(via august-17th)
I think a lot of people have trouble understanding transgender issues because they try to see themselves as trans, but come at it from the wrong direction. i.e. a cis woman tries to understand transness by going, “what if I felt like/wanted to be a man” when she should be approaching it as “what if I, a woman, was so easily mistaken for a man that I had to pretend to be one”,
And I think this is something to keep in mind and to explain away when trying to get these matters across to people who’re new to the idea.
i genuinely never thought of it that way but dang this makes a ton of sense now
thismposst is the one that made me get it
(via thelandingualberta)
“When we talk abut creating change, we have to think about what it really means to make change happen. We have to hire trans women of color, we can’t just sensationalize our issues and fantasize that things will get better — we actually have to do something about it.”
- CeCe McDonald accepting the Paul A. Anderson Youth Leadership Award at Creating Change 2015.
Reminder
(via thelandingualberta)
(via thelandingualberta)
trans/queerphobia is not limited solely to the actual murder of people it also includes but is not limited to:
- casual cissexism (ie. “girls are so strong dealing with their periods!”)
- denial of privilege (ie. “yeah gay people might have it hard but i have it hard too and im straight!!”)
- trivialization of oppression (ie. “not all cis people are like that!! theres a few assholes out there, but most people are accepting!”)
- passive by-standing (ie. not actively oppressing trans/queer people but also not DOING ANYTHING when they are being oppressed)
- refocusing attention onto the privileged party (ie. “yeah you may get called a [t slur] but you called me a cishet which is bullying!!”)
- weaponizing support (ie. “now that you were mean to me i dont know if i want to support queer people anymore”)
- invalidation of anger (ie. “just because youre oppressed doesnt mean you can just bully people!”)
- simplifying oppression (ie. “lets all just be nice to each other!”)
- erasure of identities (ie. “just stop labeling yourself and you wont get oppressed!”
(via thelandingualberta)
When I was 13 years old and curious about sex and love, I asked my mom if she had had sex before marrying my father (of whom she is still married to, and has been since before I was born). She said that that wasn’t really a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question. I said ‘sure it is, you’ve either had sex before him, or you haven’t’. She brought me onto the couch and sat me down and told me about the boy she liked when she was young and how one night she snuck into his house while his parents were gone and they were kissing and he said they should have sex and she said that she wanted to save sex for marriage and he laughed and basically took all her clothes off and he raped her and as my mom was telling the story she cried and this was the second time I had ever seen my mom cry. She was 12 when it happened.
In grade 8 I got a call from my friend in the middle of the night and she was drunk in the park crying and told me that she went out that night with some other friends and they drank a little and her guy “friend” starting flirting and yes she laughed at first but then he tried to pull her shirt over her head and she pulled away and he ripped her shirt and it was her favourite shirt and then he pushed her to her knees and HIS BEST FRIEND HELD HER JAW OPEN WHILE HE FACE FUCKED HER. And so I went to the park and picked her up and took her home and slept in her bed with her except we didn’t sleep because she just cried and her mouth bled and this was four years ago but I still have to be the one to bring her items to the till it the cashier is a man, and she still has anxiety attacks and she’ll get a rash all over her body and I just want to kill those boys but instead they are still walking around. And I’m in the bathroom with her, dabbing at her skin with a warm cloth until it returns to its regular colour.
And in grade 9 one of my closest friends was kinda seeing this boy and so they hung out one night and then she said that she really had to be getting back home and he said that she wasn’t going anywhere until she gave him what he wanted and he parked the car and took off her clothes and she said no and he ignored her and so she laid in the backseat totally limp and just cried and it wasn’t even sex, he just masterbated by using her body instead of his hand and she came to school the next day with vodka in her water bottle and she drank all day and I had to fight her to get the alcohol away from her and she just cried and threw up and I skipped class while I held her hair back and that same boy texted me a month later, asking if I ever wanted to hangout sometime.
And in that same year my very best friend who has never even kissed a boy, confessed to me that when she was 9 years old, her 12 year old cousin made her give him a hand job and he told her that was what cousins do and he gave her a chocolate bar afterwards and she told me that he probably doesn’t even remember it but that it’s something that she’ll never have the luxury of forgetting.
And in grade 10 I knew a girl who invited her best friend over to watch Disney movies and then he started to put his hands down her pants and she said no but she is 130lbs and he is 220lbs and he called her a tease while she tried to fight him but he used one hand to hold her down, and the other to put inside of her and i was the one to push her inside of a classroom and stand in front of her while calling the police when he showed up at our school looking for her and she was so damn scared.
And a few months later I skipped class and was in the car with a guy who i had had unprotected sex with in the past while under the influence of cocaine but this time I was sober and I insisted we use a condom but he told me he couldn’t feel anything while the condom was on so he ripped it off and I said I refused to have unprotected sex again and so he just grabbed me and forced himself into my mouth and I was crying and he pulled me onto him and I just came saying “stop” over and over like a broken record but he must’ve heard something different because he went until he came and I just sat naked in the backseat while he drove me back to the school and said “we should do this again sometime”. And I had five showers that night and I scratched at my skin so hard to try and rip his fingerprints off of me, I still have the scars.
And I found out soon afterwards that that same guy had raped a classmate of mine, 5 months earlier and she told me about how he brought her McDonald’s first, and how he said they could take things slow and she told me about how he didn’t listen to her either. And he goes to our school and so after she told me about her incident and I told her about mine, we decided to report it to the police and the trial is currently still going on and he told people about it, except in his version we are just “asking for attention” and all his friends talk about how bad they feel for him. As if HE is the one that still wakes up screaming. As if HE felt like his skin no longer was beautiful, no longer belonged to him.
And I held her in my arms as she bawled after giving the police her statement. And she did the same for me.And I met a woman a year ago in a paint store and she had a service dog and I asked what the dog was for and it turns out that she had been so brutally raped and abused in her life, that the dog is literally trained to keep men away from her.
And I’m so FUCKING SICK AND TIRED OF THIS WORLD WE ARE LIVING IN. How many rape victims eyes have I already looked into? How many more will I? And how many more friends will I hold while they shake? Because I don’t know how many more I can take. And who the fuck still has the nerve to make rape jokes? And… Something just has to change. Please, someone just start being that change.
-16 year old girl
I’m going to fucking vomit.
this made me sick.
(via liha-irden)
me: *briefly glances at a girl*
me: oh god.. am i leering? am i replicating the male gaze? does she feel threatened?? am i objectifying her? does she think i’m creepy? does she hate me? does she think im a pervert???
(via hushhatake)
(via violentwavesofemotion)
(via desecrated-heart)
“women who wear makeup are why i have trust issues”
bruh if you thought any woman naturally has shiny red lips and eyelashes long enough to fan queen cleopatra then that’s your own dumbass fault
(via pandora)
