Be Yourself

Children placed in residental schools were abused, murdered, and sold into arranged marriages with white men. More recently, children "adopted" out into white households are often also subjected to the same, as well as forcibly converted to Christianity.

I feel like people are gonna see me as a threat or a predator, even more so now that I'm a trans woman and the whole "trans people are predators"

Like I try to be nice about this but I have seen SO many fucking people being like "lol yeah ace/aro discourse was one thing" and that is deliberate erasure of real and important queer history in service of dodging blame on the parties that did this who, for the most part, never fucking apologized or owned up to it, or, in the case of a few blogs I still see going around, clearly still stand by all of it and just hope you don't point that out, and ofc, no one ever fucking does.

I can't offer forgiveness or absolution to everyone, but you don't need me to forgive you to forgive yourself and move on, and I do think most of the people who got caught up in it have more than earned moving on.

However, what I want is for everyone to stop downplaying it. Don't call it stupid infighting, don't go "ace stuff was one thing but this with trans men is too far" don't claim it didn't leave tumblr or the internet, own how bad it was. If you were there you know, and your history is valuable, so even when it sucks please be honest about what happened. This part of queer history should not be forgotten, and especially not for the people who never really changed and have an interest in making sure everyone thinks this was just some silly infighting.

That's what I ask, do right by us, don't let us be erased again.

Especially because when you forget, when you downplay it, you downplay what's happened with truscum shit, with biphobia, and now with trans masc exclusion. You downplay it and you disguise that it's the same people saying the same things about a new group. I found out about the rise in trans man/masc exclusion because I saw someone saying that trans men are collateral damage secondary to the real targets of transphobia, trans women, and I immediately knew the person saying it was a shithead I should NEVER trust because that is exactly what they said about bi and ace and aro people. Word for word.

You do those who were hurt a disservice when you downplay what happened, but you also make our spaces less safe because if we pretend what happened didn't we can't stop it when it starts again.

You cannot reclaim hermaphrodite or baeddel unless you are intersex, and it’s not transmisogynistic to tell you that. Those slurs are intersex slurs only for intersex people to reclaim. Time and time again we have said the h slur in particular isn’t even reclaimable for us (or at least to use them ONLY FOR/TOWARDS YOURSELF if you do reclaim it since it hurts so many intersex people still today), so why do you think you can reclaim it? You cannot reclaim it. Either of them, please stop trying to.

And no, hermaphrodite still being used in animal biology or as “medical terminology” does not give you the right to use it be it in attempt to reclaim or you are referring to intersex people. Preferably, at all, but you know. There are other slurs still technically used those ways we know still are slurs, yeah? This is no different.

And no, you cannot transition to intersex, transitioning doesn’t make you intersex and absolutely does not give you the right to use those words. Psychologically intersex is not real, and if you have a cdd, an alter cannot be intersex unless the body is. It’s no different than an alter cannot be a different race from the body. It’s not transphobic to tell you that, either.

Pointing out and trying to educate on harms and bias in our communities is not bigotry, not inherently, some may try to use education as a front for being -phobic/ist but it’s very clear thats not what I am doing and you know that. Or, at least, I hope so. I truly am trying to go about it which is as gently and kindly as possible. Perhaps ask yourself, if this upsets you, why? Why does being educated on intersex people and gently told you are taking terms not meant for you make you upset?

You do this all the time, do you not? Try to inform and correct completely without malice but just to make places safer? Help people understand? Why is it suddenly not okay for intersex people to do so be it with slurs or other terminology, or just trying to explain to you intersex experiences? Especially but not solely intertrans (yes we can also be trans being intersex is not automatically cis or cis lite or however other way you automatically categorize us) experiences? Really think on that.

Please listen to intersex voices, trans and cis intersex voices, stop “including” us only as argument points then turning around and trying to boot us from our own communities right after. Our liberation goes hand in hand with yours, they do not clash. We are two sides of the same coin, stark differences but also significant overlap. Queer rights are trans rights are intersex rights are human rights.

Kind regards,

@pallidifiedginger 's request