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At the time I tweeted I was extremely upset and going through something difficult that brought up a lot of bad memories for me. That said, sharing those kinds of nuanced thoughts on a platform meant almost exclusively for disingenuous discourse was not the best move I’ve ever made.
While it’s very true that I have done and said things in my life I do not agree with now, attempting to hold a mid-life adult accountable for the words and actions of a child is both foolish and impossible - the person I was at 20 no longer exists. If you are reading this in the hopes I’ll self-flagellate about what a horrible person I am, you’re going to be disappointed.
There is no point in ‘defending myself’ against every incorrect fan-theory that comes my way. People calling me biphobic and transphobic will never make me treat my bisexual and trans friends any differently. I have absolutely no desire to disclose the details of my personal life, or intimate relationship with gender to justify myself to a bunch of entitled, misogynistic strangers.
If my thoughts, my mere presence on the internet is something you deem harmful, block me. If you are waiting for me to shrink myself, and disappear you’re going to die waiting. However, if what you’re waiting for is me to explain what the hell I was talking about then keep reading, let’s break it down.
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Before I explain my tweets I need to clarify my use of language, because if we cannot get on the same footing from the get-go then there is no hope for open communication.
When I use the word “sex” I am referring to the biological difference between a male and a female. Until very recently it had never occurred to me that people use these words for any purpose other than a medical one, and I frankly had no idea it was something that someone could find offensive. As far as I am concerned, it’s a neutral fact.
These words, “male” and “female” imply nothing about someone’s personality, their taste in clothing, hobbies, masculinity, femininity or gender.
When I use the words “man” and “woman” I am referring to a social role. Gender. Which is, what exactly? A person is born, they are sexed either male or female, and society then assigned them worth based on the gender that ‘corresponds’ with their sex. If you are sitting here thinking, “well the issue here is that we are assuming someone’s sex ‘matches’ their gender!” you’re right, assuming someone will be the gender that ‘corresponds’ with their sex isn’t always correct and is something to fight against. But the fact that the sex ‘female’ and the gender ‘woman’ are both worth less than their counterparts is also a very real issue that affects billions of people.
To pretend females do not face a very specific oppression for the bodies they are born with - regardless of their personal feelings about their gender - is ignorant at best, and heartlessly disingenuous to half of humanity’s suffering at worst.
“Transwomen are women”, “Transmen are men” yes, they are. A transwoman is going to have her own struggles and life experiences that I, as a female, do not have to deal with. Likewise, I have female experiences she will never understand or deal with. When I had femininity forced on me as a child, she was encouraged to be masculine - perhaps we both would have been happier in each other's shoes. But that is not the case, and I am not interested in denying the reality of what either of us went through to coddle anyone’s feelings. The truth is I am thinking of someone specific in my life who I love very much, and it would be a disservice to us both to pretend we were treated the same way growing up, that our bodies went through the same processes, or that our relationship to gender and our bodies is going to be at all the same.
Likewise, Transmen grow up with different socialization, and experience oppression in ways males do not.
Oppression due to sex exists, as does oppression due to gender. A woman can be the victim of street harassment, regardless of her sex. A female is more likely to be the victim of sex trafficking, regardless of their gender. There is nothing inherently hateful about acknowledging the reality of our situations. Both of these issues exist, and discussing the issues of one doesn’t negate the other.
Bisexuals are not the same as homosexuals. They have the ability to love and feel sexual/romantic attraction for both sexes, which is very dope of them. However, this does not make them homosexuals. There is nothing offensive about this, unless of course you think there’s something inherently insulting about being bisexual.By labeling themselves ‘gay’ heterosexually attracted people are stripping the word of its meaning. Just as someone who is only attracted to one sex calling themselves bisexual strips the word of its meaning (looking at you heteros).
‘Gay’ used to mean “homosexual”, but we are at the point in liberal circles where ‘gay’ is so commonly used it’s become an umbrella term. This means anything under the LGBT umbrella is considered ‘gay’, including heterosexually attracted orientations. So why is this an issue?
Let’s say you’re a young homosexual, the vast majority of your friends are gay, but over time they all end up happily in heterosexual relationships. What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you do that? Everyone you know is also ‘gay’ but you’re the only one who can’t seem to make a connection with someone of the opposite sex. Everyone tells you ‘hearts not parts’, as if having a preference for a particular sex is a moral shortcoming. Even many of the ‘lesbians’ you know talk about liking male genitals, or end up in happy relationships with males. So what is wrong with you?
I don’t think anyone who said these things to me was ill-intentioned, but the fact no one thought “hey, maybe you can’t love males bc you’re a homosexual” is a direct result of ‘gay’ losing its meaning. The assumption that everyone is ‘fluid’ AKA bisexual on some level, hurts people who are not. People now think that “lesbian” means anyone who is attracted to women (of any sex), rather than only females who are only attracted only to other females. There is no longer a word to describe a sexuality with firm boundaries that clearly means: I am only attracted to the same sex.
By losing the language to talk about homosexuality we lose the ability to make it ok, normal, healthy. This harms homosexual people. Not having a word to describe what you are at a fundamental level means you are always going to have to describe yourself as an incorrect version of something else that has a definition. A “Lesbian with trauma surrounding penises” “supergay” these are ways of communicating “homosexuality” because at this point “lesbian” and “gay” does not exclude the opposite sex. I would argue that there there is no longer a word that means with clarity “homosexual” that does not elicit anger from ‘liberal’, often q*eer identified people for being “exclusionary”.
Only being attracted to the same sex - the people with the genitals you were born with - is not a political stance. There are homosexual conservatives, just as there are homosexual liberals, there are homosexual trans people, there are homosexual racists and homosexual charity workers. It is not about “excluding” anyone from a dating pool as a statement. Physical attraction is not based upon other people’s internal sense of self. You can’t see, touch, or fuck the way others perceive themselves. Attraction is based on physically what we are presented with, and is not intended to reflect upon the way anyone feels about themselves.
Other females tell me extremely similar stories of being pressured by their friend-groups to be in relationships with the opposite sex despite their discomfort. Stories of females who suspect they might be homosexual pushing themselves to be in relationships with males so as not to hurt their feelings. I’ve even had a number of bisexual females come to me and say that they’re afraid to voice their attraction towards other females because they feel people would be angry at them for “excluding” women who are not female.
No one, no matter their orientation or gender should ever be made to feel like this.
Something happened to me in real life, in real-time. It was upsetting.
It has become common to push a narrative of sexual orientation being an issue of morality, when it’s actually just a natural part of being human, which isn’t ‘good’ or ‘bad’, it just ‘is’. My inability to be attracted to someone with a penis is not a statement about my politics, it is just my biology.
I find this new-age homophobia to be very insidious compared to conservatives. Conservatives, while they clearly want all homosexuals, bisexuals who participate in homosexual relationships, and all gender non-conforming people to vanish off the earth, are easy to recognize and avoid.
However, Liberalism in America has become so oversaturated with people who refuse to acknowledge biological sex as an axis of oppression it’s become hostile in an environment to anyone who does experience such oppression - which is to say, all females. It’s also become increasingly hostile to homosexuals who experience oppression because of same our exclusive sex attraction, and are now expected to quietly share our space, our language and our history with people who are not same-sex attracted.
I mistakenly thought it was clear: “TERF” has no meaning. I have seen trans friends of mine called “TERFs” simply for discussing their female health issues. I constantly see any representation of female anatomy being called “terfy” (despite the fact the majority of trans-identified people are female). I’ve seen a trans person discussing their desire for SRS accused of being “terfy” as it implied male and female bodies were different. Essentially any time biological sex, homosexuality, or someone is losing an argument about feminism the word “TERF” gets thrown into the ring, regardless of how much sense it makes.
For a term everyone can recite the acronym of, “Trans exclusionary radical feminist” very few people seem to be able to accurately describe what “radical feminism” is, or what these feminists believe. Seeing the term used so haphazardly, with no actual definition had me convinced we were all past the point of thinking this word had any meaning, or power. I thought at the time this was obvious, which was a massive error on my part.
My personal beliefs don’t exclude trans people from anything, least of all feminism. What I believe is that this term is a modern-day “femnazi” used to silence females from discussing feminist issues that may be unpleasant to deal with, and keep other females “in line” for fear of facing this accusation themselves.
Though the most frequent use of the term I’ve noticed over the last several years has been aimed at homosexual people (usually females), who are shamed, attacked and guilted for even implying they might only be attracted to the same sex - at this point if it has any meaning at all, ‘TERF’ might as well mean ‘female homosexual’.
Does this make you uncomfortable? As an adult, I can brush this homophobia aside - no amount of calling me names will change my inherent sexuality or make me feel guilty for something that’s as natural and objective as my hair color. However, when I think about younger homosexual females seeing this, it makes me feel sick. Sexuality can be very confusing when you’re young, especially for females who since birth are socialized to put others' needs before their own.
No one should ever feel pressured to be in a sexual relationship with someone, period, full stop. The fact this has become a controversial opinion within liberal feminism scares the shit out of me. There is no excuse for treating people’s bodies like a public political space.
Homosexuals wanting to be with people of the same sex is not oppression. It’s not bigotry. It’s the very definition of homosexuality, which is, yes, exclusive. Being exclusive isn’t inherently a bad thing. I don’t presume everything is, or should be, available to me.
Denying the existence of biological sex is insulting to everyone who suffers because of it, including trans people. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that a Transwoman has had the same life experiences as a female who identifies as a woman, it’s a bold-faced lie and flattens both of their experiences for absolutely no reason.
Just as no lesbian needs to be available to people with penises, no one needs to be available to anyone. No one’s body exists to validate someone else’s feelings. A person’s sexual orientation does not have to be a political statement. Arguing about who “deserves” to be placed in someone’s dating pool is predatory, and when it’s almost exclusively used to argue for why denying a heterosexual partner is a moral failing, extremely homophobic.
My biggest mistake was not realizing how seriously many people still take this term. I was sure I’d be labeled a TERF no matter what for expressing sexual boundaries. But because defending homosexuals from social pressures to open their dating pools to the opposite sex is so important to me, I didn’t care if I got called a “TERF”. I don’t want a single person, bisexual, straight, gay, trans or otherwise, to feel guilted or coerced into a relationship they don’t feel comfortable in.
If a small subset of people being born unable to form meaningful romantic/sexual connections with the opposite sex upsets you it is because of homophobia. I know this doesn’t make me transphobic, because many trans people are homosexual as well with their own sexual boundaries that deserve respect. I’m not going to budge on this, and I never will.
People who exclusively celebrate heterosexual attraction under the umbrella of ‘gay’ make me furious. If your attraction hasn’t been punishable by death penalty for the majority of human history then ‘Pride’ isn’t about you, and watching a community that used to be a safe place to express same-sex attraction get overrun by heterosexual fetishists has been like living through a nightmare I can’t wake up from.
I worry so much for young gay and bisexual kids. I hope they know there is nothing wrong with them for existing the way they are. I hope bisexual people don’t feel so uncomfortable with their sexuality they choose to express their attraction to both sexes under a different label - what’s so wrong with being a bisexual that prefers women, or men? I hope that trans people can find peace with their bodies that doesn’t depend on how others perceive them.
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Anyone who was upset by my tweets is fully within their right to be, my tone was harsh and everything I was upset about had context that got obliterated by the 280 character limit. These kinds of thoughts weigh on me frequently, and I often forget that for people who aren’t aware of the current dynamic within the modern-day LGBT community it can be confusing/hard to follow.
If you made it all the way to the end of this novella, congratulations. I only hope I was able to communicate my thoughts with clarity so anyone reading this with an open mind was able to take something away from it. I’m aware that my tone is often interpreted to be aggressive whether I intend it or not, so thank you for bearing with me.
That said, if you have something to say to me and want a response, please send proof of donation to The Love Land (https://thelovelandfoundation.org/) along with your questions/comments to mostflogged@gmail.com, otherwise I will not be reading your message.