@noneedforbloodpressure / noneedforbloodpressure.tumblr.com
If you're trans and you don't have a passport, get one. right now. not in a month, not in a week, get started on it today.
This is the one thing that I would definitely do regardless of state. For those not in the know, a passport is the way to get an easy name or gender marker change onto your ID without a court battle, and that is highly dependent on the Federal administration.
Community organizing and solidarity would have been a requirement regardless of the outcome of the US 2024 election, but in the wake of the turnout we got, it is ESPECIALLY important.
More than anything else we have to stand together to protect each other, especially the most vulnerable members of our societies. When you are at a loss for what to do, know that you can always look out for one another.
This is your responsibility: stand with your Jewish and Muslim neighbors, with your Black neighbors and other neighbors of color, your LGBTQ+ neighbors, your disabled neighbors, your immigrant neighbors, your poor neighbors, your neighbors who are women. Stand with these groups even when they are not your neighbors - even if they live halfway across the world. We are citizens of the greater world, not just our hometowns and countries, remember that. Defend the rights of marginalized people and protect them from bigotry even when you disagree with them; even when you may condemn an individual marginalized person’s actions for one reason or another. Understand that human rights are unconditional, even if you hate someone or they hate you.
Seek to treat people with compassion. Look internally and put in the work to unlearn your biases and to shift from an individualist to community oriented mindset. Refuse to see people as monoliths, and if you have done harm, work to netter yourself so you will not do so again. The people you hurt may not trust or like you, but put in the work anyways - stand with them anyways - because not only is this the right thing to do, but it is a matter of survival. And in all of that, treat yourself with compassion too. It is easy to despair. It is easy to rage at nothing and everything. It is hard to keep moving, to keep your heart open, to keep caring. It takes work. (And, for the record that work does not mean ignoring or suppressing your anger, grief, or despair. It does not mean your anger, grief, or despair is invalid or unreasonable. That work means learning to deal with them in healthy ways so that you are not controlled by them).
So grieve, reach out, stand together. Be better than what you were. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. The future comes, and we cannot weather it alone. We are stronger together.
if you're feeling powerless right now—and god knows I am—here's a reminder you can donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds, the Trans Law Center, Gaza Soup Kitchen, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and hundreds of other charities that will work to mitigate the damage that has been and will continue to be inflicted
life continues. we still have the capacity to do good, important work. that matters
however this ends up it should never have been this close. it is so repulsive to think half of this country thinks our rights and lives are dispensable. the person next to you on your ride to work could (or probably even does) think you're less of a person because of who you love, or how you express yourself, or what you look like, or what organs you were born with. it's actually insane to think we're supposed to just move past that.
If you are trans I need you to stay alive.
Stay alive for every other trans person fighting, stay alive for every trans person who is no longer here, and most importantly stay alive for yourself.
They don’t get to erase us! They don’t get to take away our rights, and treat us as less than human. Don’t let them erase us, and don’t let them make you a statistic. Don’t let them win.
Stay alive
If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for others. Do it out of spite.
So many people who get periods are like “Ugh it sucks that having a menstrual cycle makes you almost die every month” like no that’s not normal you need to go to the doctor
If any of your symptoms go beyond “just like, super annoying ugh whatever” levels you should probably go see a doctor about that
You should not feel so depressed you want to die, you should not be getting mood swings so bad that you become violent, your cramps should not be so bad that you can’t get out of bed, your period should not last more than a week, you should not be losing so much blood that you feel dizzy. Go to the doctor.
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)
(Cleveland Clinic & Mayo Clinic are both pretty good about using gender-neutral language in their articles).
[Image ID: a screenshot of tumblr tags reading: #and if that ddoctor just tries to tell you it's normal #go to a second doctor if you can #i had to go to three /End ID]
i don't know how to tell you you should care about AMAB, AFAB and intersex trans people. at the same time. like. all of them. every single one. without downplaying or diminishing the entirely unique struggles every single trans person faces. care about ALL trans experiences when it comes to AGAB, not just one.
Remember when someone got really mad at me because I said calling trans men bitches and fujoshis is misgendering.
“Bitch is gender neutral” yeah okay whatever helps you pretend to be a good person
You can use bitch gender neutrally, but it's not a gender neutral word
You can use dude gender neutrally, but it's not a gender neutral word
If someone asks you not to call them something because it makes them uncomfortable, just stop calling them that. Arguing about how you mean it gender neutrally just makes you an asshole
The moment you start claiming that an oppressed group “loves to play the victim” you’ve already started walking down the pipeline to extremism and bigotry.
People reblogging this who make posts about transfems “just making stuff up to harass afabs” this posts is about you.
people reblogging this who make posts about nonbinary people “making up new pronouns and whining about being misgendered” this post is about you.
People reblogging this who make posts about intersex people “making up terms to feel special” this post is about you.
People reblogging this who make posts about transmascs “just making up things to yell transphobia” this is about you.
You are on a path of extremism and you need to think about how you treat marginalized groups.
you HAVE to expand what your mental image of what a woman looks like in order to progress past trans/misogyny and intersexism. when you finally accept that "woman" does not have a set look or sound, you free yourself from the chains of both patriarchy and radfem ideals. "woman" does not mean thin, pretty, hairless, short, quiet, large breasted, hour glass figured, weak, submissive, high voiced, or small.
women can and do look, act, and sound like anything. cis, intersex, trans, butch, non binary, gender non conforming, detrans, or anything else: any woman can look, act and sound like anything. we are just as diverse as any other member of this population. in order to acknowledge this, we must let go of the concept that a woman "should" look, act, or sound like anything.
worth noting also that along of feminine beauty standards stem from racism. what we saw with Imane Khelif this year at the Olympics while yes was transphobic, was also racist. Don't overlook the ways misogyny, transphobia and intersexism intertwine with racism
Genuinely the #1 thing you can do to make sure trans people around you get gendered correctly is to just lead by example. Saying "hi this is [x] she'll be joining us today, could you show her [y]" is 100000x more effective and less scrutinizing pressure than a pronoun circle.
Yup, and double down. “No I’m sorry there aren’t any men by that name here. Do you want to speak to [y], she’ll be able to help you.” And “Oh no, sorry I’ve never met [z]. It was a nice lady who showed me around.” And “Oh look, it’s [x]! She’s great with this sort of thing. We should ask her.” When someone misgenders or deadnames a person, be politely and extremely confused. “Who are you talking about? I’ve worked here for 5 years and never met [z], you must be confused.” Make it impossible for the conversation to continue while their bigotry stands, but it’s THE BIGOT’s (or uninformed person’s) fault because they committed the social blunder of forgetting someone’s name. Oops! Silly you, how could you get that confused! Well now that we’ve sorted out who you really meant we can move on.
My parents did this when they met my ex's parents for the first time and his mom deadnamed and misgendered him. My mom didn't miss a beat "Oh, you have a daughter? I knew [name redacted] has a brother, but I didn't know he has a sister too! Can we meet her?" and my ex's mom had to backpedal.
I do that shit all the time. I genuinely love doing it, bc at my age, it's hard for other adults to blow me off as "some annoying kid" or whatever. So... I can just stare them dead in the eyes and smile and make them eat their own tongues.
I will 100% have the back of any trans person, ever, against shit like that. Fuck 'em up with a smile.
i feel weird commenting on "high T cis woman in sports is the subject of transphobic attacks" type incidents because like, its just racism, right? there's barely any transphobia left in the picture
i haven't looked into it, didn't confirm if the "trans" athlete even had high testosterone, afaik she just had abnormal karyotype, but the mechanics of logan paul looking at a photo of this algerian woman for 1 second and saying "that's a man" is def more racist than it is transphobic, right?
its definitely not a case of "ooh, those silly transphobes have accidentally struck a woman they'd consider normal as collateral" because they also don't think women of color are full women i think, like it's not just us
I mean I think it's both and it's okay to acknowledge that it's both and it's important to acknowledge it's both.
Right now there's a huge amount of ambient transphobia, like it's everywhere, and the idea that some women are too 'manly' to compete with women has become a more popular thing to say recently pretty much because of transphobia, and the idea of a gnc woman in general as something to despise comes out of transphobia, and the idea that it's unfair to let these women compete comes out of the bullshit idea that fragile women should not be competing with big bad powerful men.
But the rules as to what is a 'proper' woman are absolutely deeply rooted in racist standards in the first place. People are catching strays all over the place. Deviate from the white woman standard in any direction and you get painted with the same brush. You can be Not White Enough and you can be Not Woman Enough. Either way, they decide you're big and mean and violent and brutish and dangerous and a threat.
Women of Color are going to be hit more frequently because they're not Right in two directions instead of just one, which means gnc WoC can be hit three ways (not white enough, not women enough, both) where gnc white women will generally only be hit one way (not woman enough), but bigots don't really care which hammer they take out of the toolbox, they're just gonna grab one and swing -- and frankly if they can get away with hitting *anyone* in their way, they will. Gender conforming cis women of color will get hit with transphobic shit. White trans and intersex and gnc women will get hit by racist standards. Bigots are xenophobic bigots. They'll apply their bigot logic anywhere they want to.
You gotta call out both. These fuckers are racist *and* transphobic, and you can't leave one hammer in the toolbox for them to keep swinging. You gotta fight to get rid of both of'em, for everyone's sake. Handwave away the racism, and they're still gonna be transphobic assholes to these women. Cure transphobia, and they're *still gonna be racist assholes to these women*.
This shit is racist *and* transphobic. (And, frankly, misogynistic -- but we can leave that level of complexity out of it for now.)
You know, for a while, everyone was using it as a buzzword, but it does feel like we didn't talk enough about what the word "intersectional" actually referred to because... it's this. This is intersectional prejudice. Imane Khelif was targeted as a black woman, in a way that is specific to black women. Black men do not have their access to sports or gendered spaces policed like that. White women are not policed with that degree of fervor and hatred. And it is done holistically; harassers didn't break her identity down. They looked at her, identified her as an outsider, and picked which tropes it would be acceptable to use against her. That is textbook intersectional prejudice.
Guys did you hear the cure to bigotry is imperialism and genocide
it's sooo like. ok in 2015 when the highest form of feminism was like "girls can do anything" "fight like a girl" "raise girls and boys the same way" snd this was all like very mainstream and girl power tshirts etc etc., so whattt the fuck we regressed BACKWARDS? women are delicate petite creatures that could never ever go against a big strong man it wouldn't be fair GROW UPPPP forever you people need to fucking stop it. also it's obvi 100% transmisogyny.
It's really killing me how the conversation around cis athletes getting sex tested and discriminated against is so focused on misdirected transmisogyny, because, like... it's definitely related, but it's intersexism. It's intersexism. And racism! There is a very clear reason Why this is disproportionately affecting black women who are already seen as "mannish" or "less than women". But the fact of the matter is that they're not trans, they're intersex; they have high testosterone, or xy chromosomes, or whatever, but they are still cisgender women. This should be a lesson in how intersexism/transmisogyny/racism are all heads of the same white supremacist gender-normativity hydra, and why solidarity is so important, not another opportunity to forget about intersex people
Gender, as an oppressive power structure (i.e. I'm not talking about individual identity), punishes anyone who deviates from the white supremacist standards of the artificially constructed western sex binary. It's all connected. It's all slightly different expressions of the Same Ideology. There's a lot you can read about this in queer theory and intersectional/transfeminism & I strongly encourage you to do so, a lot of material is available for free online if you know where to look
Full disclosure, I'm not keeping up with the olympics, this is just what I've *been* talking about, and an extremely visible example of it. Like, do you see it? Do you see how it's all bullshit? Watching this happen once again *in front of the whole world* should really open people's eyes to the questions you should be asking about how our society is structured on like a fundamental level
Slight addendum that this most recent case happened to an arab woman, who is not black afaik, but the point stands that this very frequently targets black women in particular & almost exclusively happens to women of color in general
being mad that your opponent hit you too well in boxing is crazy. girl this is the PUNCHING sport categorised BY WEIGHT. what the fuck are you on except copious amounts of racism
Please don't let the headlines mislead you: Carini did not quit her fight with Khelif due to her race or perceived intersex/trans status. This is a narrative being pushed by media outlets and right-wing pundits. The "biologically male" line from the headline is not a quote from Carini.
[Source]
Image text:
Afterward, a still-tearful Carini said she quit because of intense pain in her nose after the opening punches. Carini, who had a spot of blood on her trunks, said she wasn’t making a political statement and was not refusing to fight Khelif.
“I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said ‘enough,’ because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, I couldn’t finish the match,” Carini said.
Carini further said she is not qualified to decide whether Khelif should be allowed to compete, but she had no problem fighting her.
“I am not here to judge or pass judgment,” Carini said. “If an athlete is this way, and in that sense it’s not right or it is right, it’s not up to me to decide. I just did my job as a boxer. I got into the ring and fought. I did it with my head held high and with a broken heart for not having finished the last kilometer.”
Yes, absolutely dismantle the gender binary. BUT dont forget to dismantle the sex binary too. Intersex people exist and they regularly get ignored in both queer and non-queer spaces. There are NOT only two sexes, and us perisex trans people CAN NOT forget that or else we will become like our oppressors, people who say there are only two genders and that what you are born as is what you must stay as. Intersexism must be stopped.
Love you all and have fun destroying society’s utterly limiting expectations of our minds and bodies 🫰
Appreciate this post OP, and I'm going to add for the audience - there are also not three sexes. Intersex people come in more variations than you can count. To break the sex binary, you gotta really BREAK it.
And this isn't bc OP implied this, not at all - this is just a common thread that people jump to. "Not two? Okay then, three?" More. More than that. Naturally. Only two hospitals in the US don't do surgeries on intersex infants and the ones who do keep statistics (hospitals aren't required to) reported surgically altering 95% of all infants born with intersex traits for two reported years in a row.
The binary is created with violence. Break it for real.
