Another thing the crying discourse is making me think about—probably more controversially than the other things I said is:
Sj communities have understandable reasons to exclude people, BUT exclusion is almost always experienced as painful.
What I mean is: you know that guy who doesn’t get let into the no dudes allowed feminist online forum and yells about it, or the cis person who seems weirdly aggressive about following people who have “don’t follow if ur cishet 🌈🌈🌈” in their byf, or whatever?
Im gonna defend those people for a second. I know, I know.
We tend to classify those people as “entitled” or at least as “nosy”—why are they obsessed with finding out what we talk about when they’re not around? Ugh privilege amirite ew!
But the thing is… exclusion is something humans experience as painful usually. We experience it as something like rejection or shunning, and being rejected makes us get Emotional.
Like, I remember years ago I looked through someone’s online store. The person who ran the store also ran some kind of online forum for wlw. It didn’t ban bisexuals, BUT it insisted that any bi woman who wanted to join was required to reject sexual interactions with men and promise they would never again date any.
I didn’t really understand this at the time. My mind went “what would be so different about me than other bi women that I can’t even talk to them? How can anyone promise never to date a gender they’re attracted to ever again?”
And I couldn’t think of an answer. So I emailed and asked “what’s the difference between someone who has dated men and chooses no longer to do so and a bi person like me who has (at that time) never dated anyone?” And the response I got back was of course that I was being entitled and trying to barge into peoples space.
And the thing is… I didn’t get it. And most of tumblr would side with me on that I think: that’s “biphobic.” (In quotes to say the thing has A label not to claim biphobia is not real.)
My emotions—my feelings—were: “what possible secrets could exist that bi women can’t even hear lest the Lesbians be cursed?”
And the thing is… exclusion isn’t always inappropriate or wrong. Excluding white men from the lesbian woc dance makes sense.
But being excluded feels painful, and I’m pretty sure it feels that way whether the reason you’re excluded makes sense or not. Humans are hardwired to want to join groups, and to feel uncomfortable when groups push them away.
So… I don’t know. Sj isn’t always bad. But I sometimes feel like sj says “if you’re excluded and you get defensive, it shows you are entitled”
When the more I think about it the more I suspect it’s “if you’re excluded and you get defensive, you’re perfectly normal, but quite possibly also annoying.”
Well, like, the other thing is that this particular dynamic is one where the people doing the excluding are positioning themselves as moral authorities.
Suppose I’ve grown up thinking that feminism is the moral authority on gender relations and that the patriarchy is evil and pervasive.
How am I going to react to being told that I need to be excluded from feminist spaces, especially if that exclusion is based on a part of myself I can’t change?
As far as I can tell the canon SJW response is that in a patriarchal society there are already plenty of existing spaces for the privileged, but if I’ve really bought into the idea that the patriarchy is evil then it no longer has the capacity to comfort me psychologically.
“Come on, the evil people we’re trying to stop are still there for you, so why are you whining?”
Like, imagine someone who is expelled from a Christian Church, and the pastor has this conversation with them,
“I don’t know why you’re so damn needy about getting back into our Church’s good graces, there are lots of religions out there. The Church of Satan is right down the road, I know they’ll take you in.”
“So… So you’re saying those other religions aren’t so bad, and that there’s lots of paths to God?”
“Oh, no the Church of Satan is deeply heretical and you’ll probably be going to Hell if you join, but the point is that you can join them if you need a church so badly.”
I hadn’t specifically thought of that but yeah.
“White people are colonizer devils and you can’t trust a thing they say. Don’t listen to allies, they’re idiots. Listen only to us! Wait whoa whoa who said we wanted you around!? You think you’re allowed in here? Go hang out with your ugly sexist men and your latte drinking Beckys! …wait, you don’t want to? Why not? Oh boo hoo.”
I think expecting people to change their dating habits to join a freaking internet forum is entitled. That’s an awful rule.
I can see this from both sides: both that it’s painful and terrible to be rejected and excluded, but also that sometimes a group needs exclusive spaces.
I don’t know what the solution is, except being kinder and more welcoming to allies. Have spaces where allies are allowed and welcomed, interact with allies in these spaces.
That’s really the only solution I can think of too, deflection through “well we won’t see you tonight, but we all hang out over here together on Thursday though!” or the like.
How and when do you communicate with allies and how do you treat them? If the answer is never it might be worth thinking about why that is.
I’m not going to say separate spaces are NEVER good, but… the experiences I’ve had in them have pretty much all been disappointing and full of bitterness.
It’s entirely possible that the identities I don’t have are precisely the identities that get the most out of separate spaces, but I’ve personally very rarely seen ones that don’t get ugly.
Tag: fences
Exclusionists who complain about “cishet apologists”, “cishet lapdogs”, etc. and then turn around and mock “mogai hell” identities because apparently we need to make our community palatable to cis straight people so badly its important to shut down identities that they might not take seriously enough be quiet challenge.
*sips coffee* what a beautiful day to remember that asexuality is real and what the A in LGBTQA+ stands for and that they are not straight but a part of the LGBTQA+ community
What a beautiful day to remember that the people who create the “ace people are straight,” the “bi people are straight,” the “trans people are misogynist,” etc. propaganda are trying to tear the queer community apart to make us all easier to pick off so if you’ve fallen for it or spread it yourself, you’re enabling people who want to do harm.
What a beautiful day to remember the Q stands for both Queer and Questioning, and that Queer isn’t a slur and also it’s okay to not really know what you are yet.
This is good tea
“Young teens cant be ace!!!!!!!! 13/14yos dont experience sexual attraction!!!!!!!!!”
13/14 is right at the start of puberty. Guess what comes along with puberty?
Sexual feelings! Sexual attraction! Wow! There is absolutely nothing predatory about acknowledging that teens have sexual feelings. Theres nothing abnormal about teens having sexual feelings. To say otherwise is adopting the same mentality as the prudes who insist teens dont need sex ed because they’re ~too young~
Young teens can be straight. Young teens can be gay. And YES, young teens can be ace. Should they just assume they’re ace immediately? Probably not, since late bloomers exist, but it is frankly asinine to say that young teens dont/cant experience sexual attraction despite the very plain and clear evidence that they can and do.
There are a lot of good arguments for ace exclusion. “Teens cant be ace!!1!1!!” is not one of them.
ALSO NOT EVERY ACE USES SAM.
fucking good ass post op
Its also OKAY if they’re wrong. Its okay to ID as ace then realize you’re not actually ace a few years later. Plenty of people identify wrong at first. Some bi people first thought they were gay/lesbian, and inverse. Some nb people first identified as binary trans, and inverse. Its okay to be wrong.
More than 20 years ago, I volunteered at a local Intermediate School (Between “Elementary” and “Middle” grades – the kids’ ages ranged from 9 to 11 years old), and was assigned to help about 5 girls who were reading/writing at a level above their class average work on a group project.
In between brainstorming sessions, they’d talk about having crushes on boys, and who was in love with whom in their class. As someone who (I now realize) has always been aromantic/asexual, I found that mind-boggling. But I never told them what they were feeling was wrong
If kids can start expressing feelings of attraction at that age, and the culture at large accepts it as a normal part of just who they are growing to be, why should that level of self-awareness be seen as unnatural in kids that are 4, 5, 6 years older?
Lesbians that accept bi girls until they date a man, then call them bihets and say they deserve any abuse they get, are the fedora-wearing Nice Guys of the wlw world.
no one is saying you have to stop calling yourself queer, and its great that you can reclaim a slur!! Its amazing to bring piwer to urself!!! But some ppl have trauma with the word and that needs to be respected by not using it on lgbt who are uncomfy with ut
Y’all are some of the most disingenuous motherfuckers. I am exhausted. And I am really done with this trauma argument.
A confession: I have been harassed and verbally abused with it/its pronouns before.
I don’t fully understand why some trans people choose to use it pronouns for themselves, and I don’t follow anyone who does anymore because seeing someone referred to as “it” upsets me.
However, I do not shame or belittle trans folks who use it/its pronouns in a reclaiming fashion because it’s none of my business and I am not a piece of obnoxious shit.
If you have trauma associated with the word queer, then you need to respect me and yourself enough to not interact with my blog.
This blog literally has QUEER in its url, name, and description. Every other post on this blog contains the word QUEER. This blog is about QUEER people, for QUEER people, by a QUEER person.
No one is forcing you to interact with this blog. No one is forcing you to interact with the QUEER community. No one is forcing you to apply the word QUEER to your own identity.
Block blogs that have queer in their url. Add the word QUEER to your Tumblr tag blacklist. Download one of the many different apps and browser extensions that exist and use it to hide posts with the word QUEER in them.
Try taking at least some responsibility for your own mental health.
You aren’t queer? You don’t like the word? That’s fine. Your feelings and your trauma are valid.
But hear this: y’all need to leave QUEER people the FUCK alone.
Stop adding “queer is a slur” to our posts.
Stop inviting yourselves onto our posts to whine about the phrase “queer community”.
Don’t reblog our posts if you’re going to tag them with “#q slur”.
Stop making discourse of our genders and sexualities.
Stop trying to create rules over who is allowed to call themselves queer when you yourself are not queer.
Stop sending us invasive messages demanding to know “how” we’re queer or if we’re “really lgbt”.
Stop trying to make the queer community responsible for your personal baggage, as if we aren’t surviving with our own.
Let QUEER people live.
god yes OP
“Stop trying to make the queer community responsible for your personal baggage, as if we aren’t surviving with our own.”
Holy shit. Exactly.
“Have you ever tried not being gay?” has been consistently recognized within lgbt circles for its absurdity and wilfull ignorance of our reality, so you’d have to be pretty fucking stupid to turn around and then refuse to see the problem with “if bi women don’t want men to abuse them just stop being bi :)”
I mean they aren’t stupid, they are making an environment where youngsters are blind to abuse within the community cause outside is worse
“queer” is such a useless term. if i tell someone im bisexual, they know i am attracted to men and women. if a man tells me he is gay, i know he is a man exclusively attracted to other men. if someone tells me they are queer, it tells me nothing about them. it doesnt tell me who they attracted to. it tells me nothing about that person.
It tells me they’re trying to be a extra lil bitch and that I shouldn’t be friends with them
No, you probably shouldn’t, for their sake.
yall realise thats exactly the point, right
queer covers everyone who is noncis or nonstraight
it covers the identities you want to erase or disallow from the community
it doesn’t immediately tell you private information about someone’s sexuality or gender that you aren’t entitled to
and the person in question may not even know themselves, but queer is what they know they can always use if they’re not sure except they know theyre definitely not cis/straight
you hate it because it’s too inclusive and too broad. It’s supposed to be inclusive and broad. If someone tells you they’re queer then all you need to know is that they are in some way not cis or straight and other than that it aint your business. If being told someone’s identity is none of your business pisses you off, thats a you problem
Imagine saying you wont be friends with someone unless they disclose all details of their gender and orientation immediately upon meeting you and still feeling that you’re morally superior
Queer or Nunyasexual
No, You Do Not Stim or Have Special Interests
(or, Unless You Do)
I have seen a lot of questions lately about whether or not
neurotypical people stim, have special interests, etc. I’ve written about it
before in reply to others’ questions, but it keeps coming out so I want to
address the issue more directly.Do neurotypical people stim? No. Do neurotypical people have
special interests? No. Do allistics stim? Some do. Do allistics have special
interests? Some do.Have I ruffled your feathers yet? Look, I know this stance
is going to irk some people, and I know there are going to be autistics even
that disagree with me. But I think it is an important distinction and one worth
making.Simply put, autistics
are significantly marginalized for stimming and having special interests. Neurotypical people are not.What about neurodiverse allistics? I say, “Some do,” here
because I do not know, not exactly. There are other neurodiversities that are
in a similar position as autistics, but I do not have those neurodiversities so
I have not researched them in depth; they exist and that is the extent of my
knowledge. I leave it to those voices to read my arguments and to speak up for
themselves; I will take them at face value if they do.Of course, that raises the question of how autistics are
marginalized for stimming and having special interests. To understand that we
need a little digression: What are stimming and special interests, and where do
those words come from?Stimming and special interest are both indirect reclamations
of clinical terms that are used to pathologize autistics. Stimming comes from
the phrase, “repetitive self-stimulatory behavior” which is the definition of
the clinical term, “stereotypic behavior” or “stereotypy” or “stereotyped
behavior.” Special interests have a different source, and come from the phrase,
“circumscribe or perseverative interests.”As clinical terms, stereotypy and circumscribed interests mean
something very specific, and both are part of the diagnostic criteria that is
used to diagnose autistics and patholgoize us. Section B, of the Autism
Spectrum Disorder diagnostic criteria from the DSM-V states (1)(View Source):B. Restricted,
repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at
least two of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative,
not exhaustive; see text):
- Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).
- […]
- Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects,
excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).- […]
Many of us have written about our experiences with being
shunned, bullied, or even outright abused because of our inability to cease
stimming or break from our special interests. In fact, there is an entire
cottage industry dedicated specifically to breaking us of these habits as early
as possible; Applied Behavioral Analysis. ABA writings by autistics are also
widely available; fair warning though, some of it is scary abusive.I cannot speak directly to ABA because it is not something I
directly experienced. However, I do stim publicly and openly, and I do have
special interests. My special interests almost resulted in my failing high
school because I was so absorbed in them, and as a consequence to my failures I
was abused. I was in my mid-thirties before I was able to come to terms with
the abuse I went through, and there are still days that I struggle with it. My
PTSD is a direct result of the way I was treated for having special interests
that interfered with what others expected of me.That is a very real marginalization with very real and
lasting consequences.At the same time, some allistic people are not marginalized
for these things. A great example of this is how anxiety coping techniques often
include physical stims. Therapists have given anxious people stress balls since
I was child at least, and encourage them to make a habit of using them to help
ground and relieve anxiety. The very same behavior that might be used to
pathologize an autistic is used to treat anxiety.Is someone who is anxious neurodiverse? Of course they are. Does
someone who is anxious benefit from the repetitive activity? Of course they do.
Is it stimming? No; they are not pathologized and/or marginalized for the
behavior. In fact, quite the opposite – they are rewarded for it.I am not going to say that all allistic people do not stim
or have special interests. I know there are other neurodiversities that either
use these things as diagnostic criteria, or for which they are recognized
behaviors. I know there are neurodiversities for which they are not diagnostic
criteria or professionally recognized behavior, but are recognized within those
communities. I am not trying to say these are invalid – quite the opposite;
when a community comes together and says, “This is a thing for us,” I am going
to listen. They likely know themselves better than the professionals. And if
they say, “We are marginalized for this,” I am going to take them at their word
that they have lived experiences of marginalization.What I am saying is that there is a difference between repetitive
behaviors that a person might enjoy or use to cope with something and stimming.
I am saying there is a difference between being really interested in something
and having a special interest.What I am suggesting is that people give serious consideration
to the way we are pathologized and marginalized and recognize that there is a
lot more to stimming and special interests than what we see on the surface.Autistics and other neurodiversities that stim and have special interests face direct ableism that harms us because of those activites. Others do not, and that plays a significant part in what separates us and in what makes our stimming and special interests what they are.
Sources:
- Facts About ASDs. (2016). CDC –
Facts about Autism Spectrum Disorders – NCBDDD. Retrieved 5 October 2016,
from http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.htmlMaybe you’re taking the right approach. But I would have preferred to emphasize how universal stimming is, in hopes that it won’t be pathologized. Once a term becomes synonymous with “human being,” it’s much harder to marginalize someone for being described by it.
I just really don’t like telling people that they can’t use a label that applies to me. It feels too much like exclusion. And autistics, of all people, should know how destructive exclusion can be. Of course there are some assholes who trivialize serious concepts for jokes, and they should shut up. But if someone’s using a term earnestly, in good faith, my inclination would be not to get in their way.
I don’t know. I’m certainly biased here in favor of letting people say what they want. But emphasizing your marginalization feels more acceptable to me than trying to kick people out of a term.
Regardless, thank you for being civil and reasonable while discussing a controversial topic. I hope I’ve maintained a similar tone. Please let me know if I said something inadvertently offensive.
You have great points, and personally I think you are spot on. I will always lean towards more inclusivity for people who need it, but I think also it is important to educate people on the topic so they CAN make a descicions in good faith.
In this case, were talking about something we are pathologised for, and while I wish there were no stigma involved some of us DO need that pathological approach for our own safety (me for example).
I think reconciling to need to eliminate stigma and marginalization while recognizing the medical needs must come through education and acceptance (rather than awareness).
But you are absolutely rightb that should never be used to exclude a person who benefits from the label.
I don’t agree about the special interests part, though. Yes, we are singled out for our interests because we tend to be obsessive about them, but ask a neurotypical teenage girl if she is ever marginalized for talking about her special interests. As long as there are categories of people who are put down for having things they are passionate about that the larger society has deemed not worthy of that passion, “special interests” should apply to any of them. My allistic 12-year-old catches as much shit from some people for her obsession with anime as I did when I was close to her age, except that in my case it was that I was obsessed with a thing hardly anyone had heard of, and in her case she’s obsessed with a thing that the tastemakers of society have deemed unworthy because it’s a popular interest of teenage girls.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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