Twin Flames Universe: cult that convinces people they're actually trans and have to transition to find love

Feather · 2021-01-14T17:39:52+00:00

I'm not surprised that this sort of thing would arise within the Twin Flame community. Twin Flame ideology is already nuts.

I've been fascinated with it for a while. It encourages people to stay focused on "twin flames" who rejected them, even if the "twin flame" is practically a stranger. It encourages people to stay in horrible relationships with their "twin flames." Twin flame believers also often make excuses for cheating. "I feel guilty about cheating on my spouse, but I found my twin flame and we just can't live without each other." "My twin flame's spouse is getting in the way of our destiny together."

Feather · 2020-12-10T02:00:24+00:00

That's a good way of putting it.

They do think non-trans people are a lot more satisfied than we actually are, don't they?

Feather · 2020-12-06T02:12:31+00:00

I see what a few of them are getting at though. I think what they're not realizing is that most cis people would be (by their standards) agender/nonbinary (or whatever they want to call it) "on the inside." It's one reason why pretty much everyone wonders, "But what do you mean you didn't feel like a man/woman, and instead felt like the opposite?" when they first learn about trans stuff. It almost seems (to me) like being "cis" often = being mystified by the idea of feeling some sort of innate gendery-ness.

Feather · 2020-12-06T01:59:38+00:00

And they've been an astoundingly effective advertising team for Irreversible Damage.

Feather · 2020-11-01T01:18:31+00:00

Yeah. What they want isn't possible, though.

It's like... I want to say to them, "Listen, if you aren't into the rare people who find your unusual body/lifestyle especially attractive, I don't know what to tell you. Because that's all you're getting. That's your option."

Feather · 2020-10-24T03:57:27+00:00

Being less oppressed is not the same as privilege.

That's a good way of putting it.

The word privilege also often draws focus in the wrong direction.

Wrong question: Who is privileged and how, ethically, should they respond to that?

Right question: Who is oppressing others, and what shall we do to stop them?

Feather · 2020-10-15T17:29:04+00:00

So I think that brings us back to the idea that it should be something itchy.

Feather · 2020-10-13T21:40:53+00:00

Every online community that stays invite-only too long stays too small and, unfortunately, keeps out most of the people who would actually fit in. It's only a good thing to do if one wants to keep a community very small.

Feather · 2020-10-12T21:56:19+00:00

They think being black is a personality trait? That's so racist.

I don't think they know what "personality" and "identity" and "sense of self" mean. It's clear that many of them have untreated cluster B personality disorders.

Feather · 2020-10-08T14:10:46+00:00

That is so sad. It's like when kids try to make themselves ugly through various methods of harming themselves so they won't be abused anymore, except instead of getting mental health treatment for the trauma and the ways they try to harm their bodies they get praise for it.

Feather · 2020-10-08T00:47:31+00:00

subreddits that aren't meant for them

That's the problem right there. Apparently all subreddits should be meant for them.

Feather · 2020-10-08T00:36:40+00:00

So almost all of the "cis" people I know are cassgender.

If we want to use cassgender as a descriptor (which I don't really, but I will for a moment), I think the vast majority of people fit into that category.

The people who come up with this shit are ridiculous. They seem to think most humans reflect 24/7 on their gender. We "cis" people wake up every day and feel fantastic about our gender.

Yes, first thing in the morning, I wake up and think, "Thank God a doctor said I was female when I was born! What wonderful titties I have!"

Oh, wait. No. When I wake up in the morning I think about what I need to do that day.

Feather · 2020-10-07T21:07:54+00:00

Strangely, I think it's legit. Something about it just reminds me of certain self-deluded people I've known IRL. His basic message keeps being, "No, you don't understand," with ever more frustrated explanations that go on random tangents.

I think he's being completely sincere.

If he were a MtF larping, he'd be more repetitive and wouldn't seem to be listening to what is being said to him. But he is listening carefully here and getting so wrapped up in disagreeing that he seems to have pretty much forgotten his entire reason for posting there.

More notably, he seems neither enraged nor like he's having fun. He just seems frustrated and bothered and distracted about the fact that, from his POV, nobody is listening to what he thinks matters.

Edit:

Oh! Most important of all!

We see exactly why he hates the fact that he's either gay or bi. He's conservative as fuck about the purpose of relationships!

Feather · 2020-10-05T17:56:02+00:00

That's true.

I can't say anything in Twitter's favor about them allowing that.

Feather · 2020-10-04T21:18:29+00:00

You're right. And that reminds me of a quote by C.S. Lewis:

When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

Feather · 2020-10-04T17:45:34+00:00

It's not fair. Nobody should ever get death threats, and death threats should never be allowed.

But it's kind of understandable that, if Twitter wants to make an exception about who a person is allowed to wish death upon, the exception would be the President of the United States. For all we know, the Secret Service told Twitter to disallow such Tweets.

And frankly it's for the best, even for the death-wishers: do they really want a visit from the Secret Service? Really?

Feather · 2020-10-04T17:35:20+00:00

Nonsense.

An apple seed is still an apple seed even if it has some mutation, or something done to it, that prevents it from being capable of growing into a tree.

An orange seed is still an orange seed even if... see above.

And no matter how you shave one down, or paint one, or add sculpted clay to one to make it look like the other, they're still apple or orange seeds.

Feather · 2020-10-04T03:09:56+00:00

I think adults need to play more. Not like sexual play - I mean actual play. Swinging on a swing at a playground is fucking fun! Climbing trees is fun! Pretend is fun! Being unserious and going wild with imagination in a totally unconstrained way is really fun.

I don't find dressing up as an animal to be appealing in any way, but I can see how people might find it fun.

But why does it always have to be about sex? Why do adults tend to play only if sex is involved? (Aside from board games I guess.)

Seriously, what's up with that? I genuinely want to know.

Sex is great. But I don't understand why sex should be the only way to play and why this sexual play should be a public identity rather than a personal activity.

Sexual activities shouldn't be anybody's identity.

Feather · 2020-09-26T19:45:56+00:00

The whole "what a kid wants to wear gives clues about gender (and therefore sex)" thing is just completely crazy and I'm glad that they're having to retract it now... and that they can't actually effectively retract it since people have archives of their earlier statements.

When I was a very young child, I believed wholeheartedly that fluffy cats were girl cats and short-haired cats were boy cats. I insisted this to adults. They, being sane people, just kindly and repeatedly explained to me that I was mistaken and that sex of the cat is defined by other biological features. They pointed out that cats are either boy cats or girl cats and that shaving a girl cat wouldn't make her a boy cat, right? So it didn't have anything to do with fluffiness.

Feather · 2020-09-25T18:59:17+00:00

This woman, the OP, is so bad at pretending to be a natal male.

Feather · 2020-09-15T17:07:47+00:00

Do you think that the groups "people who think speech is violence" vs. "people who know speech is not violence" correspond (in the same order) to "people who have not been subjected to physical violence" vs. "people who have been subjected to physical violence"?

I find it difficult to imagine that someone who's been punched in the face could believe that speech is equivalent to that.

Of course, there are grey areas, like literal incitement to violence. But they're the ones who engage in that, what with all the encouragement to punch or shoot women who disagree with them.

Feather · 2020-09-15T05:01:01+00:00

The death tolls in the millions were projections for if nobody did anything. They were the, "If everyone behaved just like normal indefinitely, this is how many people would die," numbers. And they were true. If we'd all behaved exactly like normal, it would have been millions. Instead, we've had a coronavirus season that's 4x as deadly as a bad flu season even while we have mostly shut down our economy. "200k dead when most people don't even go out" = "Millions dead if we had behaved like normal."

It's wrong when people say, "We shouldn't have protected ourselves; things aren't as bad as people said they could be," because the truth is, "Things aren't as bad as people said they could be, because many of us protected ourselves."

There were some overrun hospitals. You do not live in NYC or certain cities in Texas, correct?

State-level responses were hindered by the federal government confiscating masks that states had paid for and ordered in order to resell those masks at a profit. Northeastern states then had to get masks for their medical workers in rather creative and/or shady ways after the federal government took the masks the states had already paid for.

I don't blame Trump for the existence of Covid. Obviously not. The guy has nothing to do with a virus coming into existence and being dangerous and contagious, nor is he at fault for how badly China handled it at the start. He also isn't at fault for the stupid media storm in the U.S. near the beginning, where the liberal-leaning media AND the CDC AND the WHO claimed masks were useless and silly and unscientific and "BUT THE FLU." (I believe they claimed these things in a fruitless attempt to avoid a mask shortage for medical workers. They didn't think far ahead enough to realize, "Medical workers actually won't need as many masks if all our citizens cover their faces and therefore inhibit spread and, if we lie about masks now, people might not wear masks later.")

But now we've got a whole bunch of morons who think it's a hate crime against both Trump and God if they cover their mouth and nose with a thin, breathable piece of fabric. If he only put a mask on his face and said, "If you love me, you'll wear a mask like I do," this pandemic would have been under control months ago.

If all of us - the liberal-leaning media, the WHO, Trump, everyone - had behaved better, we wouldn't have anything close to a two-hundred-thousand death toll.

If we'd all worn masks - and, again, our lack of doing that is the shameful responsibility of so many people other than Trump - it could have been 20k instead of 200k.

Feather · 2020-09-15T04:52:34+00:00

I don't enjoy political debates and so I won't get into one, but I'll give you a response and then won't respond again.

Why?

I don't enjoy or gain any emotional validation from political debates because political debates happen for only four reasons:

To understand each other and communicate. This reason is non-aggressive and kind and usually occurs between people who already feel affection for each other.
To convince the other person they are wrong. (This pretty much never works unless you are kind towards the other person AND already have a trusting relationship with them AND are listening to them to such a degree that you are willing to be convinced that you are wrong.)
To convince bystanders that the other person is wrong and "win" and then feel good about how right you were and how bad you wrecked the other person.
To ruin family parties since what's the point of gathering together and eating a turkey if you aren't all screaming by the end?

I typically only enjoy and find value in Point 1, so generally I don't debate unless Point 1 is an option.

Anyway:

When it comes to the nuclear codes, I do not trust his temperament. I think he is a mentally and psychologically unstable human being. It's not actually a Republican vs. Democrat thing for me. I hate Pence's politics and beliefs, but I would trust him with the nuclear codes because I believe he is a stable human being with consistent values (even if I disagree with those values). Whereas I believe Trump is a volatile, amoral, value-less creature.
When it comes to the death toll of two-hundred-thousand U.S. citizens, I admit that it did not start out as his fault. It's very much the fault of the WHO and the CDC and the "smart, science-loving" liberal-leaning media, which insisted early on that masks are silly and useless and "BUT THE FLU." I lost friendships early on in the because my "smart" "liberal" friends thought I was an insane right-wing conspiracy theorist for saying, "Hey, how about masks? It seems like the countries where people wear masks are doing well." They thought I was a right-wing-fucking-racist who hated East Asians and didn't understand "SCIENCE" for insisting that everyone should cover their mouths and noses. It was absolutely infuriating and I will never forget what it was like to be Cassandra among supposedly intelligent people who I thought cared about me.
But. Trump. The dude dismantled so much infrastructure related to potential pandemics and now the guy can't just cover his fucking face and so we've got all these dipshits who think masks are liberal Democrat attempts to keep them from breathing, or something, and the pandemic is a hoax. For some reason only God knows, his fundraising team got my email address and I got an email saying how Obama is the one who took apart the pandemic team and how Sleepy Joe and Phony Kamala are anti-vaxxers. I. Just. Can't. Even. We have recordings of this ass saying to Woodward, who took down Nixon, that the pandemic is a big deal, way worse than the flu, and that he likes to downplay it.

It's not right. Pandemics shouldn't be political. The left made it political back when they said he was a racist for blocking flights from China. The right has made it political by saying it's a hoax from "the Libs." It's not political. it's a little viral particle that, if it were sentient, would have loved the left back when the left said it was racist to block flights from China and dumb to wear masks, and would now love the right for suggesting that masks are an infringement on Freedom(tm).

Hmm. This turned into a rant about the coronavirus. Anyway, I respect your point of view - good people can disagree for honorable reasons - and will not respond further for reasons I already explained above.

Feather · 2020-09-15T04:28:21+00:00

I'm really glad that we haven't had any new wars since he took office. So far, he's done some very bad things and also some good things. He's also neglected to do some good things while avoiding doing some bad things. Overall, though - and I know this is personal - I don't trust his temperament.

I don't enjoy or gain any emotional validation from political debates though, so I won't debate it. I mean, you and I both know that political debates happen for only four reasons:

To understand each other and communicate. (You asked a loaded question and so I assume that's not your purpose in engaging with me. You asked a "question" which assumed bad faith on my part by suggesting that I am uninterested in lack of war, and which had the rhetorical sound of the cock of a gun just waiting for me to answer the wrong way.)
To convince the other person they are wrong. (This pretty much never works unless you are kind towards the other person AND already have a trusting relationship with them AND are listening to them to such a degree that you are willing to be convinced that you are wrong.)
To convince bystanders that the other person is wrong and "win" and then feel good about how right you were and how bad you wrecked the other person.
To ruin family parties since what's the point of gathering together and eating a turkey if you aren't all screaming by the end?

I only enjoy and find value in Point 1, so I don't debate unless Point 1 is an option.

I respect the fact that you have assessed the facts differently than I have, though. Good people can disagree for honorable reasons.

Feather · 2020-09-12T16:48:48+00:00

No. His behaviors have inflicted a 200k+ death toll in the course of months, and I don't trust him with the nuclear codes. There are things (many things) that matter more than what TRAs are up to.

Feather · 2020-09-12T16:46:24+00:00

And, even as she focuses on herself, she's focused on the wrong thing (even for a self-centered person). Her worry, as related to herself, should be about her own likely genetic predisposition towards Alzheimer's.

Feather · 2020-09-09T15:23:34+00:00

This is about the legal defense: "Because this person is transitioning, the court should give a lighter sentence," seems to be implied.

Feather · 2020-09-07T16:40:02+00:00

I think that, in addition to the Kinsey type scale of attraction to one sex or the other, there must also be a "disgust scale."

For instance, I don't think someone is necessarily bisexual if they didn't feel disgust when performing compulsory heterosexuality. If they felt neither disgust nor attraction, I think it is fair to say they are still gay.

A lot of heterosexual women try kissing a woman and discover that they are definitely straight because it does nothing for them. "It was like kissing a pillow. Just... nothing. Nada." No disgust but also no enjoyment of the act.

I believe it can work the same for some homosexual people. A woman sleeps with a man and feels nada, nothing, not even disgust, as though it's just a task like folding laundry; she sleeps with a woman and loves it.

It's fair to call her a lesbian.

Feather · 2020-09-06T15:54:03+00:00

I'm confident that sneaky non-trans TRAs would join in order to dox "TERFs" to earn points with trans people.

Feather · 2020-09-04T22:59:05+00:00

Good. I'm enjoying seeing posts with evidence that, as we suspect, most people are sane and know this is nonsense. Which is why so much trans activism has been done under the radar.

Feather · 2020-09-03T19:09:39+00:00

In the United States, civil unions were never anywhere close to as good or comprehensive as federally recognized marriages. Federally recognized marriages come with significantly more protections and benefits.

Feather · 2020-09-03T19:06:17+00:00

In the U.S., federally recognized marriages come with significantly more rights and benefits, so yes, it was a huge victory with potentially life-altering results for many people.

Feather · 2020-09-02T16:34:43+00:00

Yes. This is not, without further context, hypocritical. "I wouldn't want to date somebody like me," isn't hypocritical. "I wouldn't want to date somebody like me, but other people should," is hypocritical.

But, like, good luck to them.

Agreed.

Feather · 2020-08-31T17:07:41+00:00

Probably they mostly passed as women in every day life but not in this setting. It was a stark difference and the crowd gave lots of space.

It must have been rough for them to realize they don't actually pass. They probably thought they could show up in complete stealth mode. It's important to get reality checks though.

Feather · 2020-08-31T15:38:21+00:00

I hadn't thought of that point about one kid vs a bunch of kids. Makes sense.

Feather · 2020-08-31T05:47:34+00:00

You probably should have let her wear the wrong shoes. Wearing the wrong shoes is uncomfortable. You denied her the minor suffering of wearing wrong shoes.

It's the same thing as why parents should advise kids not to play in the snow in a t-shirt but then let their kids do it anyway if their kids insist; their kids need to learn through literal physical experience that sometimes the results of their choices feel bad.

You make the kid wear a coat and they learn that parents make kids wear coats. You go, "Okay, if you insist on not wearing a coat, go ahead," and they learn that they were wrong to ignore you because they feel horrible and cold. One of the most important aspects of parenting in the younger years is letting them learn that ignoring your advice leads to results that feel bad.

It leads them to trust your judgment later on, since they have an entire library of memories about how it was a mistake to ignore your advice.

Feather · 2020-08-30T16:27:48+00:00

Thank you. A lot of those deleted comments were still up when I posted the link.

Feather · 2020-08-29T05:09:59+00:00

You need an attitude adjustment. Both people who responded to you in an attempt to help? You responded angrily by implying they didn't understand you and were being jerks.

Your response was basically, "This isn't what I hoped to hear!" Tough shit. What you hope to hear is 100% unrelated to what you ought to hear.

You have a separate, entirely different problem from the one you were asking about:

You're a sensitive flower who, at the first sign that someone maybe doesn't entirely agree with you or understand what you mean, decides they're an asshole.

You look for the worst in people.

That's a FAR bigger problem than your arousal in response to trans porn.

You're not ever going to get help if you assume the worst of every person who tries to help you. You managed to angrily misinterpret two separate people and only apologize once they explained themselves further.

It would have been a lot simpler if you'd skipped the "angrily misinterpreting them" part and gone straight to the "carefully considering what they might actually be saying" part.

Deal with your propensity to think the worst of people who are trying to help you. That's a bad tendency. Then work through your kink related to "girldick".

Being aroused by trans porn may mean you're a person with a destructive kink, but assuming the worst of anyone who tries to help means you're being a shitty person.

Real ethics aren't about agonizing over your own internal storm. They're about how you behave in the world around you. You need to behave better towards other people even when your internal storm is painful.

I think your real problem is that you're too focused on yourself. Spend some time thinking about other people's problems instead of your own problems and do something to help them. Instead of agonizing over your sexual fantasies, contact a local soup kitchen to find out what they need during the pandemic.

Feather · 2020-08-29T05:02:15+00:00

At least we can all talk about the crumple-horned snorkacks outside our windows since they're everywhere.

Feather · 2020-08-29T04:57:51+00:00

I think your two chosen responses (silence or "okay") are ideal.

Feather · 2020-08-29T04:48:34+00:00

And I'm sure that, in their fantasy, the gay guy who falls in love with them will be forever penitent (and therefore in a lower position of power in the relationship) about not having instantly recognized them as the most desirable and legitimate "man" on the planet.

Feather · 2020-08-29T04:36:34+00:00

It's pretty natural to be upset by straight women trying force conversion therapy upon others via lies and assault. "I want you and so I'll lie to get you to fuck me and hurt you if you say no," is sociopathic no matter who it's aimed at.

In these cases though, it's not just sociopathic. It's also fucking dumb. If they want to have sex with men, they could easily have sex with straight men.

"Boypussy" pisses me off just as much as "girldick." Both start with a word describing children and end with a porny slang term for a sexual organ. It's so gross.

Feather · 2020-08-27T21:42:39+00:00

Somebody isn't bisexual just because they force themselves to have sex they hate. Gay and lesbian history is full of gay people forcing themselves to have sex they didn't want. OP clearly does not desire this person or enjoy the sex, to the point where OP is revolted. "I'm completely revolted by sleeping with one sex," is the opposite of bisexual.

Feather · 2020-08-27T21:40:24+00:00

If she hates sex with this person but forced herself anyway, that's still not bisexual. She's clearly got some problems that prevented her from leaving the situation earlier, but I think a lot of women have forced themselves to have sex they didn't want, and it's wrong to suggest that having sex you don't want defines who you are.

Feather · 2020-08-27T03:47:05+00:00

Not in the current climate.

"It's not a gay club because it won't allow gay transmen," would be interpreted similarly to, "It's not a gay club because it won't allow gay black or Jewish men."

In other words, in the current climate, people wouldn't interpret it as disallowing a gay club; they'd interpret as disallowing a Nazi club that happens to be run by a gay guy.

Feather · 2020-08-25T04:38:07+00:00

This is really interesting information. Thank you.

We need to get rid of the idea that advising people to protect themselves better is a way of saying it's their "fault" if someone else hurts them. Of course it's not their fault if someone else hurts them, but we all deserve information about how to thwart the people who try to hurt us.

The commenter you were responding to wasn't saying, "It's your fault if you're doxxed." They were trying to convey a message more like, "We need to make it tough as hell to hurt us."

I loathe the conflation of victim blaming ("It was her fault because she wore a short skirt") and self-protection advice ("Try not to make it easy to hurt you; you can make it harder for them by doing X, Y, and Z").

Feather · 2020-08-24T16:52:15+00:00

Going down on a woman would probably "trigger" his "dysphoria."

Feather · 2020-08-23T03:48:40+00:00

This is true, and yet I do think some people's sexuality reacts to sex-cues more than to actual sex. It is Technically Correct to say that a straight man who is attracted to Blaire White is actually bisexual, or that a straight woman who is attracted to Buck Angel is actually bisexual, but I don't think it represents the spirit of the truth.

It's just that their legitimately straight orientations have been tricked by a variety of cues that correlate with what they find attractive in the opposite sex, and the tricky cues override biological reality. They aren't repressed bisexuals. They're people falling for optical illusions.

Feather · 2020-08-22T04:54:47+00:00

I think most do, but considering the context - that relative did it before it was cool and stuck with it for decades - I think this is genuinely the life your relative wants, prefers, and likes. It's long, long past the time of hoping this might be a phase. You should assume this is who your relative is going to be for the rest of their life because they like the life they've chosen.

This post has made me consider two conflicting values:

The "females are female, and that's the actual definition of a woman" value
The "Jesus Christ, just let it go, your family member isn't going through a twenty-year phase no matter how much you dislike it and it's not your business anyway" value

Just decide whether you can accept that your relative is genuinely happy living the life they have chosen. If you can't, fine, don't deal with it - don't interact. But if you want to interact, you've got to accept it.

Feather · 2020-08-21T16:19:46+00:00

Thanks.

This is really true.

One example: depending on how dedicated the doxxer is, even talking about the weather where you live too often isn't safe because it eliminates all areas where the weather didn't match what you described on a given day.

By the way, today where I live it's raining chocolate sprinkles and the temperature is negative one billion degrees Kelvin. Humidity is the square root of two.

Feather · 2020-08-19T04:40:08+00:00

I agree whole-heartedly with the people who advise you to explore, and get treatment for, any possible comorbid psychiatric conditions. (Comorbid conditions are conditions that a person has at the same time as other conditions. The two conditions are present separately but nonetheless interact and exacerbate each other. And sometimes one causes the other.)

Maybe you can't do it now because of your parents, but when you're a bit older you'll be able to.

I don't want to explain why in a publicly available comment, but I'll say this: I despised my breasts so very much that, for about a decade, I fantasized about cutting them off myself. For a decade.

I only became okay with them when I got proper psychiatric treatment. And even then it took a few years of treatment before my breasts and I made peace with each other. (I never even mentioned my breasts to any of my treatment providers, but somehow getting the proper treatment led to me being okay with my breasts.)

If, after getting proper treatment, you still want them gone, more power to you. But don't do it before then.

Feather · 2020-08-14T21:09:01+00:00

If more "cis" people did what that post advocates, we'd have a lot more "TERF"s. The only reason we have so many people saying, "Trans women are women," is because they haven't "educated" themselves.

Feather · 2020-08-14T20:49:28+00:00

Now that I think of it, I can't remember any either. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. I do recall some transmen in various parenting groups I've been in. I've also seen several dads in online parenting groups. I can't specifically remember any transwomen/TiMs though.

Feather · 2020-08-14T20:45:50+00:00

I see what you mean now that you point out exactly what you were responding to.

I agree with you that men came up with the structures of these institutions and ideals. It's absurd that some of them now act as though women came up with these structures as a plot to oppress men.

Feather · 2020-08-14T17:29:21+00:00

I think it's a matter of interpretation.

A man who is loving and supportive of his female romantic partner would not see himself as being henpecked. He would just (accurately) see himself as being in a loving relationship.

His buddies, on the other hand, might disagree and inaccurately claim he is henpecked just because they're too immature to fathom that a man might genuinely want to put a woman first.

Their logic is basically...

No man would want to put his romantic relationship with a woman first.
My friend, a man, is putting his romantic relationship with a woman first.
If no men want to put their romantic relationships with women first, my friend can't want to do it.
But he is.
So someone must be tricking or coercing him to do it against his will.
He is henpecked.

Feather · 2020-08-11T16:00:45+00:00

Feather · 2020-08-10T20:29:22+00:00

I think it's good to point this out every time the myth comes up, even if it's not fully on topic. It's important for people to know that this is a myth.

Feather · 2020-08-10T04:38:06+00:00

You seem to be using your disdain for men to excuse your hatred of various other groups. Your most recent post before this one implied that you think Asians are viruses and Native Americans are savages.

Don't hide your racism behind a dislike of men.

And yeah, black people (you say you are black) can be racists. Internalized racism is a thing. Same as internalized misogyny or internalized homophobia.

You may be black, but you sound like a neo-nazi. What's next - Jews are money-grubbing rats because you dislike men?

Neo-nazis write extensively about how Jews are dangerous and despicable because they think Jews have a higher native intelligence than standard white people. You know what that means? It means, "We're stupid and they're smarter so they're evil since people who are smarter are dangerous." Stop with that shit.

When you get into a rant about how logic is white male supremacy, you sound just like those "queer" people who say math needs to be more "queer." It's insanity. Logic and math are formal systems for understanding things better. Rejecting them as sexism is undermining women and is horrifically sexist. You're saying we women are too damn stupid to delve into understanding the world around us.

That, if we utilize these tools for usefully interpreting the world, we are betraying ourselves.

Do you really think men invented logic and, as an extension of that, math? Because I'm pretty sure we'd be further along the path of logic and math if women had been allowed to publicly engage in them, and that many men who are recorded in history as having furthered those endeavors were helped a lot by the observations of women in their lives.

I am not a simpering little idiot placating men just because I have a talent for formal logic and advanced mathematics. Women seeming to be worse at those things is purely a product of us not being allowed to engage in them for much of history, and the sexism that currently tells girls they'll be bad at these beautiful human endeavors.

You clearly have not even the faintest clue of how truly beautiful math - a system of logic which allows for creativity, and in fact insists on it once you've gotten past algorithms - can be. If you are gifted at it, it is like hearing the song of the universe.

Should music be thrown aside because the famous musicians have historically been men? Art? Everything that makes us human should be shat upon just because men stole the limelight from women when we were as good at is as they are and they forced us to pretend we weren't also the sources of such beautiful things?

You're saying we're too fucking stupid to be mathematicians or scientists.

How dare you.

Feather · 2020-08-09T19:57:03+00:00

to not use any gendered language

So how does this work with two trans people, one who insists that no gendered language be used and the other who insists on being called their preferred gender pronouns? Which one gets to win and make the other person do what they want?

Feather · 2020-08-09T05:44:09+00:00

"Lived experience" is now used as a term for "personal interpretations or claims motivated by what I want from you."

I believe it was originally supposed to mean what it literally sounds like: the experiences one has lived through. Like if a woman says she's constantly groped at parties and a man says, "I've never seen that," he should shut up because she's saying what she literally experienced.

But now it seems to be used differently. "It is my lived experience that I am a panda," = "I desperately wish I were a panda, and I experience that desperate wishing, so I am a panda and you're a bigot if you argue."

It's kind of like the word "valid." Originally, "Your feelings are valid," just meant that feelings can't be "wrong." Feelings are just feelings and can't be "false" because emotions exist outside of the false vs. factually accurate spectrum.

But then, "Your emotions are valid," changed into, "Your emotions are an accurate factual reflection of what is factually and objectively correct in the world around you. If you feel a thing, the accompanying thoughts are surely also valid and therefore factually true."

This should be obvious nonsense (and the entire psychiatric field of CBT, which is an excellently effective form of therapy for many issues, is based on the fact that it's nonsense).

Feelings and thoughts aren't the same thing, and while feelings are "valid" (ie cannot be incorrect since they're just an emotional state), thoughts can absolutely be invalid.

The, "Everything you feel is valid and therefore your resulting thoughts are factually accurate," thing is horrifyingly toxic. I can come up with an example of how badly this idea can work out in the real world right now:

Let's say I'm a parent and my baby is screaming. I feel bad and sad and ashamed and I'm angry. I want to lash out.

In response to that feeling, I am reminded of how I felt when my parent screamed abuse at me.

I have the same feelings I had when my parent abused me. It makes me think of my baby in terms of my abusive parent.

Feelings are valid and therefore the resulting thoughts are valid. Therefore, my baby is abusing me.

Time to treat my baby like an abuser deserves to be treated! It's self-defense!

Phrases and concepts that were born of a desire to give words to what victims of abuse experienced are constantly co-opted by abusers and/or the insecure mentally disturbed. All the time.

So now we have a bunch of people saying you're "enacting violence" if you don't say their self-ID (the thought that happens in reaction to their feeling) is factually valid.

"I'm a woman with a girldick! I'm valid!"

Feather · 2020-08-08T15:23:59+00:00

Their "introspection" is literally the opposite of introspection: it's contemplating what and how to make other people think of them.

Feather · 2020-08-08T15:05:05+00:00

We as a society are at a point where I think you need to mention what he did to the dog first, or maybe only mention what he did to the dog, if you want certain groups of people to admit that this person is a monster.

Feather · 2020-08-07T17:59:11+00:00

I apologize for assuming you were just insulting people's looks.

Feather · 2020-08-07T06:01:50+00:00

And people with Cotard delusion are trans-dead. (It's a form of psychosis in which a person believes they are dead. The psychiatric field still isn't tolerant enough to recognize that their deadness is biologically valid though. What bigots.)

Feather · 2020-08-07T03:46:23+00:00

Ignore that person. "Anything over a DD is overkill," is stupid and mean.

It's conflating a thing you cannot control (natural breast size) with things like makeup. That person is demoting breasts - human female body parts - to something like makeup. They're describing their opinion of breasts as being in the same category as, "Too much eyeshadow is overkill." As if we have a choice.

Women with naturally large breasts are often treated as though we chose to make them large. We didn't. Our bodies aren't "overkill."

Feather · 2020-08-06T21:16:37+00:00

Which is a good thing to have if one is a horror writer. I have to go look at the comments (they wouldn't load when I read the story on my phone earlier) because I'm curious what readers make of the trans parallels.

Feather · 2020-08-06T17:41:50+00:00

I don't think we should say that all girls feel shame when they develop breasts. Developing breasts is the start of being subjected to the male gaze for many girls, and that's upsetting and can make a girl feel ashamed, but a lot of adolescent girls feel good when they first start developing breasts. They feel more grownup and beautiful.

I know I did. When I started to develop breasts, I felt beautiful. I looked more like my mother, who I thought was very beautiful.

The upsetting feelings came later based on how others treated me, and even how others talked about their own breasts. My mother talked about her breasts (and by extension, all breasts) the way you describe in your comment and it was deeply confusing and disturbing to me as a young girl. Feeling happy about my breasts but being told girls and women are ashamed of their breasts was not good for me.

Feather · 2020-08-06T16:34:27+00:00

It's on a horror story sub, so in this story the narrator is literally a zombie trying to pass as a living human.

Feather · 2020-08-06T16:26:31+00:00

As many men have said to me when trying to make me feel bad about my naturally large breasts.

Feather · 2020-08-05T04:18:15+00:00

Yeah. Doesn't mean I understand it though.

Feather · 2020-08-05T04:09:59+00:00

I'm so sorry. Losing a beloved friend is definitely heartbreaking.

Even if you know you're right, that doesn't make it hurt less. It can even make it more confusing. Relationships that end based on something that doesn't make sense to the point where your ex (including ex-friends) was delusional... it's hard to ever feel a sense of closure about that.

You're less alone than she is. She's bought into a fake ideology and her friends in that ideology are fake, just the way friends in a cult are fake; if you leave the cult the relationships are over. There are no friendships in cults. The only friend is the ideology.

I'm so sorry you are experiencing this pain though.

Feather · 2020-08-04T20:38:49+00:00

It makes sense for people to use throwaways for that sort of question lest they be deemed a TERF.

Feather · 2020-08-04T20:33:18+00:00

I truly don't understand what they think whiteness has to do with sexual orientation. Is this person saying that being non-white is queer? What do they even mean by queer? I don't get it.

Feather · 2020-08-02T17:14:21+00:00

Great. And the sentiment goes both ways from me. Glad we've got that sorted.

Feather · 2020-08-01T23:20:27+00:00

I looked at his profile. He clearly puts a lot of effort into spelling things as badly as possible. Clearly he thinks it's "girly" to write like a moron.

Feather · 2020-07-31T04:08:36+00:00

The person on the left looks "ugly." In other words, not pleasant aesthetically based on most people's standards.

But I'd assume she is a butch woman based on that photo. Maybe she's a TIM but I couldn't say that based on the photo.

Sometimes women are crazy horrid assholes, too. This post comes across as, "That lady on the left is fugly and also women don't do bad stuff amirite?"

Feather · 2020-07-30T16:00:12+00:00

Wow. It seems like the book is already making a difference.

As to whether a news source is conservative, I don't care. The left has gone mad on this issue. Sometimes "the other side" is sane in ways that "my side" is not.

Feather · 2020-07-29T19:52:24+00:00

Yet more, "Why don't you liiiiiiiiiike me, it's so UNFAIR," from a public servant who's supposed to be talking about something else.

Feather · 2020-07-29T18:01:23+00:00

When it comes to the academically privileged argument I wrote, I should have put an /s at the end. I wouldn't actually describe what's happening in those terms. I just thought it was funny to phrase it in that sort of academic-ish language. Then again, I was really sleepy when I wrote the comment so it's not surprising that I'm the only one who found it funny.

Feather · 2020-07-29T05:12:39+00:00

The academic use of privilege is kind of funny, actually. To use their own framework against them:

The academically privileged have colonized the language of the common people and suggested the long-established meanings of the people's words are unacceptable. The unwashed masses must allow the academically privileged to explain our language to us and tell us we are wrong and stupid when we insist on using our language the way we have always used it. When we disagree with the new definitions they force upon us, they attempt to oppress us by superimposing their current definitions upon our pasts and saying we were secretly always wrong about the words we used - only they, the academically privileged, know what's right for us.

As far as, "Give up your privilege," goes yeah, it's ridiculous. It's like if a parent said, "You need to give up eating because there are children starving somewhere else," or made their kids meditate upon how unfair it is that they have food.

Fuck no. It's not unfair that they have food. It's unfair that other people DON'T.

Feather · 2020-07-29T00:45:21+00:00

I generally dislike it.

I think its common usage is more useful than its academic usage.

Common use: A bonus, whether earned or not. This might apply to a child born into a rich family or the privilege of being allowed to drive your mom's car.

Academic use: being treated with the dignity all humans deserve by merit of being human, while other people are deprived of that.

I think it obscures the real issue. A white lady isn't privileged when cops don't harass her; she's experiencing the default treatment we all deserve. But if we navel-gaze about why she gets that treatment, we're not focusing on what we should actually be doing: making sure other people are not denied the default decency she receives.

It also doesn't leave people with any guidance about what to do. Meditating upon one's privilege 24/7 for a year is worthless when compared to even simple stuff like donating ten bucks to an organization that covers bail for non-violent offenses or donating to a women's shelter.

Feather · 2020-07-28T01:56:19+00:00

Yes, this is not surprising.

I've noticed that people with the more extreme ideologies in the fat acceptance movement (ideologies that include things like, "Being obese can be healthy,") have had less to say now that Covid has made it unambiguously clear that obesity is a pre-existing condition. I doubt anybody ever actually believed that rhetoric in the first place, but it sounds more absurd than ever now.

Since, "Fat can be healthy," now goes over like a lead balloon, people who focused on that message have to choose something else to make them seem oppressed.

Feather · 2020-07-26T21:24:38+00:00

Yeahhhh. And it's clear these aren't the sort of guys who engage in anything that doesn't involve their penis. That is definitely not a person who's ever brought a woman to orgasm. I wouldn't be surprised if he said going down on a woman is "triggering" since it reminds him of the vagina he doesn't have.

Feather · 2020-07-26T21:18:56+00:00

It's a complex issue. I would feel gross if I exhibited certain common biological traits of men. I mean, not disgusted in the sense of feeling like I was a bad or gross person, but I'd be grossed out. If someone forced me to take male hormones, I would absolutely be horrified by the changes it would cause in my body, and no amount of, "It's okay to be a masculine woman," would comfort me.

So I can see how a detransitioner, upon peaking, would also feel gross about certain ways they'd changed their bodies.

Feather · 2020-07-25T20:00:32+00:00

Most people are completely unaware of this nonsense in the first place, so they'd be shocked to learn about it in connection with a horrific news story. They still think TRAs just want to be safe in bathrooms or something.

With that said, it seems unlikely that JKR doesn't have significant personal security, so I hope AND expect she'll stay safe.

Feather · 2020-07-25T04:38:49+00:00

They really are. If they'd stopped when so many of us agreed to call them the pronouns they prefer and supported them in transitioning medically as adults they'd be sitting pretty right now.

Instead they've created a situation in which people are so scared to be labeled a "TERF" that those people are silent while angrily stewing in what they actually know to be true, and kids who will later sue the shit out of their "gender-affirming" doctors are victims of what everyone will soon recognize as psychotic medical malpractice.

The people who think this insanity will last forever are wrong. It won't. But the fact that it won't is based on something really sad: it won't last forever because they are harming as many people as possible, as viciously as possible. They're creating so much suffering, much of it permanent, that they'll be absolutely fucked when this is over. And they deserve that. But in the meantime they're ruining lives. The ruined lives and TRAs' ultimate ruination are inextricably linked.

Feather · 2020-07-24T23:01:51+00:00

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'd love it if you'd share/dm me your pet theory about how Japanese cartoons wound up aimed at teens instead of kids. Your comment is already interesting, and that sounds fascinating.

Feather · 2020-07-24T05:06:36+00:00

You have to chase him

I'm starting to hate the word "shy." Nowadays it doesn't seem to actually mean someone is shy. It means someone has abysmal social skills and they want you to think it's adorable.

And I never heard anyone describe a full grown adult as shy before the last few years. It was something people said about kids who don't like to interact with new people, or about their cats. "Shy" adults were called reserved or quiet.

Feather · 2020-07-23T00:55:58+00:00

His goals...

If a real woman listed her only goals as, "Get fake tits and have a particular sexual orientation," it would indicate some issues (not that I can imagine a real woman listing those as her goals on a dating profile). And this isn't even a woman.

Feather · 2020-07-23T00:50:24+00:00

I'm pretty sure the "clovergender" thing specifically was a prank.

Feather · 2020-07-21T18:05:27+00:00

I think it's because people are mad about getting banned on Reddit. It felt like a punch in the gut to see all GC subs banned and then to see PCOS and pregnancy taken over because they weren't "inclusive" enough.

Feather · 2020-07-20T21:49:15+00:00

He's advocating for women who've already been raped to be raped even more. As he says about the fact that many anti-prostitution women are trafficking victims:

just means they have more experience for the job

Feather · 2020-07-20T12:25:30+00:00

That's an important point. Yeah, you're probably right.

Fortunately that won't happen since they don't seem to want anyone who isn't part of their family/hasn't married into their family to actually join their church.

Feather · 2020-07-20T11:57:14+00:00

Good points. And I hate to say anything to praise them, but even people at the Westboro church are happy to talk to their enemies like normal people. Most people don't know this, but they let journalists and religious studies professors come around to hang out and talk and debate and interview them, and they're polite during these interactions. It's part of why their kids keep leaving the church: their kids are allowed to see these other points of view.

There are some "enemies" with whom they have had respectful relationships for years and are apparently actually fond of.

Feather · 2020-07-19T21:51:46+00:00

I think it's worth reading, but I don't find it enjoyable per se. If someone is looking for an entertaining hate-read, this wouldn't be the right book. Looking at how he grew up is just sad. You see this fucked up family dynamic drama with a sociopathic patriarch who ruins everyone around him, and you know how it ends: really badly. You already know that none of his (Fred Trump's) kids will ever reach escape velocity even long after he's dead, if they even survive that long: they're going to stay who he programmed them to be.

Feather · 2020-07-19T19:30:02+00:00

I agree.

I finished reading Shrier's book. It was so appalling. I had no idea how much trans stuff many kids are being fed even in elementary school or that so many colleges will prescribe testosterone at someone's first "therapy" appointment.

It caused me to ask my daughter if she'd been exposed to the stuff mentioned in the book and she told me she'd been exposed to ALL of it. She said that about a quarter of her girl friends had "come out" as trans at some point and then taken it back a few months later. I was relieved to discover she had a sane view of it though. We had a really good, nuanced discussion.

Feather · 2020-07-19T19:19:50+00:00

I started reading "Too Much and Never Enough" by Trump's niece, Mary L. Trump. She provides a lot of family background about what she believes formed him into the man he is today.

Among many other interesting things, I learned that he's still unhappy when anyone reminds him of his older brother dumping mashed potatoes on his head when he was seven. Apparently he still hasn't gotten over the insult.

His father always said things were "great" and "perfect" even when they were far from it. His dad also mocked Trump's older brother for apologizing or taking the blame for anything, therefore teaching Trump that apologizing and accepting responsibility are pathetic.

Feather · 2020-07-19T18:55:38+00:00

I think this is a good point. I've thought a lot about it because I'm the type to go on a walk at 2AM to go get some energy drinks. I decided I am willing to put up with that risk profile. So far, I've been touched inappropriately zero times on those walks. I can't even count how many times I've been touched inappropriately by "friends" at gatherings.

I understand why some women wouldn't be comfortable with that risk profile though. A groper at a party is less likely to put you in mortal danger than a stranger who stalks you in the middle of the night. So even though the former is waaaay more statistically common, the latter has worse outcomes when it does happen.

Feather