Rad-Leaning Trans Man (Side Blog)

"actually, the bible doesn't condone slavery!" but are you saying that if it did condone slavery, that you would be okay with it?

"actually, the bible doesn't condone genocide!" but if it commanded you to, if He commanded you to, would you take up the sword?

"actually, the bible doesn't command the killing of unbelievers!" but if it did, would I stare at the blade at my chest and see you holding the handle?

There isn't a god. when you take Isaac up to the mountain, lay him across the altar, hold the blade above him; there will be no angel to call your name; to stop you; to declare it was all a test. The knife will fall and you will call yourself justified.

I've spent the time studying the bible; and I know that these aren't true. It condemns homosexuality. it condones slavery. it condones genocide. it condones the killing of unbelievers. Sometimes in the back of my mind, I fear that the people I know will look a little closer and follow what the bible actually says. And in the front of my mind, I fear those who follow it just enough to try to justify their bigotry.

There is a class, a category of people - those that follow their religion as truth, and are willing to do whatever it tells them, even if it commands things that would be evil and disgusting to a non-believer.

There are millions, maybe billions of these people. Some of them are homophobes. Some of them are murderers. Some of them are gay-affirming. Some of them are your friends. Some of them are world leaders. Some of them are your family.

The only way we can end religious violence is by condemning these people wholesale. The 9/11 attacks, the Crusades, Sharia Law, and more were caused by people believing lies. A liar is a liar and liar who denies truth and reality cannot be trusted to self-regulate and make sure their lies aren't truly in reality harmful.

and im afraid those two are not at the same level. women who are male centered are capable of putting themselves in danger to please a member of a violent oppressive class.

They're angry about TIFs being welcomed in lesbian spaces because they want to be there instead, they think they're more worthy of being there. They frame it as concern for "men in lesbian spaces" and it makes them furious, because they know inside that they are the actual men in lesbian spaces.

They're angry about women and TIFs talking about our sex based oppression, because they wish they had oppression to talk about. They try to claim they're oppressed for their dicks, but deep down they're aware that they know nothing about sex based oppression and never will.

They're extremely angry about lesbians existing. They grew up feeling entitled to women's bodies, and lesbians rejecting them made them angry because they wanted access to them. So they tried to make up a workaround by identifying as a lesbian, and it infuriates them when it doesn't work, because they so badly want to force women into having sex with them.

be aware that they make you tolerate the heat even worse!!

since the heatwave is ravishing through europe and the summer is just unfolding, we may be exposed to even more extreme temperatures than a year before. it's important to know what to expect and which precautions to take when you're even more vulnerable to its effects.

meds like SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclics and more will make you:

sweat more - remember about hydration, take a bottle of water with you every time you leave the house

overheat quicker - stay inside during the greatest heat, if you can. wear breathable, loose clothes, preferably cotton or linen ones

more prone to a heatstroke - protect your head and skin, avoid needless heat exposure, take shelter in ventilated places when you feel dizzy outside

i know that it's unfair, but now - more than ever - you need to pay extra attention to your body and any symptoms that may appear. if you don't have an access to AC, invest in a fan, ventilate your room at night, wear light clothes that protect your skin from the direct sunlight. don't forget about the spf while you do it, you may be more prone to sunburns.

stay safe and take care of yourselves, i hope for this summer to pass quickly and painlessly, but sadly it doesn't look that good so far

When a few trans women are killed in a year, that’s genocide.

the article contains more information on the mother and daughter's confusion of the decision to drop the case against Mark, along with wider discussion of efforts to define behaviour like that in the article ("advocate, counsel or glorify child sexual abuse in text") as a criminal offense, but I wanted highlight these excerpts on the relationships between the parties involved here:

“They told me he had been caught on a chat forum describing how he had been raping and sexually abusing Emily for years. It was written as a confession. He’d even used her name and talked about where we lived.”

...

The police told Fiona they had a photo that Mark had shared in these chats. “I was terrified,” she says. “I thought it might be something explicit. But it was a photo I knew. Emily was young and wearing a new dress, I remembered taking it, her smiling at the camera. That was the absolute worst moment, realising that he had used that photo in these chats.”

...

Emily was certain her dad had not sexually abused her. But from that moment her entire view of him – of her childhood – began to unravel. Like her mum, she was in a space of complete horror and confusion. [...] “They made me doubt everything I knew about my dad and his view of me. I began to think back on every second we had spoken, every outfit I had worn, every hug he had given me.”

...

When she told the police that her dad had never abused her, she was telling the truth. His sex fantasy chats were just that – a fantasy. There is increasing concern about the policing of pornography and online sexual fantasies. A growing body of evidence suggests legal but extreme pornography mimicking illegal acts is a major driver of the online child abuse crisis. Convicted offenders are warning that porn algorithms are sending them down “escalating pathways” to ever more extreme material.

...

While Fiona was preparing to move, Emily was going down a rabbit hole into the darkest recesses of the internet. She began to read all she could about sex chat sites and was horrified to learn how easy it is to step straight into sexual chats about children. “I couldn’t believe people were on there openly talking about child abuse. My dad had a user name that was an obvious reference to child abuse,” she says. “It isn’t hidden.” She wanted the police to know Mark hadn’t touched her, but she wanted him to be prosecuted for sharing his child abuse fantasies online. And she wanted to be recognised as a victim, something the police didn’t seem to understand.

...

Mark walked away with no criminal record or any form of monitoring. He was not placed on the sex offender register and there is nothing he has to disclose to an employer or a partner. Fiona has seen Mark only once since the case was dropped: when she met him to get his signature on divorce papers. She saw then how happy he was to have escaped prosecution. “He made it clear that he considered it a prudish response, the public disapproval of a private fetish. We were prudes, the police were as well. It might have been embarrassing to have the messages revealed, but it wasn’t anything that should involve the law.”

...

His fantasies may have started out private, but through the continued encouragement of other people in these forums, he escalated to posting actual photos and personal information of his daughter online. Claiming to have actually sexually abused her, through false confessions tailored to the sexual gratification of other pedophiles.

This is not harmless. This does not exist in a vacuum. Had he actually kept his fetish private, there would be no issue here. But it wasnt private - it wad online where anyone could see. And it wasnt consensual once he started involving real photos of his daughter.

This sort of thing happens precisely because kink and fetish is being treated as uniquely above criticism, as if fantasies can never be exploitative. And yes, he never physically abused her but he did exploit his daughter's image for gratification.

However I think that I understand the section on suicide risk.

I read the judgment yesterday and I still have questions about some of the arguments vs how they are portrayed in media.

From the BBC article :

However, the court said Article 8 does not mean there is automatically a right for a transgender prisoner to be housed in a prison designated for the opposite biological sex.

Lady Ross said the right was qualified and may be restricted where there is a legitimate justification, including maintaining sex-based segregation within the prison estate.

The judge acknowledged that exceptional circumstances could arise.

In a case involving a serious threat to life, such as a risk of suicide, Article 2 of the ECHR — which protects the right to life — might require consideration of whether accommodation in a prison for the opposite biological sex was necessary.

The article seems to say that in some situations it might be lawful for prisoners to be placed in wrong-sex prisons, but the judgement does not say that.

Exceptions

Paragraphs 123 from the judgment explains that trans prisoners might have a claim with regards to the Article 8 right to privacy, but that it does not mean that they have the positive right to be housed on opposite-sex estates (see also 132). The right to have access to objects forbidden to other prisoners (e.g. makeup) comes from Article 8, and the judge mentions that third-spaces might also be needed to fulfill those rights (124).

The right of transwomen to be housed with women does not fall under Article 8 protection because it involves other people and it would be a breach of their rights to privacy and dignity (125).

The claim that the judge considers exceptions seems to come from paragraph 134, where the respondant (Scottish Prison Service) argued that exceptions to single-sex estates were necessary to respect trans prisoners' Article 8 rights. Clearly that is not the conclusion the judge came to. The judge responds to this argument by stating that there are other ways in which trans prisoner's rights are respected and that some trans prisoners are housed in estates of their correct sex, which implies that it is possible to respect their rights in those circumstances.

Suicide

The section on risks to mental health starts at paragraph 138. It is probably the section of the judgement that I would most suggest because both sides of the argument are accessible even without specalist knowledge.

In paragraph 148 the judge expresses scepticism at the thought that transwomen prisoners could not be kept safe in the male estate since other vulnerable populations exist and are considered by SPS policies. The argument that those prisoners are at greater risk did not convince the judge since the data used either showed risk to prisoners in general or to trans people not in custody (149).

In 150 the judge mentions the importance of having policies to reduce the risk of suicide and that even if transwomen prisoners have a special risk, it would not imply that they should be housed with women :

Genuinely how do you look at this and not start fucking fuming? This is INSANE. these are male 'medical professionals' sexually exploiting muslim refugees from Sudan. You aren't angry enough

MALCOLM was a self described gay man. Marsha P. Johnson was his stage name for when he doing drag. he joked that trans people: "just didn't know they were gay" the details surrounding his death are complicated, but none of it points to murder. days before his death he was expressing suicidal ideation, on the night of his death he wandered into the Hudson River possibly on drugs. in his autopsy his death was ruled a suicide, and there is no reporting of head trauma or anything that would suggest he was killed.