#kiyah

idk about anyone else but i honestly imagine remus lupin with tongue and eyebrow piercing like i just find that so hot

OH GIRL YOU ARE SO REAL!!

I miss empowerment.

Inktober

• All white people benefit from racism, regardless of intentions; intentions are irrelevant. • The racial status quo is comfortable for most whites. Therefore, anything that maintains white comfort is suspect. If you are white, practice sitting with and building your stamina for racial discomfort. -- Robin DiAngelo

Remember the days when activists posted their eye rolling emojis and GIFs, and digitally sighed condescendingly that “nobody is teaching that.” Good times.

Teaching kids that they’re eternally and inescapably oppressed because of the color of their skin is as abusive as teaching them that they’re “nothing without god.”

By: Kiyah

Published: Jun 29, 2022

I used to be a leftist. It's difficult to admit. Looking at it from the outside, it can be hard to understand why anyone would believe such radical and illogical ideas, but it really is like being in a cult. You are taught to censor your actions, your speech, and your thoughts or you will be severely punished. If you step out of line, you deserve violence and for your life to be ruined.

It has been very hard for me to write this and it's something I have thought about for years, but given the current state of the country, I feel like now more than ever I need to begin to share my story.

There are so many aspects of leftism that I want to share my experiences with, but I feel like I need to start with what started it all: Gender Ideology.

I grew up in Texas where I was a tomboy. I liked Star Wars, superheroes, and sports. Being gender-nonconforming was foreign to the religious far-right school that I attended. Parents at my middle school didn't want their kids around me because they thought I was gay or "trying to be a guy". Being exposed to either of those things would send their kids to hell. I was adamant that preferring pants to dresses, playing with legos instead of dolls, and having more male than female friends was not being a guy. Girls had all types of interests and the only thing that separated boys from girls was biology.

Although I knew nothing about my sexual orientation at the time, I never thought being gay was immoral. Gay people were not a threat to anyone and just wanted to live their lives in peace.

I was 16 when I realized that I was attracted to girls. Although I was not at the same far-right religious school anymore, I still lived in Texas. I thought that all Christians, Republicans, and Southerners were just as bigoted and closed-minded as the few people I had interacted with when I was younger. Feeling alone and afraid of what could happen to me if I came out, I looked to the internet for guidance.

I didn’t have any access to social media outside of YouTube and Google (thank god), but I quickly discovered gender ideology. Since this was supposedly the views of the "open-minded” Democratic party, I decided to study it religiously. It seemed at first to be a very easy and simple way to allow people to express themselves and find community. With an infinite number of labels to define gender and sexuality, no one would ever feel excluded and people would easily find community.

When Trump won the presidential election that year, I was devastated. The US had exposed itself as being bigoted and hateful, just like the queer YouTubers had predicted. I was genuinely afraid of genocide against trans and gay people in our country and felt like I needed to fight back against '“right-wing neo-nazi propaganda” encouraging violence and hatred.

I decided to go to school in New England where I studied gender ideology more than I studied for my exams. At my university, the common belief was that we could cure homophobia and transphobia by educating everyone about gender ideology.

For the first time, I felt like I had purpose and community and I was not willing to let go of that for anything.

If I was going to spread the good news about gender, I wanted to understand the nuances and logic behind these terms and ideas. I identified as a woman and as bisexual, so my privilege would have prevented me from ever truly understanding it all. Instead of logically figuring it out on my own, I needed to find trans people, nonbinary people, and especially people of "societally invalidated sexualities” like abrosexual or xenosexual to explain it to me.

However, the more questions I asked, the more questions I had. Why would someone identify as trans when they are completely gender-conforming and have no interest in medical transition? Are gender-nonconforming females really not women? Isn't it homophobic to believe that being gay is an immoral sexuality? If Donald Trump identified as a woman, would he be the first female president? Is there actually no difference between a transwoman and a woman? Wouldn't self-ID laws open the doors for people to easily lie about their identities to gain access to women, transwomen, and other vulnerable groups?  If all of these identities are so subjective that each individual has their own definition, why is this being taught in schools as fact? If we can't define women, how can we defend women's rights? Can children really consent to medical transition? If the point is to be inclusive, why are we trying to ruin the lives of people who don't agree?

I didn't get any clear answers from most people I asked. One response was that people should be able to identify however they want. It's none of my business (especially as someone who wasn’t trans). The other response was that I sounded like a TERF and I should stop asking questions before people think that I am transphobic.

I have a few personal experiences (including a stay in the hospital and an uncomfortable situation at a party that I might share later) that began to show me that self-identity is not the best way to categorize people and that biological sex does matter when it comes to a lot of situations. Although I desperately wanted to believe in gender ideology, I couldn't fight the growing number of questions and concerns forming in my brain.

At my woke university, it was really difficult to discuss what I was feeling. I have a lot of friends who fully embraced these ideas so I felt like I was somehow betraying them by admitting that I didn’t see their beliefs as rational. Being same-sex attracted is not bigoted. Female-only sports are important for allowing women to fairly compete in athletics. Children cannot consent to transition through an affirmation-only model. Being gender non-conforming doesn't make you any less of a woman.

I tried reaching out to people to see if anyone felt the same way I was. Many of the leftists that I spoke to were appalled that I dared to question the gospel of gender ideology. The non-leftists (classical liberals and independents) I reached out to weren't familiar with this way of thinking. They didn’t believe me when I told them about my experiences. They said it was a fringe ideology that only a tiny group of people believed, that it wouldn't leave extremely far-left cities like San Francisco and that I needed to stop listening to "right-wing conspiracy theories".

I continued to doubt myself. Was I just a terrible person? Was I concerned over nothing? Were my experiences a figment of my imagination? Was I letting myself be radicalized by transphobes and bigots? Should I force myself to believe in something I knew was illogical and not a representation of reality?

I didn't want to be an evil conservative. I didn't want to be a bad person. I didn't want to lose my friends, my housing, or risk losing my education. The only way to make it through the rest of my college experience was to put my head down and pretend that it wasn't a big deal.

My mental health started to deteriorate at this point. Being gaslit by both sides made me extremely anxious and depressed. But I couldn’t escape it. Gender ideology was in my classes, my dorm, and all of my extracurricular activities. I felt so alone and isolated that I turned to some bad coping mechanisms. If I couldn’t control my thoughts, I would find a way to not think at all.

In a desperate attempt to not completely give up on life, I decided to give gender ideology one last try. I finally allowed some of my friends to convince me that my frustration with gender was because I was actually nonbinary and had "internalized enbyphobia” (another story to tell at some point). Nonbinary identification was common in my dorm and in many of the clubs I belonged to. I started wearing a binder and even considered hormones and surgery.

After a while, I lost a part of myself while trying to fit into a group that would most likely never accept me for who I really was.

The pandemic gave me a break from all of the nonsense and eventually, I found a very small number of people who were feeling the same way that I was. I realized that I wasn't a hateful bigot or a delusional alarmist.

I am a logical thinker and an individual. My thoughts and experiences are not wrong just because they are uncommon. Facts and rational thinking are not bigoted and understanding reality is important.

While I still want gay and trans people to live their lives without fear of violence, I think a lot of valid concerns are being brushed under the rug in the name of being inclusive. Gender ideology is not going to lead to less violence or hatred against trans, gay, bi, or gender nonconforming individuals. In 2022, I see a growing backlash from people who would otherwise probably be allies.

That is why I'm speaking out. I not only want people who are questioning the actions of the modern queer community to see you're not alone, but I also want to encourage people to think critically about some of the negative side effects of the left’s policies and beliefs. As a woman and a member of the LGBT community, I feel that it is important to speak out about these issues and how they are negatively affecting our communities. I don’t want people to make the same mistakes that I did.

Don't accept anything without logically and rationally thinking through it for yourself and feeling confident in what you are supporting.

Going forward, I will work toward fighting for freedom of speech, and, more importantly, I will fight for freedom of thought. The ability to think and rationalize is what makes us human. A growing number of people (especially children!) are being taught that their thoughts are evil and that they need to punish themselves or fear violence for stepping out of line.