Lesbian Flower 🌺

Toxic masculinity is caused by misogyny. You guys know that right? That anything outside of a small box is considered feminine and therefore bad? It's not "let men be healthily masculine!" Its "stop viewing femininity as weakness"

The way the conversation about men and boys feeling left behind by the culture keeps being presented as a result of a cultural push to uplift girls and women and the fact that women now perform so well in school & the workplace is genuinely scary and deranged why are people allowing this framing to persist

Like I listen to a lot of mainstream lib of center news and politics podcasts and it’s crazy how this is being used to borderline excuse the political swing to the right men are taking. “Teachers were mean to boys because they couldn’t sit still in school and they can’t find high paying jobs where they work with their hands (that’s not a girly erm I mean woman-dominated occupation like nursing assistant obviously) ergo women should be relegated to the home and have their political rights and bodily autonomy curbed so men can feel better about themselves” are you hearing yourselves!!

btw “actual feminism” is trans inclusive and op of this tweet agrees :)

crazy how people assume trans guys dont know if we had short naturally coloured hair and a basic style we'd "pass better." "you want tips on how to pass? no more fun piercings, jewelry, anything feminine, dyed hair, nail polish or nice things for you!" thanks but I choose joy and whimsy x

Tags by @kvetchcore.

I also hate how they assume that some of us haven’t already tried all that and STILL GOT MISGENDERED. Like shaving my head and wearing straight bootcut jeans and flannels and speaking in a low voice and not swinging my arms while walking or smiling at strangers etc DID NOT WORK.

And trying to conform so much made me miserable. Stop placing the burden of “passing” on trans people and instead challenge society’s expectations of masculinity and femininity by letting trans people dress and style themselves the way they want!!!!

Original comic by Rasenth

Leelah Alcorn was a trans girl, a teenager, who sadly committed suicide nearly 10 years ago. I'm happy that her comic touches the hearts of so many people, years after her death.

I saved screenshots of her blog and last message to the world. Her parents had a lot of control over how she was perceived after her death, but it was also to prevent deletion by Tumblr itself. Even back then, Tumblr has been shadow banning trans women on this platform.

My heart goes out to all trans women who are struggling with society's expectations of who they are supposed to be and who they are allowed to be. May you find peace, growth, and respite from whatever you're going through. You deserve happiness, most of all. Thank you for living, thank you for being here with us.

saw someone say ‘a lot of men don’t actually want to participate in raising their children, they just like the aesthetic of having a family’ and god that is so true

Sex with women, marriage, and children are symbols of masculine coming-of-age. A lot of men get upset if they can’t access these things because it makes them feel unmasculine in the eyes of other men, but I don’t think a lot of these insecure guys have asked themselves whether relationships or fatherhood are things they actually want, or if they’re emotionally prepared for the reality of participating in these things. They see it like buying a car or a house, and are shocked when there’s a whole different person and a set of responsibilities attached.

> “mannish features”

> look inside

> literally just common physical traits among women of colour

you can’t separate transmisogyny from racism. the radical feminism movement is so overwhelmingly white because their idea of what a woman is is so thoroughly steeped in white supremacy.

as an east asian trans woman, this is why i talk about how i pass better to white people than i do to other asian people.

many of my features that asian people see as masculine, white people perceive as feminine because of western beauty standards.

and because of that, east asian people are more palatable to white people because of our relative proximity to whiteness as opposed to black and brown women of color.

racism hurts us all, misogyny hurts us all, and transphobia hurts us all. but also remember that transmisogyny and misogynoir sit at the intersection of a lot of nasty shit and we need to be talking about it.

i think a 7 year old girl could kill any transphobe. imagine telling a 7 year old girl she's not as strong as the boys around her because she's a girl, she'd rip your organs out in less than a second. have you ever seen what happens when a teacher says "i need a strong boy to carry this thing"?? have you never seen a small child carry four times her body weight with a smile on her face just to spite someone???? i think kids should be allowed to kill tbh

KIDS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF ADULTS TRYING TO FORCE SEXIST STEREOTYPES ONTO THEM WHAT PART OF THAT DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND

When I was 20 and got married, older women loved to try to scare me with stories of what it's like to live with a man.

My marriage is wonderful 20 years later.

Through my 20s into my 30s, older women loved to try to predict when my baby fever would kick in and they'd tell me horror stories of motherhood.

We chose not to have kids and baby fever never hit me.

Now, I'm in my 40s and older women love to tell me about how I'm going to suffer through menopause. They gleefully recount hot flashes, the weight gain, how I'll have to "work harder to be a woman".

I'm not even perimenopausal. I'm only 41. I know about menopause. It's not a secret.

Can women just let women age? This isn't support. This is aggression in pink.

This is gaining traction, so I just want to add: this 10000000% includes trans people and non-binary people.

Actually, imma include cismen as well, because hearing this shit is damaging to the male psyche as well. Toxic masculinity can start by hearing women hate each other.

But, yeah. TERFS fuck off.

I'd like to point out that this is cultural as hell - and in my personal experience very white and WASP-y. This is the kind of behavior I've seen exclusively from white women in my life; coworkers, teachers, etc. My tribal family started really believing me about the 'not having kids' things when I was around 30 and stopped mentioning it; I was assigned Auntie status (this is a Role). I'm 40 now and only just starting to see that same acceptance among peripheral white people.

Becoming an Elder in my indigenous community is a consistent life goal, an achievement worthy of respect. The only time I've heard anyone mention menopause at all has been women glad to not have to fuss about periods anymore, the opening of certain ceremonies that only elders can participate in, and reccomedations for how to take black cohosh.

This is not a refutation or disagreement about this being a thing in majority/white culture, just an observation that it's not a human universal. It's a system, and it can be dismantled.

crazy how people assume trans guys dont know if we had short naturally coloured hair and a basic style we'd "pass better." "you want tips on how to pass? no more fun piercings, jewelry, anything feminine, dyed hair, nail polish or nice things for you!" thanks but I choose joy and whimsy x

Tags by @kvetchcore.

I also hate how they assume that some of us haven’t already tried all that and STILL GOT MISGENDERED. Like shaving my head and wearing straight bootcut jeans and flannels and speaking in a low voice and not swinging my arms while walking or smiling at strangers etc DID NOT WORK.

And trying to conform so much made me miserable. Stop placing the burden of “passing” on trans people and instead challenge society’s expectations of masculinity and femininity by letting trans people dress and style themselves the way they want!!!!

btw if you've ever called a boy toddler "tough guy" you have done more gender coercion than any trans girl's egg joke ever could

put me alone in a room with a cis person for 4 hours and i could make calling little boys "tough guy" the thread that unravels the whole sweater

as proof, this joke made someone fully come into my ask box and ask me how to ethically interact with their nephew who is 4. i'm in their heads man

Not shaving and not wearing make up are literally nonbehaviors. They’re a complete lack of action. But doing nothing is considered masculine because women are not allowed to just be. this goes double for trans women.

reblog this version because transmisogynists don’t know how to fuck off.

i have very complex thoughts on this but one funny realisation about being a trans woman and a lesbian and wanting games and stories about women like me being loved, is that like struggle to find good gay media makes you realise how like.... straight women want better too? like the vast majority of stuff aimed at girls and women is sorta just insulting? like i modded Harvest moon so i can be gay but trying to play the default "girls" version just sort of felt like it didn't respect the player at all. like "here's some men, be happy with it".

and related is just how like....if I'd grown up as a girl it's not like i would have been happier. because everything girls are expected to like fucking sucks basically, it's patronising and has the most insulting "morals" and it's just like wow patriarchy sucks.

like it's hard to find "gender affirming" games etc because like.... a lot of stuff aimed at girls doesn't respect girls, and it's hard getting into the mindset that I'm not some alien outside invader for like... having an issue with sexism and not wanting to settle for insultingly patronising ideas of what "girls" are and want.

and while it's not on the same level, like being a trans woman and being exposed to so much media for "boys" and "men" felt almost disgusting? like it was going wink wink "this is what guys like us are into, aren't you a guy?". like you were expected to not have an issue with it and not want anything more...kind i guess? more genuine or focused on emotions? just "here's what men want, here's what women want, they're two seperate categories"

see also: how awful h scenes in eroge are, where like that appeal to the idea of what "men" should want and masculine fantasies genuinely just makes it unpleasant and shit. like wow we really believe in this gender bullshit? it ruins fucking everything lol.

anyway gender thoughts about media and capitalism and whatnot. gender ruins everything once again, you're not a "fake" woman or whatever for not falling for patriarchal brainwashing and being perfectly happy and content living up to perfect standards of aesthetics and beauty standards and acceptable hobbies. it's all just culturally enforced bullshit, turns out people just want games and stuff that are good and respect them and are fun.

it's almost like under patriarchy, masculinity and maleness are associated with agency, power, achievement, violence and sexuality and stuff while feminity and femaleness are associated with simultaneous passivity and overaction in caring about stupid things, vanity, domesticity, beauty and child raising. and shockingly those ideas get reflected in media and how kids are raised, despite being totally arbitrary categorisations. who'd have thought that the media and cultural industries would be complicit in the gender system? shocking

helen “trans people are perpetuating gender steriotypes” joyce is now upset that the scientific american is writing about how women were hunters too back in the day, not just mothers and caretakers. feminist win!

I think I found the article!

Read it if you have the time, it's very interesting.

Reading the article I see why TERFs are mad about it; it explicitly makes the distinction between gender as a social entity and sex as a biological category, and defines biological sex having multiple factors, both of which are anathema to TERF philosophy.

It also includes these fascinating paragraphs about the role of estrogen in different types of physical activity, directly debunking the widespread notion that estrogen is the weak human's hormone and only does weak human things:

The article also talks about sexual dimorphism in different species, concluding that "Modern humans have low sexual dimorphism compared with the other great apes," and that overemphasis on averages obscures the wide dispersal of individual traits, which is what I keep saying.

about to say something mean but i feel like every "male-specific" issue is something that also happens to women its just that a lot of you dont seem to see women as people

women are also feeling lonely and alienated from communities en masse women are also expected to stifle their mental health for the sake of perfomance at work, in relationships, for children ect women are also expected to work extremely hard to maintain a perfect body and perfect health and are punished for being fat/having hair loss/having health issues especially those that affect ones sex life women are also insecure women are also neglected by parents and teachers and authority figures women are also scrutinized for having emotions and punished for not meeting the gendered expectations of our class and expected to climb upwards and overcompensate while being punished for signs of poverty and we get the added bonus on top of, yknow, being women. your emotional issues are not a Crisis Attacking Manhood theyre the way our society is fucking built you just dont see women as people

Everybody suffers under our patriarcal and capitalist system in similar ways, yes. I don't think anyone who seriously looks at these issues crtically believe it's only male-centric (i.e. the people who shout "mEn ArE oPpReSsed MoRe" don't count). But I think the fact that women suffer more acutely under these systems lead to them forming community at higher rates for survival. So many of the hobbies that are traditionally feminine tend to have senses of community with knitting circles or book clubs etc. The expectation for men as the provider and having to always look to dominate or be better then the others around them leads to struggle to have the same community connection as women because they're supposed to be above that need. Plus, the stigma that comes with hetronormativity comes with the added affect that male friends don't give the same emotional reinforcement through compliments the same way as female groups due. Having had friend groups with both majority male and majority female, I definitely notice the difference in how many compliments are given out by both groups.

Either way, I agree we do need to acknowledge that mens issues aren't exclusive to them. But I do think some of these feelings affect men and women at different rates. The solution is and always will be rearing down patriarcal/gendered/heteronormative systems the feed these problems in the first place.

you can make the same knitting circle argument about sports teams, drinking buddies, ect. most hobbies come with some level of community, thats not unique to women.

i can tell you from first hand experience that heteronormativity affects and alienates gay women from their peers as well - insisting that women have emotionally in-tune, deeply connected friend groups is simply not true and i despise this argument as it insists that women are naturally more emotional then men. as i said before, women, especially adult women especially mothers, are also under EXTREME pressure to keep their emotions under lock and key and be professional and placating of the people around them at all times.

every argument for why mens suffering under capitalism + patriarchy are Totally Unique I Swear are completely based on surface level analysis of womens role under patriarchy. women are not safe to be emotional, we are highly scrutinized and dismissed as incapable, unprofessional, hysterical bitches ect ect if we so much as criticize someone much less actually express loneliness, grief, anger, ect. women arent encouraged to find deep friendships, we're primed and expected to treat other women as competition, to categorize every other woman as a failure to be a woman and to strive to prove that we are better, special, and different from them. its alienating too.

men are expected to repress their emotions, to isolate themselves from friendships, to act only on an extremely strict set of sexual desires, ect while being allowed to take those emotions out on the women around them. for every ill a man suffers under patriarchy a woman suffers it twice because of this cultural allowance for men to punish women for the cage they built themselves.

how can i say “transmisogyny is the basis of patriarchy” when all good materialist feminists know the goal of patriarchy is the exploitation of women-classed people for reproductive labor, specifically dependent on biological reproduction? well, let’s dive a little more into what i mean by “basis” in this context.

when we talk about the basis we could talk about a lot of things. the historical basis? we don’t know, although gerda lerner has a book i have not read that i hear has some good theorizing about it. the material basis? mentioned above. but when we dive into the reproductive process we see something else: the psychological basis of patriarchy, and the behavioral modification conducted primarily around coercive birth assignment.

for cafab people, the intention is to create the class “woman”, which is basically a trauma and labor dump for everything man decides he doesn’t want to be (and wants to exploit sexually, in the model version where gay people don’t exist).

for camab people, the intention is to create a “man” which basically means abusing someone into a series of ways of shutting down their internal processes until they conform to various cultural archetypal stereotypes of dominance. the whole way you create a “boy” is by using patriarchal ideology and practices to train a type of dominance around perception of sex-class into the mind of a camab child. this *relies* on the idea that boys are *essentially* this way–or to put it another way, that camab children are essentially this construct called “boys”, a construct doomed to become “men”.

the only way to achieve this is by culturally outlawing any alternative paths for camab children. with cafab children, the structure tries to abuse them into the subservient position. with camab children, the structure tries to brainwash them into the dominant system, and therefore they are allowed more leeway: essentially “boys will be boys” which is to say “boys can do whatever the fuck they want”. there’s a risk therefore of slippage, because if boys can be like girls, and people who are like girls are being abused into the subservient position, then boys could become girls. and if that could happen like that, the structure would be destabilized. men would feel emasculated every time they were dominated. WHICH IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENS, because in reality camab kids can become girls, men constantly emasculate each other, etc.

so if you’re designing or memetically evolving patriarchy, how the fuck do you keep the whole thing from coming about because men are constantly patriarchally dominating each other? you have to put in a failsafe: make the idea of a camab person becoming a woman (or really anything other than a man) so repulsive and abject and dehumanized and disgusting that no one would ever ever want to choose to be it, even on the deepest levels of traumatic internalization where gender identity sets in. something so impossible everyone would try to deny it’s existence, while making it the butt of violent jokes. something that, when it appeared, was to be killed or raped or controlled or locked in a fucking basement or tortured or, if it was truly a fucking impeccably good person, held up on a dehumanizing pedastal of idolization that made them seem literally otherworldly.

so, trans women exist as “trans women” (or “faggots” depending on context) because it’s a dump category: the joke, the target, the going-too-far, the impossible, the fetishized, the ostracized, etc. and the reason it is, is that it needs to be to hold patriarchy together. male bonding is based around the fact of male identity, which is equally to say the rejection of what it decides is the female category. (this is not to say that male identity cannot adapt the performative signifiers of non-male identities). transmisogyny, the oppression of trans women, is therefore the psychological linchpin holding the whole thing in place. it keeps cis women from confronting how gender is socially constructed, by naturalizing it (transphobia in general does this). it keeps the family producing boys and men. so, like the exploitation of women’s reproductive labor, the oppression and exploitation of trans women is Vital for the intergenerational transmission of patriarchy. this is why we are considered a threat as bad as nuclear warfare by no less a patriarch than The Fucking Pope. both the oppression and exploitation of cis women (and to some complex defree, cafab nonbinary people) and the oppression and exploitation of trans women form the absolute basis, but transmisogyny is the psychological linchpin that keeps patriarchy in play. you might say, it’s patriarchy’s psychosocial weak point.