#nuanceblr

I’ve always been the kind of person who leans into learning more about things I dislike to try to understand how they tick, rather than simply hating it and shouting about it. It’s why I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of a podcast about Alex Jones, read multiple books about QAnon and put myself through 4 hours of Jessie Gender’s antizionist screed and even more explicitly hateful material like the Protocols, and periodically check in on SJP & JVP feeds to see what they’re saying. War is no exception. I’m interested in learning more about why people go to war, how they go to war, the unintended consequences of war, and the messy nature of peace processes.

I’m certainly no expert, but I feel like I’m at least semi-knowledgeable about a handful of wars. But the more I learn, the clearer it becomes that so many ostensibly pro-peace folks (even aside from/before 2023) just do not have the slightest interest in understanding the thing they’re criticizing beyond “thing bad” and 1001 justifications for why it is bad.

And that’s so disheartening. Because I do want to live in a world without war, or at least never have to see my country go to war again in my lifetime. But how are we supposed to do that if we don’t understand war?

Thank you for asking! I'm sure a lot of people wonder this, so this will likely be my next pinned post.

I'm finally feeling ok, well caffeinated, and the Adderall has kicked in, so I'll do my best to summarize and make this easy to read. I know I tend to write books, so apologies in advance. Let me know if anything is confusing or doesn't make sense, I'm happy to chat about it.

In short, the TLDR is, because the two aren't mutually exclusive and don't have to be, especially if you're well educated about and care about women's health, and also well read on or open to learning about the insidious forms misogyny can take, which should be a given for any radical feminst.

Additionally, atp the trans community primarily serves fetishists, predators, homophones, and misogynists, thus I do not belong there despite my material reality being transgender by classic definition.

My dysphoria, accordingly, has fuckall to do with gender roles, and never did.

As far as my personal story goes, there is no me without transition, end of. I never had a proper puberty in the first place due to severe childhood neglect, all other available (meaning, extremely limited) medical intervention failed, and my body was irreversibly damaged by uncontrolled medical conditions plus aforementioned severe childhood abuse & neglect. And because all of this happened in an insulated cult-like environment surrounded by organized crime in a region that's an absolute hotspot for this sort of thing, there was absolutely nobody that was going to save us.

"Us" being, me and my little sister. I would've done anything just to get her out of there and away from him, and so, I did. Prostitution. Whoring myself out on camgirl sites. Getting my face beaten into the pavement while I'm (censored) for cash, only for my abusers to steal that cash and have to repeat the hellish process all over again. It didn't matter. Fuck what happens to me, I'm already damaged. Protecting her as much as I could was all that mattered to me back then, and we had no options at all. So, I decided to make some, no matter what that took.

It was sheer "convenience" that I had been genuinely sex dysphoric since early childhood, even predating the sexual abuse, which started stomach-churningly young. This doesn't even begin to go into the ways I experience dysphoria, or how torturous it is, or how impossible it makes functioning when combined with all of my other disabilities, but please believe me when I say it has fuckall to do with gender roles, and that I cannot function without it being under control by transition.

Please believe me when I say peaking and therapy did absolutely nothing to help it. This has been a part of me-- this is how I've been wired--, as long as I was ever even remotely capable of thought, sensing, or feeling.

It's not about my place in society, or how people see me. When I came out as a teen, the number one thing I wanted my peers to understand is that I'm still the same person. It was not crafting an entire new identity of someone who isn't me, the way a lot of the youth now handles transition.

Because dysphoria-- the way I experience it-- is an internal, deeply personal, and bodily experience. It's something that results in literal phantom pains, and what I or others think of myself has zero impact on it. It's just simply always there, at the same intensity, in the same exact ways, all the time. It's something I've driven myself crazy try to reason out of, only to eventually learn this isn't something that even can be reasoned with. Because it's not psychiatric. I finally figured it out when I realized I was probably autistic (ultimately diagnosed autistic later on), because every way I have suffered from autism, I suffer from this in the same exact way, with the same exact patterns.

The same way my sensory issues from being autistic also cannot be reasoned with, neither can this. It doesn't matter how many times people tell me I'm "being too sensitive", or I need to "get used to it", because my brain is wired in a way that a large amount of sensory experiences are inherently overwhelming. Because my brain factually lacks what allows allistic people to block out irrelevant stimuli. In the same way, the way my brain perceives my own body on a neurological level inherently is incongruent with my sex, no matter how many times I am told or I tell myself that my body is fine the way it is, or how much I believe that it is. It is entirely independent of my own beliefs, or the way others perceive me. It's about whether or not my brain-- on a neurological level-- can recognize my body as my own. And it can't. It's simply not capable of doing so, and never has been.

Because it's not psychiatric in nature, it's not based in misogyny, and it isn't because I hate myself or have unresolved trauma. It's a stable constant that has always been with me, and only ever got quieter when I put on a binder and finally went on T, because this fools my brain into not perceiving an anomaly every time my breasts are or my naked body is in my peripheral or direct view.

It's not about hating my body, it's about not wanting to be constantly weighed down by an unsettling experience that can hardly be described. The closest sensation I can think of is passive body horror, but so many associate that with immediate and inherent panic that they miss the point entirely, because they cannot imagine what a constant passive sense of body horror actually feels like in the real world once the fear gets old and the panic dies down. And even that still hardly describes it at all.

That's actually how the trans community used to recognize and conceptualize dysphoria, but nowadays it holds zero space for us dysphorics at all in favor of upholding misogyny and gender norms. Most "dysphoria" presentations in the mainstream light is now outright fetishism, running away from misogyny, or enforcing it. And I can't relate to that shit worth a damn, because that's just not what I experience, and it never was.

And countless FTMs report the same exact experiences, but we're censored, silenced, and violently suppressed by the trans community, because us telling the truth is a huge threat to them.

I have hated being a woman before, but that has never been the primary motivation behind my transition, and I made sure I didn't by the time it came to medical intervention. I explicitly wanted to make this decision in the absence of that self hatred, because this whole thing was about wanting to feel at home in my still very immutably female body, using the least amount of intervention needed for relief so I could survive in the only way I had left. And it turns out, it was the right answer all along. Hence, low dose T, and taking my sweet time preparing myself physically and psychiatrically before I start the process for top surgery.

I call myself a transitioned female because that's what I am, and this is the only way I can access having a decent life that allows me to do more than suffer and waste away due to my disabilities. With an androgynous appearance, often very obviously female to other females, and appropriately looking like an adult. That is, by all means, by definition, still a transgender existence from the lens of prioritizing material reality.

I may have had masculine secondary sex traits to begin with as a result of PCOS, but it was my choice to go on T and exagerrate them, and this has brought me comfort and the ability to be fully present in my own body. It is a distinct material reality with experiences that genuinely do differ greatly from your average woman, with or without PCOS. And that doesn't make them any less valuable when it comes to fighting the patriarchy.

I did my research, I take vitamins to mitigate any potential osteoporosis, and the only other negative side effects from T for me are smelling bad a lot sooner-- which is easily mitigated with good hygiene, which is now actually managable for me--, and very very mild vaginal dystrophy-- which is easily mitigated with topical estrogen cream, which is safe and OK to do despite being on T, because being applied topically means it has a mostly localized effect.

There's a ton of other ways it's been genuinely good for me as well; like contributing to regaining strength quicker after flare up periods, slowing the deconditioning that happens during flare up periods, eliminating severe reproductive health issues that doctors refused to help me with, "aging" me up so I no longer look and sound like a minor, thus allowing me to manage my own finances without question or alerting my abusers, and also stopping the constant attention from disgusting casual male pedophiles who drool at the concept of an adult that looks like a minor, it raised my hemoglobin levels after chronically hemorrhaging during periods, improvements to sexual function, the list goes on and on.

The point is that I would've died without transition back then, because this world hates women. And in current day, it's what allows me to have a life that's actually livable at all after all the cruel and sadistic damage I sustained. Otherwise, I cannot work, I cannot afford my own care, I am bedridden, and then homeless, and then likely dead soon after. I feel a deep solidarity with the lesbians of eld who would transition so they could legally get married. Homophobia and misogyny utterly fucked them over, tried to rip the joy out of their lives and brand them as belonging to males, but they still found a way. And I did, too.

So, let me ask you. If I can see the same truths about radical feminism that you can, is rejecting transition-- AKA silently dying to a serial abuser--, really required in order to be a competent radical feminist?

More importantly, to me; would it have been more feminist to accept my inevitable death there, and leave my sister there to similarly rot as he makes her his new primary target?

Obviously not.

I think hand wringing about how my transition isn't feminist, is downright fucking stupid to be painfully honest with you, but many RFs waste my time doing just that, unfortunately, which is why I have to explain so many things in depth. The fact is, the dangers of transition pale in comparison to what I was forced to survive at the hands of my father. THAT is what RFs should really be worried about. That this freak is still on the loose and harming other extremely vulnerable women in sick and disgusting ways.

The entire reason I was so trapped, could not get help no matter how hard I tried, why my body was so destroyed and warped in the first place, and why I ultimately had no other choice, is because of systemic misogyny. I have always hated it with a passion because it made up my entire cage.

I was a feminist as soon as I was exposed to feminism. Being trans was never in opposition to that because I did not rely on gender roles or an online community to tell me how I should feel about myself. Like everything else, from caring for myself to learning the proper way to care for serious wounds and injuries, I learned on my own how to develop a solid and secure identity. One that doesn't need people to affirm oppressive gender roles in order for me to be at peace with myself. I do not have a gender identity because that is not something I relate or subscribe to. The way it's defined is really fucked up, and it's even more fucked up to use those reasons to medically modify your body. Those were not my reasons, nor is it fair to assume those are the reasons for every single female that transitions (though understandable based on what the trans community puts forth). Not when the world we live in is so severely fucked up that it results in situations like mine, and the widespread censorship of transitioned females in general.

i like listening to different perspectives but i do no tolerate or listen to proshippers/lolicons/rape and incest fetishists and their suppourters. aside from those people, love talking to and meeting new people and making new mutuals. (16+ to dm please, but any age can follow, though be aware this account touches on heavy subjects related to feminism) i have bpd, chronic depression (dysthymia), endometriosis, and autism.

i hate men (as a whole, some rare exceptions, guilty until proven innocent. i tolerate very few cisgendered males). i hate male supremacy. i hate pornography (involving real people) and the people who buy it. i hate sex buyers and pimps (aka sex traffickers). i hate the normalization of violent kink and violent sex. i am kink critical.

i love female solidarity and liberation. i love being myself. i love nuance. i love trans people. i love radical feminists. i love birth control and abortion. i love childfree women. i love febfems, lesbians, and people who exercise freedom to decenter men even though i am still working on it. i love 4b movement. i love feminists. my love goes out to all victims of misogyny.

i hate rape threats. no matter how "bad" the person directed at it is. i hate ableism. i hate the r-word. i hate people who post about rape "kinks"/fantasies. i hate incest. i hate the sexualization of minors even in fiction. i hate sexism/homophobia/racism/ableism/bigotry of marginalized groups (cisgendered men are not oppressed for being men cry abt it). i hate my dad always. i hate the rest of my family only sometimes.

first, i'll say this. and actually fucking listen to me this time.

trans people are not a monolith. when i say there are issues within the trans community i am NOT saying that the issue is the community or trans people merely existing.

trans people can do harmful things because they are just as human as cis people. calling out the predatory actions of a trans person is not an attack on their identity nor a claim that they did bad things BECAUSE of their identity.

i do think there is a grain of truth to the idea that misogynistic/sexist trans women are those things because they were conditioned as male (regardless of their actual gender, i'm not saying they ARE men), but I also think, to a degree, that idea is being weaponised to attack trans women for their identity as trans and/or women. many things can exist at once; some trans women may be affected by the gendered way they were raised regarding their perceived sex, trans women may also be perfectly good individuals, and trans women may also be genuinely bad individuals. [harmful] male socialisation can exist without making the claim that all people born male are inherently evil.

for that matter, on the topic of predatory trans women, i think what we need to acknowledge is that trans women who are predatory are predatory simply because they are human beings. human beings can be bad people. it's not their gender identity that makes them predatory. some trans women who were socialised as male MAY be impacted by that patriarchally conditioned misogyny and violence, but this is still not an excuse to harass trans women for their identity as trans women.

yes, there are predatory trans women. yes, this is an issue. this is in no way transphobia or "terfism" to simply call out tangible harm. for that matter, there are also predatory cis women, predatory trans men, and even predatory nonbinary individuals. yes, transmisogyny exists. yes, many transmisogynists will use predatory trans women as a scapegoat to make bigoted claims about ALL trans women, and this is not okay. But it's also not okay to defend pedophilia, predation, bigotry and violence in the name of fighting transmisogyny. transfems can be bad people. this does not mean they are inherently. trans women are literally just people like the rest of us, and people can do bad and good things.

neither tras, nor radfems.

being deeply immersed in both communities, i’ve been observing the way that both of them function, and something i’ve noticed is– they both very often tend to claim to be gender abolitionists, and not only this– they both claim to profess gender abolition. they claim it is very near & dear to them, but as an autistic trans radfem whose special interest is gender abolition; i can confirm that both the radfem & the tra “versions” of gender abolition fail to be consistent, meaningful & coherent; both versions find the pitiful comfort in laying within the borders of the ever-raging status quo, fearful to challenge & genuinely step at its’ legs, to meaningfully cross the borders– both versions remain adamant on reformism & mere “gender fuckery”, all the while fervently shouting how progressive, how revolutionary, how status quo-breaking they are being. both versions advocate liberalism, more “wiggle room” & more leeway– but neither make the effort to go beyond the personal, beyond the individual and beyond free will/choice.

in order to be able to advocate for gender abolition in its’ truest form, we first have to understand that gender are not merely just aesthetics, outward appearances, self-expressions, or even just silly stereotypes. understanding this is the first step to being able to understand gender abolition, and more often than not, both tras & radfems fail at this very first step. gender is a lethal force, a superstructure, a class-based system; it is a tool of the patriarchy, a very dangerous one. it has a base and a structure.

gender dynamics are created & directed by reproductive relations, and how we engage & interact with reproductive labor shapes our relations to gender. this extends beyond cultural stereotypes & fluctuating aesthetics. it is neither individualistic in the reformist tra sense where Gender is A Social Construct in the way that it is merely our “sense of self”, and neither is it individualistic in the radfem sense where Gender is A Social Construct that we must fight on an interpersonal scale. gender cannot be fought on a personal level. gender cannot be “played with” in the tra sense where we all choose a set of attributes to ascribe to & then call them gender, and neither can it be “played with” by attempting to opt out of the gender class system by claiming you are a “genderless adult human female” in the radfem sense. both are essentially minimizing the significance of gender in our current society, and both are advocating for a utterly western-centric, bastardized, watered-down & individualistic form of “gender abolition”. the tra understanding of gender abolition is all about choice, breaking down the notion that women & men must look this or that way, and destroying parts of superficial personality stereotypes. the radfem understanding of gender abolition is similarly also all about choice– telling people that gender nonconformity is an inherent act of Gender Rebellion™ [tras also do this!], claiming that gender is oppressive but also refusing to do away with it because “how will women then speak of their oppression?” [are they incapable of imagining a post-gender world? possibly, because they claim to be passionate gender abolitionists, while holding so strongly onto gender, since that is all they know & they must rely on it to further their theory], claiming that biology has nothing to do with gender yet reverting back to connecting gender to biology when it is convenient to their cause.

both are ultimately misunderstanding both gender & gender abolition. both see it as a mere performance, as aesthetics. both are advocating for reformism & desperate attempts at opting-out [tras try to opt out by promoting medical supplements, creating multiple new genders, messing with mere accessories; while radfems try to opt out by using meaningless words & phrases such as “a woman is an adult human female, nothing to do with gender at all!”, by trying to ignore gender & then assuming that their ignoring will somehow result in gender abolition]. radfems advocate for gender contraction, not recognizing that we cannot “revert back to sex” when our own very understanding of sex itself is extremely immersed & rooted in the sex-gender system– we cannot “revert back” to something that never even existed without the thing we are trying to leave behind in the first place [i am not saying anatomical differences don’t exist outside of gender– our *understandings* of the sex categories do not]. tras, on the other hand, advocate for gender fuckery, not understanding that liberation will not come along if we simply “play” with our biology & try to desperately ignore material reality. while radfems claim gender isn’t something to be overthrown & rather something to be ignored, tras claim gender is our own internal sense of self & gender roles are the thing we must abolish (again, heavy misunderstanding of gender as a class system from both sides; radfems lean into thinking that gender is this social attribute that only slightly limits women [they see Woman as a legitimate biological phenomenal category, not as a gender], and not a lethal force of the patriarchy that limits female people & influences & creates/goes hand-in-hand with sex-based oppression, while tras lean into thinking that gender is completely disconnected from stereotypes & roles [again, roles & stereotypes {be they external or internal/aesthetical or personified} are only one sect of gender, not the whole of it], their view of gender being limited to Gender Identity/Gender Expression/Gender Roles, with gender roles being *the thing* they are claiming to want to abolish).

both will claim to be the biggest gender abolitionists ever, but both will cling onto it for dear life & get unnecessarily angry whenever you suggest to talk about actual gender abolition. both will say gender is limiting & restrictive, but the second you wish to talk about gender as a system in depth & analyze that the only way to go about gender abolition is by following principles of proletarian feminism, they will go back to treating gender as an extremely important & crucial part of society that we cannot live without. they both go back to proving they ultimately believe gender is Here To Stay. either out of their nonsensical “biological” reasons (radfem case) or out of nonsensical “self-expression” reasons (tra sense). gender is bad, until you actually want to suggest ways to get rid of it (radfem: “ignore it and it will go away! do to yourself whatever you want! man=adult human male! woman=adult human female! this is undeniable truth! men can like pink and wear dresses! women can like blue and do sports! this is literally how you do Gender Abolition™! there’s no one way to be a woman!”, tra: “just do whatever you want to yourself, stomp on those stereotypes! prove that there’s no one way to be a woman! [real gender abolition lays in destroying the class of woman by the way, and also probably introducing new simple terms for female & male humans that aren’t intrinsically linked to gender & contemporary sex categories; the english word woman is literally derived from words wife + man, so this just goes out to show that tras also don’t care about leaving the category of “woman” behind & only want to talk the talk] chicks can have dicks! lads can have vulvas!”).

perhaps radfems might say that their mere gender contraction is because they don’t believe that a woman is a gender, but this just goes to show that most of contemporary radfems have never read an ounce of radical feminist theory. radical feminist theory defines a woman as a social category to be abolished. the faves of many radical feminists, such as andrea dworkin, christine delphy, and monique wittig– all speak about genuine gender abolition, and they all correctly identify gender as a lethal tool of the patriarchy, not merely a passive social bystander to female oppression; but rather an active participant, encourager, and influencer of it. gender is so much more than mere aesthetics, roles, stereotypes, and attributes– and we just cannot “do away” with it if we cling onto some parts of it. we have to fully do away with it. we cannot abolish some parts, and leave the others intact. we risk allowing gender to recreate itself in some way by choosing this route. both tras & radfems are afraid of gender abolition because it forces them to challenge their set-in-stone beliefs, and their limited understanding of gender abolition is just not enough for genuine liberation. they don’t want gender abolition. in their ideal world, everything would stay the same; except maybe this time, boys would also be told to like pink & play with dolls and kitchen sets, while girls would be gifted action figures & be encouraged to play sports (goes to show how they have just no idea that gender is not locked in time– it fluctuates to adapt to new eras & time periods. giving action figures to girls will not end social misogyny nor will it liberate females in any way, shape or form. misogyny was also a thing back when gender didn’t take the shape we know it as today). maybe this time, women would regularly have beards and men would walk in dresses. will this stop femicide? child brides? pornography? economic exploitation more broadly? unethical misogynistic practices? no. i don’t think so.