Millennial ennui

The Cudgel

A law that the largest companies in the world already comply with, and that hundreds of small projects cannot comply with, is not a child safety law. It is a compliance moat. It raises the regulatory cost of providing an operating system just enough that only well-resourced corporations can afford to do it.

And:

the law is not about protecting children. It is about building compliance infrastructure.

Also:

The reason why women* are "allowed" to be masculine when men* "aren't" allowed to be feminine under patriarchy is because DYKES and BUTCHES and other masculine women* SPENT DECADES FIGHTING FOR THEIR RIGHTS TO EXIST PUBLICLY.

The fact that women* can wear pants and suits etc. and are not constantly forced to be hyper feminine/in adherence with strict gendered dress codes without punishment (AND ONLY IN SOME COUNTRIES!) is a win on behalf of feminist political action NOT because of some baseline acceptance of masculinity in everybody by the patriarchy.

(*and people forcibly socially classed as women and men)

Like oh my lord some of you need to shut the fuck up and learn what it was like to be socially classed as a woman before the sexual revolution and what it continues to be like outside of the imperial core.

again, maybe you weren't thinking about those arguments when you wrote this and were simply intending to give a round of applause to the feminist movements of the 20th century for an oft overlooked or downplayed win, and if that is the case, then agreed. it was a very important accomplishment.

however, at the present time, we've got some very charged and harmful rhetoric going around that use pretty much the exact same framing you used here with the exact same blindspots, and so i figured i'd do you and your audience the kindness of making sure the implications of your omissions didn't go unnoticed.

I made this post because I have seen the, frankly, anti-feminist anti-butch argument that "masculinity is inherently accepted by the Patriarchy, even in women and people assigned female, whereas femininity is always inherently punished by the patriarchy in everyone of every gender identity" go around this website for awhile now. The argument that regularly gets brought up in favor of that misconception is the fact that women* (and people classed as women) are allowed to dress "masculine" whereas men* (and people classed as men) are always punished for dressing "feminine" — and this is simply false in both cases.

This post has nothing to do with drag queens and male transvestites fighting for their own rights to exist as gnc people, and everything to do with the fact that one very specific feminist success and the lack of education around it has led a lot of under-educated people to believe that one form of gender non-conformity is accepted by the Patriarchy when another isn't - when that's literally just lie actually.

This is a post about the history of masc activism being erased and ahistorically treated like a facet of the Patriarchy.

so, i've looked through your blog some now, and it seems that when taking this post in the context of many of your other posts, it seems my suspicions were, in fact, right on the money about the dogwhistles i was hearing. anyway.

is my masculinity always an asset? fuck no. a central tenant to intersectionality is pointing out how conditional pretty much every privilege and oppression can be, but it acknowledges this complexity in order to build a more robust way to talk about patriarchy and other systems of oppression.

and at the end of the day, if i know nothing else about the place i'm going and want to ensure my smoothest interactions with people there? i'm going with the vest and Oxford shirt or the tank top and jacket rather than the flowery blouse.

and while yes, it took a lot of fighting to get even here, you can't tell this story without also asking why men in dresses are still largely met with ridicule by most of society. was it because the equivalent fight wasn't fought? or was it because patriarchy is more amenable to people seeking or emulating masculinity than people rejecting it?

NO IT ISN'T. IT LITERALLY ISN'T.

And that's a fucked up thing to try to imply to someone who was correctively assaulted for just verbally expressing the desire to present more masculine.

You are actively denying the lived realities of people just because you haven't personally experienced it and that's a terrible thing to do to other trans people.

Apparently it's oppositional sexism when people classed as women and girls (which inherently includes trans women because I get accused of saying shit I'm not) are violently corrected for expressing masculinity. And not just like. sexist Patriarchal coercion.

I finished the jacket a few days ago, so The Pile is now down to 4!

I started the appliqué in 2024 and it sat in a bag for a long time, and earlier this year I got around to finishing it and cutting out a jacket to put it on. The jacket fabric is mostly a remnant of secondhand black wool suiting, with another very similar wool remnant making up the back panels because there wasn't quite enough. The appliqué is leftover silk taffeta from the lining of my patchwork dressing gown, and some of the sequins were from my stash (and had been there since I was a child) but I had to buy some new ones because I didn't have enough in the smaller sizes.

I also added a few green seed beads here and there. The lining is 2 different glazed cottons (one might be a blend? it's hard to tell with glazed) both from the thrift store. I have more of the solid green, but wanted to use it only on the more visible parts so I can use the rest of it on the visible parts of other linings too. Glazed cotton is such a pain to buy new that when I find a nicely coloured piece at the thrift store I must be frugal with it.

As I'm sure I've mentioned in a previous post, the appliqué is very much inspired by the ones on the costumes in Elisabeth das Musical, but since I made a mid 18th century style of jacket it's about 100 years earlier than the costumes from even the beginning of the show. I just thought the shiny green tendrils looked neat and figured they'd be a nice use for the green sequins in my stash. Though since I had to order so many small ones I think I have more green sequins now than when I started.

A Nervous Old Man (right) and his Emotional Support Violence Machine (Left)

i think i found my new favorite artist on twitter

The Rodeo Rule: you only have to do it for the first time once.

The Rohan Rule: if you are at a social function full of new people and you want to be liked, find someone doing important work like setup or food prep and offer to help.

The Tutorial Mode Rule: to navigate an unfamiliar situation where you fear you will mess up an interaction, preface the interaction by mentioning that you've never done this before, and let them know if you have a specific concern or question.

The Rocket Science Rule: most new things you want to try seem very complicated but are simple when taken step by step.

The [X] Will Remember That Rule: if you need to make small talk with the same person on a regular basis, try to save one fact or current event in their life from a given conversation and bring it up next time you talk.

When I've pressed this point, that the structure of academia will exclude people with valuable perspectives that are currently missing from academic discourse, the subtext (occasionally text) in the response has been:

"Well, good. Those people should stay out. They're Not Like Us, not a Good Fit Culturally, will make collaboration more difficult on account of having the wrong values and having bad English. Also eugenics is worth more consideration. Anyway I have an idea, we should feed marginalised people to the alligators, that will make the moat easier for everyone. Isn't that what you want? :) "

Maybe this is a 'water is wet' type remark but it bears saying explicitly:

Many high-level people in academia maintain the alligator moat *precisely because* it lets them exclude marginalised voices. They are just unrepentant bigots.

They hide their bigotry well with plausible deniability, but it is revealed shockingly often by just pressing the importance of equity.

So many academics *don't want* a better system where we uncover more truth for the benefit of humanity. They just want to play lordling of their little fiefdoms because it feels nice, and will step on whoever necessary to make that happen.

There are wonderful people in academia. I personally owe a life debt to two professors. But those were the exceptions. The system filters for covert bigots, and thus sustains covert bigotry.

I don't know how to help, other than to share anything valuable I learned there everywhere else, make it less special and less prestigious. Listen to other people outside the system, even (especially) if they haven't read the material I have. Listen with an open mind, ask good questions where appropriate. Challenge respectfully, invite respectful challenge. Unfortunately this is all made more difficult by the fact that alligators ate my face already, so. The system perpetuates.

".... all we have really done is render them de facto rather than de jure". That is SUCH a powerful framing of the exact issue, damn.

It seems inevitable, the way institutions tend towards operating in a way that gives them more control. I hope it isn't, but, yaknow. Urgh.

If it is true though, that means that people who push against the system, make visible its flaws, show how it can be better, seeding communities who pursue a better way of doing things: People who do this will always be deeply valuable if not absolutely essential to keeping society as functional and egalitarian as it can be. We may always need the next grassroots organisation that strives to do better, to oppose the previous one as it corrodes.

I also try to do this in my own small way, despite disability, and gosh if it doesn't feel Sisyphean - but less so when others are visible (again; thank you). The effects are usually invisible, but I do believe this work makes a difference as it ripples out.

Just musing now, but thought I'd reference the famous quotes by Ursula K LeGuin and Rabbi Tarfon that help me stay hopeful:

Ursula K LeGuin's "The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings."

Rabbi Tarfon's "You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it."

I watched this documentary once about drinking culture in the UK and in it there was a doctor who was emphasizing how alcohol is a known carcinogen and drinking too often has these health risks.

She also admitted that she drinks alcohol more than the recommended amount.

Like somebody trying to inform you about what you’re doing isn’t always a demand that you change your ways. You can choose to do something that’s bad for you. You can choose to do something that’s mean or inefficient or boring or rude or whatever other negative descriptor. You’re just going to experience the consequences of doing that. And sometimes people will try to inform you of the possible consequences. That’s not automatically an attack on you.

This is a statement that transness throws a wrench into the theories put forward by cisfeminism, and simply including trans women in the group of people treated “as women” (which typically means “with oppression” in these arguments) and excluding trans men (and so excluding from the group of “treated with oppression”) doesn’t make it work.

It’s not as simple as the reverse of “trans men are seen as women, therefore trans women must be seen as men,” either. Far from it.

Trans people of all genders are oppressed because we are treated as aberration to what we “should be” and is “the natural order of things”. We are treated as “other”. Trans men are not instantly welcomed as patriarchal men by the patriarchy. Trans women are also degraded by the patriarchy, as well as trans men. Not as opposed to.

The problem is the view that degradation by the patriarchy is only a thing that is done to people viewed as women, and then the argument devolves into whether trans women are seen as women for their genders, or whether it’s trans men who are seen as women for their birth sexes. Degrading treatment by the patriarchy is not reserved only for women. The patriarchy does not accept any transness. The oppositional sexism, and use of suffering to define womanhood, in the framing are the problem.

We shouldn’t be asking who is being treated “as a man” (ie. well by the patriarchy) and who is treated “as a woman” (ie. poorly by the patriarchy) because transness does not slot into that framework of the view of misogynistic oppression. A trans man is a man. A trans woman is a woman. The oppression we face is not what makes our genders real.

If anything, if we need categories, they’re “treated well by the patriarchy”, “treated well by the patriarchy, though less well than the first category because patriarchy inherently considers them lesser”, and “treated poorly by the patriarchy”, and are more of a sliding scale than concrete categories. And even then I don’t think it’s truly representative of the intricacies of how women can be agents of the patriarchy even while being disadvantaged, and doesn’t consider intersectionality hardly at all.

I see actually quite a lot of transmascs who are NOT MEN specifically, consistently come into the tag to try to explain to us that transandrophobia doesn't exist etc etc etc.

And, here's the thing: if you're a transmasculine person who is constantly being regendered and misgendered and having femininity pushed onto you, because you are also specifically not a trans man, you aren't likely going to understand what it's like to be vilified for your identity as a transgender man specifically. Unless you're fully transitioning in all the same ways binary trans men are, it's obvious that you are not going to see the ways that people use manhood & masculinity against us in tandem with transphobia, sexism, cissexism, intersexism, etc etc etc, in the way transandrophobia specifically talks about.

I understand there is a lot of overlap in experiences between these two groups, and I personally toe the line between transmasculine person and transgender man constantly, as someone who outwardly presents as a passing binary man, who used to identify as such, but now I identify as a genderqueer transmasculine person for various personal reasons of my own gender journey.

But still. It's very clear to me that there are some experiences, which are specifically described by transandrophobia, that a lot of transmasculine people do not or have not yet encountered, and it's obvious when these people discount transandrophobia theory with their personal experiences and explanation of what "the real transmasculine oppression" is, and it all very pointedly omits the types of experiences when trans men and transmasculine people are targeted for their masculinity/manhood.