PSA the "si" in shared YouTube links stand for Seal Indicator. This means there is a nefarious seal tracking your information and will give YouTube your data in exchange for fish. Please remove the part after "?si=" before you click on it or share the link with others because it is a tracking token!

One day ur a suicidal 15 year old and then suddenly you wake up and you're 22 years old and genuinely debating the merits of iceberg vs romaine lettuce in the salad ur making. Life goes on ig

Antifeminism online: a necessary history

This may end up being one of my longer posts, and possibly the most important post I'll ever make. If you're reading this, I beg you to save it so you can find it whenever you have time to take out of your day and read it in its entirety.

Since it was mentioned in a post I saw yesterday, I'd like to leave a couple of videos from The Alt-Right Playbook series by Innuendo Studios. This video below is the one that was explicitly referenced in the post. It's less than 5 minutes long.

This next one is one that very well illustrates a specific bad faith rhetorical strategy that originated in very right-leaning online spaces in the early to mid 2010s (mainly 4chan and Reddit) and was then disseminated to other social media with more politically diverse userbases when the channers and redditors started using it (among others discussed in the series) to obfuscate, silence, or "takedown" arguments by progressives. I'm highlighting this particular one because I think it is very commonly used now on Tumblr among users calling themselves "transfeminist" in a way that destabilizes and obfuscates actual feminist analysis. (I don't think everyone who does it is equally aware of what they're doing - this is a strategy that does not require a complete awareness of its results on the part of the user. However, many people who use it do very well know what they are doing and feign ignorance, as the strategy is one that has plausible deniability built into it. The video goes into this.) The video is 18 minutes long.

I would sincerely recommend anyone who considers themselves a progressive and who frequently comes across bad faith arguments made by people who try to smuggle in regressive ideas in the form of quippy statemens, "owns", gaslighting, goalpost-shifting, etc. to watch the entire series. It has many parts but most of the videos are pretty short and the whole thing is really digestible and simply phrased.

More specifically to the topic of this blog, the recent trans community """infighting""" is one where a contingent of 4chan and old-school Reddit expatriates have been pushing increasingly antifeminist beliefs into the previously relatively progressive and feminist demographic of queer and trans Tumblr users, moving the overton window slowly but surely to the right on issues like rape culture, domestic abuse, reproductive oppression, and the way gendered socialization produces unequal consciousness and thus unequal material results, while gradually discouraging direct engagement with the history of feminist political action and feminist theory and literature.

Now, I guarantee you that I have been online for longer than at least 80% of the people reading this. This is both because I am old (#MillennialCringe) and because I, like many nerdy girls and "girls" of the 00s, was a very early adopter (never let them tell you that the internet was solely or mostly male until X recent date. It's a sexist lie.) So as someone who has been online for a very long time and has been immersed in online political discussion for almost as long, let me tell you, the Internet's historical memory is extremely short.

The reason people who unironically believe in things like AFAB privilege, that "people with a vagina can get justice for rape if their rapist is AMAB" (quite literally the opposite of how rape has worked for the entirety of human history, BTW!), that cis men are closer to being "TMA" than anyone AFAB or even cis men are TMA (where to be "TMA" is to universally suffer the most severe gendered victimization and violence, since "literally everybody AFAB has privilege over ["TMA" peope]"), that "there is a type of power that AFAB people hold that cis men don't" due to "having access to cis womanhood", who proclaim their "little fondness for cis women as a class" while having "no quarrel with the cisgender men", who argue in favor of introducing "nuance" to the condemnation of a rapist as an offender and wonder whether it is even possible to know if or when rape has occurred, who perpetrate the classic MRA talking point of "false rape accusationss", can insist that they are the indefatigable feminist activists being harassed and persecuted, while the people who point out the physical, psychological, medical, legal, economic, reproductive, occupational, and sexual damage that being classed as female has come with for the majority of human history* are maligned as "MRAs", or "gamergaters" with so little pushback from anyone, is that the true nature and history of those fascist, racist, and antifeminist movements has been memoryholed, even as little as <15 years after they happened. At the same time, its agents have demonstrably succeeded in normalizing their language and beliefs throughout the entire Internet, to the point that the average Twitter or Tiktok feed of 2026 looks not unlike the front page of /pol/ in 2014.

I believe it has at this point become fundamental for anyone who considers themselves a progressive to actually educate themselves on the history, tactics, demographic makeup, language, and aesthetics of those movements. This is especially true for anyone who considers themselves a feminist and who wants to spread feminist beliefs, participate in feminist analysis and work to end sexist oppression. Sexism has always been one of the chief values used to attract people, mainly white cis men who felt disenfranchised from masculinity, to these environments and radicalize them. (The other big one of course being racism.) Here is a video in the Alt-Right Playbook series on how such radicalization worked in detail, it's longer than the others but very important, please, please watch it.

It's especially important to note that I don't believe it to be a coincidence that these movements gained traction not thanks to platforming or support from "classic" conservative hubs but thanks to the radicalization and infiltration of nerdy online spaces with a predominant white male presence. It is equally not coincidental, in my opinion, that to the sexist, racist men in these communities, Tumblr was seen as the stronghold of the annoying, whiny, self-victimizing feminists. This was due to the fact that Tumblr (and some other often female-created and female-moderated fannish spaces, like FF.net, LiveJournal, and later Ao3) was where all the nerdy girls and women ended up gathering, in order to be able to discuss nerdy interests somewhere where they wouldn't be subject to misogynistic harassment. All of this takes on even more significance when you remember that Gamergate, and the broader culture of anti-feminist movements it both was an early part of and further sparked, started specifically as a reaction to feminist journalist critiquing sexist ideology and content in video games, and more broadly to the growing voice of women in the culture of nerd hobbies.

(From Meme Wars, Chapter 3: Gamers Rise. Full citation below)

(From "Right-Wing Extremism in Mainstream Games". Full citation below.)

One last thing I want to note is that many of the antifeminist talking points and stereotypes - and their related imagery - that were created at the time by these communities seem to have been recycled into talking points and imagery that is now used against transmasculine people and NB people AFAB (though they do of course still get used against women.) There is a clear and straightforward lineage that can be traced from the "hysterical feminazi" to the "whiny bitchboy transandrocunt", from the "crazy bitch who wants to cuck videogames" to compensate for her inferiority to the "power-tripping TME using AFAB privilege to censor TMA expression", from the "cringe fat SJW screeching about being lithosexual" to the "ugly theyfab with giant tits who thinks pronouns make them oppressed" or "delusional dyed-hair pooner with zippertits and fandom brain." The place where this lineage can be seen most evidently is in the wojak-style cartoons produced in these sort of spaces, where the aesthetic similarity and the correspondence of the language use highlight the fact that there is a direct continuity between the antifeminist 4/8channers and Redditors of then and the antifeminist, anti-transmasculine, exorsexist posters of now. The latter's ideologies still often start off on Chan boards, and eventually spread to Reddit and Twitter and Instagram and Bluesky, with the difference that they now use Tumblr as an inbetween step to proliferate and solidify their ideas, having at least partially supplanted the native userbase of Tumblr ("woke snowflake SJW" types) but having retained the website's function as a petri dish for percolating ideas about LGBT/queer identity and feminism before they get "trickled down" to the rest of the LGBT/feminist internet. At the bottom of this post I will leave some images as examples. (TW for virulent misogyny, transphobia and racism, and for self harm scars)

Keep reading

Wait wait wait.

I thought we made fun of MRAs because they are misguided and misogynistic for believing that feminism is against their interests and they need a movement apart from it. I thought we made fun of them for not understanding that feminism is in favor of men's liberation from the oppressive patriarchal binary as much as women's.

But some of you are actually making fun of MRAs because you think men have no problems to complain about, and feminism ISN'T for men, because they don't need anything, and the patriarchy isn't the enemy, men are?

Oooh I don't think we've been laughing at the same thing. You have lost the plot.

I don't like it when people are trying to (even sympathetically) explain why teenagers can sometimes have emotional volatility as "well they're just biologically stupid and angry and bad because of their hormones and underdeveloped brain" with no mention to be found of the fact they're also still trapped in an incredibly oppressive environment 24/7.

working 12+ hour days for school without pay or the right to "switch jobs" to something better, often working a real job on top of that, still the legal property of their parents, can't even dye their own hair or use their own name or have a door to their own room in many many cases. yeah I would be at the end of my rope too, especially when dealing with the adults in my life who are enacting and/or facilitating the abuse! it feels pretty glaring to ignore this dynamic when talking about the strained emotional capacity of teenagers. did you forget? what it was like to not have the right to your own life yet? to be hurt 24/7? and then to have your (extremely reasonable!!!) emotional reactions dismissed as pure hysteria?

purely anecdotally, I'm also not convinced that teenagers are "biologically" more prone to volatility in a meaningfully distinct way tbh. thinking back to the people I knew as a teen vs the people I've known in adulthood, in both demographics there have been people prone to lashing out, and people who were completely stoic, and the differences between the two groups have always seemed to be split not along age or hormonal makeup but along life experiences and who had better support structures. (but again this is anecdotal, and somewhat besides the point. because even if there is a non-pseudoscience biologically provable difference in teenagers' brains that make them universally moodier across the board, perhaps they could better manage their own moods if they weren't being crazy abused as an entire class with no legal ability to escape.)

Reblog if you are Bad Queer Representation.

Two-Spirit

Two-Spirit is a term created by Indigenous peoples of North America in 1990 to bring together the diverse gender identities and sexualities that exist within their cultures.

It is not a single gender. Each nation has its own traditions, names, and ways of understanding these experiences.

For many communities, Two-Spirit people held important social, cultural, and spiritual roles before European colonization.

The term should not be used by non-Indigenous people, as it is specifically connected to the cultures and experiences of the Indigenous peoples of North America.

Irawhiti (Māori)

Irawhiti is a Māori-language term used by some people to describe transgender or gender-diverse experiences.

The term is part of the contemporary revitalization of Māori language and culture, allowing Indigenous people to describe their identities through their own cultural frameworks.

Although it may be translated as "transgender" in some contexts, Irawhiti carries meanings connected to Māori cultural realities and should not be understood simply as a copy of Western gender categories. ( Flag design by Irauí on Tumblr. ) @irawhiti

takatāpui (Māori)

Takatāpui is a Māori term used by Indigenous LGBTQIA+ people in New Zealand.

Historically, the word referred to an intimate relationship between people of the same sex.

Today, many Māori people use the term to express both their Indigenous identity and their gender or sexual diversity.

More than a specific sexual orientation or gender identity, Takatāpui connects a person to their culture, ancestry, and community.

The term is part of the Māori cultural revitalization movement and demonstrates that gender and sexual diversity can be understood through Indigenous perspectives, not only through Western categories. ( Flag design by Irauí on Tumblr. ) @irawhiti

Māhū (Kanaka Maōli)

Māhū is a traditional Hawaiian cultural identity associated with people who embody both masculine and feminine qualities.

Historically, māhū people held important roles as educators, keepers of knowledge, healers, and transmitters of cultural traditions.

The arrival of colonization and Christian missions attempted to erase these identities, but many Native Hawaiians continue to preserve and revitalize the māhū identity today.

Māhū is not simply the Hawaiian equivalent of "transgender" or "nonbinary." It is a distinct cultural identity deeply connected to Hawaiian history, culture, and spirituality.

Tibira/ Tybyra

Tibira is a historical figure documented during the colonial period.

According to interpretations by Indigenous researchers and collectives, Tibira may be understood as a man who had relationships with other men, or as a person who lived with a feminine gender identity or expression, challenging the norms imposed by colonizers.

Their story is remembered as an example that gender and sexual diversity already existed among Indigenous peoples long before colonization. ( Made by me )

Çacoaimbeguira

Accounts of the Tupinambá people mention the çacoaimbeguiras.

According to interpretations by Indigenous researchers and collectives, they may be understood as women who had relationships with other women, or as people who lived with a masculine gender identity or expression outside the norms imposed by colonization.

Their existence shows that diverse ways of experiencing gender and sexuality were already part of Indigenous societies long before the imposition of European models. ( Made by me )

kinda weird how ppl still think nonbinary folks never have dysphoria or only have mild dysphoria when mine was life threatening before transition. The surgeries I've had were life saving and massively improved my life and I'm waiting on a date for my bottom surgery

like nonbinary folk come with the full spectrum of no dysphoria to life threatening levels of it just like binary people. It's just ours may sometimes seem a little more 'random' than the average binary trans person.

There is something to be said and scrutinized on the phenomenon of people who push that all trans men have male privilege, and often hold the pretense that all trans men want to transition in a way that makes them fall in line with white cishet American ideas of cis male gender...

...and those same people making spitting/scathing comments against "the TME girlboy dykefag" or "Theyfabs who cling to their femininity" or "trans men who don't transition just don't want to let go of their female privileges" and other such binaristic, exorsexist, misogynistic comments on trans men whose transition goals or euphoria comes not from the standards for "male gender presentation", but from carving their own joy from non-conformingity

the more time you spend in active recovery from any given self destructive behavior or addiction the more you understand the common conception of the "relapse" as defined by a broken "streak" to be, like, so bad for one's own well-being that it would be funny if it weren't resulting in just a lot of misery and death