im extremely grumpy today so im gonna start shit. but the reason im so unwilling to engage w transmed/truscum/whatever the fuck points is prob linked to the fact that 99% of the time i go on yalls blogs i see some racist bs. like ok brandon ill be willing to listen to whatever you have to say on how to end transphobia when you actually understand how systems of oppression work, spoilers: once you do, youll stop believing in “reverse racism”/”anti-white racism”/whatever dumb shit you saw on reddit
i dont wanna sound like im on the far left but if your solution to “transitionning is ridiculously expensive” is “lets stigmatize being trans to shit so the healthcare people pay for hrt” and not “lets stop the exploitation of marginalized groups for profit” i dont fuck w you
like, i know i already got insulted for saying that all transmedicalists are centrists but i really dont get how you can be pro a stateless classless moneyless society without being pro trans liberation, anti medicalization of trans lives, etc or at least recognizing basic patterns of transphobia found in the mainstream (”trans is suffering/hating yourself”) and in other reactonnaries groups (”trans people are faking it for not experiencing their gender the way i do/looking the way i think they should”). its not that hard to see that putting the medical field as our only way to know who is “faking it” is giving some people more power than they should have.
in the end this way of framing trans liberation as something that can be achieved via the current systems in place is completely oblivous to the economic level of trans oppression, and oppressions in general. yes poor trans people have huge difficulties accessing transition and that kills us but trans people are being deliberately kept in poverty not for their dysphoria, but for their inherent inabilty to conform to sociatal gender norms. if you dont see how being trans cannot only be about dysphoria, youre just as blind as the terf who doesnt see how being a woman cannot only be about having a vagina.
i dont wanna sound like im on the far left but if your solution to “transitionning is ridiculously expensive” is “lets stigmatize being trans to shit so the healthcare people pay for hrt” and not “lets stop the exploitation of marginalized groups for profit” i dont fuck w you
not to sound like a commie but you cannot wish for the abolition of racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism and sexism without also wishing for the abolition of capitalism. the oppression of poc, women, disabled, nd and lgbti people are linked to the struggle of the working class and their common source is capitalism. if capitalism stays, you can never meaningfully abolish any form of oppression.
Because in communist and socialist countries people DEFINITELY are not any if those.
Oh wait. They are worse than us. I have proof. Online I have talked with 2 bulgarians, and bulgarian was a socialist country merely 30 years ago. They still are barely starting ti advocate gay rights, have no gay marriage and is absolutely normalized if not encouraged to think and talk about homosexual people in a derogatory manner. And that’s light example of a country that was socialist 30 years ago, and barely doesn’t straight up kill gay people. Not to sound like a capitalist but your statement is bullshit.
learn to read if you dont want to sound like a dumbass
@emperorofbeards youre still missing the point. how can we abolish profitable oppression without also abolishing a system driven by profit?
@emperorofbeards please google “pay gap”. look into how racism & transphobia also plays into the pay gap. search what populations make up most of prisons’ inmates. google prison unpaid labor. look at the increase of the price of insulin. i beg you, at least google slavery or the native american genocide. aren’t those profitable? dont they exploit marginalized people? can we then please conclude that oppression can be profitable? or do you need me to come to your house & explain in person that it doesnt need to be logical to be real, Mr.Ofbeards?
Wage gap is forged myth. That’s false.
Prison inmates… tell me which group commits disproportionately high amount of violent crime compared to population.
Hell let’s dive further. Why women have way smaller prison punsihments for the same crimws under same file. Why do men get in prison for longer for the same deal.
Prison unpaid labour is kind of… eh. I think they should make up for their crimes, by benefitting society.
Now the medical industry raised prizes for different reasons, and the reason behind it is nore important.
Oh you mean the genocide of native americans which were mostly killed off by diseases and plagues while way less were actually killed. Anyway the past is the past. I mean slavery was and is not really a thing in only america and not only done by one race and are not a byproduct and a concept of capitalism.
So none of your points…. really apply…
Yo, @datmoki. I don’t get your point on why you can’t get rid of bigotry and oppression without getting rid of capitalism.
I think you’re reading too much into a system that is really just “provide goods at prices that people can agree on.” That’s essentially what capitalism is. Maybe you might have a point in how capitalism is implemented or managed, but you can’t just advocate for abolishing an economic system for some perceived problem of oppression. Its too broad.
im sorry its so long & that it may sound a bit condescending. since i have no idea whats actually misunderstood, im gonna try to thoroughly explain everything at once. im also sorry for apparently “reading too much into” a system that will literally dictate my whole life but ok lol.
im not here to argue on the definition of capitalism since im not an economist. my point does depend on what definition we use tho, so lets get one right now (im using google’s dictionary for ease):
[image desc: a screenshot of the google dictionnary feature. the entry is that of “capitalism”. it reads: “an economic and political system in wich a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.”]
again, im not arguing that it is a correct definition, im arguing that based on that definition you cannot meaningfully liberate marginalized groups under capitalism. its advocating for the abolition of capitalism only if you want to abolish all forms of oppression (and the people who do is who the post was intended for)
now, since it seems i actually do need to explain what i meant by “google x” ill clarify that next. that point relies on the assumption that everyone agrees that: -in our current society, some groups of people are oppressed (even in america & western europe) and were oppressed in the past. -most of these groups are more or less: women; people of color (poc); lgbti people; disabled people
ill go over the “google x” stuff point by point:
the pay gap: it affects women, poc, lgbti & disabled people. that means that companies are able to pay those (marginalized) people less & get away with it and so make more profit.
prisons: uneducated & poor people, black & latino people, lgbti people and disabled people are over represented in american prisons (but its pretty much the same in western europe as well). prison inmates work for free or a ridiculously small wage: companies are able to get free or extremely cheap labor from those marginalized people while still having products made in the us, wich means more profits. (ill come back to the point about women being under represented in prisons later)
the price of insulin: insulin and other life-saving medications are being sold at prices subject to enormous raises (the exemple of insulin: it had a 300% price increase). the people who need those meds to stay alive are obviously disabled people. companies are able to sell their products (medication) for whatever amount they decide while still knowing itll be bought since its needed in order to stay alive, wich means more profits.
slavery andthe native american genocide: pretty straight-forward, black people were enslaved (=free work) & native american people were massacred intentionally & their land stolen (=free land that might contain gold & other ressources that can be sold at high prices), wich means more profits.
and thats not including other forms of exploitation for profit. i hope we can all conclude from this list that the oppression of some group of people can be profitable. but since oppression can be profitable, why would abolishing it be possible under a system meant for profit? thats what i mean by ”meaningfully liberate”, you might argue that its possible to abolish bigotry on an individual level (nobody says slurs anymore, everyone is treated equal in social cicles & under the law) while still under capitalism but you cannot liberate those people from the exploitation of their bosses, of the state, of pharmaceutical companies, and more generally, of the ruling class within capitalism since its precisely what is profitable, wich is to say, desirable under such system.
that brings me to a point that was part of the original post, the working class is oppressed in the same way that the groups i cited earlier are. they share their struggle with other oppressed groups and so, if you care about liberating all marginalized people, you should care about the working class as well. since thats part of the point i was making, i didnt include “the working class” or “poor people” in the oppressed groups earlier but they do belong there.
as a short conclusion of my original post: if you want to meaningfully liberate every marginalized groups you should strive to abolish capitalism both because it plays a role in the oppression of those groups & because the working class is just as oppressed as other groups and in order to liberate workers, you need to abolish their exploitation for profit (ie: capitalism).
now, on women being under represented in prisons: they are. i am not denying that. men do make up most of prisons’ population and that could be for a number of reasons, one of wich could be the infantilization of women & the sexist belief that women are somehow less capable of bad than men are that would lead to them getting lower sentences. those lower sentences are then contrasted with the higher sentences, charges and rates of carceration that black men get that then raise the overall men’s averages and so they appear especially unfair to men. this is all speculations, i haven’t specifically looked into this as it doesn’t really disproves the overall oppression of women imo. im not trying to bend reality & say “women dont actually have lower rates of carceration than men” since the difference between the two is ridiculously huge, im just trying to bring an explanation as to why that might be so that point isnt left unanswered and i dont look like im avoiding facts that i dont like lol.
and since the native american genocide was questionned, i do recommend Shaun’s video on the subject if you can handle 30min long videos, its really good and properly sourced, unlike my post: https://youtu.be/Xd_nVCWPgiA
j’ai aps envie de chercher la merde donc je poste en français mais genre vous vous posez pas la question que y’a qqc de chelou dans le radféminisme quand vous avez des dérives telles que: les terfs, les febfem, etc? en plus je veux pas faire genre radfém=libfem mais y’a quand même des démarches hyper individualistes en fait. genre si une meuf se maquille elle contribue à la patriarchie, et à l’inverse si elle se maquille pas tout d’un coup c’est une attaque direct contre ? ok peut-être que ça fais chier les mecs que tu croisent & je respecte le choix de (pas) se maquiller mais faut pas faire genre c’est un choix ultra radical & que si toutes les femmes de la planète arrêtent d’acheter chez sephora tout d’un coup elles seront plus oppressées smh.
while i dont think its fair comparing trans people to their oppressors, i still think its useful in discourse to underline the similarities between trans/med rethoric & terf rethoric. the way i reconcile both ideas is that while transphobia is central to terf ideology, being trans isnt to trans/med ideology. i do think saying to a trans trans/med “you sound just like a terf” isnt appropriate, but it really comes down to wording.
i also dont think its fair saying or implying that trans men are the main target of terfs and so that drawing links between the two in any way is Problematic. terfs are transphobic and so they are harmful to trans men because they are trans, not because they are trans men. on the other hand, theyre more dangerous to trans women as theyre both targeted for being trans and for being trans women specifically. we need to acknowledge terfs see trans men as “lost womyn” and so while it is infantilizing, transphobic and damaging, trans men arent victims of the rethoric trans/meds have in common with terfs (or else they wouldnt share it in the first place)
(the main concern of trans/meds seems to be trans men & so im assuming trans men make up most of trans/meds or are at least who trans/medicalism is meant to represent aside from “all trans people”.)
i think people would be more willing to listen to the “including x identity in the lgbt acronym isnt useful as it fits under y other identity already there” argument if it wasnt worded as “your identity is Wrong and you’re actually y and not x” but something more to the extent of “society doesnt makes a distinction between x and y and since y is recognized by that same label, theres no systematic oppression for being x, what oppression you do face is tied to you being y/being percieved as y and thus including x when y is already there doesnt bring anything new and could actually drive people off”. i wont add my actual thoughts on that argument and i know i may be strawmaning with that first wording but its ultimately how its percieved and so the answer youll get will be an answer to the “youre invalid” argument and not what you actually said. wording is pretty important when youre exchanging conflicting opinions & political stances (lgbt+ issues are political). Sadly pretty much anyone can see your exchanges on social media and so some wording that are understood as having more meaning & thought behind them by both people will be read by someone who lacks that context behind it and misinterpret it. im not suggesting that we all stop joking but to keep in mind how what youre posting publicly could be misinterpreted and how what youre reading couldve been badly worded, especially on social media
tbh its weird reading radfem posts criticizing libfems as the only alternative to radfeminism. a good thing to keep in mind when writing discourse is that theres rarely only 2 options in those things. theres more than 2 lefts, etc. political ideologies (because feminism is political) can vary a lot. even if it seems like everyone who doesnt think the way you do thinks the same, they rarely do. lumping everything you disagree with under one label just isnt intellectually honest.
criticizing what you see as “the opposing side” as if it were a monolith isnt good either. & im p sure not two feminists (lib or rad or whatever) will have the same view of their feminism. listen to viewpoints you disagree with once in a while, its healthy.
