It’s the International Trans Day of Visibility today and the TERFs are trying their best to avert their eyes. Over on Ovarit, the Reddit clone many of Reddit’s TERFs decamped to after their subreddit was banned, there are no fewer than five threads devoted to the subject on the front page of the so-called “Gender Critical” forum. Seems the regulars are feeling pretty gloomy.
“The Virtue Signaling on Social Media is Relentless Today. You Gyns Doing OK” asked someone called sylviasmushrooms. She went on to deliver quite a rant:
I checked Facebook and pretty much immediately snapped my laptop shut this morning. Pandering! Pandering as far as the eye can see, to a demographic that already sucks more than their fair share of oxygen out of the room on any given day.
Yeah, that might be because a perverse right-wing/radical feminist coalition is trying to make it impossible for trans people to exist.
Oh, and CW: Suicide for her next bit:
Worship the men with fetishes, everyone. Bow down to them. Give them your money, time and emotional energy. Debase yourselves to build them up. Put in the extra effort today or they will threaten to kill themselves!
At this point sylviasmushrooms reminded her readers and possibly herself that there are trans men.
Oh and while you’re at it remember that the girls with mastectomies are men, and that enbies have a lot to teach you about having the evolved wisdom to opt out of gender entirely (but only for them; the rest of us love oppression and feel so womanly because of it, so the yoke remains.)
You might need a glossary for the next part. But let me decipher a couple of terms for you: “HSTS” means “homosexual transsexual” and refers to straight trans women, whom the TERFs think are really closeted gay men who dress like women to have sex with men; AGP stands for Autogynephiliac, or straight men who are so in love with female bodies they want one of their own.
Absolutely no one in my circle of wholesale democratic liberals is even a HSTS. They’re all AGPs or not like Otha Gals and are all having their narcissistic inner monster fed by having it affirmed constantly that they are oppression royalty (while of course still being privileged enough to enjoy the role play.) The allies are mostly just supporting and affirming who these people “really are”. You know, the self that needs labels, surgery and hormones to achieve. That truly authentic manufactured wholly real artificial self!
Someone called Ibbie thanked sylviasmushrooms for her post, noting that she was also “having a difficult time” with social media.
Other commenters simply averted their eyes:
“Today is National Stay Off Social Media Awareness Day,” MonstrousRegiment declared.
Still others suggested turning the Trans Day of Visibility into an opportunity to “red pill” — sorry, “peak trans” the normies. As a-witch-a-broad wrote
I’m mainly ignoring it. Silver lining: the “visibility” is prompting more normies to talk about it, which is a great opportunity to support them in talking about the contradictions and weirdness they’ve noticed. Prime opportunities to help them peak.
Another commenter started a thread to promote an ersatz holiday of her own making. “Forget ‘trans day of visibility,’” cried AGP_awareness.
TODAY IS AGP AWARENESS DAY!
I’m talking with people offline to peak as many as possible, and sharing memes about AGPs on my social media.
People need to see that most TIMs aren’t HSTS, they’re AGPs. What do you think it takes for us to break the media’s spell, and make people see the perverts for what they are? The AGP perverts are MEN. They’re not women.
As confusing as the TERFs’ assorted acronyms can be, we should remember that they’re also puzzling to “normies,” signaling what fanatics the TERFs tend to be. Not that this is particularly difficult to notice.
Happy Trans Day of Visibility, everyone!
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I’d say I decided to treat myself today and get my hair done, but I actually scheduled it last week, and didn’t remember until this morning that today was TDoV. Decided to enjoy the nice weather here and take transit home… Well, I might not be woman enough for TERFs, but I’m definitely woman enough for street harassers. Special shout out there to the athletic shirtless guy dancing on the sidewalk; he danced well and honestly was kind of cute, up until he started grabbing his crotch, thrusting his hips, and pointing at me.
TBH though I don’t think it’s just sexist harassment now, things have been getting worse as more states pass transphobic legislation. For a while people were basically minding their own business around me in public (aside from the street harassers). Now people stare at me unselfconsciously, and fathers very deliberately get between me and their kids while giving me dirty looks.
(As always, the men are so much worse than the women. The worst I’ve gotten from women was being openly laughed at on the subway this evening. It might have just been because of my haircut, but I doubt it.)
Anyway yeah IDK. I feel like I can sense something ugly brewing. And I had a conversation with a Lyft driver earlier too… This poor guy was so exhausted and frustrated, talking about how he works 17 hours a day to pay $3000 a month for his grandfather’s chemotherapy. And he confided in me that he was disgusted with Joe Biden. “Trump was crazy,” he said, “But at least he gave us money! At least he gave us $1200, $600, $2000 checks. That’s a lot of money, that helps pay the bills for months! But Biden hasn’t given us one cent!”
A bunch of my trans friends have been worrying about this too – when you get down to it, what most voters will remember this year and in 2024 is that Trump gave them money, and Biden did not. So they’ll vote Republican for their own survival, and the persecution will get even worse and more widespread.
IDK even what to say to cis people today, and honestly it would be wasted on the commenters here – y’all are awesome (except the trolls), and I wish more cis people were this informed. But I’m so tired.
Boo fucking hoo, losers. Cry more.
(Also, plenty of cis women have mastectomies, you waste of oxygen.)
@Cyborgette: Hang in there, sister.
It’s absolutely wild to me, the pretzel logic that these so-called radical feminists engage in to think exactly like the far fascist right. Someone should remind them that Nazism is neither radical nor feminist, nor is excluding an entire group of women from consideration AS women. And oh yeah, it’s also not “sucking more than their fair share of oxygen out of the room” to make room for trans sisters at the table. But moping over their presence in the world is certainly an awful lot of breath wasted…
Happy Trans Visibility Day!
As for the TERF bullshit:
Says the one debasing herself to insult people.
Hey, I’m cis and *my* self needed all three.
1) I have a name, various ID cards and numbers, etc. Bet you do too.
2) If it weren’t for surgery, I wouldn’t be alive: I was born by emergency C-section.
3) The body produces hormones to regulate its processes, yup. And people can take hormone medications for a number of reasons.
I assume sylviasmushrooms never wears makeup or even flattering clothing, lest she be accused of manufacturing an artificial self.
(Since drugs might influence her mental state, it also goes without saying that her username was a coin toss between sylviasmushrooms or sylviasbellpeppers.)
It’s so awful when TERFs go on about how UGLY and MANNISH and HORNY and GROSS trans women are. (Of course, real women are never ugly, mannish, horny, or gross.) It’s such naked bullying, Regina George would tell them to cool it. Such feminism!
oh no guys, I took hormones to try and get pregnant with my husband. according to this asshole I’m not a real woman at all. And oh no, I’ve had to had surgery to remove cyst from me.
@Cyborgette
I’m so sorry to hear about the street harassment. Stay strong.
@Cyborgette
Sorry to hear about the harassers 🙁
The fact they go on about Oppression Royalty and the Oppression Olympics is very illuminating. I saw in a Twitter thread some TERFs talking about the sexual assault in Ukraine and being like “oh but of course, it’s trans people who are most oppressed * eyeroll *” (there’s also a very nasty Sarah Vine article on this subject). And it’s like they can’t get over that intersectional feminism happened and people are more aware that perhaps white, privately-educated, broadsheet opinion columnists are not the most oppressed of all oppressed? Why is it so hard for them to understand that a situation that is extremely bad for cis women is also going to be extremely bad for trans people? And it’s not a bloody competition where wartime rape is a tawdry trump card. Sick, really.
One thing that did make me laugh though was that one opinion columnist of that type retweeted a promo for Kathleen Stock’s book Material Girls and I genuinely thought she was talking about the 2006 Hilary Duff movie, which for some reason was very funny to me.
Facebook: Hello, I have noticed trans related topics are very addictive to you, so here are some recommendations
Note to David: this is same old Lumipuna, asking to get approved with a new email address.
I really don’t understand their “AGP” obsession. Isn’t the whole TERF bit that trans women are going to assault cis women? But if they only become aroused by thinking of themselves having vaginas, then they pretty much by definition aren’t going to be using a penis to assault someone? Even if “AGP” were a real thing, it would be one of the least aggressive kinks out there. So who the fuck would care?
While I’m pretty jaded when it comes to the awfulness of TERFs, I am utterly offended by one of them using “MonstrousRegiment” as a name tag.
That’s one of Pratchett’s slightly less known books and the one that is utterly pro Trans through and through, ending with se Deuteragonist, Jackrum, continuing to live as a trans man for no other reason than that being how he feels the most comfortable and even the narrator changes pronouns to male for him.
That annoys me even more than the hate I get from them!
QQ MOAR TERFS! YOUR TEARS SUSTAIN US!
Cyborgette, I’m sorry that the harassment is strong, and I too have concerns about the political/social currents right now.
For Trans Day of visibility, me and my (still entirely natural despite me angling for HRT for the past five months) beard went to an outdoor rooftop gathering for my bosses bosses boss’s retirement send off.
I’ve not been hiding that I’m no longer hiding, but it’s the most people (and still not that many) directly within line of sight maskless who all knew me as female-presenting… when I was trying to do my damndest to force myself into presenting more fem because I was supposed to be a professional adult now and not a grubby engineering student who lived (okay still lives) in ripped cargos and baggy sweaters.
That phase did not last long, but it is how they knew me.
I wish TERFs and their ilk could get it through their biological essentialist noggins that humans and biology are infinitely more complex than they believe.
Trans folks are real. Intersex people are real. Cis people with endocrine disorders that make them look non-traditional are real. Enby’s are real.
Just because people aren’t the norm, doesn’t mean we don’t exist.
…things everyone here already knows.
@TheKND
“Monstrous Regiment” when used by Pratchett is actually a reference to the longer phrase, “Monstrous Regiment of Women”. It was originally coined by some English preacher, IIRC, and although I think it was coined even longer ago than the Suffragists’ movement, it was undoubtedly popularized in relation to the Suffragists. In any case, it was always anti-woman and anti-feminist as the original target was women who ruled as monarchs and was later applied to any woman who thought she could rule even herself.
Sure, Pratchett’s MR is a great and thoroughly pro-trans* book, but he didn’t coin it and doesn’t own it. Arguably the name most properly “belongs” (if it belongs to anyone) to the Suffragists of England.
I bet they’re all about the uteri in another way — if you don’t or can’t drop a sprog, you’re not a reeeaaaaaal woman.
I was on hormones for most of my adult life due to endometriosis (yay menopause) ad had a couple surgeries, plus I have had a number of trans woman (and trans men) friends. So I guess I’m a traitor to my chromosomes or something.
@Cyborgette: when a friend transitioned to male, I said “OMG you would make a GREAT boyfriend! You know about periods and harassment and everything!” Knowing both perspectives as lived experience is something we don’t all get to do.
@Cyborgette
So sorry to hear about all the nastiness you have to put up with out there. Stay safe and don’t let the narrow minded bigots get to you.
@epitome
*raises hand* Yep, another cis woman here who has to take hormones because my body is stupid and dysfunctional. It’s happened to a lot of other (cis) women in the family too. And some of those women have also had cosmetic surgery. Hmm, guess I’d better go tell them that some transphobes on the internets have disqualified them as “real” women.
@TheKnd
Looks like this one’s getting bumped up on my Discworld (or just Pratchett?) reading list, thanks!
@CripDyke
And thank you for the background info on this term.
These days TERFs are always complaining about how trans women outcompete cis women in the Oppression Olympics.
@CripDyke
John Knox. First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. He didn’t much like Elizabeth.
(And I was 3/4 through Pratchett’s book before I slotted the reference into place. I felt very slow.)
@C.A. Collins: TBF, John Knox didn’t like much of anything, did he?
@Lumipuma – That made me laugh. You win the Internet today (or yesterday).
@C. A. Collins – In the same vein as some guy named Thomas Lewis calling Hypatia of Alexandria “a Most Impudent School-Mistress.” I want to be a most impudent school-mistress (though maybe not with the whole murdered by a mob part).
@GSS ex-noob
No, Knox seems to have been a sour old sod, all in all.
Thanks so much, all. Sorry I took so long to reply. Between the medical crises and the political crises I’m just completely exhausted.