holy shit its literally an instinctual reaction to say a slur for them. they react so fast its actually shocking.

Language

(This post is going around.  Since I pretty much like the post, I’m making my own post rather than introducing this in the responses there, but I do want to link to it for context.)

A really cool and classy trans lady I corresponded with for a while on a different social site used words like “transsexual” and “transgendered.”  She spoke of herself as being born in the wrong body, and she spoke of herself as being biologically male, MTF.

She was in her late 60s.

I did not correct her.  I would not in a hundred years have dared.  

Given the social climate and hostility she had endured, I was fortunate to be speaking to her at all.

I have occasionally seen younger people criticizing older people quite harshly for that sort of thing.  That hurts.

The use of language changes, my friends.

It is so, so very important to help people outside the community understand what language is most appropriate, and it’s important to discuss this stuff within the community so that we can reach some kind of consensus (however messy) moving forward.

It is also very, very important to respect the elders among us, and to understand that their experiences and the wisdom they have to share with us are of tremendous importance and incalculable value.  And the language they use?  Is part of their history, and our history, and respecting that fact in all its complexity is part of respecting them . . . and respecting ourselves as a community.

Language is so important, but in thirty years I guarantee you some of the language we defend so vigorously now will be woefully outdated, and many of us will still be clinging to it, much to the consternation of the younger generation.  

I’m not saying it isn’t important to strive to create the most respectful, helpful language possible, and educate others when it is right to do so.  It is vitally necessary that we do so.  But we have to remember that this is a process that, thank heavens, never, ever ends.

Language cannot, and should not, stop evolving.  Look at us.  Look at all of us.  So beautiful, so many.  We are a dynamic community, a vivid community, full of art and history and passion and pathos and great, great power.  Something so lively is always surrounded by change.  That is so beautiful, and should be welcomed going forward … and it should be respected looking back.

There are words not yet invented that will apply to those not yet born.  Those people should be respected when they join us.  And the words we use now, they are good for now, and we should be respected.  And our elders should be respected.  Letting language take that from us is a horrifying prospect.

So.  Let us not forget that language is primarily meant to be what helps bind us together.  Let us remember not to let it set us apart, to squeeze us like a fist.

Please remember your history when discussing language.  You will eventually be part of our history.  You already are.  Please.  Go with open hands.

Yes. This.

This goes for other marginalized communities as well. I have a teacher who (in his words) “suffers from” depression. I am a strong proponent of the idea that everyone should have the right to define their own existence in their own words. So while I personally favor the neurodiversity model and I much prefer the neutral “has [x condition]” over “suffers from [x condition]”, I am not going to correct my teacher’s language because it’s his choice to define his depression for himself.

Thank you for bringing mental illness into this, because it didn’t occur to me, but there are many parallels, and as I myself am mentally ill and disabled because of it, I feel like I can actually talk about this with some authority.

Speaking as someone with an anxiety disorder and depression-dominant bipolar, I heavily identify with the “suffers from” narrative.  Not everyone does.  But if I said “I suffer from depression” and someone tried to “correct” my language to be more in line with what genuinely should be the default when you don’t know how the other person relates to their issue, they would get a gentle earful.

When someone tells you how they relate to some part of their core being, you believe them.  If they use the “trapped in the wrong body” framework for themselves, respect it, don’t correct it.  If they describe themselves as “suffering from X”, respect it, don’t correct it.

Some conditions do not inherently cause much suffering and while some people may indeed be miserable with these conditions, for the most part it’s society’s lack of accommodation that makes those conditions painful to live with.  (From my understanding, autism, many forms of physical disability, blindness, Deafness, etc., would all reliably fall into this category.)  (This is the social model of disability in a nutshell.  The idea that if people were afforded necessary accommodations, these issues wouldn’t be too much of a problem.)

Some conditions absolutely tend to cause inherent suffering simply because that is what they do.  What I have is, IMO, one of those things.  While I personally know people who have the same exact illness I have and actively enjoy it (mania is apparently enjoyable for a friend of mine), most people who are bipolar, in my experience, do not.  That is simply the nature of what bipolar is.  Likewise, my anxiety disorder: if it did not cause suffering, it would not exist.  That’s what it is.  It causes discomfort, sometimes so acute I cry or feel like I’m going to throw up.  You can’t accommodate me out of it, though you can damn sure make it worse by not allowing me to take care of it.

It’s a fact that if we accommodated these things better, the suffering would be less.  For instance, if I were afforded enough money to live on each month, adequate medical care by competent professionals willing to treat me as the authority in my illness, and appropriate medication, I would be a lot happier.  I do not have those things.  I am absolutely made more miserable because of it.  But no level of accommodation will stop my neurotransmitters – or lack thereof – from making me miserable from time to time.

The language that it is appropriate to apply to someone else may very well differ from what they use to describe themselves.  There are some things it is not okay to impose on other people, even as it is perfectly okay to be those things.

Language develops and grows, and we are always seeking good terms to use that describe people without assigning them characteristics or narratives with which they may not identify.  That’s a good thing.  I get very frustrated when I see people complain about changing language, or “made-up terms”. That attitude is an active resistance to positive change.

I also get very frustrated when I see people trying to stamp out words without knowing their history, or respecting people who use those word, and have used them for decades (e.g.: “queer”, which you will pry from my cold dead fingers).

We need a better understanding of the necessary divide between personal experience and group descriptors.

This is a big thing in the autistic community. Older folks (I’m talking the >35 set by and large) lean more towards person-first language. Younger folks (like me I admit) lean more towards identity-first. 

And there’s a good reason for that in both cases. Folks who grew up in the 70s and earlier were around for the early disability rights movements - they remember the time when identity-first was used to dehumanize and other. Person-first is their way of fighting back: I am a person, you will not forget that. 

Younger folks were around for Autism Speaks and its co-opting of person-first language for its own bigoted ends. For the era of forced normalization, of passing, of “I Am Autism” and “Autism Every Day,” of being portrayed as demon-children while your abusers and the killers of people like you get fawning attention because it’s ever-so-difficult to be around people like you, and of personhood and autism being considered mutually exclusive and personhood being conditional on passing - so if you pass, you’re not autistic and don’t have a right to an opinion because you’re not severe enough, and if you don’t pass, you’re too severely affected to really understand how wretched you are, and therefore you don’t have the right to an opinion. For us, identity-first is a way of claiming our voice - it’s an extension of nothing about us without us. I am autistic, and I am a person, and you don’t get to choose which of those you respect. You will listen to me, because of both, not in spite of one.

What I’m pointing out here is that sometimes generations can have mutually-exclusive language preferences for what amounts to the same underlying reason, owing to differences in culture at the time of the generation’s coming-of-age. Person-first and identity-first are in fact mutually exclusive - someone cannot simultaneously respect my wish to be called autistic and another person’s wish to not hear autistic people referred to as autistic. But they’re both rooted in a demand for respect, a demand to be recognized as a full person. 

The autistic community has mostly settled this issue by saying you have the final call in how you are referred to, but you don’t have the right to push others into identifying differently. The wishes that get respected in an instance are the wishes of the person being referred to. So you would refer to me as autistic, and you might refer to someone else as a person with autism, and both are okay as long as you’re respecting the identity of the person in question.

I think the QUILTBAG community could really benefit from taking that sort of attitude, too. Case in point: For me, I would never refer to myself as dyke and would get really fucking angry with anyone who did refer to me as dyke- I lived in a very old-fashioned community. Dyke was a tool of dehumanization and a threat. I hear someone call me a dyke and I’m 8 on the playground having my face smashed open on a chunk of ice to the tune of “Dyke bitch! Dyke bitch!” again. No amount of reclamation is going to lessen that association for me. But other people want to reclaim it as a sense of defiance - I’m a dyke, what of it? I respect their defiance, and I respect their right to choose the language with which they identify. 

This is such a cool addition to my post. Thank you.

I hate the word “bitch”. It IS a misogynistic slur and I want boys especially to keep that word out of their mouths. My step dad yelled it at my mother while she was crying when I was 9 before he tore the curtains down and I still remember what it sounded like. Don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s a harmless word and that it’s OK to use just because you also use it when referring to guys. Guys often say things like “he’s a little bitch” - the word is clearly not at all removed from its misogynistic meaning.

“who’s the bitch?” meaning “who is the weaker inferior party? aka who’s the woman?”

“you’re my little bitch” meaning “you are subservient to me–like a woman.”

“I made you my bitch.” meaning “I own you, you are inferior to me–like a woman.”

“uppity bitch.” meaning “you are behaving in a manner that doesn’t befit your low station, stop acting like you are important or matter–women are supposed to shut up and take it.”

“cried like a bitch.” meaning “crying like a weak, mentally inferior person (a woman).”

“take it like a bitch” meaning “women are supposed to shut up and take it, like the weak inferior people they are.”

This is what we mean when we say the word “bitch” designates women as an innately inferior class of human beings.

Please reblog, I would like to this on here to show everyone the hate there is in high schools. Welcome to McGuffey High School. A boy started the idea to wear flannels to show “Anti-Gay Support”, and almost a hundred students participated. How can we still live in a world this cruel and hateful? People, including myself, were pushed down, hit, had stuff thrown at them, shoved into lockers, called “Dykes” “Faggots” and worse hateful words than that. I’m apart of the LGBT community, and I feel awareness should be spread. 

What does wearing flannels even have to do with being gay?

This is fucking disgusting.

Literally nothing

Ugly pieces of trash

#NOTJUSTSAE Tweets depicting racism, discrimination, and prejudice on college campuses

Still going. Please share. So necessary.

how coming out went for me.

also just so you know, i never threatened suicide, i don’t know where she got that from.

luckily i went in knowing that this would be the outcome, and really, i’m okay. my dad is the most supportive human being in the world and i’ve been staying with him since november. within the next week or two, i’ll be moving in with my partner and his family (who are also incredibly supportive and sweet).

finding health insurance and a car will be a pain, but it was worth it. the most toxic person in my life has been removed and i feel so much better now that i’m able to be myself after years of hiding and fearing for my security.

moral of the story: sometimes people who claim to love you will reject you because of who you are. but i promise you that life will go on and you will be much happier without them.

Sex Workers, language and slurs

This is the same stuff I’ve said a lot in more posts than I can remember but I want to make a specific post about it since I get a lot of questions about these things and I want to add it to my resources page.

Prostitute is a Slur

Prostitute is a word that is used entirely to criminalize sex workers. The word refers specifically to exchanging sex acts for money, which is a crime in most places, and is part of the reason other terms like ‘escort’ came along; escorting is selling one’s time which may or may not include sex, and is paid by an hourly rate, whereas prostitution is paid by the sex act. In many places, ‘escorting’ allows a loophole for full service sex work though it also has some classist implications. It remains though that prostitute is a word that strips full service sex workers of our humanity and reduces us to criminals; this is the history and intention of it. It is a slur, so don’t use it except to self refer if you’re a full service sex worker yourself.

Hooker is a Slur

Hooker is a disparaging term for a full service sex worker, often linked to street-based work, which again has class issues. It is used to demean and degrade full service sex workers. Don’t use it.

Whore is a Slur

This is an area where a lot of people fuck up, believing bullshit like “but whore is used to target all women!” No shit, guess why? Because it refers to full services sex workers. That’s the entire reason why it’s offensive. When you call someone a whore, you are literally calling them a full service sex worker. Don’t do it, and don’t use it for yourself if you’re not a sex worker (the word can be applied to sex workers who don’t do full service in some situations, but only to self refer). 

When you use any of the above words, you are contributing to whorephobia; the specific marginalization that sex workers, usually women, experience in every aspect of society from interpersonal relationships to the state. This stigma often results in discrimination, violence, rape, death and even murder. Language matters. Words are important. 

Whorephobia

Whorephobia is the term that sex workers coined in the 1970s to describe this oppression. This is the only instance where non sex workers can use the word whore. While there are problems raised with this word, it’s what we have, it’s been around for 40 years now so unless sex workers decide to change it (if that’s even possible) this is what we have whether we like it or not. The fact that this word contains a slur is no fucking excuse to attack people for using it, and the only people who complain about it are whorephobic fauxminists themselves who are trying to silence us by taking away our language to call them out on their bigotry while changing the subject, trying to paint US as misogynists. This is not a “new libfem term” and libfeminism has fucking nothing to do with sex worker rights anyway; sex workers have historically occupied the fringes of society, something which every brand of feminism likes to avoid.  If you don’t feel comfortable using this word, feel free to write it as wh*rephobia instead.

Street-Walker is a Slur

This word specifically attacks street-based workers, who experience the worst marginalization of all sex workers with all other things being equal. Even in sex worker spaces, street-based workers are often looked down on by indoor sex workers such as escorts or brothel workers. This is called lateral whorephobia and it’s fucked up. No one gets to use this phrase except street-based workers. 

Pimp is another term that often comes up in these conversations. It has a complicated history and has strong anti-Black connotations. Pimping is a reality, it definitely does happen and there are situations where this word is appropriate. It’s also a concept used to attack sex workers by criminalizing anyone who assists us; legally, anyone who helps a sex worker organize their appointments or drives them to and from a client can be charged as a pimp. It’s a disparaging term that often targets friends and partners of sex workers. It’s also widely used by anti sex worker fauxminists to discredit peer-based organizations; SWERFs will baselessly claim that sex worker organizations are actually run by pimps. This virtually never happens as most organizations have strict policies regarding who can become a member; only sex workers can join peer-based organizations. 

John is a term used to refer to the clients of sex workers. We virtually never use it, we call them clients cos that’s what they are though some sex workers call their clients tricks. That’s really up to them, but non sex workers would be better off using clients, especially since not all clients are men anyway. 

Appropriate Language 

The catch-all term for anyone who sells their sexual energy is ‘sex worker’. This includes strippers, peep show performers, brothel workers, cam performers and many more. The key point is that they sell their sexual energy; there are people in the sex industry who don’t and therefore are not sex workers, such as security staff, DJs, drivers, managers etc. 

Since this is an umbrella term, you may need to refer to specific sex industry positions.

Full service sex worker is anyone who has sex with their clients. Sex can be a variety of things but usually involves genitals touching (some sex workers only do massage with hand relief, and they are not full service sex workers), though not necessarily every time. The term implies that some form of penetrative sex is an available activity. Porn performers aren’t usually referred to as full service sex workers even though they have sex because the people they’re having sex with are not their clients, though some porn performers do full service sex work in addition to performing in porn.

Indoor sex worker generally refers to any full service sex worker who works indoors. They may work for themselves privately in their own homes or from hotel/motel/rented rooms, for an escort agency, or in a brothel/parlor. Indoor sex workers generally experience lower risks of violence; from clients, strangers and police. 

Street-based sex worker generally refers to sex workers who work outdoors or in public/semi public places. Some people consider sex workers who meet clients via the internet/newspaper advertisements and see them in semi-public spaces (e.g. cars, public toilets) to be street-based but more commonly, street-based sex worker means the sex worker meets their clients in a public place; sometimes a bar or club but more often, a stroll (a stroll is a street where sex workers tend to work; clients know to go to that street in particular to find sex workers and vice versa). Sometimes strolls are decriminalized; in Sydney for example, it’s not a criminal act for sex workers to meet clients at Kings Cross, though it isn’t legal to meet them in public anywhere else. Public sex is always illegal. Sometimes ‘outdoor sex worker’ is used, but less commonly.

Brothel worker is pretty self explanatory, I’ve not heard of another term to refer to sex workers who are based in brothels. Some brothel workers also do escorting, either privately or via the brothel.

Escort is an acceptable word to use to refer to independent full service sex workers who work indoors, though some (like myself) dislike it because it has certain class connotations as above.

SWERF is an acronym that means ‘sex worker exclusionist radical feminist’ and illustrates the fact that despite their protests, anti sex worker fauxminists actually hate us, including those of us who are forced, coerced and/or trafficked. They hide this behind false statistics and pretending that anyone with a tumblr account is too privileged to have an opinion, but in truth, they just want to silence us and force us out of our jobs. 

I hope this covers all the language questions, if I’ve missed anything please let me know

One Week of Harassment on Twitter

Ever since I began my Tropes vs Women in Video Games project, two and a half years ago, I’ve been harassed on a daily basis by irate gamers angry at my critiques of sexism in video games. It can sometimes be difficult to effectively communicate just how bad this sustained intimidation campaign really is. So I’ve taken the liberty of collecting a week’s worth of hateful messages sent to me on Twitter. The following tweets were directed at my @femfreq account between 1/20/15 and 1/26/15.

Content warning for misogyny, gendered insults, victim blaming, incitement to suicide, sexual violence, rape and death threats.

Tuesday, January, 20th

Wednesday, January 21st, 2015

Thursday, January 22nd, 2015

Friday January 23rd, 2015

Saturday, January 24th, 2015

Sunday, January 25th

Monday, January 26th

Reblogging without cuts because people still make light of the amount of harassment she receives. 

Photos of today’s #notyourmascot march by Minnesota Native News

“Not Okay”: MovieBob on Sexism and Harassment in Nerd Culture. (via jerrymuffinbutt)

always relevant

(via lettherebecramp)

Relevant (via notyrqueer)

definitely relevant.  especially as a blogger when I have to delete comments (it is also extremely funny when they try to invoke US laws; I'm Canadian, US laws kinda don't work this side of the border).  Freedom of speech or free speech guarantees you the right to speak; it doesn't guarantee you the right to be heard on my blog!!!