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Three women in Victorian dress pose for a photo with a bear

Open Thread with Bear Photobomb

Caperton
Three women in Victorian dress pose for a photo with a bear
Agatha was just about damned finished with Bruno goofing off during the photo shoot

Three Victorian women and a bear feature for this week’s Open Thread. Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?

* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.

178 thoughts on Open Thread with Bear Photobomb

  1. I just have a question for anyone that can answer. I don’t own a smart phone. Is Instagram, snapchat or most of these newer apps exclusively for smart phones, or can they be downloaded and used on a PC or iMAC?

    1. Quick story: I almost deleted your comment as spam, just out of habit, because we get so much spam that looks like that. But then I saw your name, and I thought, “Wait, I know that guy.” So I hope you’re able to get your Instagram answer, but now I’m worried that maybe Fake Hermes Handbags never got an answer to her question about captcha plugins.

    2. Quick answer, yes you can put Instagram on a pc so I would imagine you can also get it for imac. Not so sure about snapchat, I don’t use it

  3. I found I could view instagram from a pc or tablet, but I couldn’t actually sign up until I got a smartphone and downloaded the app.

      1. Well, actually, it’s a series of questions. They are genuine, god. I guess suspicion is well-warranted, judging by the disposition of many people whose minds are not open to new ideas.

        Here:

        1. What is feminism to you?

        2. What do you think of the people that claim that feminism is a malformed, negative, or incorrect philosophy? (e.g. “meninists”)

        3. What do you think of the “radical” feminists, often termed “femi-nazis,” that attack anyone who seems to even remotely contradict the feminist ideal? Why?

        4. How do you think that we should move towards gender equality?

        5. At what point does action in the interests of feminism become advocacy of a female-dominated society?

        6. Would a female-dominated society be better than today’s male-dominated society?

        I’m just researching ideas and interviewing people about their mindset, no offense intended.

        Thanks for your feedback!

      2. BAHAHAHA yeah ok you’re totally not suspicious at all, ok, then, we don’t get trolls exactly like you every few months, nope.

        On the screamingly tiny chance that you’re actually just a wide-eyed ingenue with no preconceptions who isn’t about to embark on a long windbaggy argument with whoever provides whatever answers: I have answers, and questions, for you.

        1) A movement that argues for the equality and freedom of all people, irrespective of gender.

        2) I have a lot of questions for meninists, actually. Do you know one I could interact with directly? My answer to the question changes from person to person, but the common ground of it is simply – what is it about the equality of women and others that is a problem? Do you feel women are already equal? Why?

        3) Depends. Are they being termed radical because they’re the kind of people who assault trans women and are more or less white supremacists? Or are they being called that because they made a snarky blog post about video games that one time and hurt someone’s feeeeelings?

        4) By finding and eliminating points of societal inequality and oppression for women and other genders, as well as on other axes such as race, gender identity, disability, etc. (To take the famous example of “but women don’t get drafted” as an inequality towards men – how about saving men from the draft instead? Everybody lives.)

        5) At the point where someone is actively arguing for human rights to be taken AWAY from men. Have you seen this happen at any point? Who from?

        6) Are you incapable of considering a society where no group dominates another? Why do you feel bound to a social perspective where one gender must necessarily oppress others? Do you recognise that you implicitly agreed with the idea that men as a group oppress women, when you asked question 5 and then 6?

        1. Thank you so much for your input. Yes, I realize that my acknowledgement of misogyny’s existence was implicit in the last two questions, because I myself acknowledge that women are oppressed.

          As for your question-answer in your reply to question 2, the majority of “meninists” are internet flamers. I wouldn’t suggest interacting with one at all, because most of their ideas and responses are formulated for the sole purpose of pissing you off.

          And, as for your reply to number 6 that asked me if I was “incapable of conceiving a society where no group dominates another,” I am capable of conceiving, I was just asking a question. However, my personal belief that did not influence me at all while posing that question to you is that a society free of oppression is practically impossible. Human nature is to oppress for personal gain. It may not seem good, and where we are as a people today, it certainly is far from good. While I can conceive of a society free of oppression, such as a a classical Marxist society (NOT COMMUNISM), there hasn’t been an instance of a society without oppression actually working. Yes, I know, first time for everything, yes, yes. That’s just what I believe, and I could be wrong.

          Snarky remarks are appreciated and will be returned in kind.

          Thanks for your input again, Macavitykitsune, and I hope you have a splendid whatever-the-hell-time-of-day-it-is-where-you-are.

  7. Even as one who is generally seen as “a betrayer of feminism”, I laughed at the transparently MRA quality of question 5.

    1. I reserve that descriptor for people who say I “sold out feminism for a seat at the table” when I started transitioning.

      1. OMFG. I don’t know why I answered the dude. I may have made a Mistake, lol. Here’s hoping he’s one of those weird one-offs like Some Guy (If I remember his name correctly) and accidentally-not-accidentally actually listens to something. -_-;;

  9. Recently, I stayed at my dad’s place for a week to spend time with siblings. I was initially expecting things to get intense there WRT trans stuff, but when I noticed that my interactions with family ere chiller than I expected (partly because of my efforts to validate all of the male egos around me), I began to have some hope that the rest of the trip would be peaceful.

    Aaaaaand then my step-mom sexually harassed me and asked me invasive questions about my gender and my dad gave me a creepy “I think you have Asperger’s” talk that triggered flashbacks of being abused because of my autism and as result I have been severely anxious and self-loathing and lost most of my progress in trying to improve my interactions with people. Being mentally ill and trans sucks, I gotta say!

  11. So yesterday I had to leave class because I finally snapped and yelled at a racist hot mess of a student for LITERALLY using the Nuremberg Defense, to support her argument that people who raped and abused First Nations kids in residential schools “didn’t have a choice about doing what they did” and “some of them probably had good intentions”. For calling her fucking clueless, I was dubbed a “mental abuser” by the class.

    So, you know. That happened.

    1. Yup. Have heard that one too. Always fun. Usually paired with a variation of ” they just had different beliefs back then”‘. Poor misunderstood white folk, I tell ya. The heart bleeds.

      1. I’ve decided genocide must just be because of one douche who forces all the other non douches into things like murder. Totes against their will, y’all.

      2. I heard that one too. >_> I responded by saying that people like that are just animals and shouldn’t be teaching kids anyway, if they just caannn’t heeeelp raping them because The Man said to do so.

        In retrospect I think I was already pretty ragey before the yelling…

      3. Sounds like you had good reason to be ragey and yelley. Especially after they painted her as a victim and you the aggressor. I wish that wasn’t typical, but you and I both know it is. I can generally reign in the rage when it happens, unless it occurs in a place where people should know better. That’s when I lose it.

    2. Wait. I’m lost.

      So I buy that some mass genocides have atrocities committed by regular people because the ones heading the genocides have giant guns and militaries and ridiculous power. The threat of death can be a powerful motivator (I imagine – I have not been in that position, and like most people, I really hope that I wouldn’t hurt someone else).

      How does that translate to rape and abuse of first nation kids? It literally has a giant logic gap that I can’t fathom.

      1. Also, just to be clear – you’re not a mental abuser for not entertaining someone’s cognitive dissonance.

      2. How does that translate to rape and abuse of first nation kids? It literally has a giant logic gap that I can’t fathom.

        That’s my thing too. The Nuremberg defense is morally horrific no matter where it’s applied, but I can at least understand why someone might think ‘I would have been executed for insubordination if I hadn’t followed orders’ is a logical defense.

        But in a case like this? Who was pointing a gun at the head of these ‘teachers’ and ordering them to rape?

      3. The harsh punishment ( abuse) was sanctioned. They knew it was abuse. It would have been considered abuse had it been done to white kids. But the rape and molestation were choices. Murder was often a result of the sanctioned punishment, and was hidden. They treated it like an oopsie that needed covering up lest the poor teacher have his or her life ruined over an ” accident”. Kill the Indian, save the man was a feature of the program. Some took it literally. But the worst to happen if they refused to engage in abuse, rape or murder was a firing, not a firing squad.

      4. It doesn’t translate, because the worst that happened to people who raped and abused was being fired or transferred (often to other schools where people didn’t know yet that they were rapists). Having lost employment before, I can pretty unequivocally say that it is not at all like being shot in the head for desertion, personally. If anyone’s experienced both and disagrees, lemme know 🙂

        I actually think that was what made my brain break so hard – seeing the Nuremberg Defense being applied even to people who didn’t even face the consequences applied to noncompliant Nazis. Just. Holy. Shit.

      5. Right? I mean, getting fired sucks, sure. But it’s in no way ” do this or we kill you on the spot….plus your family back home”.

  12. Hey, fun facts that I learned tonight that are now keeping me from falling asleep:

    1. There are only two types or degrees of murder in Oregon
    2. You can only be convicted of the most severe form of murder in Oregon if you are a hit man, employ a hit man, or kill a cop.
    3. If you’re convicted of the lesser degree of murder, the maximum sentence is 25 to life, meaning you are eligible for parole after 25 years. After you’ve been proven to have taken someones life. On purpose.

    So, reason #38 on a long list of why you should not live in Oregon — they apparently let assclowning, step-motherfucking, diarrhea-for-brains, piece-of-shit, douchecanoes who shoot and kill a woman three times in front of her mother, younger sister, and brother-in-law out of jail after a few years to roam the fucking streets.

    She was 33. He could be out of prison before she would have been 60.

    I can’t even.

    1. I respect your pain, especially if this is someone you knew, but you’re off base about two things.

      First, the are at least six types of homicides under Oregon law (depending on how you count criminally negligent homicide, for example). There are at least eight additional reasons you can be convicted of aggravated homicide in Oregon (the sentence for which is death, life imprisonment without parole, or life imprisonment with the possibility of parole):

      1) There was more than one murder victim
      2) The homicide occurred in the course of or as a result of intentional maiming or torture of the victim.
      3) The victim of the intentional homicide was a person under the age of 14 years.
      4) The victim was a judicial officer, a juror or witness in a criminal proceeding, or a corrections officer
      5) The defendant was confined in a state, county or municipal penal or correctional facility or was otherwise in custody when the murder occurred
      6) The defendant committed murder by means of an explosive
      7) The murder was committed in an effort to conceal the commission of a crime, or to conceal the identity of the perpetrator of a crime.
      8) The murder was committed after the defendant had escaped from a state, county or municipal penal or correctional facility and before the defendant had been returned to the custody of the facility.

      Second, I strongly disagree that 25 years is ‘a few’ or that we need to make criminal penalties for violent crimes significantly longer.

      1. Ludlow,

        If I recall correctly, the victim was known to PeggyLuWho. Accurate or not, I think your “helpful corrections” here are in really poor taste.

    2. Accurate or not, I think your “helpful corrections” here are in really poor taste.

      I disagree, but am happy to stop the discussion here.

      1. Life without possibility of parole.

        He should spend every day for the rest of his life sitting somewhere where he has nothing to do but think about what he’s done, and where he can never hurt anyone again, and where her family never has to think about him being out on the street while their daughter/sister is gone, or feel that they have to routinely face him in parole hearings in order to find peace.

        Considering the brutality of what he did, the trauma he caused to the victims left behind, yeah, I think of 25 years as just a few. This woman was like a sister to me, and she had two-thirds of her life stolen from her, because she dared to break-up with him.

        And I’m aware that I over-simplified the law, but it just seems like, to me, if you commit a crime against a domestic or intimate partner, that should qualify as aggravated murder. It’s the ultimate violation of autonomy and trust, not that dissimilar to child abuse, IMHO – having some personal experience with both.

        Sidenote: I know that I haven’t been a very active participant here. I shouldn’t just show up every couple of months and vomit up my trauma on all of you, but I just wanted to post somewhere where I am anonymous (mostly) and can be reasonably confident that when I complain about domestic violence and intimate partner homicide there’s little chance of someone responding with “But what about the male victims!” I ain’t even trying to hear that right now. That’s probably not fair, but I have zero fucks left to give.

      2. And I’m aware that I over-simplified the law, but it just seems like, to me, if you commit a crime against a domestic or intimate partner, that should qualify as aggravated murder.

        I totally agree.

  13. So, this shit happened:

    A Civil Rights Leader Has Disguised Herself As Black For Years, Her Parents Say

    Rachel Dolezal is president of the Spokane, Washington, chapter of the NAACP and also chairs a city police oversight commission. Her parents also told BuzzFeed News that she is passing off her younger adopted black brother as her own son

    As if that weren’t bad enough, people are trying to compare her to Caitlyn Jenner…

    ….wtficanteven….

    1. I’ve avoided weighing in on Facebook but I’m watching a lot of my activist friends (including black activist friends on both sides) tearing into each other over ‘passing,’ racial identity as self-identified trait vs. objective description, accusations that denying the ability of someone to identify as black based on non-genetic factors is the same as transphobia, and it’s like… my take is so simple! She’s a white person dressing up in blackface to try to run anti-racist organizations! What the fuck!

      Anyways, they’re on this really nuanced/abstracted/theoretically level and to me this just seems like the least complicated thing in the world.

      (And that’s not even addressing the fact that she claimed to be part NDN and have grown up in a tepee hunting for her food with bows and arrows).

    2. She’s a white person dressing up in blackface to try to run anti-racist organizations!

      OMG, YAASS!! This is a perfect description!

      (And that’s not even addressing the fact that she claimed to be part NDN and have grown up in a tepee hunting for her food with bows and arrows).

      Inorite? WTF?

      1. The whole thing is so bizarre I don’t even know what to say.

        Her parents say they did live in a teepee, before she was born. Eye rolling happened when I read that, plus the ” they have a trace of NDN”.

        Just….bizarre man…I don’t even know.

      2. The most bitter (if somewhat tangential) argument this has lead in my little corner of the social media world seems to be the extent to which ‘passing privilege’ is a thing, specifically in a racial context.

        I’ve always assumed it is in terms of sexuality- like, I do think other queer women I know who are in long-term monogamous relationships/married to men have things a bit easier than those in relationships with women. Like, ‘passing’ doesn’t erase your oppression or mean you’re not “really gay,” but it means there are contexts/places/specific types of oppression that are easier for you to navigate, so you have a bit of privilege over people who can’t pass.

        But then, maybe the fact you pass means you’re forced to pass sometimes, leading to alienation from your community and support for the oppression you do face… i.e. bisexual women in relationships with men being told they’re actually straight, homophobia doens’t affect them at all, etc.

        I’m actually really convinced by the arguments both groups of people are making?

      3. Well, I can only speak to my experience but it’s a mixed bag. If no one knows, and you pass, you get privilege. But when they find out, you don’t. And you can both treatments from your own community. Some think it’s good to pass, others think you’re not really ” one of us” and set out to punish you for passing. You live in 2 worlds that don’t really think you belong.

        But from what I gather, this specific woman is 100 percent white. ( with the rumored trace of NA that if it even exists is probably insignificant)

      4. Yeah, from what I gather she absolutely is- the conversation started because someone was asking about what specifically ‘qualified’ you to identify as a member of a given race, and the conversation kinda got progressively more vitriolic from there.

        ( with the rumored trace of NA that if it even exists is probably insignificant)

        Please do correct me if I’m fucking this up (seriously), but the people I know who identify as indigenous would argue that what ‘qualifies’ you to claim that identity isn’t some trace of genetic ancestry, but membership in a tribe. Though I know there’s internal controversy over the politics of enrollment/ disenrollment as well. Anyways, the broader point being that even if it is true that her great-great-great grandmother was Pocahontas or whatever, it doesn’t really matter.

      5. (Please don’t take that request to be corrected if I’m wrong as a demand to be educated, though- totally respect/understand if you’re not interested in talking about this particular issue with me)

      6. Re: passing

        Because of my accent (a weird amalgemation of all of the different accents I’ve heard while growing up in different parts of the world) and hooded eyes, I pass for not-Black whenever my hair is straightened. When I tell people that I’m Black, I lose my “exoticness” and they get disappointed. On the other hand, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been told that I wasn’t “Black” enough, not because of my skin tone but because of how I speak, how I act, my interests, etc.

      7. Qualifying via tribal enrollment usually means having either the ability to trace your ancestors back to, say, the Dawes Roll ( just one example) or having a percentage that’s more than my great great great grandmother. Which is what I mean when I say insignificant. It’s likely not enough to enroll in a Tribe at all. Or even mention, other than white people like to claim some NDN ancestor because it’s cool or mystical, explains their cheekbones, blah blah weird shit only white people seem to do.

      8. This is very confusing, and triggering involuntary empathy. Involuntary. Logically, I think the woman is a piece of fruitcake.

      9. White-passing privilege is definitely a thing. I’m Pakistani and most other Desis can tell that very easily because of my facial appearance and my name, but I have very light skin and I speak English fluently in an “American” accent (as in the kind of accent that many white people assume is exclusively American). So I’m definitely capable of conditionally passing as white, which has insulated me from racism perpetrated by both whites and POC. To most people I still have an ambiguous facial appearance, because of my white-skinned Bihari appearance, but I’ve gotten more “Your face looks…different” reactions than ones that are like “You’re a p*ki aren’t you?” especially because people never perceive my accent as threatening. I’m certainly not immune to racist attacks, of course, and with certain hairstyles and clothes it’s much easier for me to be parsed as a WOC. Maybe there’s a degree of alienation from other Desis who aren’t white-passing (or at least not passing in the same ways as me), but I think it’s negligible in comparison to all the privilege I get for being able to pass as white.

      10. Weird. I sure haven’t gotten any insulation from racism because I pass as white. Frequently I get white people telling me radiate,horrible things because they think I’m white and will agree. I get knowing looks, the conspiratorial whisper and I’m expected to nod in sympathy and understanding. I get to hear things people wouldn’t say in front of other poc.

      11. Qualifying via tribal enrollment usually means having either the ability to trace your ancestors back to, say, the Dawes Roll ( just one example) or having a percentage that’s more than my great great great grandmother. Which is what I mean when I say insignificant. It’s likely not enough to enroll in a Tribe at all. Or even mention, other than white people like to claim some NDN ancestor because it’s cool or mystical, explains their cheekbones, blah blah weird shit only white people seem to do.

        Thanks for clarifying!

      12. Re: passing…

        I don’t pass for white on any planet where people have eyes, but I do pass for north Indian in India, which means I get a buttload of nastiness about “bloody Madrasis” from people who haven’t heard my piss-poor Hindi (or whose Hindi is similarly piss-poor despite it not being their third language). It actually means I get more bullshit, because people expect me to nod along.

        Re the “bi people passing for straight”…well, you know, people don’t ONLY look at partners before reading someone as straight or not. I had to come out of the bi closet way more than the lesbian closet – most people here assume I don’t have any interest in guys. I don’t think being with a dude would significantly change the amount of harassment or weird looks or assumptions I get from people. Val, my wife, gets read as straight (and cis, but that’s a whole other ball of wax) all the time, and people actively, aggressively REFUSE to read her as not-straight, even when I’m actually there with her, being obnoxiously coupley. Like, even when she’s all short-haired and shirt-and-jeans-and-running shoes and essentially in exactly the same outfit I’m in. And you know, it’s a shit fucking deal for her, too, because even in a same-gender(ish) relationship she’s still being sneered at for being one of those “bihets”.

        tl;dr I don’t think the closet is much of a privilege, and people for whom it is probably already fall into a performance or appearance where they would be read as part of the privileged class by default. But it’s fishy to me that people always claim bi women have all this straight privilege when they’re het-partnered, but no one suggests that lesbians in relationships with men (or femme lesbians who are currently single) have straight privilege. That’s pretty much just an excuse to rag on bi women, if one believes the first but not the second. (For the record, I believe none of these things. Again, the closet is not a goddamn privilege.)

    3. I definitely ‘pass.’ And that definitely adds to all kinds of weirdness. I am, admittedly, hella pale. I may fall into that category of people that is insignificantly NA, but I know that my great-grandmother and grandfather were not white or were mixed. Regardless of any of that, I have had people say some racist ass shit to me, including “you just look white to me.” That shit drives me bonkers, because I’m like, “Go tell that to all the strangers who feel it’s okay to tilt their heads, give me that special side-eye look, and ask ‘What are you?’ And then come back here and tell me how easily I pass.”

      Also, eff all white people who tell me that I can’t call myself mixed or bi-racial. Like, why the fuck do they care? I get it if it’s NA people, because of the whole “grandma was a Cherokee princess” thing. I’d question me, too. But white folks? It’s like they feel like they’re missing out on something, and they don’t think I should be allowed to be special, or something.

      1. There’s only a small amount of NA blood that’s considered cool to white people. The more distant the supposed relative, the better. The closer you get to being able to enroll, the less awesome it is and the more drunken, lazy Indian you get. People find it less awesome to discover my dad is 100 percent NA than they would if I just had a great grandmother who was. ( I’d like to know why it’s always grandmothers, not grandfathers)

        It’s really bizarre how we’re fetishized up to a Point then despised after that point.

      2. ( I’d like to know why it’s always grandmothers, not grandfathers)

        Probably (and I can’t speak for the US but this was certainly the case in Canada until like the last few decades) because First Nations women who married white men were automatically enfranchised after the Indian Act of 1851, which assimilated them symbolically into the white population. Hence, to these fuckmooks, having a grandmother who’s Aboriginal means you’re, like, cool Native, who isn’t like Native Native, they’re Happy Fun Properly Whitelike Native. Having a grandfather who’s Aboriginal means you’re one of those gross Natives, who are officially Native and shit.

        Obviously, I think the whole “women who marry out of the reserve become automatically enfranchised” thing is one of the grossest things done by the settler regime, and I’m in no way endorsing it. But it just occurred to me that that’s probably why all these freakin’ crackers who do this “oh I’m Native on the inside because my great-great-great-great-grandma was a Cherokee princess” never go for a patrilineal connection.

      3. That said, I would so, so, so, so desperately like to know why Cherokee princess. Why is it always Cherokees? If they want to be princess-descended so bad, why not pick one of the indigenous peoples who actually had monarchies? (Not that those were thick on the ground, to be fair…)

      4. Federally recognized, wealthy Nation? Cherokee were the good Indians in old westerns? Beats me.

    4. Angel, I’ve seen that comparison about a million times today (ok, that’s an exaggeration, but it felt like it) — all the people saying “well, if Caitlyn can say she feels like a woman, why can’t Dolezal say she feels black, har har har” — and had to get off the Internet entirely.

      I shouldn’t really have to explain why it’s different, and I’m not good at articulating that kind of thing. But:

      Even if “race” is a construct in some sense — since “we’re all one race; we all came from Africa; blah blah blah, etc.,” and it’s true that the way people have been divided into particular races historically, based on vague ideas of geography and skin color and so on, is rather arbitrary — the fact is that we view someone’s race as being a product not only of appearance and identification and how you’re perceived and (e.g., for African-Americans) having a particular history of shared oppression, but of having a particular biological ancestry. I don’t care how much this woman identified with black people and darkened her skin and did who knows what to her hair, and how much people now perceive her as black, her parents are white and her biological ancestry (as far back as could possibly be meaningful) is white. She can’t change that except by pretending. This isn’t the least little bit like a mixed-race person who does get to choose how they identify and live.

      What gender/sex you are has nothing whatsoever to do with your family history or biological ancestry. We all start from the point of having biological elements of male and female, and how you turn out isn’t simply a question of chromosomes. And is unrelated to who your parents or grandparents were. Yes, gender expression and gender roles are a social construct (except for pregnancy), but there’s a lot more going on. And just because your parents agreed to assign you to a particular sex/gender at birth doesn’t mean that’s who you are or that you have to accept it as how you want to live.

      1. If she supposedly “identified as black” from the age of 5, then why did she sue Howard U. claiming that she was discriminated against because she was white?

  14. white people like to claim some NDN ancestor because it’s cool or mystical, explains their cheekbones, blah blah weird shit only white people seem to do.

    Whenever you talk about that, it always makes me think of all the people I’ve met/heard from who like to brag about discovering that they’re 1/32 Jewish or some such thing, and then talk about how they’ve always loved the Jewish people. Despite never actually knowing anyone Jewish.

    I don’t think I “pass” well enough as a Gentile for anyone ever to have said anything anti-Semitic in my presence. But I’ve sure heard plenty of transphobic things from people who assume I’m cis. And awful homophobic things from people who have no idea that my son is gay. I let the former go by without comment sometimes (fear, mostly) but never, ever the latter. Long before I even had a child.

  15. white people like to claim some NDN ancestor because it’s cool or mystical, explains their cheekbones, blah blah weird shit only white people seem to do.

    Whenever you talk about that, it always makes me think of all the people I’ve met/heard from who like to brag about discovering that they’re 1/32 Jewish or some such thing, and then talk about how they’ve always loved the Jewish people. Despite never actually knowing anyone Jewish.

    I don’t think I “pass” well enough as a Gentile for anyone ever to have said anything anti-Semitic in my presence. But I’ve sure heard plenty of transphobic things from people who assume I’m cis. And awful homophobic things from people who have no idea that my son is gay. I let the former go by without comment sometimes (fear, mostly) but never, ever the latter. Long before I even had a child.

    [Note: this is a duplicate of a comment in moderation. Testing to see if it went there because I used my new email address to sign in.]

    1. Whenever you talk about that, it always makes me think of all the people I’ve met/heard from who like to brag about discovering that they’re 1/32 Jewish or some such thing, and then talk about how they’ve always loved the Jewish people. Despite never actually knowing anyone Jewish.

      Ugh. I’m sure those people are also the most likely to have really hackneyed, stereotypical ideas about what being Jewish ‘means.’

      For some reason people don’t seem particularly interested in appropriating Asian identities, in my experience? I mean, there’s the shitty-Geisha-costume-type appropriation, but I’ve never run into people claiming they’re ‘Thai on the inside’ or ‘pretty sure I’m actually part Chinese, because I’m really good at using chopsticks’ or anything. Though that totally does happen with Buddhism-lite, so maybe it’s just a trade off.

      1. There was that case a few years ago of the Korean woman on the Internet who turned out to be a white kid claiming to be “trans-Korean.”

      4. I just searched ‘transethnic’ on tumblr and honestly the results are too absurd to even get mad about (speaking only for myself, of course).

        Someone just wrote about being a transethnic Japanese tortoisekin (can’t tell if they were a Japanese human and a tortoise on seperate occasions, or a Japanese tortoise).

    2. I’m Jewish, and I “pass” (blue eyes, blonde-ish hair). My husband is Israeli and speaks Hebrew in the home.

      Anyway, most of the people I associate with are Muslim (not quite friends, but the parents of my kid’s friends or people in a club I’m in). And I feel really weird about “passing.” Like I’m lying to them. But it just never comes up! They wear hijab, don’t conceal their religion, and don’t have the privilege of being able to conceal the fact that they come from countries where the main religion practiced is Islam. I mean, I don’t think anyone is going to care that I’m Jewish and my husband is Israeli, but given political tension there and my own political opinion, I feel like I’m hiding and that makes me feel bad. As I said, I don’t think anyone would care, which might be a testament to how open minded they are, but I feel like by not telling them, I’m being deceitful. (I have actually told three of the women. It came up in passing when we were talking about what languages our kids speak. One woman was like “that’s cool, a person of the book,” (but then I told her we were atheists and she kind of frowned), another was like “oh yeah, that word is similar in Arabic,” and the third, well, I don’t think she liked me to begin with but it didn’t seem to affect her opinion of me.)

      Thanks for letting me rant about that weird thing. It feels good to get it out there.

    1. It’s not at all familiar to me — I’ve never felt the least bit cultureless! I also think the author exaggerates the extent to which all white people’s ancestors supposedly had to “cast off” the “markers of otherness” in order to “become white.” That’s true of a limited number of specific non-Anglo Saxon ethnic groups who weren’t generally considered “white” in the USA until the 20th century (and still often aren’t considered white in parts of Europe). It’s certainly not true of all white people.

      And who knows if the process this person went through explains Dolezal at all? There’s no way she can know that.

      1. Maybe if we (my ancestors -pretty much dominantly British ancestry here) spent less time colonizing, subjugating, and otherwise trying to destroy other people’s cultures, we might have a decent one to call our own.

  17. Went for a hike with the boyfriend up in the Muskoka’s yesterday and became a lunch buffet for the ungodly amount of Mosquitos and deer flies. I’ve had at least two people comment that they thought I had poison ivy, I have so many bites.

    Also, people who drive their ATVs on hiking trails that are marked “No motorized vehicles” are giant assholes. (Also people who drive them on ATV trails, but in such a way that it rips up the trail, leaving giant mud holes and shitty terrain).

    The giant mud holes make it harder for hikers because one, I nearly ate shit several times yesterday trying to navigate around and through all the mud, and two, it leaves large amounts of standing water that is great for attracting Mosquitos.

    There’s also the issue of being nearly run down by the damn things,

    I find there’s a real sense of entitlement among the recreational snowmobile and ATV crowd.

    1. Long story short, as part of an icebreaker exercise once, I said I liked nature, and my interlocutor replied, “My family loves nature, too! We take our ATVs out all the time.”

      2. mostly by mosquitoes.

        No blackflies? If “the Muskokas” is in the area just north of the Great Lakes like Google maps seems to think it is, I’d have thought this was prime blackfly season. (It is in northern New Hampshire.)

  18. Hi, long time reader and infrequent commenter here, driven to post through cognitive dissonance of sympathetic interview (http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/13/tim-hunt-hung-out-to-dry-interview-mary-collins) with Tim Hunt, Nobel prize-winning biologist and now noted spouter of sexist twaddle (http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/11/nobel-laureate-sir-tim-hunt-resigns-trouble-with-girls-comments) in Britain’s Observer newspaper.

    In particular, I was a bit surprised by the following paragraph:

    ‘One or two began tweeting what he had said and within a few hours he had become the focus of a particularly vicious social media campaign. He was described on Twitter as “a clueless, sexist jerk”; “a misogynist dude scientist”; while one tweet demanded that the Royal Society “kick him out”.’

    I would like to share my shock at the great viciousness of these comments, which totally exceeds anything I have ever heard of with regard to social media campaigns.

    1. Wait! Man who says “girls cry when you criticize them” cries when people citicize his sexist remarks? Noooooooo!

      1. And…

        ‘The tale also demonstrates how PR departments, in trying to protect the reputation of institutions, often do so at the expense of the individuals who work for or make up those bodies [when those individuals engage in completely pointless reputation-damaging behaviour].’

        Imagine! Shame on them!

    2. Unfortunately, given how the world is these days, an “end{sarcasm}” tag is probably necessary here….

  19. I’m happy to have found this place, as I’ve been searching this morning for a platform like this to bounce off some random thoughts I had. I need more opinions.

    I was looking up porn magazines for women the other day, me and my friend are making a kind of gag gift for a friend’s birthday, and of course as most of us have realized at some point, there is just not much out there for women- but it really, REALLY hit me the other day. And I haven’t been able to get the concept out of my mind since:

    What would a porn magazine for women really entail? Could it actually happen?

    Would it be bought? In what format would it be? What kind of visuals would it include? What do women want to see in porn? Would that just perpetuate the system, or would it give women an outlet of empowerment? Would there need to be more of other kind of format? Written, etc.?

    I would LOVE to hear your thoughts.

    1. Porn magazines still exist?

      My general take is that porn for women actually isn’t that different from porn for men; women get off on all kinds of things, and I’d bet money that there isn’t a single statistically common male kink/fetish/sexual proclivity that a similarly significant number of women don’t share. I know a lot of self-described porn for women is big on, like, soft lighting and gentle caresses, but that’s always seemed awfully presumptuous.

      In other words, I think the main difference would be in the camera angle; whose enjoyment you’re supposed to identify with, not what’s going on in the scene. There’d probably be a lot fewer unreciprocated blowjobs, though.

    2. One thing I don’t like about male-centered porn is how the women look right into the camera. I’d prefer it if the partners concentrated more on each other.

  20. Intersectionality advice?

    I’m dating an incredible man and am deeply in love with him. I haven’t yet met his parents because apparently he’s trying to acclimate them to the idea of me – his parents would very strongly prefer that he date someone who is also Jewish (I’m an atheist and was raised Catholic). Luckily, the relationship we have is super healthy and he has made a point of assuring me about what we have together, but he has a great relationship with his parents as well, and I really don’t want to be the cause of any discord there (plus, I have a selfish desire to be liked by people he loves).

    Sooo, does anyone have advice for what to do when I finally do meet his parents? I’m oscillating between completely pretending I don’t know it’s an issue for them to quietly learning all I can about how his family celebrates/observes holidays so that I show I care about something that’s so important to them (he’s not terribly religious, but does observe holidays with his family).

    1. Three pieces of advice, from someone who’s been there:

      1) You need to take care of yourself first, then your partner, then (if at all) his family. You don’t have any obligation to do anything to comfort their ethnic/religious prejudices, and since your partner is a great guy he’ll understand that.

      2) That said, it’s totally normal/reasonable to want to have a good relationship with a significant other’s family, and it’s also not betraying progressivism (or yourself) to work to minimize conflicts (even when those conflicts are the result of them being bigoted).

      It’s also a reality that, no matter how great a SO is and how solid your relationship is, your interactions with their family will usually affect that relationship, and it’s OK to take that into consideration as well.

      3) Even leaving aside the issue of bigotry, I think it’s always a nice gesture to learn about the traditions that are important to people, especially people you may be spending holidays with; that doesn’t mean you have to exhaust yourself memorizing every detail, but it never hurts to be able to participate in observances/celebrations when you’re comfortable doing so (and point 1 comes up again here- the flip side is you’re never obligated to participate when you’re not comfortable).

      So, the way I navigated that situation was to learn about their traditions (which actually had much more to do with being WASPs than being religious, but same idea), but to do it without much fanfare; I basically pretended I didn’t know they cared, but hoped that every time I just coincidentally knew how to fit into their lifestyle it’d make them care a bit less. That seemed to minimize the potential for actual blowups, and while I never really felt totally accepted, I will say that eventually we settled into a pretty solid routine where, despite knowing they probably wouldn’t be heartbroken if the relationship ended, we could at least spend time together without tension (and even sometimes have fun).

      Anyways, no idea if any of that is helpful, but as someone who’s been there, hugs if you want them.

    2. Also, because I forgot to say it: congrats! Finding a fulfilling relationship like that is super rare and making it work over the long term is even rarer. I’m happy for you, and I’m so glad that it sounds like this issue will be a speedbump instead of a roadblock.

      1. Thank you so much for the advice! And most importantly, thank you for the well wishes. A little less than a year ago, I was suicidally depressed. I somehow managed to get my meds in order, then met him the very next month, and I genuinely cannot get over how lucky I am about everything (for ex: the order – that I was able to get myself to a really good spot before meeting someone special).

        And re: DonnaL below – I actually tried visiting a couple of sites that talked about dating Jewish folks when non-Jewish, and one of the themes was the idea of cultural elimination – i.e. Jews who date non-Jews are less likely to engage in faith-based activities and holidays. This probably isn’t the right way to look at it (e.g. if Judaism was a bigger facet of boyfriend’s life, he’d probably only want to date someone who could share that explicitly and not big old atheist me), but the site pretty much suggested that his parents’ generation looks at inter-religious dating as a threat to Judaism as a whole. This actually sparked a really cool convo with my shrink about generational trauma, and she gave me some resources and names that help address this for me — just to understand, of course. It’s not like I can be like, “Oh! I get you don’t want me dating your son because the Holocaust” because 1) they probably don’t explicitly see it as related and 2) I’m not particularly comfortable with me being Hitler in the metaphor. It’s probably less bigotry and more a reaction to oppression where I’m not the right target, but there’s not much I can do about that.

  21. I generally agree with your advice, ludlow22, but please don’t assume that Jewish parents preferring their child to be with someone Jewish (usually so their children, if any, will be Jewish) results from bigotry. Not when you’re talking about a group of people who came close to being exterminated on an entire continent within living memory, and have a history of close to 2000 years of being coerced and forced to stop being Jewish, and killed if they refused — largely by Christians. It’s not remotely comparable to dating a WASP. If I were in PrettyAmiable’s situation, I think that assuming that the parents’ motivation resulted from bigotry would be a recipe for disaster.

    1. Pretty Amiable, I can’t figure out a way of replying to you, but I think your way of looking at things is almost certainly right. But in any event, I wish you and your chosen person the very best, and much happiness together. And I’m sure that once his parents get to know you, their worries will go away. That’s what usually happens, at least in my experience.

    2. I see your point.

      But I’m the kid of one Jewish parent and one not Jewish parent. When other Jews tell me that my parents are finishing what Hitler started or think less of me and my Jew-cred, it feels like bigotry no matter why the actor feels the way he or she does. Nonetheless, I’ll try to keep your point in mind next time I encounter this attitude. How would you suggest I handle it? Sometimes I remind them that thankfully we live in more accepting times (at least towards Jews) and that through intermarriage, we have an opportunity to welcome new people into the tribe if we don’t shun them.

  22. Settling in for a long night of cuddling with boy so he can catch up on Steven Universe. Is that odd?

  23. I generally agree with your advice, ludlow22, but please don’t assume that Jewish parents preferring their child to be with someone Jewish (usually so their children, if any, will be Jewish) results from bigotry. Not when you’re talking about a group of people who came close to being exterminated on an entire continent within living memory, and have a history of close to 2000 years of being coerced and forced to stop being Jewish, and killed if they refused — largely by Christians.

    I’m sorry, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think it matters why you feel strongly about your children not marrying outside of your ethnic/religious group. Stuff like matrilineality is an abstraction; caring more about your grandkids ethnoreligious identity than whether your child is happy and emotionally fulfilled is bigotry, IMO.

    For what it’s worth (probably not much), I hold members of my weird little ethnic group, which has been through relatively intense trauma as well, to the same standard when we display that behavior.

    It might be bigotry that stems from a genuine trauma- bigotry isn’t always impossible to empathize with- but yes, I’m comfortable with that word.

    1. Also, if this:

      (usually so their children, if any, will be Jewish)

      is true, you would then expect this phenomena to apply only to sons; after all, it doesn’t matter who a Jewish woman has children with, they’re still Jewish. And yet, while this is obviously only anecdotal, I’ve certainly observed an equal-to-greater amount of pressure on my female Jewish friends not to date/marry non-Jewish men, especially men of color.

      In other words, I acknowledge that what you’re saying has a lot of merit, but I think you have to acknowledge that it’s also often a smokescreen for good old-fashioned racism, which Jewish white people are still as prone to as any other white people.

      1. What makes you think that the parents in this particular situation are white? Nothing PrettyAmiable has said indicates such a thing.

      2. What makes you think that the parents in this particular situation are white?

        What makes you think I think the parents in that situation are white? If you’re responding to my post immediately above, you’ll note that it clearly isn’t directly referring PrettyAmiable’s situation, since her SO is a man, not a woman.

        I’m not following your logic at all here. Did you respond to the wrong post?

  24. Can the “transracial” thing please die already. So sick of hearing about that lying-ass liar’s supposed right to choose her ethnic background.

    1. trees, with regard to “Can the “transracial” thing please die already.”

      “transracial” is an actual word with real meaning and legitimate use. I don’t mean to single you out, but throughout this whole Rachel Dolezal thing people have been saying pretty much what you wrote, and I think it’s important to remember that she didn’t fabricate that word, she appropriated it from legitimate usage.

      1. trees, with regard to “Can the “transracial” thing please die already.”

        “transracial” is an actual word with real meaning and legitimate use. I don’t mean to single you out, but throughout this whole Rachel Dolezal thing people have been saying pretty much what you wrote, and I think it’s important to remember that she didn’t fabricate that word, she appropriated it from legitimate usage.

        Great point. By “transracial thing” I’m referring to the specific usage that is an attempt to make transracial analogous to transgender.

    1. Yes. Yes. Absolutely this.

      On Pride in particular: It’s absolutely disgusting, the stuff that’s gone on around Prides this year. I’ve been watching huge online arguments go down about how Pride is for “non-straight people only” (meaning straight trans folk or multisexuals – cis or otherwise – whose relationships pass for straight+straight are not invited). Then there’s people who are happier to include straight cis poly people as part of Pride than trans people, and who yell “breeder” at any couple who seems too opposite-gender to be “properly queer”. This is exactly the kind of stuff that’s made me too anxious and angry to go to Prides around here.

      1. Genuine question, in the full knowledge I may be fucking up (hopefully not); is it ok to create spaces that are exclusively for gay people? Obviously that has to include gay trans* people, but what about transgender men who are solely attracted to women, or vice versa?

        From my perspective as a bi cis person, the conflation of trans-ness and gay-ness has actually been really harmful, mostly to trans people. I don’t see a super strong connection between the LGB and the T, in other words; the issues facing each group certainly overlap in some areas, but they’re very different in others. Usually, I see the T being ignored in favor of the LGB.

        Obviously I’m not saying we should suddenly start making efforts to exclude straight trans people from everything, just that maybe it’s time to start being more explicit about gay/straight and trans/cis being two different axes of identity. I’d certainly be OK with trans-specific groups/events that didn’t include cis people just because they were also gay.

      2. ludlow22 writes:

        is it ok to create spaces that are exclusively for gay people?

        You’ve just abstracted the issue to the point of utter meaninglessness.

        The issue that macavitykitsune was discussing was Pride events — events that supposedly commemorate the Stonewall riots of 1969, which were largely carried out by drag queens, transvestites (which, given the terminology of the time, would have included transsexuals as well), homeless gay and lesbian youth, gay and transgender street prostitutes, etc. To restrict Pride events to gay (or gay and lesbian) people only is to write the most marginalized people (and the ones who had the least to lose by rioting) out of history. And since Pride is fundamentally a political action, restricting it to gays (and lesbians?) is essentially throwing all the gender/sexual minority people who don’t fit into the respectable LG (or just G) paradigm under the bus.

        maybe it’s time to start being more explicit about gay/straight and trans/cis being two different axes of identity

        What about the people who don’t so neatly fit onto those Procrustean axes? What about bisexuals, or pansexuals, or asexuals? Or crossdressers, who identify as male but for whom a feminine expression is an essential part of their makeup? The genderfluid? The off-in-left-field nonbinary folk?

        Maybe it’s time to question the idea of axes in general.

      3. IMO, straight trans guys shouldn’t be allowed in gay-only spaces, for the same reason that straight cis guys don’t belong in such spaces. The same power dynamics relating to sexual orientation that exist between cis hetero and cis non-hetero people also exist between hetero and non-hetero people who are trans, and I don’t think straight trans people’s heterosexism should be downplayed or ignored just because they’re trans.

        Although lots of people assume that being trans automatically implies solidarity and support for non-hetero people (and vice versa), my own experiences as a trans lesbian tell me otherwise. I’ve received a lot of lesbophobia from some straight trans women, or at the very least dismissal of experiences of lesbophobia intersecting with transmisogyny. I imagine that there’s a similar thing going on between hetero trans guys and non-hetero trans guys, with respect to homophobia.

      4. Aaliyah,

        I am quite dumbfounded by this. Your desire to exclude and segregate us is obvious. This is, unfortunately, a typical feminist response. Straight trans man =/= straight cis man. I am reminded of this (as a negative) everyday, but when it comes to our supposed allies, we are all-of-the-sudden just like cis men.

      5. This is, unfortunately, a typical feminist response. Straight trans man =/= straight cis man. I am reminded of this (as a negative) everyday, but when it comes to our supposed allies, we are all-of-the-sudden just like cis men.

        Straight black man =/= straight white man, but they’re both straight, no?

        I get why LGBT is an importance term/political grouping/alliance, but that doesn’t mean that the issues or experiences of the L and the G and the B and the T are necessarily identical, and so I’m OK with trans-only discussions/spaces, LGB-only spaces, even L- or G- or B-only spaces if the particulars call for it.

      6. @ludlow – sorry, I missed that thread somehow.

        In the abstract, it’s fine to have whatever group (gay men, for example, whether cis, trans or non-binary) meet to discuss their own issues. Sure. Of course, the problem is that historically, multisexual and non-binary people have been marginalised in these kinds of discussions, and trans people have just been outright eliminated from movements as soon as it was politically expedient. How many times have trans women (or trans lesbians or trans queer women) wound up kicked out of “women’s only” spaces because of shitty definitions of womanhood? How often do bi people, even if they’re in same-gender relationships and have never really had opposite-gender relationships and most definitely do not present as straight (hi, I am one of these) get accused of having straight privilege and kicked out of queer spaces?

        At this point, while I appreciate the idea in the abstract, the entire bloody movement is already implicitly a gay- and lesbian- only space, with others being tolerated at best and shunned at worst. So, you know, at this point I’m less than friendly towards the idea of gay-only spaces, because if this is how shitty my ilk get treated when LGBT rights movements narratives and policies are created in general spaces, I can’t imagine how much worse it’ll get if rights movements become more formally segregated instead of less.

      7. I am quite dumbfounded by this. Your desire to exclude and segregate us is obvious. This is, unfortunately, a typical feminist response.

        Marginalized groups wanting spaces for themselves isn’t exclusionary. It doesn’t make them oppressive, and it doesn’t undermine anyone else’s access to space.

        Straight trans man =/= straight cis man. I am reminded of this (as a negative) everyday, but when it comes to our supposed allies, we are all-of-the-sudden just like cis men.

        The only difference between hetero trans guys and hetero cis guys is that the latter have cis privilege over the former. Transness doesn’t negate straight privilege.

      8. This all reminds me somehow of the recent report that the HRC (USA: Human Rights Campaign) was a place where everyone who wasn’t a hip white gay man was a second-class citizen. When I read that, I thought, no wonder they were willing to throw trans people under the bus with ENDA.

        I did wonder, when I saw they had a table at the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, whether the people manning (gender intentional) the table got any flack.

      9. Aaliyah,
        “I imagine that there’s a similar thing going on between hetero trans guys and non-hetero trans guys, with respect to homophobia.”
        In my experience as a trans boy who has a male life partner, NO, you are not at all correct.

      10. In my experience as a trans boy who has a male life partner, NO, you are not at all correct.

        I really don’t know what else to tell you. All straight people have privilege over all gay people – regardless of whether any of the former are trans. If this is true of trans women, surely it’s true of trans men as well – I mean, the only difference is gender.

      11. I think I’m at my limit for rampant transphobic bs. I have to deal with people calling for the removal of the t from lgbt in local clebrations and support groups. I don’t think I need to deal with it on Feministe.

      12. I have to deal with people calling for the removal of the t from lgbt in local clebrations and support groups. I don’t think I need to deal with it on Feministe.

        Yeah, literally nobody is saying that here.

      13. So, you know, at this point I’m less than friendly towards the idea of gay-only spaces, because if this is how shitty my ilk get treated when LGBT rights movements narratives and policies are created in general spaces, I can’t imagine how much worse it’ll get if rights movements become more formally segregated instead of less.

        Sure, I totally get that (and remember I am bi, so it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with being invisible in the broader conversation). I just kinda feel like the current setup is largely an accident of history, and as the recent HRC report suggested, is kinda a shitty setup for the minorities-within-the-minority.

        Just thinking aloud.

      14. @ludlow – I know you’re bi from previous threads (and this one), just didn’t want to speak for you.

        I don’t think there’s a problem with the gay rights movement (using that term specifically) not being able to tell the gender identity spectrum from the sexuality spectrum. I think there’s a deliberate effort to turn what should be solidarity into somethign that only benefits the LG. I don’t think the solution is to further isolate trans people, not at all.

      15. I think I’m at my limit for rampant transphobic bs. I have to deal with people calling for the removal of the t from lgbt in local clebrations and support groups. I don’t think I need to deal with it on Feministe.

        It’s transphobic to say that trans people are capable of experiencing intersecting privileges?

        If you’ve had good experiences as a gay trans man, good for you. But you can’t just use your life experiences as proof that straight trans men have no privilege over gay trans men. Heterosexism is systemic and hetero people along all lines of race, gender, disability, etc. are capable of benefitting from it at the expense of non-hetero folks.

        I thought that the whole point of intersectional analysis has been to establish that oppressions intersect, not cancel each other out somehow. Obviously straight cis men have cis privilege over all straight trans men, but that doesn’t invalidate the relative position of power that straight trans men are in relative to gay trans men.

      16. Straight trans women may have “straight privilege” over queer/lesbian trans women vis a vis society in general, but I’m not sure I agree that that’s entirely true within the trans community, given that most trans organizations are led by trans women who aren’t straight, and that queer/lesbian trans women represent a larger percentage of trans women than they do of cis women and are certainly over-represented among trans activists. They’re also far less likely to be the victims of violence (from intimate partners and otherwise) than straight trans women.

        That said, I agree that straight trans women sometimes look down on other trans women because they view themselves as more “authentic” as women.

        I can’t really speak authoritatively about trans men, but from what I know, I believe the situation is also a little more complicated than you’re suggesting, aaliyah. For one thing, a great many straight trans guys come out of the lesbian community and/or have lesbian-identified partners, and, as such, are far more likely to be the objects of fetishization — and disrespect of their male identities — by cis lesbians, than gay trans men are by cis gay men. And, if they don’t “pass,” to be subjected to harassment and discrimination by people who assume they’re part of a lesbian couple.

      17. straight trans guys come out of the lesbian community and/or have lesbian-identified partners

        Genuinely asking, from the POV of being a genderfluid person: I am honestly at a point in my life where even the idea of being with a non-multisexual makes me kind of nauseated and dysphoric, because anyone identifying as straight (or lesbian) while being in a relationship with me would feel like they were implicitly misgendering me. How does one (continue to?) identify as lesbian while being partner to a trans man, without inherently and necessarily demarcating the guy as “female”, or “male-lite”, or something else equally grody? Isn’t it essentially saying “it’s okay, you’re not, like, really REALLY a guy, so I can still be a lesbian”? I…maybe I’m over-identifying with the situation (seriously, just typing this out is making me shake a little), but I just feel like that’s a really transphobic position to occupy.

        If this is stoush-bait or something, I’m happy to move this to spillover. I just don’t get it at all.

      18. How does one (continue to?) identify as lesbian while being partner to a trans man, without inherently and necessarily demarcating the guy as “female”, or “male-lite”, or something else equally grody? Isn’t it essentially saying “it’s okay, you’re not, like, really REALLY a guy, so I can still be a lesbian”? I…maybe I’m over-identifying with the situation (seriously, just typing this out is making me shake a little), but I just feel like that’s a really transphobic position to occupy.

        I have no idea how to resolve that particular question, and it’s one I’ve thought about a lot. I’m not sure how to even state it in a way that respects everyone’s identities, but it does seem like there’s an inherent conflict here.

        As an illustrative example, if Person A identifies as lesbian, and is attracted only to other women, and is attracted to/dates/sleeps with female-presenting Person B, and then later on Person B comes out as a transgender man… I don’t know what the right language is to use, in order to both respect Person A’s valid self-identification as a lesbian and also not misgender Person B.

        Maybe the issue is that bodies != gender? Most people I know who are only attracted to one gender say that this attractionality is about physical presentation, not identity. So when a lesbian friend of mine says ‘I’m attracted to women,’ she says what she really means is that she is attracted to people who have boobs and vaginas and no stubble (obviously I’m simplifying). But for her, it doesn’t matter how the person who that body belongs to identifies (i.e. cis woman, trans woman, trans man). Similarly, every straight men I’ve ever discussed this with has said they would have no problem dating a transgender man who has what appeared to them to be a cis-female body.

        So maybe we need to just ditch our definition of gay as ‘being attracted to another person of the same sex’ and straight as ‘being attracted to binary-identified people of the other sex?’ But of course, there might be/probably are also people for whom their attractionality isn’t just about someone’s physical body.

        Lastly, as an aside, I get really tripped up by language here. Can anyone suggest a good, trans-friendly replacement for using the term ‘female body’ to refer to a body that has the characteristics usually attributed to cis female people?

      19. later on Person B comes out as a transgender man

        I’m not talking about a ‘later on’ situation, necessarily. I know (of) lesbians who date out trans guys. (I’m forced to go with anecdotes, because the idea of actually befriending someone like that is causing me anxiety just to type out.) I’ve heard and read things by out trans guys who get chased by lesbians.

        Similarly, every straight men I’ve ever discussed this with has said they would have no problem dating a transgender man who has what appeared to them to be a cis-female body.

        And re: making it about bodies and not genders… isn’t that exactly the kind of cissexism that we call, well, cissexist? Saying that boobs=female and therefore relationship with boob-haver=straight is textbook transphobia; saying “I am attracted to women, you look like what I think a woman should look like, so I’m straight even if I’m with you” is the exact same thing as saying that trans men are women because boobs. How, how, how is it not a transphobic position to occupy? Maybe I’m having a reading issue, but I am genuinely baffled as to what Escher-logic one applies to this situation to arrive at Enlightened Sexuality Definitions instead of Garden-Variety Transphobia.

      20. if Person A identifies as lesbian, and is attracted only to other women, and is attracted to/dates/sleeps with female-presenting Person B, and then later on Person B comes out as a transgender man…

        If you switch the genders on person B, you get a situation that comes up a lot: exclusively straight woman A is married to person B, who has always convinced himself he was male. At some point, B comes out as a trans woman. What actually happens, based on the anecdata I’m aware of, is either:
        a. A decides/realizes she cannot feel intimate with a woman, even if that woman was a person she loved as long as he was male, or
        b. A decides/realizes that who B is is more important than whether B is male or female. A feels a sense of loss, but would still rather be with B than not with B.

        What bugs me about this whole thread is the way that people are getting reduced to whether they’re a Barbie doll or a Ken doll and their attractions and affections are reduced to whether they get off on Barbies or Kens. Is there no one in all these “communities” who is able to love another person to the point that what genitals they have becomes secondary to how much they care for each other?

        If feminism, and/or LG activism, and/or trans activism means that we have to squash people into boxes and see them (and ourselves) as political labels rather than unique human beings, then I don’t want any part of it.

      21. “For one thing, a great many straight trans guys come out of the lesbian community and/or have lesbian-identified partners”

        Hence what I wrote above.
        Asking for the removal of straight trans men from gay only spaces is transphobic. I’m sorry you don’t see that Aaliyah and Ludlow22. It is inevitably borne out of the desire to remove trans people from the discussions of sexuality entirety, and despite what your narrow views, a straight trans guy is NOT monolithicly heterosexual like a straight cis man is. Any gay-only space that excludes straight trans men is certainly a place I don’t won’t to be.

      22. A decides/realizes that who B is is more important than whether B is male or female.

        You do realise that that’s… pretty much being multisexual…right? Attraction irrespective of gender is one of the working definitions of pansexuality. Attraction to people who are of the same or other genders is one of the working definitions of bisexuality. That is, by definition, not the thing I am talking about.

        Is there no one in all these “communities” who is able to love another person to the point that what genitals they have becomes secondary to how much they care for each other?

        Oh, get off your high horse. I’m specifically asking about the misgendering element of a person claiming [sexuality label] while being in a relationship with a trans or non-binary person of [incompatible gender with said sexuality label], not claiming that all LGBPQ people are obsessed with genitalia or that we’re incapable of caring for other people as people instead of as animated netherbits. How in the seven hells did you get to that from my actual question?

        we have to squash people into boxes and see them (and ourselves) as political labels

        I would personally argue that saying “I’m a lesbian, and my husband doesn’t count because he has a vajayjay, so he’s basically a woman, amirite, lol” would be a classic example of being overly obsessed with genitalia. But, you know, whatever. I’m out of this thread.

      23. @Macavity- I might not have said this clearly, but what I’m trying to say is that maybe being attracted to women isn’t actually the most useful/relevant/accurate definition of being a straight male or lesbian, and being attracted to men isn’t actually the most useful/relevant/accurate definition of being a straight women or gay man.

        Based on totally the non-scientific survey of ‘what my friends think,’ basically everyone says that they’re attracted not to certain types of gender identities but certain types of bodies. The fact that they conflate those types of bodies with gendered language is certainly problematic (though like I said above I still don’t know what a non-transphobic term is for body-type-normally-associated-with-cis-females/males, since ‘female body’ doesn’t work); however, the fact that their attraction is based on bodies and not identities isn’t transphobic, it’s just how their attractionality works.

        So:

        I would personally argue that saying “I’m a lesbian, and my husband doesn’t count because he has a vajayjay, so he’s basically a woman, amirite, lol” would be a classic example of being overly obsessed with genitalia.

        isn’t misgendering, if you adapt the definition of ‘lesbian’ as ‘someone who’s attracted to bodies with vaginas and the statistically linked secondary sexual characteristics). That’s basically the only way I can see to respect people’s self-identified sexualities, and also avoid misgendering trans people, both of which are equally important to do.

        What bugs me about this whole thread is the way that people are getting reduced to whether they’re a Barbie doll or a Ken doll and their attractions and affections are reduced to whether they get off on Barbies or Kens. Is there no one in all these “communities” who is able to love another person to the point that what genitals they have becomes secondary to how much they care for each other?

        Fuck that noise. Having a sexual orientation does not make people shallow. And if people do meet your description, as Macavity said, they’re likely either bisexual/multisexual. I mean, there are (for example) gay men who choose to live in heterosexual relationships, but I’d argue it very very rarely works out all that well.

      24. Ludlow, I usually refer to “male-coded” and “female-coded” bodies rather than male and female bodies, when I’m talking about trans people.

      25. Thank you so much! That’s exactly the term I’ve been missing from my vocabulary.

        So restate things in a way simpler way, what I’m saying is that maybe it’s more coherent to say being (for example) a heterosexual woman means being sexually attracted to male-coded bodies, as opposed to being sexually attracted to men. That avoids invalidating people’s self-identified sexualities and also avoids midgendering partners in the type of scenarios Macavity raised. I also think it makes the language conform more closely to reality, in that sexual attraction typically happens or doesn’t happen before you have the chance to learn whether someone is cis or trans (obviously this doesn’t apply to demisexual people, and I recognize making a lot of simplifications in service of the broader point).

        I’m totally willing to listen to mono-sexual people if they think I’m off base here, but I can’t think of a better solution.

      26. Maybe I’m missing something here, but I think a straight person is a straight person – it doesn’t matter if they formerly misunderstood their gender and sexuality. And straight trans men, even if they used to believe that they were lesbians, don’t share any concrete experiences of lesbianism with cis lesbians. Gender and sexuality socialization are processes that shape people’s lives regardless of whether their understandings of themselves always coincide with how they are truly being socialized. (That’s why, for example, it’s valid for me as a trans woman to say that I was female socialized despite being assigned male at birth and telling myself I was male – I have experienced womanhood my entire life.)

        Of course, there’s nothing wrong with straight people sharing space with queer people. Nowhere have I suggested anything to the contrary, so the idea that I’m calling for exclusionary practices is absurd. But there’s also nothing wrong with queer people saying that they want their own space, free of all straight people – including those who formerly thought of themselves as queer.

        Also, @ludlow:

        the definition of ‘lesbian’ as ‘someone who’s attracted to bodies with vaginas and the statistically linked secondary sexual characteristics

        I’m a trans woman and a lesbian, and I’m attracted to women with and without vaginas and statistically related sex characteristics. By your definition, I’m not a lesbian and neither are any trans women who have similar attraction preferences…so I’d say that your definition needs some work.

      27. Fair enough! Thank you for telling me.

        Maybe we need more than one word? Because I absolutely know people for whom being a ‘lesbian’ does mean ‘being attracted solely to female-coded bodies.’ But I get that for other people it might mean ‘being attracted solely to people who identify as women.” Those two things seem totally different and using the same word for both seems likely to lead to confusion and problematic implications of the sort Macavity brought up.

        Lastly, as an aside, I’m personally not sure I understand how it works to be attracted to people based one their gender identity (I’m not denying the experiences of people for whom this is the case, to be clear, just explaining my confusion). Does that mean you see someone and you’re not sure if they’re attractive until you discuss their identity with them? What if the way they identify changes after you’ve already decided they’re hot/not hot- does your attraction suddenly go away? Again, I totally get/respect that there are people who’s sexual orientation works this way, but I don’t grok it.

      28. Lastly, as an aside, I’m personally not sure I understand how it works to be attracted to people based one their gender identity (I’m not denying the experiences of people for whom this is the case, to be clear, just explaining my confusion). Does that mean you see someone and you’re not sure if they’re attractive until you discuss their identity with them? What if the way they identify changes after you’ve already decided they’re hot/not hot- does your attraction suddenly go away? Again, I totally get/respect that there are people who’s sexual orientation works this way, but I don’t grok it.

        Personally, I don’t need to know everything about someone’s gender in order to be attracted to them. All that matters to me are what I know about them and how they make me feel. More specifically, if someone seems to be a woman – which I usually try to guess based on their aesthetic and behavioral cues – and I get chill vibes from them and they look cute, then I’m attracted to them. (And by “behavioral cues”, I’m talking about how someone comes across to me WRT what their plausible gender socialization is – it sounds complicated but it’s something I can guess through gut feelings for the most part.)

        Nothing about that requires me to interrogate them about what their gender identity is precisely – I just go by initial impressions that are significant and valid enough to hold up after I know more about them (in the case that I actually get to know more about them). If someone turns out to be not a woman or otherwise have some trait that makes me lose all of my interest in them (like being an asshole), then I regard my initial attraction as based only on a false sense of how I thought they were. So if, for instance, I see someone who seems to be a cis woman but turns out to be a trans man, then I just tell myself that I only thought he was attractive because I didn’t know enough about him.

      29. Wow, that’s way more reasonable/logical/intellectual, than the way attraction works for me! Personally, whether I think someone is a terrible person has absolutely zero bearing on whether I think they’re hot (though it certainly does change whether I act on that attraction).

      30. I mean, it would be dishonest of me to say that there have never been people I’ve met who are terrible as individuals but still attractive. In fact, in some cases it’s been pretty important for my own healing to admit that attraction has happened – because otherwise I’d just be beating myself up for “liking” such people at all (as if attraction implies acceptance of shitty behavior). But for the most part, as soon as I find out someone is an irredeemably awful person, I turn my head for good (unless, because of some abuse dynamic, I feel obligated to stay in their company due to feeling that I’m worthless otherwise, but that’s a whole other can of worms there).

        TBH, I wish I didn’t think about my sexual and romantic life in such complicated terms. The only reason I’ve ever had to think about those aspects of my life in such a way is that intellectualizing my life is how I try to cope with heartbreaks and self-loathing…and I’m also just a huge nerd about things in general.

    2. A trans man I know who is active in our local LGBT center reports that he is still routinely misgendered by most of the people who run the place, despite his attempts to educate people. And while our center now has trans support groups, I’m told it took several years of fighting to get them allowed. A trans woman I know is in some lesbian groups, and she says the things that people in those groups say have made it clear that she would not be welcome if it were known she is trans.

      Not that I’m terribly surprised. One of the things I’ve noticed is that people in one marginalized group are as likely to be bigoted towards other marginalized groups as the population at large.

      1. Sorry to hear that. The same thing happened at the LGBT Center in New York City, except that it happened 15-20 years ago, at least. By the time I started going there in 2003, the support groups for trans men and trans women were already well-established. Which doesn’t change the fact, of course, that there were (and are) still plenty of transphobic cis lesbians and gay men. Not so much among younger people, I think.

    2. Great news. Now I know that my son can get married wherever he ends up living in this country! (Of course, there are still too many places in the USA where he can be fired, or denied employment or housing in the first place, simply for being who he is.)

      1. Yes, gods, there’s so much work left to do, after this, that it’s still pretty depressing. But marriage equality is a huge step for so many things – visitation rights, child-related rights, medical rights, immigration-related opportunities (all things I’m personally grateful for, and would have no guarantee of without marriage equality) – thank fuck. I’m also hopeful that marriage equality will provide a legal foot in the door for other rights – I’m thinking adoption, employment and housing discrimination in particular.

  28. I just had a colposcopy and my vagina and cervix are so sore. And it took longer than it normally would, probably, because a student was observing. Also, my doctor was dissatisfied with two of the biopsy samples she took, so she redid them. Owie owie ow. I will get results next week.

    1. All good wishes, shfree. (At first I thought you had written colonoscopy and said, what? Then I realized what you actually wrote!)

      2. Well, it isn’t cancer. I am, however, going to be having a LEEP. Good times, good times.

      3. Well, it isn’t cancer. I am, however, going to be having a LEEP. Good times, good times.

        Not cancer sounds like a very good thing!

      4. Yeah, I am glad about the lack of cancer. It would have been nice to have the HPV vaccine when I was young, because the abnormalities are probably due to an HPV strain, and everyone has HPV at my age. Which is why doctors don’t bother with giving it to us, it’s an utter waste of time.

  29. TW

    Polyamorous marriage is a term which I hope catches on. Remember polygyny only means a man with more than one wife, and polyandry only means a woman with more than one husband. If you want to include all group marriages you have to say polyamorous marriage or polygamy, and polygamy is too reminiscent of fundie jerks if you ask me.

    Also, it annoys me when some people think polyamory is automatically exploitative of women. Like if one woman has multiple boyfriends, obviously she’s being treated like a shared sex toy, and if a woman is in a relationship with a man with multiple girlfriends, obviously she’s part of his harem. I mean, I’m sure such exploitation can happen, but it shouldn’t just be assumed (nor that it’s impossible for women to exploit men for that matter). And monogamy can be exploitative of women too.

    That said, it also annoys me when some polyamorous people are like “Monogamous people should accept us, but we won’t accept them. They’re all jealous, controlling jerks and we’re all awesome, open, loving people.” Like there’s no way two people could be happy in monogamy, it has to be them controlling and depriving each other., or it has to be (once again assumed) the man treating the woman like his property.

    1. Yes to all of this, though I’m not sure I see the distinction between ‘polyamorous’ and ‘polygamous.’

      That said, it also annoys me when some polyamorous people are like “Monogamous people should accept us, but we won’t accept them. They’re all jealous, controlling jerks and we’re all awesome, open, loving people.”

      Yeah, I have friends like this and they’re annoying as fuck.

      1. Like if one woman has multiple boyfriends, obviously she’s being treated like a shared sex toy, and if a woman is in a relationship with a man with multiple girlfriends, obviously she’s part of his harem.

        I actually remember reading nearly these exact words about sex scenes in the context of anti-porn feminism, 100% non-ironically.

    2. I’m polyamorous, and I really hate it when other poly folks say that monogamy is inherently abusive. Monogamy can be twisted in a way that serves an abuser’s aims, but so can pretty much any other completely benign thing. The problem is with abusers who use monogamy to justify their abuse of partners, not monogamy itself. Polyamory definitely works way better for me than monogamy, and I don’t see myself ever wanting to be monogamous, but I know plenty of monogamous people who are in healthy and non-abusive relationships – where monogamy is nothing more than an mutually agreed-upon term for the relationship.

    3. Oh, I fucking hate people like that – ‘that’ being both sides of the poly and monogamous communities that get all fucking sanctimonious. And yes, there’s definitely a skeevy patriarchal assumption about women in any kind of polyamorous situation – either they’re the harem or the sex toy, or their secondary relationships are with women (in which case they’re called “bihets” and also told that “girls don’t count” by men). Just…ugh.

      And yeah, I don’t find the poly community particularly attractive, precisely because it feels like a whole whack of shaming of any kind of exclusivity whatsoever – and speaking as a demisexual, I find it goddamn creepy that I’m being told that my expression of my orientation is unnatural and I’d be happier if I loosened up sexually. Heard that before, thanks.

      Mind you we’re on-off non-monogamous so basically we’re both the sluts monogamy-lovers want to shame and the emotionally exclusive people the poly community sneers at so mayyyyybe I’m just bitter

    1. I know. It sucks. It also won’t make national news because no one gives a shit about Native appropriation.

    2. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t this been common knowledge long, loooong before the Rachel Dolezal thing?

      1. Go ask anyone you see in public about it, then ask about Dolenzal pretending to be black. Let me know the response.

      2. Oh wow, I’m sorry, that wasn’t intended to be in response to your comment about the news media at all. I was just surprised to see the Daily Beast bringing this up as a new thing, since when she was denied tenure at UMich in 2008, basically everyone I knew there cited this as the reason (and not in a secret rumor-mongering sort of way, but as if it was very much public knowledge).

  31. This is the first Ramadan I’ve fasted for in 2 years – willingly, without any pressure from family. I’ve started wearing a hijab for the first time in my life, as well as traditional Pakistani clothes and a kufi (which is traditionally worn by men, but I’m butch so whatever). And I have never felt so deeply in touch with my spirituality. When I was still in the place of telling myself that Islam was evil and that I was a heinous person for defending Islam in any way, I felt so lost. It was like part of me had died. I’ve only been able to realize this through reconnecting with my faith.

    Islam is my life, and I’ll never look back. Reviving my spirituality is proving to be a process of healing – from both spiritual self-neglect and wounds inflicted by white supremacy. And for this Ramadan, I am praying for a future ahead where I can truly start to shed off my shame of being Muslim and Pakistani. There couldn’t be a better time for my faith to come back – it provides me a foundation that I used to think never existed.

    1. Good for you, figuring out this stuff! Religious reclamation is a thorny bag of bullshit to deal with at the best of times, and I’m glad you’re feeling at peace. <3

    2. Aaliyah, I’m very happy for you. Does this help your relationship with your father at all?

      1. Well, last time I met him, he was glad to see that I was more spiritual than I had been in years. But that’s not enough to help the relationship. The problems I have with him can’t be resolved simply by showing an increased interest in spirituality. If anything, this personal development makes him feel more confident about manipulating me because he figures that I can be more easily motivated through religious guilt-tripping.

        None of that worries me, though, because his motives are transparent and because he’s becoming increasingly irrelevant to my life over time. My relationship with him is probably going to stay the way it is right now: me keeping him at arm’s length and never any closer, no matter how much we might relate to each other through Islam, being South Asian, etc.

    1. Sorry, long time reader returning briefly after long time absence, so I don’t know if this layout is new or if you did it ages ago, but I need to find a post and I literally can’t find anything. The Archives page is blank so it occurred to me you just might not be finished yet.

      1. I think tigtog’s having issues getting the proper Feministe layout to work. What post are you looking for? If you don’t mind saying, I could help look for it. I have pretty awesome google-fu. 🙂

        1. Sorry about the archives page – the old template broke with some changes to the underlying WordPress core, and I’ve been unwell so haven’t found the time/energy to make a new custom template that will do all the things the old one did. I’ve got so much backload to work through on a whole lot of projects that I’m not sure when I’ll manage to get it fixed.

  33. Did the Sunday open thread go away? I am not trying to criticize, just to get some clarity. I know some things broke and some folks are focusing on their health. Thanks in advance for all that you so! Sue

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