Hello Yes This Is Dog

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/15/vernacular/#hypercardian

Over the weekend, I did an interview about my forthcoming book The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (a book about being a better AI critic), and the interviewer said she was surprised that I wasn't an AI booster, based on my demographics and work history:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/

I could see where she was coming from. I encountered computers in the mid-seventies, as a small child. My first computer was a CARDIAC, a working, Turing-complete, mechanical computer made entirely of cardboard, that I spent endless hours with:

https://www.instructables.com/CARDIAC-CARDboard-Illustrative-Aid-to-Computation-/

Then I graduated to a teletype terminal and acoustic coupler connected to a minicomputer at the University of Toronto. My mom, a kindergarten teacher, used to smuggle home 1,000' rolls of paper towel from the kids' bathroom. I'd get 1,000' feet of computing up one side, then another 1,000' down the other side, then I'd carefully re-roll the paper towel so she could put it back in the bathroom for the kids to dry their hands on.

After that, I got an Apple ][+ in 1979, and shortly thereafter acquired a modem, and that was it: I was hooked for life. I became an amateur programmer, then a professional programmer. I hosted forums on dial-up BBSes where I distributed software and offered support to strangers who wanted to connect their computers to the internet. I got a job as a gopher developer, then a web developer, then a CIO-for-hire, helping wire up small businesses and connect them to the net. Eventually, I co-founded a free/open source software startup, before transitioning to 25 years as a digital rights activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And for most of that time, I was energetically writing science fiction, eventually becoming associated with a school sometimes called "post-cyberpunk":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewired:_The_Post-Cyberpunk_Anthology

The force that energized all this work was a dialectical one, the contradiction that powered cyberpunk literature itself. For all that cyberpunk was undeniably enamored with the coolness and combustibility of new technology, it was also terrified of how technology could be a force for oppression, surveillance and control. As William Gibson says, "cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion."

Gibson's more famous quote, of course, is "the street finds its own use for things." In Gibson's novels (and in my own life in technology) all the most interesting things happen when users of technology (often without formal training or credentials) find ways to adapt the technology they use to suit their needs:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/17/technopolitics/#original-sin

This is why I remain an ardent fan of Hypercard, Scratch and other meta-tools that are designed to allow non-programmers to write software that exactly conforms to their desires. Whatever the apps produced by these tools lack in sophistication and efficiency is more than offset by the fact that they give everyday people the power to directly control the tools they rely upon.

If "epistemic humility" means anything, it means acknowledging that no amount of "requirements gathering" can capture the needs of people totally unlike yourself as faithfully as those users can capture their own needs. Giving people the tools to produce their own software is always going to make tools – vernacular, idiosyncratic, homespun – that are more suited to their own hands and minds than anything a technologist working on their behalf could make.

Recently, I found out a mod had been made for RimWorld to make it accessible, and was so taken with the game as demonstrated on the youtube channel I was watching that I bought it and installed the mod so I could play it for myself.

It wasn't until nearly a month into playing that I learned the mod had been made entirely with AI, and I felt like a traitor for even using it for a hot second.

But the thing is, I want to be able to play more games. I want accessibility mods to be easier to create/roll out. I've dreamed of such a future for years. And now it's here, and AI vibe-coding is enabling it.

The mod works. There are errors but those get fixed with another pass over the code. The mod does what it's supposed to and I can play the game.

Sidekick

Girl

Character introduced in a sequel to keep things interesting

Another girl

Evil doppelganger

"Going to the well one too many times" doppelganger

Antagonist

Antagonist's son

Sidekick

Girl

Character introduced in a sequel to keep things interesting

Another girl

Evil doppelganger

"Going to the well one too many times" doppelganger

Antagonist

Antagonist's son

everyone no matter what i look like will try and 'figure out' if im a man or a woman and i just have to be okay with that forever. even when people GET MAD AT ME that they can't figure it out (actually has happened before). like. unless i specifically disclose my gender to every single person i meet my entire life, i will always be misgendered no matter what. because im not either of the 2 options that people want everyone to be.

I don't want to derail a post specifically about being neurdivergent, so I'm going to go ahead and make this its own post. But, I have been having a lot of thoughts lately on how the same thing can be said of being a survivor of abuse makes you vulnerable to more bullying and abuse.

I've lurked in subreddits for bullying victims to talk about their experiences, and there's almost always comments saying things to the victims like "bullies probably always sniff you out because you're quiet and withdrawn and act afraid of other people" "bullies sniff you out because when they raise their voice to you or say something mean you flinch and freeze up instead of standing up for yourself" "bullies sniff you out because they can tell from your body language that you have low self esteem and low self worth so they take that as you being an easy target"

Gee, I wonder what sort of life experience could make someone withdrawn, afraid of other people, flinching and freezing when someone is mean or raises their voice at them, and also lowers this person's self esteem and self worth 🤔🤔🤔

Just like in the last post I reblogged where they said it's unlikely for a bully to come right out and say "I picked this victim because they're autistic", instead they'd say "it's because this person is weird and eccentric", if you were to ask a bully who is targeting a survivor of domestic violence why they picked that target it's unlikely they'd come right out and say "I'm bullying them for being a victim of domestic violence", they would deny that much and probably don't even realize (or care) that their victim is a survivor of abuse. But that doesn't change the fact that they were drawn to this particular target because of traits the victim acquired as a result of enduring abuse.

being the victim of parental control was considered embarrassing, and lowered one's social standing considerably. one boy who was hated was scorned for having "his mother chose his clothes for him". my mother also decided daily on what i would wear as well as over my hygiene (when i was allowed to shower, to shave, etc). most people that age had certain liberties to chose their dress (within limits, as their parents also would disallow some things), over their hygiene, and so forth, and a child that had less control of this than them was socially lesser.

when i was in the middle grades, a teacher organised a special group activity on bullying with specifically my case in mind, and i remember a child explaining their dislike and rejection of me with: [their] parents are really weird and don't allow [them] to do anything! i also well remember arriving at school the day after a conflict with a semi-friend who greeted me loudly with "so did your mother give you a trashing yesterday!!!", again as declaration of my patheticness which was, of course, meant to embarrass me.

it's interesting to think on, how little class solidarity so to speak there is among children over the issue of parental control and violence. i suppose everybody that was at conditional liberty to chose their clothing, to decide on some of their activities, that wasn't beaten much at home, etc, must have, on some level, been aware that they were lucky to not have to endure this much, that, as children, had they been saddled with more uncool, more embarrassing parents, there would have been little they could've done about it. probably their parents were in many ways uncool, embarassing, restrictive and occasionally violent, but one can always punch down onto those that are controlled and abused worse.

Still, victim blamers like to feel a smug and unearned sense of accomplishment over not being a victim themselves, as if they did something right and victims must have done something wrong to warrant their abuse. Nevermind that again, it often comes down to circumstances you have no control over such as what family you're born into.

Or, even if you're abused as a teen or adult by a partner or someone else you let into your life, we've all hit low spots in our life where we're emotionally vulnerable, so it also often comes down to luck of the draw over who you're surrounded by when you've hit a low and you're in a vulnerable place.

If you are someone who freezes, fawns, or just in general has difficulty speaking up for yourself people will hate you for that, brand you a coward, say it makes you weak, and say that any abuse or bullying that happens to you is your fault for being too weak to do anything about it. (The catch 22 is that people also hate people who assert their boundaries and speak up for themselves, you really can't win!)

But again, freezing, fawning, flinching at mean/rude behavior instead of speaking back, these behaviors can become so heavily ingrained in you after years of abuse, and can be so, so hard to untrain yourself to even years after you've escaped the abuse.

That's because our brains and bodies are hardwired to do what it takes for us to survive any given situation. When you're trapped in an abusive situation, you probably did try fighting back and standing up for yourself at some point. Maybe dozens of times. Maybe even hundreds of times. And chances are every single time, or almost every single time, that you tried standing up for yourself and fighting back this just made the abuser dial up the abuse even more, so fighting back only put you in more danger. And at some point, in a pavlovian manner, a very primal part of your brain began to understand that fighting back and standing up for yourself was only putting you in more danger, endangering your safety, possibly even endangering your life. So your brain, which is evolved to keep you safe and more importantly alive, changed its wiring down to the very primal core to make you do what it would take to keep you safe during abuse, which often is freezing or fawning, but certainly not trying to fight back or stand up for yourself (after that only put you in more danger the first 10 or 50 or 100 times). Freezing and/or fawning is often the only reaction that will please an abuser who's actively lashing out at you, and get them to calm down and back off, or at least not hurt you more than they were already planning to.

So as a survival mechanism, these behaviors become very, very hardwired into you, because they were the only things keeping you safe, possibly even alive, for many years. That's why once you leave the abuse you can't just switch off these behaviors. The more severe the abuse, the more hardwired these are. That's why it can take years working with a therapist, preferably one who specializes in trauma recovery, to hopefully re-wire your brain a little bit. But not everyone has access to a therapist specializing in trauma recovery.

When I see someone who freezes, fawns, has trouble speaking up, who flinches and backs down when someone raises their voice, I don't see a coward. I see someone whose brain was re-wired to keep them safe and alive in a very horrible situation.

And yet, people are so quick to judge these behaviors as "weak" "cowardly" and "pathetic" because society hates abuse survivors so much, and surviving abuse is still so heavily stigmatized.

As a defense mechanism, they believe they aren't just lucky but somehow better than the people they see suffering. If people are poor because they're lazy and I'm not lazy, I don't have to fear poverty. If I've never been disabled or killed in a car crash, it's because I'm a good driver and therefore I can ignore the possibility that it could happen to me. Because I'm not like them, I won't suffer like them.

Not only does it justify cruelty by saying only the deserving suffer (and so they also deserve your cruelty and you don't have to feel bad) it creates an incentive to alienate and avoid anyone who's suffering. If you get close to them, you might start to like them. You might start to wonder if they really deserve it. You might learn they did nothing wrong, were just like you...and they still got unlucky.

That is rightfully terrifying. It's true and accepting it will not only give you more reason to be kind but also prepare you better for your own bad luck and make you a bit harder to manipulate. Knowing the risks won't save you but it will improve your odds.

This is mostly speaking from my experience, but when I was a child, my fear response used to be Fight. I would stand up to my father when he was screaming at me. I would tell him when his reasoning didn’t make sense and when I thought he was being unjust. I would defend my mother when she and my father fought, because he screamed and she did not, so I thought she felt alone and vulnerable so I felt like it was my duty to protect her. I would defend myself when I was being bullied, even if that only resulted in more bullying. I remember myself being ‘brave’. But like was said before, fighting didn’t help. It only made things worse. So I learned to Fawn. I learned to hide myself, and that instinct to hide got so bad that it was directly interfering with my ability to function in society. But the anger isn’t gone. I still feel indignant when I believe a situation to be unjust, I just can no longer act on those feelings.

If someone else is being abused by their boss? They must've done something to deserve it. No need for unions to actually hold corporations accountable. Someone disabled in a workplace accident? Must've been their fault, they'd best not sue, and if anyone speaks up for them their livelihoods are potentially on the line. People are encouraged to compete with each other, and discouraged to cooperate and help each other. From the very beginning in school, from a young age, you are set against your peers in competition- not cooperation. Those who do well will get better opportunities, be able to apply to be accepted into colleges, ect. Students that suffer from abuse and bullying will obviously do worse than students who don't. People like me lost years if not over a decade of their lives to the abuse, and the bullies not only get off scott-free, they go on to become successful and are in-charge of workplaces like managers. US society has been structured to reward some of the worst among us for half a century, and it has really come home to roost this past decade.

Stimming is not an Autism Only Behavior. Not only does it show up for ADHD, but also OCD and most Anxiety Disorders. Including PTSD something that survivors of abuse famously have a high rate of.

In fact, overstimulation is also something that shows up in both autism and PTSD (and schizophrenia). There is an uncomfortable overlap in PTSD and ASD symptoms, and I've even seen the theory that it because the official ASD symptoms aren't actually the base autistic neurotype, but the Traumatized version.

the op linked the study in the replies & i’ve been skimming it & it’s actually rlly rlly interesting to think abt

"If “man” and “woman” are opposed and mutually exclusive categories, if men can only ever be predators and women can only ever be prey, then trans men can’t exist. We are logically impossible under the terms of the current system. You either “treat us like men” by voiding out half our lives, or you write us back into womanhood by denying our male identities. I knew all that, at least in theory, but when I came out, I actually saw my life story disappearing into other people’s blind spots. I watched myself become unthinkable in real time."

Also these:

"This wasn’t about accountability. This was people tactically forgetting my entire life,including incidents from my life they had personally witnessed or been involved in, so that they could shame me for transitioning. It was bad for me to be a man; if I was a man, I was a bad man, I was all the worst things men are. I was hulking, I was threatening, I was predatory, I was violent."

"I was treated as both genders, but only the most monstrous stereotype of each one."

"The idea that I had always occupied a privileged position within patriarchy was, frankly, untrue; nor did it seem to me that a trans person was any less gender-marginalized than your average cis woman. What privilege I had was conditional, and these books were no guide. Men who wanted to “forge a positive masculinity” (and everyone was very clear that I needed one of those) were encouraged to get in touch with their “feminine sides.” Maybe that was healthy for cis guys, but I had been forced to do feminine things, and present in feminine ways, for the entirety of my young life. Whatever liberation I had achieved came from giving myself permission to stop."

As did the ending:

Unfortunately, this post was made by someone who does use the term transandrophobia (although its not my preferred term)! as does at least one of the additions above, and as do many people in the notes. if you agree with this post and think it is "real transmasc activism," i promise you there is PLENTY of transandrophobia/anti-transmasc theory that you would find really compelling. I actually only started using the term myself after finding a trans woman who was outspoken about supporting the word as a way to discuss anti-transmasculine oppression.

If you want to know more, my pinned is a FAQ on the subject. Even if you disagree with what i say here, I think you would find it interesting. I include many links for further introductory reading, including this post and this post where I go over some common criticisms of transandrophobia and my responses to them. I've also recently been posting some quotes from Emi Koyama's Transfeminist Manifesto, which aren't directly related to the term itself but I think are really important for understanding what transfeminism needs to look like, and the issues with how people today (especially on tumblr) imagine it should look like.

The idea of using misandry in a feminist manner is not a brand new one, either. Sophie Lewis, a great feminist writer, used it in her essay on heterofatalism, Collective Turn Off:

But today, in popular feminism, the unfruitfulness of the ‘androcide’ and ‘exodus’ positions has given way not to a revival of the communist dream of sexual liberation but to a widespread stance of misandry-lite characterised by martyred resignation to the dismal quality of heterosex [...] Note, while a majority of heterofatalist misandrists online today seem to think they are trans-affirming, their position not only requires erasing trans men altogether, but also all trace of trans women’s lived experiences as men, regardless of those women’s own self-understanding. Indeed, misandry, as I see it, can never reliably be prevented from collapsing into transphobia.

She also references this article by Sophia Giovannitti, who also uses misandry in a feminist sense:

The thing is, the popular misandrist left discourse, perpetuated by straight women, has almost nothing to do with sexuality, but everything to do with gender. Like political lesbianism, this Political Heterosexuality is not concerned with actual, felt sexual orientation or relationships—it’s concerned with the reifying of binary categories at the expense of a nuanced analysis of gender that accounts for race, class, and transition.

Additionally, it has been used by Black feminists, such as F.D Signifier. He's used in multiple places but here's an example:

As much grief and pain as many men can present within and outside of community, I understand we still also need to resist the urge to be "ironically homophobic or misandrious" as soon as it's time to take issue with a man within or outside of community. This of course does not give boys and men carte blanche to act like assholes, or center themselves in situations where it's not necessary. It just means that we all need to be more proactive and gracious to each other and focus on the whole of the problem. as much as one could muster at least

The term "misandry" is not forever spoiled by use by MRAs; feminists can and do use the term to add further nuance to their feminist theory and activism, especially when it comes to discussing marginalized men whose manhood influences their marginalization in important ways.

None of this requires ignoring misogyny or positioning misandry as simple "the boy version of misogyny" that functions in exactly the same way. The term can be quite useful in describing certain trends in attitudes and behaviors, and can be particularly important in feminist self-critique. bell hooks, while I don't believe she ever used that specific term, wrote about the dangers of anti-male attitudes in feminism to feminism at various points (see Feminism Is For Everybody and The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love). Transandrophobia / anti-transmasculinity theory has always been in conversation with the works of Black feminists and feminist theorists who pushed for greater inter-gender and inter-movement solidarity. It is important that we talk about this issue in feminist, queer, and trans spaces, and there's really no reason we need to let this term belong to misogynistic MRAs.

And the thing is, I know very well that there will never be a perfect term. Because with transandrophobia, no term has ever been "good enough" to avoid anti-transmasculine backlash. The resistance to discussing anti-transmasculinity, and anti-masculinity in general in feminist and queer spaces, will never be solved by finding a Morally Pure Word to discuss it with, because people simply do not want to discuss it.

This is why participating in the backlash to transandrophobia will always be harmful, even if you do want to see more discussions of anti-transmasculinity. The criticisms of the term are by and large not done in good faith, and even those that are are frequently clearly undereducated in what the term actually means. The backlash against transandrophobia has always been apart of that anti-transmasculine "snowballing" you described. This is not to say people have never had valid fears about the term, but it has only gotten to such a point because anti-transmasculinity is something we all internalize and it has been allowed to go largely unchecked in queer and trans spaces for years.

If you want to see more people discussing the kind of things talked about in the posts above, you need to make your peace with the term transandrophobia, because it is the people who use that term who have been the ones most outspoken about the need to talk about these issues before anyone gives us permission or finds the Perfect Word that no one will get mad at us for using. We need to move beyond the linguistic squabbling and take seriously the issues actually being discussed: pay gaps, interpersonal violence, sexual assault, suicide, reproductive rights, misogynistic legal structures, etc.

Contributing to the backlash against transandrophobia fundamentally means contributing to the movement of people who will silence this discussion no matter how perfectly it is worded or how serious its topics are. You don't have to personally like the term transandrophobia, but without it, you would not even be seeing this post that you yourself found impactful, and the term has never, ever been as much of a problem for our community as the reactionary, radical feminist backlash to it has been.

And this backlash has not spared anyone; I have seen multiple trans women talk about being harassed, having people insist they aren't real trans women, that they are lying men, that they should kill themselves, purely for supporting the use of this word. There is so much misinformation out there on transandrophobia and I really do hope you take some time to look into this posts I linked and at least consider them seriously.

like people would tear someone apart for saying it but its right there. Emi's Manifesto is far better, even without the initial Postscript, at tackling transfeminism and the question of male privilege and gender essentialism than most "transfeminists" on here and she still thought she didn't do enough in 2001 when it was published (& i agree).

and then seven years later she felt that what she had written was "a version of white feminism modified just enough to include trans women." & that's exactly what so much "transfeminism" right now looks and acts exactly like!!!!!!!!!! its what we have literally been saying

& then the fact that Emi reflected on how much of that was born out of her own lack of self-confidence in feminist spaces, dominated by cis white women, and her fear that anything too transgressive would be seen as opening the doors of feminism to MRAs and she would be blamed for cheapening the work.

earlier in this essay she talked about her experience with a Women's Studies course that unfortunately very much mirrors my own

It was during my second year of college I was first introduced to the writings of Audre in a Women’s Studies course. Throughout the academic term, students read several articles each week, discussed them in the class, and wrote journal entries that reflect on the week’s readings. Week after week, most of the assigned materials were those written by white, middle-class, straight (or sometimes “political lesbian”) women, and I was having difficulty relating to much of what was being discussed. I kept writing in my journal how I didn’t relate to the reading, but I did not realize it had anything to do with the selection of the materials. I felt bad about being so “negative” about feminism and feminists.

& i think that for a lot of trans people, particularly trans men&mascs and nonbinary people, this is a very common experience. being unable to relate to feminist courses and discussions which never engage with any of your experiences, and then feeling bad and/or being made to feel bad for being so "negative" about feminism.

Because it is confusing. It would almost feel easier if there was no love there at all. But sometimes there was love. In the way they tried to protect you. In the sacrifices they made. In the ways they worried about you, cared for you, wanted a good life for you.

And at the same time, there were still things missing.

Maybe comfort did not come in the way you needed it to. Maybe your feelings were not always understood, or noticed, or handled gently. Maybe you learned to keep certain parts of yourself quiet because it felt easier than trying to explain them.

That kind of hurt is difficult because it does not always come from cruelty. Sometimes it comes from people who loved you deeply, but did not know how to emotionally connect in the ways you needed. People carrying their own wounds, limitations, fears, or ways of surviving.

And you are allowed to acknowledge both truths at once.

You are allowed to recognize their love and still grieve what you needed but did not receive. Those things do not cancel each other out.

Forgiveness, for a lot of people, is not pretending nothing hurt you. It is slowly accepting that someone can love you and still fall short of understanding you completely.

That does not make your pain dramatic. It does not make them monsters either. Sometimes it just means everyone was trying with the emotional tools they had, and some of those tools were not enough.

And I think many people quietly carry guilt for still feeling hurt by parents they know tried their best. But being loved imperfectly can still leave wounds. It makes sense that it affected you.

At the same time, you do not have to stay trapped only in anger forever either. Sometimes healing looks like understanding that your parents were human before they were parents. People shaped by their own experiences, their own upbringing, their own emotional gaps.

That understanding does not erase your feelings. It just softens the sharp edges around them a little.

You deserved emotional safety. You deserved gentleness. You deserved to feel understood, comforted, and emotionally close to the people raising you.

And if they could not fully give that to you, it is okay to mourn it.

But I hope you also know this: the love you needed is still something you can experience in your life. Through other people. Through chosen family. Through the way you learn to treat yourself now.

The story does not end at what you did or did not receive growing up.

Being supportive of binary people is relatively simple, they have decided to sort themselves into one of the boxes that we have lots of experience interacting with. Being supportive of nonbinary people can be comparatively tricky, because you have to resist the urge to create box C and drop them all there. That's how we end up with various prejudices like "woman lite". Humans really, really like to categorize things. It helps us think. Unfortunately, sometimes it helps us think wrong.