With my own eyes, I just saw a lesbian on twitter say she was being oppressed by asexual folks because their flag is everywhere, and it’s asexual people’s fault that lesbians are now ‘the last on the conveyor belt in the LGBT community’.
Like. Dude, if you need a scapegoat for your suffering, capitalism is right there. Institutionalized religion is also a great contender. Saying asexuals caused all your suffering because their flag is slightly older and therefore more recognisable than yours is like. my god, have a snickers.
No. No. If they want a scapegoat, turn to the TERFs. There was a perfectly good lesbian flag that was well known in the 90s, that nobody uses anymore because the TERFs took it over. It was known and used before the ace flag was a glimmer. You want to be pissed, get pissed at the part of your own community who is trying to set up walls. Take that shit back if you want it. Use it while holding signs of trans sisterhood. You gave your flag up and are looking for recognition for a new one. That’s why your flag isn’t well recognized yet. Signed a transgender man, former part of the lesbian community for ~14 years.
You want to be pissed, get pissed at the part of your own community who is trying to set up walls.
This is so important.
We need a tag or shorthand phrase for “that thing where the TERF/SWERF/radfem crowd invades lesbian communities, makes it seem like any attack on them is an attack on the lesbian community, drinks all the punch, poops on the floor and leaves the next generation growing up without symbols or a cohesive community”, because it’s fucking happening again.
This is the older lesbian flag, the one that got grabbed by radfems /
TERFs / SWERFs and that very few anti-radfem / anti-TERF lesbians ever
made a concerted effort to reclaim. The Labrys flag:
It was created in 1999, eleven years before the creation and popularization of the ace flag. That gets thoroughly ignored, because it’s not convenient to the radfem rhetoric of ‘lesbians are the most oppressed members of the community EVER’
(uhhh…. trans women of color would like a word? Trans people in
general? I’m not even going to get into m-spec people and every study so
far showing that our parameters re: everything from rates of sexual
violence to poverty are much worse than those of both straight and gay
people, because that’s not the topic of this post).
I want to be very clear on this. When a young lesbian who’s been brainwashed by radfems says that ‘lesbians are the last on the conveyor belt in the LGBT community’, what she means is ludicrous nonsense such as this:
all those ace pride flags? They should be lesbian pride flags instead, because under her beliefs, lesbians deserve absolute prioritization over other members of the community, on the basis of being ‘most oppressed’
the community being seen as a coalition of EQUALS IN MUTUAL SOLIDARITY isn’t
acceptable (at least not at more than shallow, declarative level),
because acknowledging equality of marginalized orientations and refusing
to build the community under a hierarchy is seen as ‘de-centering lesbians’
remember what radfems actually said, in opposition to ‘queer’ as a term? ‘Queer de-centers and erases lesbians / lumps lesbians in with bisexuals anddeluded men (hella transphobic code for trans women) and stops them short of naming their actual homosexuality.’ Changing the discourse to be solely about personal harm was a move of genius
attention being given to issues that affect ace/aro people / activism for ace/aro people
automatically takes away valuable time, valuable resources and valuable
effort, that should have been spent on lesbian issues instead – therefore, any sort of ace/aro-centric work and the presence of ace/aro people is harmful to lesbians.
hell, attention being given to issues that affect bi/pan people / activism
for bi/pan people automatically takes away valuable time, valuable
resources and valuable effort, that should have been spent on lesbian
issues instead – therefore, any sort of bi/pan-centric work and the
presence of bi/pan people (particularly ones that aren’t ‘SGA’) is harmful to lesbians
insert
the exact same thing about nonbinary / genderqueer people, about trans
people (though most of the Usual Suspects haven’t quite gotten to the
point of open and blatant transphobia), about intersex people (it’s my theory that this is at the base of that sudden and widespread campaign of ‘drop the I, intersex people are making their own community’, even
in the face of many intersex people who fought like hell for their
right to remain included and to keep the letter. Some, like @vergess, got rewarded for their effort by being called ‘pedophiles’ and being run off Tumblr)
And I could keep going! The spearhead of radfem infiltration within lesbian communities if two-fold – one, the rhetoric of ‘you are the most oppressed and any sort of attention being paid to these superfluous identities directly harms you’ and
two, the notion that radfems are the ultimate champions of lesbian
rights, the ones who will make certain that lesbians are always centered
and prioritized. That’s how you end up with large recruitment into
radfem ranks of young, inexperienced lesbians, who (naturally) feel
flattered, protected and prioritized. That’s how radfems can shield
themselves of criticism for their fuckery, by saying that any criticism
of radfem rhetoric is an direct attack on lesbians. That’s how you end
up with wankery such as ‘TERF is a slur used to demonize lesbians.’ It’s
my prediction that in several years’ time, the currently-in-use lesbian
flag (the lipstick one) will end up as much of a widespread symbol of
radfems as the older Labrys flag, in the exact same way that the other
flag was taken over.
What’s the solution? Widespread acknowledgement that no one is owed automatic centering solely on the basis of their identity and that the community wasn’t created to serve the needs of predominantly one or two groups. Thorough education on what ‘equality’ and ‘solidarity’ actually
mean in the context of the struggle against
cis-perisex-heteronormativity and actually implementing them in
practice, rather than keeping them on as empty buzzwords.
Acknowledgement that just because one has suffered under oppression, it
doesn’t mean that others haven’t as well and that acknowledging and fighting against the oppression others deal with doesn’t lessen or ignore one’s own.
Read this and then read it again. Keep it in mind another TERF/bi/panphobe/REG arbitrarily accuses you of Lesbophobia.
And don’t let them conceptualize themselves as representing the entire Lesbian community. That’s unfair to us AND lesbians as a whole
if a teenager is at your door and they are wearing a costume!! please give them candy!! they are still in it for the halloween spirit and it honestly no different from a little kid in a costume. they are just as excited and happy as all the other lil tykes and dont you dare tell them they are “too old for trick-or-treating” because that will literally break their hearts and that’s not cool.
Its getting close to Halloween again so I just thought I’d reblog this again
And if “don’t be rude to teenagers over a stupid jawbreaker” isn’t enough for you, consider
You can’t tell how old a kid is just by looking. I’ve known multiple 5th graders who were taller than I am, and I’m 25 years old. With their faces hidden by masks, you won’t be able to tell they’re elementary schoolers, but they still are.
Lots of older siblings are expected to take their younger siblings trick-or-treating, and they only get paid in candy.
You don’t know if that teenager is developmentally disabled.
You don’t know if that teenager spent most of their childhood in a hospital or sick and has never had the traditional trick-or-treat experience before.
You don’t know if this is that teenager’s first Halloween in America, and they just want to experience a piece of American culture.
You don’t know if that teenager ever gets candy any other day of the year.
You don’t know if that teenager has eaten anything at all today.
And those are just things I can think of off the top of my head.
If you have a child and they are creeped out by a nephew or older brother touching them or looking at them a certain way, you need to have a serious talk with that person and keep them the hell away from your child. Don’t minimize it or tell your kid to hug them anyway, that kid is picking up danger signals they don’t even understand yet. But so many families will tell that kid they are being a brat.
thankyou
A quick note- this applies to female relatives as well. One of my aunts ignores my little brother’s requests not to hug or kiss him (he has aspergers and doesn’t like physical contact with people he is not very close with). I have repeatedly placed myself between the two of them and had to tell her to back off and stop trying to “desensitize” him. Whether or not there are “danger signals,” it is not okay for adults to invalidate a child or teen’s request for boundaries. We need to teach children now, when they are young, that they can say no to these things and that other people can too.
If Taika Waititi can go out wearing a matching pineapple print shirt and shorts combo, with full confidence, absolutely killing it, then I can go out wearing just about anything I want too bitch
QueerGalaxies 