and they need to go!

personally it's fucking crazy going through life not even being able to be naked around trusted loved ones or fully have sex because the dysphoria is so bad. it's unacceptable that so many of us have to live like this. it's horrible that for many trans women it's almost impossible to get the care we need. it does not have to be like this

my thoughts on the base language used as ineffective stands, i think the words Affected and Exempt are needlessly confrontational towards non-transfems but the framework itself is so obviously necessary to call attention to. this is not some kind of revelation for me, its just been reinforced by how brushed aside i have seen transfems when tme people talk about transmisogyny. it makes so much sense transfems would structure our intersection of oppression around it centering ourselves so explicitly, it feels like the only way to get across to tme people of all kinds that we are the target, we have sights on our backs, we are the worst thing you can be. the accusation that you are one of us is horrifying to these people. building our framework around calling as much attention as we can that we are the thing youre horrified of being accused of makes all the sense in the world.

I've been using "exemptable" instead of exempt lately, since it's a more accurate description of how TME people can occasionally be subject to transmisogynistic behavior, but are able to exempt ourselves simply by proving our status as TME. either works, because they mean the same thing, but I think the using "exemptable" can MAYBE help prevent the annoying hand-wringing about "buh-buh-but one time someone thought i was a trans woman!!!"

i think exemptable is way more effective language!

i think they mean the same thing and it doesnt matter what language we use cuz TMEs will willfully misinterpret our language to be bigotry because they hate us existing is my take (and prob always will be honestly)

@isuggestrevolution do you have any ideas

i have for a while been using stepping on somebody's toes as a metaphor for misgendering. and i genuinely think that it's kind of a good one.

if you give a grovelling begging apology after accidentally stepping on somebody's toes one time you're going to make the whole thing awkward, but not giving a quick "sorry" before moving on is still kind of rude.