likely in response to my comments on the beehaw post, which i linked to (hopefully im doing this right?). apparently, calling people you dont know for the first time “they/them” before being told their pronouns is “misgendering”. absurd. this kind of attitude threatens the larger LGBTQ community and is partially why cishets hate us after we won so much progress back in the 00s and 10s.

im a queer person. im neurodivergent. this shit is so goddamn fucking annoying, especially as an older queer who got physically assaulted on a near daily basis for being queer in the 90s. the kids today get their panties in a twist over being supposedly “misgendered” by someone calling them gender neutral pronouns before being corrected. narcissistic victimhood bullshit.

anyways, now banned from one of my favorite instances. meanwhile in the US theyre planning on hunting us. but yeah, lets ban fellow queers over their view that people who get mad about being “misgendered” when they arent (cis people are also referred to as “they/them” before further context in a conversation with a stranger) are just attention seeking brats that threaten the larger movement. its so obvious to me that the brats who find reason to be offended over innocent pronoun use never faced real adversity, like getting repeatedly physically beaten.

edit - the best part of all of this is i faced no moderation from beehaw and all of my comments are +1 or higher. power tripping oversensitive neurodivergent hating bastard of a mod over at blahaj IMO.

edit 2 - did this wrong. heres a link to the post i think got me banned from blahaj and a screenshot about it https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/37659465

Edit 3 - apparently I did nothing wrong until I made my thoughts known about how the pronoun police fucked over the larger LGBTQ community as our rights are backsliding in America. Yall are gonna whine about being misgendered to the concentration camp guards at the rate we’re going. God forbid I be angry that while queers were busy fighting over pronouns our adversaries stuffed the courts, stuffed the school boards, couped the government, and are installing a fascist dictatorship. When I say that these fucking toddlers are going to learn what real oppression tastes like, that’s what I mean. It’s not that I want us to be hurt or oppressed (as the dog piling idiots have interpreted), it’s that the younger generation is weak as hell and lost the fucking plot in the fight for our rights. I grew up getting beaten in the streets for being queer only for these kids to claim their pronouns not being mind-read is oppression!

    • Unruffled [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comMEnglish
      11·
      21 hours ago

      You are welcome here buddy. I get where you are coming from and I used to think in a similar way to you about this topic. I also think dialogue is much more appropriate than sanctions and wild accusations in this sort of situation.

      The gay liberation movement was in some ways a very socially conservative branch of queer activism that sought social acceptance for gay men and women, primarily. The approach we took (I’m 50 years old btw) was to adopt mainstream concepts like the gender binary and monogamous marriage and then advocate to extend those concepts to include gay relationships. The truly subversive queer activism of the late 60s and 70s turned into a quest for acceptance rather than a quest to disrupt the status quo. I don’t mean to minimize the achievements of the gay liberation movement, but in reality it did very little for trans folk and did little to challenge existing social structures. It did of course benefit gay men and women, and that should not be discounted. But it was never really about trans rights.

      Younger trans folk are more ambitious. They tend to view the success of gay liberation as a capitulation to the mainstream. They could have gone the same route of minimal resistance to the status quo and just advocated for acceptance of trans men and trans women. But instead they are seeking to tear down the tyranny of the gender binary, which is very much so a social construct, albeit distantly rooted in biology. Anthropologists and sociologists have long studied the performativity of gender, and how it is mostly tied to social expectations and norms within a culture rather than any sort of biological essentialism.

      So in a way, young trans folk are simply carrying on the tradition of queer radicalism that the gays abandoned in our quest for social acceptance. And I admire them for that. Do I think it will ever lead to a mainstreaming of trans identities? Not really, to be honest. But that isn’t necessarily the goal here. The goal is more to carve out a space for trans folk where they can play with the idea of identity and gender, in order to deconstruct it and challenge it, and to evolve our culture in a humanistic way, rather than clinging to social norms like they are somehow not systems of oppression and discipline ala Foucault.

      The question fundamentally is whether it’s better to conform to social expectations to fit in at the expense of giving up on the more radical project of changing culture, or whether it’s best to reject the status quo and simply invent your own culture and spaces. While there is a pragmatism to the former that makes a certain sort of sense, there’s also a bravery and radicalism centred around the latter project that I find more exciting and meaningful.

      I’d also point out that this isn’t an either/or scenario. We can enjoy the benefit of gay liberation while also supporting the younger generation to challenge the very social structures that oppress us all.

      One key example would be that in the 60s and 70s queer folk and feminists were calling for the abolition of marriage, not for it to be extended to gay people. The marriage abolitionists were much more radical, socially. And many young queer folk (based on my understanding) feel that gender abolition would be a positive step to ending gender apartheid. I’ve gotta say that it took me a while to come around to it, but I’m on board with that objective, even to the point where I’m considering changing my pronouns to they/them.

      I don’t really understand why we need a massive extension of gender pronouns to achieve this objective, since if everyone became they/them that would be a good outcome imo. But that’s just my personal opinion. I can see how you can also undermine gender apartheid by making the concept of gender so diverse that it undermines the primacy of the male and female categories. It’s just another way to skin the cat.

      In this specific case, I’d say it’s PTB + YDI. I don’t like the militant way in which some trans folk label anyone with a slightly different take on these topics as “transphobic”. How are you ever gonna build support and understanding by insta-jumping to bad faith conclusions at the slightest sign of dissent with the group-think? But then again, trans folk are entitled to a safe space where they can freely explore their identity without constantly having to defend themselves.

      That’s lot of words to say I hear you, I acknowledge your experience, and I share some of your concerns. But I also think blaming vulnerable populations for the political climate right now is completely unfair and uncalled for. Trans folks aren’t undermining gay liberation, they are just trying a different approach, and they don’t want to have to conform to social expectations in order to be accepted. They want to be accepted on their own terms, and I acknowledge their bravery in doing so, despite the push-back.