A little less conversation... A little more touch me.

“They’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”

I see this reaction a lot, and I gotta say, it always makes me a little sad. Whenever the conversation of exploitation of labor comes up, inevitably someone finds themselves struggling with the guilt of “It is so important to me not to contribute to exploitation but I cannot do this thing myself and need someone else to do it for me, so how do I even approach that?”

Exploitation isn’t in the hiring of a service worker. Exploitation is in the respect you show them for their ability to perform the service you need from them.

I have been on a cleaning service staff before, and also been someone who hired a cleaning service, and I can tell you for sure that a lot of cleaning crews (especially worker owned ones) absolutely LOVE their clients and are genuinely happy to be able to make their lives better. The clients they don’t like? Those are the ones who disrespect the workers.

When I was involved with a cleaning service, we had everything from little old ladies living alone to McMasions with five cars as clients, and I can assure you that whenever there was someone who clearly hired us because they were overwhelmed or unable to keep their space clean, those were the households where you put a little more elbow grease in and did a deep clean even when it wasn’t paid for, because you could see how much these people were trying and struggling, and they were always so kind and generous and often embarrassed when talking to you about the job.

I only hired a service a couple if times in my life, but whenever I did, I worked with the same people as often as I could, tipped as well as I could afford, and tried to be the kind of client I would want to have, and that’s how I often ended up with my baseboards cleaned too, or my fridge scrubbed and organized or a restorative clean done in a high use room even when that wasn’t what I had scheduled or paid for.

I’ve heard the same thing from all manner of service workers over the years. Many of us like our jobs! We enjoy the work. It’s the customers that can do a number on you.

however, i do have to ask why you’re choosing to identify that way. would you support a cisgender man identifying similarly, or do you believe you specifically have an inalienable claim to lesbianism as an identity because of your cagab? and what does that say about your treatment of transfem lesbians?

What does that say about his/their treatment of transfem lesbians? Well, nothing. It says nothing. Believing that trans men can be lesbians doesn't mean that trans women can't be lesbians too, because trans women and trans men aren't living in opposite-experiences-land. They're not different species from venus and mars, whose experiences and identity labels must never touch. That's bullshit.

Nothing stops a lesbian trans man from welcoming transfem lesbians into the same home.

we've stopped actually challenging the binary, we just slapped "amab" and "afab" over "male" and "female," and we treat transition itself like a mere act of dressup. we let blatant transphobia run rampant all the time as long as people call each other "amab" and "afab" instead of misgendering them directly

"afab bodies," "amab energy," "afab only housing," "amab behavior" THIS IS TRANSPHOBIA. YOU ARE MAKING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT PEOPLE'S BEHAVIORS AND BODIES BASED ON THEIR ASSIGNED SEX. THE WORD FOR THAT IS TRANSPHOBIA

sex does not determine your behaviors. sex is not a binary. sex can be changed, and IS changed by medical transition, INCLUDING hrt

Survivorship bias is such a huge factor when it comes to which queer narratives and stories survive the march of time. For transmasculine people, the challenge has always been not only overcoming anti-queer sentiments of the day, but also contending with a lack of legal and societal personhood that put them in a position where telling their story- or even discovering themselves- was literally impossible. The level of risk involved in even just exploring your identity in secret, let alone finding community and recording your experience, was astronomically high when you were considered another person’s property, largely uneducated and expected to not communicate with anyone other than your husband, relatives and children. I’ve seen mentioned how many societies outlawed and punished gay (mlm) relationships but not lesbian ones, but the rather obvious conclusion to that is because it was seen as such a non issue that it was beneath notice, due to the lack of cis women’s ability to exist outside of the constant control and supervision of her male relatives. To say they were “privileged” for not being legally barred from sapphic relationships would be silly, because legally speaking they would’ve been at the total mercy of their owners (male relatives) if discovered, which served as punishment in itself.

Wild how abusive artists like Micheal Jackson can have biography movies made and not a single mention of accused abuses or the subsequent trials will be mentioned.

With a satisfied smile, the blogger lets their brain return to a warm and gentle B-mode where criticism of any other celebrity does not exist, because the blogger’s favorite singer is the One True Celebrity. The blogger need not read the vast amounts of criticisms of the latest Michael Jackson biopic. The blogger need not pay attention to any post not tagged with the name of their One True Celebrity.

One day, the blogger knows, they will receive their Eternal Reward for being a True Fan of the One True Celebrity and defending her from all the blind, sexist sheep who only pretend to care about the climate and immigrants and the normalization of fascism and racist dog whistles and stopping the onslaught of end-stage capitalism so that they can dunk on a beautiful, white, innocent, frail little flower of a woman who needs the protection of someone Chosen - like the blogger.

With a self-satisfied smirk, the blogger returns to their Matrix-style sleep pod filled with pony beads instead of slime and hooks themselves in, returning to a slumber that will power Taylor’s personal vibrator until the next Google Alert wakes the blogger for another round of defense. As the blogger drifts into slumber, their eyes fluttering, Taylor’s voice can be heard, praising the Chosen blogger’s efforts, her beautiful, melodic voice line only interrupted by the customized name portion which sounds like the CVS phone voice:

“Thank you, [Pleasure Wand Power Unit 758]! You sure did a good job [defending my friendship with people who run concentration camps]. Don’t forget to buy the seven new re-releases of my last twelve albums in special edition cases! My honeymoon isn’t going to pay for itself!”