Chaos posts masterpost
Mermaid fertility and its implications
The lorax but distinctly awful
To be continued
what does ilysm mean??? i like your sick memes????
if this website survived 200 years of supernatural, they can survive a year of dream smp. when did tumblr get so weak, damn
the juxtaposition of tommyinnit is hilarious to me because on one hand he’s created a character that not only subverts hero stereotypes in a way that you can write essays about but also is a startlingly accurate depiction of abuse and suicidal thoughts and ptsd that’s resonated with so many people. and on the other hand he thought that texas was a country and it took him an embarrassing amount of time to process that it wasn’t.
I cant believe you spoiled texas’ annexation for him, we was just done with alamo
You wrote about murder?? Murder is illegal?? You wrote about this dude killing someone and you didn't even say 'murder is bad' at the start of the book, wht wtf, wtf is wrong with you? I can't believe you condone murder, I can't believe you're pro murber, oh my fucking God don'ttalk to me when ou literally kill people, freak. I'm calling the cops, what the fuck, I'm shaking and crying.
Please read this!
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Sometimes, what we percieve as problematic truly is necessary for a better understanding of others.
2013-2016 tumblr culture was really amazing. you could just post blatant lies and say "if you're wondering why you didn't learn this in history class......you know why" and literally nobody would bother to fact-check you. it was a lawless town
Yeah uh this didn’t stop in 2016 y’all still act like this
I almost didn’t click this because I assumed it would be someone singing the altered lyrics and I can basically figure out what that would sound like
BUT NO, someone has instead the original song to go like this and it is, very good
A few years ago a Facebook thread showed up on my feed that was like "cryptically admit your darkest secret!" and so i went through the comments and some old dude made a comment that gave me massive creep vibes so I went through his online social media presence, eventually found his ancient myspace which was linked to a deviantart account that led to another random skeevy art website he was on where he was drawing nothing but ruby gloom cartoon porn so I went back to the Facebook thread and posted a screenshot of the account under his comment. He lost his shit and when I asked if the ruby gloom fixation was why his ex wife left him he blocked me.
It is deeply, deeply beneficial to TERFs if the only characteristic of TERF ideology you will recognize as wrong, harmful, or problematic is "they hate trans women".
TERF ideology is an expansive network of extremely toxic ideas, and the more of them we accept and normalize, the easier it becomes for them to fly under the radar and recruit new TERFs. The closer they get to turning the tide against all trans people, trans women included.
Case in point: In 2014-2015, I fell headlong into radical feminism. I did not know it was called radical feminism at the time, but I also didn't know what was wrong with radical feminism in the first place. I didn't see a problem with it.
I was a year deep into this shit when people I had been following, listening to, and looking up to finally said they didn't think trans women were women. It was only then that I unfollowed those people, specifically; but I continued to follow other TERFs-who-didn't-say-they-were-TERFs. I continued ingesting and spreading their ideas- for years after.
If TERFs "only target trans women" and "only want trans women gone", if that's the one and only problem with their ideology and if that's the only way we'll define them, we will inevitably miss a vast majority of the quiet beliefs that support their much louder hatred of trans women.
As another example: the trans community stood relatively united when TERFs and conservatives targeted our right to use the correct restroom, citing the "dangers" of trans women sharing space with cis women. But when they began targeting Lost Little Girls and Confused Lesbians and trotting detransitioners out to raise a panic about trans men, virtually the only people speaking up about it were other transmascs. Now we see a rash of anti-trans healthcare bills being passed in the US, and they're hurting every single one of us.
When you refuse to call a TERF a TERF just because they didn't specifically say they hate trans women, when you refuse to think critically about a TERF belief just because it's not directly related to trans women, you are actively helping TERFs spread their influence and build credibility.
what is some TERF ideology we should be on the look out for?
This isn't comprehensive, but I'll do my best.
TERFs are, first and foremost, radical feminists. Radical feminism is essentially second-wave feminism without the intersectionality brought in by third-wave feminism. It believes that patriarchy is at fault for the oppression of women, but sees this in a very strict, binary way: women are the oppressed, and men are the oppressors.
TERFs use this to justify their specific brand of transphobia. This idea, among others, is essential in supporting that transphobia.
I'll try to outline some of those ideas, and some of the logical thruoughlines they use:
- Women are uniquely oppressed, and always in danger. Womanhood- or the experience of being a woman- is defined by oppression, misogyny, and Being In Danger.
- Women are particularly in danger in the presence of, and in relationships with, men. Spaces that exclude men are essential to preserving the safety of women.
- Socialization: men are raised to support patriarchy, while women are raised to be subjugated by it. Men have no motive to unlearn these lessons, so all men are inherently more corrupted by these lessons than women.
- Relationships with men are therefore inherently (more likely to be) abusive, and relationships with women are inherently safe(er).
- Sex, in particular, is more often exploitative than not. Only some kinds of sex are not exploitative. Many kinds of sex that we think are consensual, or that people say are consensual, are either rape or proto-rape.
- Exchanging money for sex is inherently rape/exploitation/non-consensual in some way.
- As women who deny men access to them, lesbians are The Most Oppressed and also The Most Endangered. They must be protected at all costs.
- Because so many women have been raped by men with penises, both men and penises are inherently traumatic to A Lot Of Women.
- Many lesbians will naturally have an aversion to relationships with trans women because of this. Trans women who argue against this "genital preference" are potential rapists trying to infiltrate lesbian spaces to hurt and take advantage of women.
- Men will always try to invade "women's spaces" to take advantage of women, endanger them, and strip away their resources both for personal gain/pleasure, and in service of upholding the patriarchy.
- If we allow men to say they are women, they will invade those spaces and hurt "real" women. Men who say they are women are dangerous, and must be excluded and punished.
- Men may try to obfuscate labels and terminology to "define women out of existence" or otherwise cause confusion, which they can manipulate to further their infiltration.
- Women are all miserable with their bodies, cursed with the pressure to reproduce and have sex with men.
- Women are all miserable with their genders, forced as they are to ensure the overwhelming and constant suffering that is patriarchy.
- Women will attempt to escape this misery and pressure by "becoming men". This is cowardly, but understandable; a tragic but inevitable result of patriarchy. These women must be saved.
- Some women who try to escape patriarchy are doing it out of self-interest; they are betraying women by becoming men, and contributing to their oppression. These women must be punished.
- Bio-essentialism: women are oppressed specifically because of their bodies and ability to reproduce. This is an inherent and defining part of womanhood. Nobody can claim womanhood without this experience, everyone who has had this experience is a woman.
- Women's bodies are all beautiful and perfect because they are women's bodies. If the womanliness of them is tampered with, they become less valuable. Men's bodies are gross and undesirable symbols of patriarchy.
- Testosterone makes people violent, aggressive, irrational, and angry. Estrogen makes people calm, kind, and happy.
- Men can never understand women's bodies as well as other women do.
- People can be attracted to other people on the basis of "sex" alone. This is inherent, immutable, and unquestionable.
- Men are sexual animals who inherently and unavoidably find lots of bad things sexually arousing. Because "youth" is attractive, many men find young girls and children attractive, and will try to take advantage of them. Misogynistic control/power over women, hurting women, and even rape are also inherently sexually appealing to men.
- "Gender" is meaningless; it's founded in misogynistic stereotypes about men and women, and when you remove the stereotypes, there's nothing left at all. Only binary "sex" is real, because that's what patriarchy (and biology) is based on.
- Manhood is itself a toxic, oppressive, inherently corrupting concept. Anyone who participates in manhood is corrupt and immoral; who would choose to be the oppressor?
- Masculinity is defined only by hating women, having power, and being aggressive, violent, and controlling (etc.)
- Patriarchy doesn't just target women, but femininity as a whole, for its association with women.
- Patriarchy doesn't just reward men, but masculinity, as it rejects femininity. People who reject femininity and embrace masculinity are rewarded by the patriarchy.
Some of these ideas are contradictory, but they lead to the same conclusions. Some of them lead to similar conclusions, many of which take very little further nudging to push into more dogmatic ideas.
This is exactly why we need to understand all of these paths into TERF ideology- and more.
In fact, the vast majority of the points on this list- particularly the beginnings of their logic- can be very easily swallowed while still holding that trans women are women, and trans men are men.
That's what TIRFs (trans-inclusive radical feminists) are, and they're still incredibly dangerous. TIRF ideology normalizes these points, making it far easier for TERFs to recruit; even if TIRFs themselves try to be aggressively anti-TERF.
Again, this isn't comprehensive, and it would take a long time and a lot of words to cover every flaw and danger in every line of reasoning here.
But remember how these things work; even if some of them begin with a grain of truth, even if some of them are true- especially if you define the words they contain differently- be wary of them.
It's important to note how sex-negative they can be, and how in some circles this leads to a belief that being a lesbian is the only way one can liberate oneself from the abuse of men. They see sexual orientation as a choice to be made for one's safety, or a political act--not something based on genuine attraction. They also sometimes push the idea of the "gold-star lesbian"--that is, a lesbian who's never been with a man--as the ideal. If you're a bisexual? Disgusting, don't interact.
It's... sadly common to see on dating sites.
whilst i am always and forever just begging doctors to properly check interactions before they prescibe things (@ pharmacists: fuck everyone else i respect you i love you xoxo)
i am in fact also begging everyone to read the leaflets you get with your medication. if you have difficulty reading or understanding those leaflets that's fine just like... ask the pharmacist. never met one who wasn't happy to explain drugs.
but like...
"SSRIs make you less tolerant of heat" should not be a shock - it's in the leaflet. they make you sweat, give you hot flashes, and make your skin more sensitive to the sun. that's all in there.
"mixing alcohol and benzos is a Bad Time" is not a shock. it's in the leaflet to avoid alcohol.
"my ADHD meds made me not want to eat" is not a shock. it's in the leaflet that they cause appetite suppression and weight loss.
you do not have to "find out the hard way" you really don't.
and bc doctors are fuckin useless at bothering to actually read and/or understand and/or explain interactions like... ever, apparently? there are plenty of places you can check for yourself or, again, just ask the pharmacist if there's anything to watch out for.
i mean asking a pharmacist about interactions is basially asking them to infodump about their hyperfixation. you're asking someone who thinks drugs are really cool to talk about drugs they are not going to be upset about this.
oh hey my grandma was a nurse too!
the amount of people who don't read them and then later are like "WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS"
*pinches nose bridge* they did. it was in the leaflet.
And if you lose the leaflet, or can't read the print, or whatever, DRUGS.COM
It's got, like, every medication ever, with pictures and everything, and all the side effects, AND a really handy interactions checker.
love drugs.com for that. only site that has the full full list of side effects (go to the 'for professionals' section) and their interaction checker is great as well bc it does also include supplements and recreational drugs in the database.
i personally prefer the go.drugbank.com checker but only because i'm a supermassive nerd and gives you all the technical mechanisms behind the interaction. plus you can go full nerd and look at the complete pharmacology of anything. which is probably only parsable by, like, 5 people who follow me but it is really cool though
anyway if, unlike me, you're a normal person drugs.com is absolutely your best friend outside of an actual pharmacist
Cannot stress enough how important this is. I'm allergic to an antibiotic & was once given another medication that was not that medication but was contraindicated for ppl with that allergy. My allergy info is up to date with my pharmacy... but their computer missed that, or they didn't check.
That kind of mistake can kill a person. Always check.
My flatmate is currently working on his doctorate in pharmacy and he says to never trust doctors to explain medication. They apparently go about prescribing it willy nilly and don't actually know what they're doing. There's a reason why pharmacy is a whole separate degree that people have to study years and years for.
Your flatmate is right and I would like to kiss him on the mouth (platonically) (after covid)
beacon-lamp