I don’t think this one is downright psychotic compared to some of these here, but I am somewhat coming around to this idea which I have never been able to express elsewhere; I believe that we must be very careful what depictions/stereotypes we apply to men – whether progressively feminist or traditionally conservative – not only for the sake of men but because we apply them to trans women 10x worse. It’s partly why I dislike the level of self-flagellation I’ve occasionally encountered in progressive men, and the way that some trans women virulently shittalk men. (As example, I saw an amusing comment chain recently where a trans woman peddled in the typical dehumanizing analogy that ‘men are like loaded guns and you don’t know which one will go off’, utterly ignorant to that TERFs think the very same of her.)

Now, certainly, men are more conservative than women and are less accepting of transgender people; these are facts and are understandable reasons, even if that should not constitute hatred of any but conservative men. But allow me to expand and show better what I mean.

There’s several reasons I am slowly coming around to this take, but the most recent that I found was in remembrance of an old ContraPoints controversy. Now, I will not shittalk her here – she is in a very difficult position as a public trans woman and I hope she does well. I think some people do not understand the utter frustration that living life as a trans woman often engenders, and how this causes behaviors that appear outwardly overly-callused; it is extremely frustrating knowing that from the time you come out, you will essentially always need to try at least 2-3x as hard as a cisgender person to get the same results. You can do it, but it’s still fundamentally bullshit.

But I remember a tweet ContraPoints made once where she essentially said that one ought to have a good reason why they identify as non-binary, because ‘surely a story that begins and ends at “I’m not a man” just isn’t convincing’. (Paraphrasing.)

While certainly dismissive of non-binary identity – no one needs a reason to identify as NB – what I found rather interesting is not what she said but in how she phrased it; that you need a better reason than merely I’m not a man. The wording implies that maleness is a sort of deserved punishment or a sin that one would naturally seek escape from, thus we must make sure they do not escape without proper reason. A common TERF argument is that transgender women identify out of manhood to escape punishment and that transgender men identify out of womanhood because being a woman is such a terrible existence, that one would be crazy to not wish to escape it. (Few point out the irony in that many TERFs utterly despise being women, whereas trans women generally love being women.)

And I highly doubt ContraPoints would have phrased the tweet as “surely you need a better reason than I’m not a woman”, partially because her audience would have raked her even more fiercely for it, but because ContraPoints herself has certainly struggled with self-loathing in some areas. I am almost certain that she has encountered the typically vicious arguments transgender women have amongst themselves, and are occasionally expected to self-flagellate over, about whether they have experienced a ‘male socialization’, a ‘female socialization’, or perhaps a ‘transgender socialization’; I am certain ContraPoints has once, as many transgender women have, viciously interrogated her own behavior and tried to scrub away any behavior she perceives as ‘male’. (Of course, no behavior is truly gendered, which is precisely the hell of it; one can never truly be free and the anxiety, ala the factory in Factorio, ‘must grow’.)

Now, I will not add to that idiotic debate by giving credence to any part of it. What I will say is that it is a rather curious debate, in that the only people who pick ‘male socialization’ are those usually enthralled in the grip of some self-loathing themselves. The answer, much like a trial on Cardassia, is decided before the debate. But no one once asks whether there should be any shame to having had a male socialization – it certainly does not diminish one’s gender by any iota! – because the unstated assumption is that men are taught to abuse, to rape, to murder women, that a male socialization is something one should be ashamed of. Even the realm of identity is not safe; some transgender men report feeling guilty over transitioning, as if they have transitioned to the evil side of an intangible war and hate ‘inflicting’ themselves upon women by dating them.

That is not explainable by mere voting patterns.

But, of course, when no one questions the unstated assumption, the entire debate acts a little like navigating at sea using Ptolemy’s insights; you may certainly dock that ship, but you will never truly understand the issue. (For example, that no one ever points out that more men support a hypothetical wife beating her husband than a husband beating his wife – that men murder each other & themselves far more than they do women, with male suicides outnumbering female murder victims by 10x and are always more lethal regardless of method – and, the most obvious and simplistic one, that a socialization in which you are told every day from age 3 to “never, ever hit a girl” is rather difficult to term a misogynistic socialization that accepts abuse against women – well, all interesting insights yet perpetually unexamined.)

Anyway, this has already gone far too long, so I’ll close by saying all love to trans people. I don’t terribly know the solution for all of these things, merely that it seems occasionally to me that there are some damaging ideas that have snaked into many good-intentioned people’s skulls, and yet, oftentimes, in trans people, seems merely to be a politically-acceptable method of self-harm; a form of politics that lives as a personal torturer in one’s skull.

Damn, no wonder they fucked so much

“Fully vaccinated” is considered 2 shots by the CDC, 3 shots is fully vaccinated + booster. I’d also hazard a guess that the reason vaccinated deaths are proportionately increasing among death is because everyone who was unvaccinated has already died.

The Republicans

The more plausible thing would be that the teachers themselves don’t read anything but YA novels and think TVTropes is deep media analysis, so they assign it themselves. Which we already sort of see in that YA novels are supposedly very didactic now and tuned to the hyper-normie liberal politics of the adults reading it and not the kids it’s supposed to be for.

The Adventures of Bad Boy and Dirty Girl

Great film and exactly who I thought of. The way where he watches Solomon in that lynching scene until he can come in at the last second and swoop dramatically to cut him free is perfect liberal.

SOLOMON: Master Ford is a decent man.

ELIZA: He is a slaver.

SOLOMON: Under the circumstances–

ELIZA: Under the circumstances he is a slaver! Christian only in his proclamations. Separated me from my precious babies for lack of a few dollars. But you truckle at his boot – you luxuriate in his favor.

SOLOMON: I survive! I will not fall into despair. I will offer up my talents to Master Ford. I will keep myself hearty until freedom is opportune.

ELIZA: Ford is your opportunity. Do you think he does not know that you are more than you suggest? But he does nothing for you. Nothing. You are no better than prized livestock. Call for him. Call, tell him of your previous circumstances and see what it earns you… Solomon.

Depends if you see a difference between a gun-toting noir detective who is supernaturally able to dodge bullets & kill the baddies with amazing accuracy or a superhero who gains the ability to do the same via radiation/spider bites/inventions/parents didn’t love him enough.

He is even worse than a psychiatrist, he is – may Allah forgive me for uttering this word – a blogger

I go to Herman Melville and break his hands to see what happens if Moby-Dick is never written.