Anonymous asked:

So what are your feelings on the ace discourse now that you're realizing you might not be asexual? I know one of the biggest reasons people don't want ace education is because of other LGBT+ kids using it was a way to not have to accept their true sexuality

bisexualgambit answered:

I’ve always hated that argument and I hate it even more now that I’ve been through it.

Stop using internalized homophobia and internalized transphobia to justify denying people learning about their identities. If a kid is going to use a different label to deny their internalized homophobia/transphobia, they isn’t anyone’s fault but The Straights™ and their heteronormativity. 

[feministingforchange]

THANK YOU!!! WHY TF do these jackasses think it’s legit and ok to deny a-spec IDs to kids (and to everyone, quite frankly) simply bc they fear kids might use it to hide from their “True LGBT IDs”™, even if just for a while. 

Let’s actually THINK for a moment about what this argument is saying. 

They want to deny a-spec to ALL kids that might need it bc they don’t want some kids to use it as a crutch while they come to terms with their actual (or simply “other”) IDs along the way. OMG the horror of such a prospect! /sarcasm. 

To me, as an actual a-spec who experiences panromanticism, I cannot imagine denying this to kids simply bc, let’s face it, you hate all a-specs. I mean, where’s the concern for the a-specs who get forced into uncomfortable and sometimes abusive relationships because they don’t even KNOW or understand that their feelings are valid, normal, and ok and that they have a community to support them? That they don’t HAVE to be in a sexual relationship if they don’t want to and that there IS a split attraction model that could help them to better understand themselves (e.g., I’m panromantic demisexual). 

IOW, this mentality demonstrates: 

1. A need to force LGBT+ kids to come to terms with their IDs before they’re ready, and 
   
2. A need to make damn sure those IDs aren’t a-spec 
   

Why do a-spec kids (& ADULTS!!) have to be thrown under the bus for other LGBT+ kids?!?!? 

I’ll tell you why: APHOBIA + ALLOSEXISM

FUCK OFF WITH THIS HORRIBLE APHOBIC SHIT AND LET US ALL JUST BEEEEE!!!!

[introvertedtothenthdegree]

what the bleeding fuck anon.
As someone who is ace and couldn’t for the life of me figure out if I was bi or straight from age 14-19 and spent years questioning what I was (bc its reeeeeall hard to figure out sexuality when you’ve never felt sexual attraction to jack shit) that’s fucked up. Whenever you deny kids information about asexuality and the right to identify as such, you’re hurting them. Let kids learn about all different sexualities and labels, including asexual Later on, if it turns out that label doesn’t fit and they realize their sexuality is something else- big whoop! Kids make mistakes, adults make mistakes and sexuality can be fluid too! Hows about we start unconditionally loving and supporting LGBTQIAP+ people, esp. the questioning kiddos and teach about ALL orientations.

[feministingforchange]

Right on! The only ppl supporting reduced sex/orientation education seem to be aphobes and the abstinence-only crew. I think that says a lot…

As a side note, I’m not sure/convinced that anon supports that position; I just think they were describing it. I hope that’s all they were doing anyway *crosses fingers & toes for humanity’s sake*

[mynameiskleio]

I’m about to turn 49 and in the past year I’ve started to believe that I’m asexual. I enjoy sex, I’m attracted to my partner, but I could live without sex. I rarely initiate, I don’t feel attracted to people I don’t have an emotional attachment to and I fucking wish I had known about a-spec when I was growing up.

The amount of heart ache and sexual abuse I would have been spared boggles my mind. Don’t deny knowledge to people out of fear.

[feministingforchange]

@toxicrants <3

[toxicrants]

That is such a joke because I identified as bi-sexual for a while before discovering I was most likely Demi-sexual or fluid and let me tell you, plenty of LGBT+ people considered bi the ‘inbetween people use to stay half in the closet’. I mean, people are still biphobic as shit in and out of the community but atleast people these days know about bi-sexuality and aren’t trying to suppress people learning about it because ‘OMFG what if the kids pretend they’re bi instead of gay!’ 

Who the fuck cares? Who cares if people honestly believe they identify as something before realising they’re something else? Who cares if kids maybe misrepresent themselves to test the waters before coming out as what they really believe they are? If kids use one label to hide what they actually are that doesn’t mean ‘Hey let’s get rid of the other sexuality’ it means ‘shit we’ve still got a long way to go before kids are comfortable with themselves’. You can’t throw asexuals under the bus cause maybe some gay kids might use it for a while???

[feministingforchange]

Not to mention that you can be gay and on the a-spectrum. 

[shaselma]

As a teenager, after years of wrestling with my myself over what I felt (and didn’t feel), I came to the conclusion that I must be bi. Because at that point I didn’t realize I wasn’t experiencing attraction (because I didn’t know it was *possible* to not experience attraction), and I had a sort of equal aesthetic appreciation of both genders, I thought the only explanation was that I was bi. A broken bisexual, destined to be alone because I couldn’t fathom actually getting close to anyone, but obviously bi. Right? Wrong, 18-year-old me. So wrong. And what gets me is all the people (still teenagers, usually) who say that sexuality education shouldn’t include ace or aro because, “asexual tumbly.hell really screwed me up, man! I thought I was ace and then I wasn’t!” So, because some people might accidentally ID as ace before discovering their actual identities, we should let every minor who is actually ace and/or aro continue to feel broken until they happen to be old enough to stumble across the term online somewhere, like I did at 21? And if your argument is, “ace tumblr screwed me up because I thought I was ace *and that made me feel broken*!” Then whose fucking fault is that, really? Besides the people who refuse to allow others to tell ace and aro minors that they are NOT broken; That their asexuality or aromanticism is valid as long as they identify with the label, and it is perfectly acceptable if they find a more appropriate label at a later date, and whether it changes for them or not, *they are still valid*? (hint: No one else’s. It’s definitely their fault.) Sexuality education should include all valid sexualities. Teenagers learning about the existence of asexuality and aromanticism is no different than them learning about the existence of bisexuality, or homosexuality. They’re no more likely to actually BE gay or ace or bi or anything else just by learning about them, but they deserve all the information. And if you’re advocating that they don’t, it’s kind of disgusting. Like conservatives advocating that teens not learn how to put on a condom in health class because mentioning sex will make them want sex (i.e. *sexualize* them, does that sound familiar?). That’s not discourse. That’s aphobia and erasure. (Also, PS, @feministingforchange First: I love your blog; second: I feel kind of squicky with ‘on the (a)-spectrum’ as a term to refer aspecs. Aspec is absolutely ours, but ‘on the spectrum’ is definitively theirs, so I feel like we shouldn’t.)

[feministingforchange]

Thanks for the blog love @shaselma, but let me just clarify something. We cannot say “on the spectrum” bc that is definitely about autistic ppl and I would NEVER use it intentionally (although it has slipped out of my mouth before and for that I apologize to all autistic ppl) and definitely advocate for it to stay their property. But “on the a-spectrum” (which is what I said) is totally fine, I mean, that’s literally what aspec refers to. :) 

Also, love your comment! I cannot understand throwing aspecs under the bus like this but they just cannot help themselves.

[feministingforchange]

(update/correction: I now realize that i’m actually autistic too)

Defining womanhood by female biological experiences liberates womanhood from gender roles. It means no matter who you are or what your personality is or how you dress or behave or what your interests are, your womanhood is valid.

[feministingforchange]

Did I say it or what?!? Apparently womanhood is defined by your reproductive parts ppl! You can all go home now, it’s been settled! 

But then… I wonder if I qualify as a woman now bc my parts are a little messed up with my urethral opening in my vagina (it’s called a urogenital sinus abnormality and it’s not even that uncommon). My physiology doesn’t fit the “normal” biology of a supposed “woman” so… do I count? I wonder… 

Basically this whole thing is fucking brutal and can go right to hell. I refuse to have my womanhood defined by my parts. If I have some removed bc of illness, do I still get to be a woman or am I “less” of a woman because of it? If I find out I’m incapable of reproduction, am I also no longer a woman? 

Like where tf do we draw the line on this shit?!?! 

It’s all so wrong and horrible omfg….. >_______>

[witwitch]

The point of this message is that womanhood is the experiences  that come from having female biology. You don’t need to have “ideal” female biology in order to still be female. Of course you count, no radfem is excluding you.

What else do you think womanhood should be defined by? Make up and hair styles and stereotypes?

Sex = biological reality.

Gender = social construct, gender is what oppresses us, gender forces us to be feminine, gender is the set of stereotypes we are forced in to since birth.

There’s a difference between sex and gender. Even if we abolish gender, biological sex will still exist. Womanhood is the experiences that come from having female biology.

I think this definition of womanhood is very liberating. It means you can have any interests, any hobbies, any style, any appearance, and still be a woman. It means that your womanhood is not based on how much you conform to stereotypes. Womanhood should not be about conforming to stereotypes.

[comrade-hannah]

also can I point out that having your urethra in your vagina has literally nothing to do with your biological sex? I’m assuming that person probably still produces eggs and even if she doesn’t, she sure as fuck doesn’t produce sperm

In science, we call people that produce eggs women and people that produce sperm men. so convenient.

even if you can’t say a woman has a vagina with a urethra above it and above that is the clitoris and above the vagina is a cervix followed by a uterus and fallopian tubes etc you sure as SHIT can say “a woman never produces sperm”.

Like you are not excluded from womanhood because of a fucking birth defect, just like we don’t exclude people without legs from personhood jesus fucking christ

[feministingforchange]

Wow… both of these ppl continue to pretend that my point isn’t meaningful when it is. I’m saying that if you’re going to define sex by our biology then where exactly is the line between male/female? And what if I wasn’t producing either eggs or sperm; what am I then? What happens when women get hysterectomies, what then? Are they no longer women? Biology changes, malfunctions, etc etc. Not to mention that it’s incredibly reductive…. My womanhood is NOT about my body. There is so much more to me. And even if it WAS just by body, that would just be me, one person. That’s hardly science.

These are just SOME of the reasons that biology is a shitty shitty shitty way of defining sex & gender, which both of you claim are somehow different from each other but then are constantly conflating them w/o an ounce of irony or shame. And that’s the point of my screencap above. You insist that we get rid of gender and that you’re super “gender critical” and what not, but then you do everything in your power to maintain a prescribed notion of what it means to be a woman that is as exclusionary as it is fucked up and illogical.  #RadFemLogic

[witwitch]

Female biological experiences are valid and important and it’s not “reductive” to acknowledge them as such.

Womanhood is about female biological experiences. Defining womanhood by biological experiences is much better than defining womanhood by how much you conform to patriarchal gender roles.

Defining womanhood by our biology means there is no right or wrong way to be a woman. It means women don’t have to conform to gender, an oppressive social construct invented by men, in order to be women.

Being a chef is about cooking food. You can’t be a chef if you don’t cook.

Being a writer is about writing books. You’re not a writer if you don’t write.

Being a smoker means you smoke cigarettes. you’re not a smoker if you’ve never done it.

If you call yourself one of those things, do people assume they’re reducing you to only that one thing? No. Talking about womanhood in reference to female biological experiences doesn’t mean that you can’t/don’t do other things, it means that other things are not related to womanhood. It means hobbies, clothes, interests, job, etc.. none of that has anything to do with womanhood.

Words have meanings. Defining womanhood as the label that female people have for our collective shared female biological experiences is important.

What word should female people use for our collective biological experiences, if we can’t use womanhood?

What does womanhood mean to you? Is womanhood absolutely meaningless to you? Or do you think womanhood is about conforming to gender stereotypes made up by males?

[feministingforchange]

For you womanhood is either a collection of parts or a series of stereotypes. But that is a false dichotomy that is hugely exclusionary and you need to move beyond that. 

Instead, womanhood is what we each make of it and it’s different for each and every of us. But no matter how womanhood presents, it’s always valid no matter your job, interests, sexual orientation, taste in music, biology, performance of femininity and masculinity, and so on and so forth. 

In this way, we can all congregate around our experiences as a woman w/o having a particular definition of what that is. I wonder if maybe you’re just uncomfortable with the “uncertainty” of leaving biology behind bc that means womanhood doesn’t have a particular definition and maybe that’s a bit unnerving for some. And by “leaving biology behind” I don’t mean that we forget it by any means bc it’s important. It’s just that it would be nice if we didn’t insist that all women have weewees and all men have peepees. That’s so not cool IMHO.

[witwitch]

So you think womanhood is meaningless?

I don’t think womanhood is a collection of parts, I think it’s a set of experiences unique to women.

What makes someone a woman? Who are women? How can feminism fight for women if we don’t even know what a woman is?

What word can female people use to describe our biological experiences?

Womanhood isn’t fucking meaningless. It means something and it means something important.

[feministingforchange]

See what I mean? You’re definitely uncomfortable with the notion that womanhood cannot be clearly defined and nailed down. Nothing in life is actually so rigid as we humans are trying to make sex and gender, and by doing so, we are being incredibly exclusionary. 

And please know that womanhood doesn’t have to have a prescribed definition to “have meaning”. We can all tell each other, as unique individual women, what that means to us. Our stories, our experiences, our unique biologies, how those biologies impact and are impacted by our patriarchal environment, etc etc. THESE collective experiences are what make us women, including but not limited to our bodies. And women have a VARIETY of bodies and they are all valid and should be recognized as such.

This essentially gives us the room to be who we are as women, including trans women who are excluded here (and trans men who are inaccurately included) by the popular notion that womanhood is “female biology”. Did you know that the notion of female & male is man-made? The biology itself is “real” but how we have symbolized & named it is entirely a social construct. Gender AND sex are both man-made social constructs and it’s really important that we all move past it as a definer of what it means to “be woman” and start welcoming women of ALL shapes and sizes into our ranks like we always should have. 

[witwitch]

Uhhh, yeah, I am, because a feminism that can’t define woman is completely useless. Who is feminism fighting for? What are the issues these people face in common together?

Yes, it does need to have a meaning in order to have a meaning. Having a meaning means having a meaning. Having a meaning does not mean obscure vague feelings about nothing in particular.

Language is a social construct, but biological sex isn’t a construct just because we use language to describe it. Sexual reproduction is real, you’re being willfully obtuse.

Social constructs are things that only exist within a specific society. Sorry but biological sex keeps existing in any and every context, because it’s real. Gender is oppressive to women and needs to be abolished.

You haven’t answered any of my questions. How do you expect feminism to fight for women when you don’t even know what a woman is to begin with? 

[feministingforchange]

Why are you so certain we “need” to define women to have an effective feminism? I think you’re the one being willfully ignorant here bc a) there’s no evidence that we need to define womanhood in fact all the evidence is to the contrary, and b) womanhood is too diverse an experience for you to be able to neatly label. Social reproduction is absolutely real but lots of men have babies too, lots of women can’t or choose not to have babies, lots of men can’t or won’t either, lots of women have penises, and there are lots of ppl with male/female bodies that do not ascribe to any gender at all. But you think you know best what their genders are, regardless of their personal feelings and beliefs, bc they have parts you deem to be “woman” or “man”???? NO! You are not the arbiter of this and you need to step off.

And what I’d really like to know is how do you EVER expect to do away with gender if you keep insisting upon it at every turn???? On the one hand you say that gender is oppressive but then in the next breath you insist on defining and controlling womanhood. If womanhood is something to be maintained and cordoned off from manhood, then how do we ever get rid of it?!?! I think that’s pretty misogynistic of you tbh. 

[feministingforchange]

^^^^^^!!!!

[reminiscingphosphorescence]

So basically, according to feministingforchange, anyone can identify as a woman if they say they’re a woman, and if I would want to talk about my biology with other women who’ve experienced the same things, or talk about sexual harassment with women who’ve grown up with it vs only experienced it when they transitioned from male to female, that would make me exclusionary?

[feministingforchange]

This is ridiculous. JUST BE SPECIFIC. Speak about cis women when you’re talking about cis women, females when speaking about females, women when you mean all of us, etc. That’s being SPECIFIC, not exclusionary. Easy peasy. *dusts off hands*

Also, you have to stop with the whole “perverted dudes are gonna pretend to be a woman and exploit transness to access women victims if we accept trans women as women” argument I’m detecting here bc it’s bullshit. 

I mean, if a guy wanted to go into a women’s bathroom to rape or peep (or whatever), he would find a way and we all know that many many have. Not to mention that trans women (& trans men) are in much more danger while using their proper facilities than cis women are:

More helpful info (p. 73-4):

And don’t ignore the increased washroom danger to PoC and ppl of low socioeconomic status in the study described above. It’s time to get real here TWEFs & TWERFs…. >_____>

[pineappleisdelicious]

It looks like you’ve already edited this but just for extra clarification: woman and female ARE SYNONYMOUS. Telling radfems to use “women” to refer to all of us and “females” to refer to those with “female biology” (which makes no sense, trans men and women have male and female biology respectively, all the time, regardless of how many surgeries they’ve had done, by virtue of being men and women) will only result in upholding the status quo when it comes to these people. They more often than not already do use “female” to refer to what they see as “all women” and they define them by their “female biology”. So yeah, they include cis women and trans men in their definition. This is violent misgendering. Their is no such thing as “female biology”, and trans men are never “female”. If you’re discussing periods (for example), and you want to describe people who get them, you can say “people who get periods”. It’s really not that hard. I don’t expect TWERFS to listen to this, but @feministingforchange this is something you should be aware of.

[feministingforchange]

I did actually already know this which is why I tried to edit my poorly written post above, but thank you x100000 for putting this into much clearer words!  

For anyone interested, this is the edited version of my post 💗

[feministingforchange]

Y’wanna know what’s really funny here? Years later, I’ve just discovered that my urogenital sinus abnormality is in fact an intersex condition so…. these TWERFS trying to deny that I’d be ousted as a woman by their twerfy, biologically essentializing standards is clearly bullshit. It’s painful to say this but by their rules, I am NOT a woman.

But my biology does not determine my gender.

I. DO.

[feministingforchange]

*I’ve also realized that i’m not cis, i’m non-binary ;)

Defining womanhood by female biological experiences liberates womanhood from gender roles. It means no matter who you are or what your personality is or how you dress or behave or what your interests are, your womanhood is valid.

[feministingforchange]

Did I say it or what?!? Apparently womanhood is defined by your reproductive parts ppl! You can all go home now, it’s been settled! 

But then… I wonder if I qualify as a woman now bc my parts are a little messed up with my urethral opening in my vagina (it’s called a urogenital sinus abnormality and it’s not even that uncommon). My physiology doesn’t fit the “normal” biology of a supposed “woman” so… do I count? I wonder… 

Basically this whole thing is fucking brutal and can go right to hell. I refuse to have my womanhood defined by my parts. If I have some removed bc of illness, do I still get to be a woman or am I “less” of a woman because of it? If I find out I’m incapable of reproduction, am I also no longer a woman? 

Like where tf do we draw the line on this shit?!?! 

It’s all so wrong and horrible omfg….. >_______>

[witwitch]

The point of this message is that womanhood is the experiences  that come from having female biology. You don’t need to have “ideal” female biology in order to still be female. Of course you count, no radfem is excluding you.

What else do you think womanhood should be defined by? Make up and hair styles and stereotypes?

Sex = biological reality.

Gender = social construct, gender is what oppresses us, gender forces us to be feminine, gender is the set of stereotypes we are forced in to since birth.

There’s a difference between sex and gender. Even if we abolish gender, biological sex will still exist. Womanhood is the experiences that come from having female biology.

I think this definition of womanhood is very liberating. It means you can have any interests, any hobbies, any style, any appearance, and still be a woman. It means that your womanhood is not based on how much you conform to stereotypes. Womanhood should not be about conforming to stereotypes.

[comrade-hannah]

also can I point out that having your urethra in your vagina has literally nothing to do with your biological sex? I’m assuming that person probably still produces eggs and even if she doesn’t, she sure as fuck doesn’t produce sperm

In science, we call people that produce eggs women and people that produce sperm men. so convenient.

even if you can’t say a woman has a vagina with a urethra above it and above that is the clitoris and above the vagina is a cervix followed by a uterus and fallopian tubes etc you sure as SHIT can say “a woman never produces sperm”.

Like you are not excluded from womanhood because of a fucking birth defect, just like we don’t exclude people without legs from personhood jesus fucking christ

[feministingforchange]

Wow… both of these ppl continue to pretend that my point isn’t meaningful when it is. I’m saying that if you’re going to define sex by our biology then where exactly is the line between male/female? And what if I wasn’t producing either eggs or sperm; what am I then? What happens when women get hysterectomies, what then? Are they no longer women? Biology changes, malfunctions, etc etc. Not to mention that it’s incredibly reductive…. My womanhood is NOT about my body. There is so much more to me. And even if it WAS just by body, that would just be me, one person. That’s hardly science.

These are just SOME of the reasons that biology is a shitty shitty shitty way of defining sex & gender, which both of you claim are somehow different from each other but then are constantly conflating them w/o an ounce of irony or shame. And that’s the point of my screencap above. You insist that we get rid of gender and that you’re super “gender critical” and what not, but then you do everything in your power to maintain a prescribed notion of what it means to be a woman that is as exclusionary as it is fucked up and illogical.  #RadFemLogic

[witwitch]

Female biological experiences are valid and important and it’s not “reductive” to acknowledge them as such.

Womanhood is about female biological experiences. Defining womanhood by biological experiences is much better than defining womanhood by how much you conform to patriarchal gender roles.

Defining womanhood by our biology means there is no right or wrong way to be a woman. It means women don’t have to conform to gender, an oppressive social construct invented by men, in order to be women.

Being a chef is about cooking food. You can’t be a chef if you don’t cook.

Being a writer is about writing books. You’re not a writer if you don’t write.

Being a smoker means you smoke cigarettes. you’re not a smoker if you’ve never done it.

If you call yourself one of those things, do people assume they’re reducing you to only that one thing? No. Talking about womanhood in reference to female biological experiences doesn’t mean that you can’t/don’t do other things, it means that other things are not related to womanhood. It means hobbies, clothes, interests, job, etc.. none of that has anything to do with womanhood.

Words have meanings. Defining womanhood as the label that female people have for our collective shared female biological experiences is important.

What word should female people use for our collective biological experiences, if we can’t use womanhood?

What does womanhood mean to you? Is womanhood absolutely meaningless to you? Or do you think womanhood is about conforming to gender stereotypes made up by males?

[feministingforchange]

For you womanhood is either a collection of parts or a series of stereotypes. But that is a false dichotomy that is hugely exclusionary and you need to move beyond that. 

Instead, womanhood is what we each make of it and it’s different for each and every of us. But no matter how womanhood presents, it’s always valid no matter your job, interests, sexual orientation, taste in music, biology, performance of femininity and masculinity, and so on and so forth. 

In this way, we can all congregate around our experiences as a woman w/o having a particular definition of what that is. I wonder if maybe you’re just uncomfortable with the “uncertainty” of leaving biology behind bc that means womanhood doesn’t have a particular definition and maybe that’s a bit unnerving for some. And by “leaving biology behind” I don’t mean that we forget it by any means bc it’s important. It’s just that it would be nice if we didn’t insist that all women have weewees and all men have peepees. That’s so not cool IMHO.

[witwitch]

So you think womanhood is meaningless?

I don’t think womanhood is a collection of parts, I think it’s a set of experiences unique to women.

What makes someone a woman? Who are women? How can feminism fight for women if we don’t even know what a woman is?

What word can female people use to describe our biological experiences?

Womanhood isn’t fucking meaningless. It means something and it means something important.

[feministingforchange]

See what I mean? You’re definitely uncomfortable with the notion that womanhood cannot be clearly defined and nailed down. Nothing in life is actually so rigid as we humans are trying to make sex and gender, and by doing so, we are being incredibly exclusionary. 

And please know that womanhood doesn’t have to have a prescribed definition to “have meaning”. We can all tell each other, as unique individual women, what that means to us. Our stories, our experiences, our unique biologies, how those biologies impact and are impacted by our patriarchal environment, etc etc. THESE collective experiences are what make us women, including but not limited to our bodies. And women have a VARIETY of bodies and they are all valid and should be recognized as such.

This essentially gives us the room to be who we are as women, including trans women who are excluded here (and trans men who are inaccurately included) by the popular notion that womanhood is “female biology”. Did you know that the notion of female & male is man-made? The biology itself is “real” but how we have symbolized & named it is entirely a social construct. Gender AND sex are both man-made social constructs and it’s really important that we all move past it as a definer of what it means to “be woman” and start welcoming women of ALL shapes and sizes into our ranks like we always should have. 

[witwitch]

Uhhh, yeah, I am, because a feminism that can’t define woman is completely useless. Who is feminism fighting for? What are the issues these people face in common together?

Yes, it does need to have a meaning in order to have a meaning. Having a meaning means having a meaning. Having a meaning does not mean obscure vague feelings about nothing in particular.

Language is a social construct, but biological sex isn’t a construct just because we use language to describe it. Sexual reproduction is real, you’re being willfully obtuse.

Social constructs are things that only exist within a specific society. Sorry but biological sex keeps existing in any and every context, because it’s real. Gender is oppressive to women and needs to be abolished.

You haven’t answered any of my questions. How do you expect feminism to fight for women when you don’t even know what a woman is to begin with? 

[feministingforchange]

Why are you so certain we “need” to define women to have an effective feminism? I think you’re the one being willfully ignorant here bc a) there’s no evidence that we need to define womanhood in fact all the evidence is to the contrary, and b) womanhood is too diverse an experience for you to be able to neatly label. Social reproduction is absolutely real but lots of men have babies too, lots of women can’t or choose not to have babies, lots of men can’t or won’t either, lots of women have penises, and there are lots of ppl with male/female bodies that do not ascribe to any gender at all. But you think you know best what their genders are, regardless of their personal feelings and beliefs, bc they have parts you deem to be “woman” or “man”???? NO! You are not the arbiter of this and you need to step off.

And what I’d really like to know is how do you EVER expect to do away with gender if you keep insisting upon it at every turn???? On the one hand you say that gender is oppressive but then in the next breath you insist on defining and controlling womanhood. If womanhood is something to be maintained and cordoned off from manhood, then how do we ever get rid of it?!?! I think that’s pretty misogynistic of you tbh. 

[feministingforchange]

^^^^^^!!!!

[reminiscingphosphorescence]

So basically, according to feministingforchange, anyone can identify as a woman if they say they’re a woman, and if I would want to talk about my biology with other women who’ve experienced the same things, or talk about sexual harassment with women who’ve grown up with it vs only experienced it when they transitioned from male to female, that would make me exclusionary?

[feministingforchange]

This is ridiculous. JUST BE SPECIFIC. Speak about cis women when you’re talking about cis women, females when speaking about females, women when you mean all of us, etc. That’s being SPECIFIC, not exclusionary. Easy peasy. *dusts off hands*

Also, you have to stop with the whole “perverted dudes are gonna pretend to be a woman and exploit transness to access women victims if we accept trans women as women” argument I’m detecting here bc it’s bullshit. 

I mean, if a guy wanted to go into a women’s bathroom to rape or peep (or whatever), he would find a way and we all know that many many have. Not to mention that trans women (& trans men) are in much more danger while using their proper facilities than cis women are:

More helpful info (p. 73-4):

And don’t ignore the increased washroom danger to PoC and ppl of low socioeconomic status in the study described above. It’s time to get real here TWEFs & TWERFs…. >_____>

[pineappleisdelicious]

It looks like you’ve already edited this but just for extra clarification: woman and female ARE SYNONYMOUS. Telling radfems to use “women” to refer to all of us and “females” to refer to those with “female biology” (which makes no sense, trans men and women have male and female biology respectively, all the time, regardless of how many surgeries they’ve had done, by virtue of being men and women) will only result in upholding the status quo when it comes to these people. They more often than not already do use “female” to refer to what they see as “all women” and they define them by their “female biology”. So yeah, they include cis women and trans men in their definition. This is violent misgendering. Their is no such thing as “female biology”, and trans men are never “female”. If you’re discussing periods (for example), and you want to describe people who get them, you can say “people who get periods”. It’s really not that hard. I don’t expect TWERFS to listen to this, but @feministingforchange this is something you should be aware of.

[feministingforchange]

I did actually already know this which is why I tried to edit my poorly written post above, but thank you x100000 for putting this into much clearer words!  

For anyone interested, this is the edited version of my post 💗

[feministingforchange]

Y’wanna know what’s really funny here? Years later, I’ve just discovered that my urogenital sinus abnormality is in fact an intersex condition so…. these TWERFS trying to deny that I’d be ousted as a woman by their twerfy, biologically essentializing standards is clearly bullshit. It’s painful to say this but by their rules, I am NOT a woman.

But my biology does not determine my gender.

I. DO.

[forevrdreamingofbetterthings]

*I’ve also realized that i’m not cis, i’m non-binary ;)

Let’s be clear.

[feferi-hates-pedos]

LOLICON AND SHOTA ARE FANCY NAMES FOR CHILD PORN. CONSUMING IT DOESN’T MAKE YOU ANY BETTER THAN THOSE WHO DON’T TOUCH KIDS. YOU’RE STILL JACKING OFF TO CHILDREN. YOU’RE GROSS.

[feministingforchange]

And as my good friend @vivaladivatracy has rightly pointed out, no child could EVER consent to being in any kind of porn and so it’s technically NOT “child porn” (bc porn is supposed to be consensual!!). Instead, it’s actually “recorded evidence of child sexual assault/abuse”. In the case of written and drawn shit, it’s technically “simulated child sexual assault/abuse”.

Now… doesn’t that sound one fuck-ton less “appealing” as some sort of “coping mechanism” than cp (which technically implies some sort of consent)? Bc it never SHOULD have sounded in any way ok to any of you, and so i sure as shit hope this slight language difference will help you all to finally put this nasty-ass fucking horror show into the right fucking perspective.

blocking aphobes like

[feministingforchange]

blocking aphobes like

[feministingforchange]

Anonymous asked:

tfw youre fiercely defensive of the internet and online friendships because its so much easier and better in almost every way when you don't have to worry about facial expression or body language and ambiguous things like tone of voice are now being conveyed through more concrete things like emoticons. AND you lose words less when you can type them out. but everyone else just thinks you're a "technology-addicted millenial"

undiagnosedautismfeels answered:

[autistic-culture-is]

autistic culture is the only thing that makes sense to me in this allistic world, and i’m so happy to have finally come “home”.

[forevrdreamingofbetterthings]

(mine)

really quickly: it’s okay to break up with someone for being ace. just like it’s okay to break up with someone for being non-ace. if your ideals do not match up to the point where y’all can’t make it work comfortably, there’s no shame in ending things.

This just in: Asexuality = “an ideal” now so it’s totally not at all aphobic to break up with someone just for being ace-spec. Why, you ask?? Bc an exclusionist says so. /sarcasm

(via feministingforchange)

Sorry but it’s completely reasonable for someone to leave you because your sexual desires don’t match up. No one owes you their time or attraction.

(via angryintersectionalfeminist)

Ummm… no offense or anything but that’s not at all what this is about. I mean, your statement and that of the OP quoted above are based in a very WRONG, harmful, and bigoted “definition” of asexuality. 

To be clear:

Asexuality is about WHO you’re sexually attracted to (= no one) and has nothing to do with actions/practices/ideals/or even the desire/need to HAVE and enjoy sex itself. 

In fact, while some ace-specs are sex-repulsed lots are not and can in fact enjoy sex (myself included!!), and some of us are even hypersexual!!! Appreciating/enjoying/needing/or even just being indifferent to sex does NOT invalidate our orientations as ace-spec in the least bc that’s not what asexuality is about: It’s about a lack of sexual attraction. Not to mention the fact that lots of non-aces are sex-repulsed too, so why haven’t you brought them up in all this if it’s so goddamn important to you? Or is it just us aces you wanna attack? Based, ofc, in faulty logic and bigotry.

So gtf out of my face with this aphobic nonsense. No one here is saying anyone needs to stay in a relationship where their needs are not met. 

I’m saying it’s bigoted and WRONG to assume that just bc someone’s asexual they won’t meet your needs bc asexuality says literally NOTHING about that. 

(via feministingforchange)

Let’s be clear.

[feferi-hates-pedos]

LOLICON AND SHOTA ARE FANCY NAMES FOR CHILD PORN. CONSUMING IT DOESN’T MAKE YOU ANY BETTER THAN THOSE WHO DON’T TOUCH KIDS. YOU’RE STILL JACKING OFF TO CHILDREN. YOU’RE GROSS.

[forevrdreamingofbetterthings]

And as my good friend @vivaladivatracy has rightly pointed out, no child could EVER consent to being in any kind of porn and so it’s technically NOT “child porn” (bc porn is supposed to be consensual!!). Instead, it’s actually “recorded evidence of child sexual assault/abuse”. In the case of written and drawn shit, it’s technically “simulated child sexual assault/abuse”.

Now… doesn’t that sound one fuck-ton less “appealing” as some sort of “coping mechanism” than cp (which technically implies some sort of consent)? Bc it never SHOULD have sounded in any way ok to any of you, and so i sure as shit hope this slight language difference will help you all to finally put this nasty-ass fucking horror show into the right fucking perspective.

Anonymous asked:

So what are your feelings on the ace discourse now that you're realizing you might not be asexual? I know one of the biggest reasons people don't want ace education is because of other LGBT+ kids using it was a way to not have to accept their true sexuality

bisexualgambit answered:

I’ve always hated that argument and I hate it even more now that I’ve been through it.

Stop using internalized homophobia and internalized transphobia to justify denying people learning about their identities. If a kid is going to use a different label to deny their internalized homophobia/transphobia, they isn’t anyone’s fault but The Straights™ and their heteronormativity. 

feministingforchange:

shaselma:

feministingforchange:

toxicrants:

feministingforchange:

mynameiskleio:

feministingforchange:

introvertedtothenthdegree:

feministingforchange:

THANK YOU!!! WHY TF do these jackasses think it’s legit and ok to deny a-spec IDs to kids (and to everyone, quite frankly) simply bc they fear kids might use it to hide from their “True LGBT IDs”™, even if just for a while. 

Let’s actually THINK for a moment about what this argument is saying. 

They want to deny a-spec to ALL kids that might need it bc they don’t want some kids to use it as a crutch while they come to terms with their actual (or simply “other”) IDs along the way. OMG the horror of such a prospect! /sarcasm. 

To me, as an actual a-spec who experiences panromanticism, I cannot imagine denying this to kids simply bc, let’s face it, you hate all a-specs. I mean, where’s the concern for the a-specs who get forced into uncomfortable and sometimes abusive relationships because they don’t even KNOW or understand that their feelings are valid, normal, and ok and that they have a community to support them? That they don’t HAVE to be in a sexual relationship if they don’t want to and that there IS a split attraction model that could help them to better understand themselves (e.g., I’m panromantic demisexual). 

IOW, this mentality demonstrates: 

1. A need to force LGBT+ kids to come to terms with their IDs before they’re ready, and 
   
2. A need to make damn sure those IDs aren’t a-spec 
   

Why do a-spec kids (& ADULTS!!) have to be thrown under the bus for other LGBT+ kids?!?!? 

I’ll tell you why: APHOBIA + ALLOSEXISM

FUCK OFF WITH THIS HORRIBLE APHOBIC SHIT AND LET US ALL JUST BEEEEE!!!!

what the bleeding fuck anon.
As someone who is ace and couldn’t for the life of me figure out if I was bi or straight from age 14-19 and spent years questioning what I was (bc its reeeeeall hard to figure out sexuality when you’ve never felt sexual attraction to jack shit) that’s fucked up. Whenever you deny kids information about asexuality and the right to identify as such, you’re hurting them. Let kids learn about all different sexualities and labels, including asexual Later on, if it turns out that label doesn’t fit and they realize their sexuality is something else- big whoop! Kids make mistakes, adults make mistakes and sexuality can be fluid too! Hows about we start unconditionally loving and supporting LGBTQIAP+ people, esp. the questioning kiddos and teach about ALL orientations.

Right on! The only ppl supporting reduced sex/orientation education seem to be aphobes and the abstinence-only crew. I think that says a lot…

As a side note, I’m not sure/convinced that anon supports that position; I just think they were describing it. I hope that’s all they were doing anyway *crosses fingers & toes for humanity’s sake*

I’m about to turn 49 and in the past year I’ve started to believe that I’m asexual. I enjoy sex, I’m attracted to my partner, but I could live without sex. I rarely initiate, I don’t feel attracted to people I don’t have an emotional attachment to and I fucking wish I had known about a-spec when I was growing up.

The amount of heart ache and sexual abuse I would have been spared boggles my mind. Don’t deny knowledge to people out of fear.

@toxicrants <3

That is such a joke because I identified as bi-sexual for a while before discovering I was most likely Demi-sexual or fluid and let me tell you, plenty of LGBT+ people considered bi the ‘inbetween people use to stay half in the closet’. I mean, people are still biphobic as shit in and out of the community but atleast people these days know about bi-sexuality and aren’t trying to suppress people learning about it because ‘OMFG what if the kids pretend they’re bi instead of gay!’ 

Who the fuck cares? Who cares if people honestly believe they identify as something before realising they’re something else? Who cares if kids maybe misrepresent themselves to test the waters before coming out as what they really believe they are? If kids use one label to hide what they actually are that doesn’t mean ‘Hey let’s get rid of the other sexuality’ it means ‘shit we’ve still got a long way to go before kids are comfortable with themselves’. You can’t throw asexuals under the bus cause maybe some gay kids might use it for a while???

Not to mention that you can be gay and on the a-spectrum. 

As a teenager, after years of wrestling with my myself over what I felt (and didn’t feel), I came to the conclusion that I must be bi. Because at that point I didn’t realize I wasn’t experiencing attraction (because I didn’t know it was *possible* to not experience attraction), and I had a sort of equal aesthetic appreciation of both genders, I thought the only explanation was that I was bi. A broken bisexual, destined to be alone because I couldn’t fathom actually getting close to anyone, but obviously bi. Right? Wrong, 18-year-old me. So wrong. And what gets me is all the people (still teenagers, usually) who say that sexuality education shouldn’t include ace or aro because, “asexual tumbly.hell really screwed me up, man! I thought I was ace and then I wasn’t!” So, because some people might accidentally ID as ace before discovering their actual identities, we should let every minor who is actually ace and/or aro continue to feel broken until they happen to be old enough to stumble across the term online somewhere, like I did at 21? And if your argument is, “ace tumblr screwed me up because I thought I was ace *and that made me feel broken*!” Then whose fucking fault is that, really? Besides the people who refuse to allow others to tell ace and aro minors that they are NOT broken; That their asexuality or aromanticism is valid as long as they identify with the label, and it is perfectly acceptable if they find a more appropriate label at a later date, and whether it changes for them or not, *they are still valid*? (hint: No one else’s. It’s definitely their fault.) Sexuality education should include all valid sexualities. Teenagers learning about the existence of asexuality and aromanticism is no different than them learning about the existence of bisexuality, or homosexuality. They’re no more likely to actually BE gay or ace or bi or anything else just by learning about them, but they deserve all the information. And if you’re advocating that they don’t, it’s kind of disgusting. Like conservatives advocating that teens not learn how to put on a condom in health class because mentioning sex will make them want sex (i.e. *sexualize* them, does that sound familiar?). That’s not discourse. That’s aphobia and erasure. (Also, PS,

@feministingforchange

First: I love your blog; second: I feel kind of squicky with ‘on the (a)-spectrum’ as a term to refer aspecs. Aspec is absolutely ours, but ‘on the spectrum’ is definitively theirs, so I feel like we shouldn’t.)

Thanks for the blog love @shaselma, but let me just clarify something. We cannot say “on the spectrum” bc that is definitely about autistic ppl and I would NEVER use it intentionally (although it has slipped out of my mouth before and for that I apologize to all autistic ppl) and definitely advocate for it to stay their property. But “on the a-spectrum” (which is what I said) is totally fine, I mean, that’s literally what aspec refers to. :) 

Also, love your comment! I cannot understand throwing aspecs under the bus like this but they just cannot help themselves.

(update/correction: I now realize that i’m actually autistic too)

[gildedpheonix]

Autism positivity isn’t ignoring all of the hardships that come with autistic.

It’s accepting yourself the way you are and learning to love yourself.

[feministingforchange]

LMAO exclusionists are so goddamn entitled to our time, energy, and platforms apparently. I’m so tired of being slapped in the face with aphobic nonsense, calling it out, blocking the ppl hurting me and my friends & community, and then being told I ///have to/// ////discuss//// it with the ppl responsible, who are not even remotely interested in learning and just want to talk over & erase us. 

To them I say:

blocking aphobes like

[feministingforchange]