Just so like... it's clear... anyone who censors words that contain "man" or "men" to anything like "xxn" that's TERF shit.
Any reference to women/womanhood that solely revolves around having a uterus or "womb" is TERF shit.
Any sentence where the OP says they support people being "trans identified" with quotes around ""transwomen"" or ""transmen"" is TERF shit.
I'm seeing a lot of you baby Tumblr gays out there not knowing what these specific TERF dogwhistles look like.
"Wombxxn" is an incredibly dumb way of spelling "woman" that treats the word "man" like a slur and also reduces women to their ability to give birth.
"Trans identified" is their way of saying "this person calls themselves trans, but I don't believe they are."
Saying "People should be allowed to identify however they wish, but we still need to protect women/children" IS TERF SHIT.
Learn to identify this garbage, because not all TERFs are going to spell out their intolerance for you. Some of them are going to try and seem reasonable and polite and normal, and it's fucking dangerous to our community.
Also unpack any internalized transphobia and your transmedicalism, because both those things will have you quickly siding with TERFs and bigots.
“we live in an uncaring universe” yeah dude and I live in an uncaring house. and I shit in an uncaring toilet. but do you touch an uncaring lover? do you comfort an uncaring child? do you guide to sleep each night a cold and uncaring self?
"In the same way your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings, are the instrument by which the universe cares. If you choose to care, then the universe cares. If you don't, then it doesn't." - Brennan Lee Mulligan, Fantasy High S1E17
When I was younger I was very right-wing. I mean…very right-wing. I won’t go into detail, because I’m very deeply ashamed of it, but whatever you’re imagining, it’s probably at least that bad. I’ve taken out a lot of pain on others; I’ve acted in ignorance and waved hate like a flag; I’ve said and did things that hurt a lot of people.
There are artefacts of my past selves online – some of which I’ve locked down and keep around to remind me of my past sins, some of which I’ve scrubbed out, some of which are out of my grasp. If I were ever to become famous, people could find shit on me that would turn your stomach.
But that’s not me anymore. I’ve learned so much in the last ten years. I’ve become more open to seeing things through others’ eyes, and reforged my anger to turn on those who harm others rather than on those who simply want to exist. I’ve learned patience and compassion. I’ve learned how to recognise my privileges and listen to others’ perspectives. I’ve learned to stand up for others, how to hear, how to help, how to correct myself. And I learned some startling shit about myself along the way – with all due irony, some of the things I used to lash out at others for are intrinsic parts of myself.
You wouldn’t know what I am now from what I was then. You wouldn’t know what I was then from what I am now.
It distresses me deeply to think of someone dredging up my dark, awful past and treating me as though that furiously hateful person is still me. It distresses me to see others dredging up the past for anyone who has made efforts to become a better person, out of some sick obsession with proving they’re “problematic.”
Purity culture tells you that once someone says or does something, they can never go back on it. That’s a goddamn lie. While it’s true that some remain unrepentant and never change their ways and continue to harm others, it’s important to allow everyone the chance to learn from their mistakes. Saying something ignorant isn’t murder. Please stop treating it that way. Let people grow.
Bruh. No. Listen. Call out what people do now, absolutely. If they haven’t changed, call them out on their record. This post is explicitly not about people who HAVEN’T changed. What this post IS saying is, if someone is making an effort to be a good person, don’t go digging around in their past for evidence that they were once for what they’re now against, or once against what they’re now for, as “proof” of what they “really think,” because people’s opinions and beliefs can change.
The obsession with finding shit in someone’s past and then claiming that a questionable or even sordid past negates all possibility of a good present needs to become extinct. Gold-star activism and purity culture are bullshit and we need to collectively reject the fuck out of them.
If someone has changed for the better, don’t harass them about what they were like before they fuckin’ changed. That’s shitty and it needs to stop.
Gold-star activism and purity culture are bullshit and we need to collectively reject the fuck out of them.
We really need to start asking where this purity bullshit came from. I’m not Christian and was not raised Christian but there has been a lot evidence that much of gold star activism and purity culture originated in of evangelical youth movements and then infiltrated progressive left-wing and center-left politics when those youth left their churches but failed to leave behind the black-n-white puritanical “you’re going to hell if you stray one inch from the righteous path” style of thinking they were taught.
I distinctly remember some conversations I had in the late 00s and very early 2010s with long time social justice activists who were baffled and disturbed by the new crop of youth activists who were practicing something that was decidedly NOT social justice despite stealing that phrase from us.
In the decade and a half that has passed since then, all of this gold-star activism and purity culture has done exactly what I predicted back then: empowered the far-right while sowing division everywhere.
People who have changed for the better are incredibly precious to me. They’ve had a harder fight than I have in many ways, and I admire them greatly for the work they’ve done and how far they’ve come. We may not always see eye-to-eye, but I am very grateful they are here, because they remind me of two things:
First, the evidence that people are not doomed to be one way forever, but can become better than they were. That means that there is an actual, tangible goal to standing up for our rights: That, even if we can’t change everyone’s mind, we might someday be able to change enough minds that we can be safe.
And second, that if I ever mess up, that it won’t be the end; there will still be a path back for me to being the kind of person I want to be.
So last week I posted abut the importance of downloading your fic. And then three days later AO3 went down for 24 hours. No one was more weirded out by this than I was. But while y’all were acting like the library at Alexandria was on fire I was reading my download fic and editing chapter eight of Buck, Rogers, and the 21st Century. And also thinking about what I could do to be helpful when the crisis was actually over.
So first off, I’m going to repeat that if you’re going to bookmark a fic, you really need to also download the fic and back it up in a safe place. I just do it automatically now and it’s a good habit to get into.
But let’s talk about some other scenarios. Last October I lost power for over a week after hurricane Ian. Apart from not having internet or A/C I did find plenty to do, I collect books so I had plenty to read, but maybe, unlike me, your favorite comfort reads aren’t sitting on a bookshelf. So let’s do something about that, shall we?
In olden times many long years ago around 1995 we printed off a lot of fic. It was mostly SOP to print a fic you planned to reread and stick it in a three ring binder. And that’s totally valid today too, but you can also make a very nice paperback with a minimum amount of skill and materials.
Let’s start with the download; Go to Ao3 and select your fic, we’ll be working with one of mine. This method works best with one shots, long fic tends to need a more complicated approach. Get yourself an HTML download
Open up the HTML download and select all then copy paste into any word processor. Set the page to landscape and two columns, then change the font to something you find easy to read, this is your book, no judgement. This is all you have to do for layout but I like to play a little bit. I move all the meta, summary, notes to the end and pick out a fun font for the title:
No time like the present to do a quick proofread. Congratulations, you’ve just created your first typeset. On to the fun part.
Now you’re going to need some materials: 8.5x11in paper ruler one sheet of 12x12 medium card stock (60-80lb) scissors pencil pen or fine tip marker sheet of wax paper white glue two binder clips 2 heavy books or 1 brick butter knife
You’ll also need a printer, if you’re in the US there is almost a 100% chance your local library has a printer you can use if you don’t have your own. None of these materials are expensive and you can literally use cheap copy paper and Elmers glue.
Print your text block, one page per side. Fold the first page in half so that the blank side is inside and the printed side out:
use the butter knife to crease the edge. Repeat on all the sheets. When you’ve finished, stack them up with the raw edge on the left and the folded edge on the right. I used standard copy paper, because you’re only printing on one side there’s no bleed to worry about. Take the text block and line everything up. Use the binder clips to hold the raw edge in place.
Wrap the text block in the wax paper so that the raw edge and binder clips are facing out. I’m going to use my home built book press but you don’t need one, a brick or a couple of books or anything else heavy will work fine.
Once the text block is anchored down, take off he binder clips and get out the glue.
You can use a brush but you don’t need one, smear some glue on that raw edge.
Go make a margarita, watch The Mandalorian, call your mother. Don’t come back for at least an hour
In an hour smear some more glue on there and shift your brick forward so that the whole book is covered. This keeps the paper from warping. While glue part 2 is drying we’ll do the cover. Get out your 12x12 cardstock
Mark the cardstock off at 8.5 inches and cut it. Measure in 5.5 inches from the left and put in a score line with the butter knife (the back edge not the sharp edge)
Carefully fold the score line, this is your front cover. You have some options for the cover title, you can use a cutting machine like a cricut if you have one, you can print out a title on the computer and use carbon paper to transfer the text to the cardstock. I was in a mood so I just freehanded that beoch. Pencil first then in pen.
Take your text block out from under your brick. Line it up against the score mark and mark the second score on the other side of the spine
Fold the score and glue the textblock into the cover at the spine. Once the glue dries up mark the back cover with the pencil and then trim the back cover to fit with your scissors.
Voila:
I’m going to put this baby on the shelf next to the Silmarillion.
The whole process, not counting drying time, took less than an hour.
If you want to make a book of a longer fic, I recommend Renegade Publishing, they have a ton of resources for fan-binders.
I’ve gotten quite a few asks about spinning, fiber prep, and dyeing, and since I’m utterly incapable of answering a question without writing an essay, they often turn into tutorials. I’ve compiled them here for easy perusal ! More will be added as I find and/or write them.
Nobody fucking cares if they're terfs. Shut up about blogs being terfs. Literally shut the fuck up. Nobody fucking cares. I'm so fucking tired of Op iS a TeRf just!!! Shut up!!! We can fucking read!! If we don't want to follow terf blogs we won't and if we want to we will!! Just fucking focus on your devotions and worship, you know, the content we fucking follow you for!! Fuck!!
Hey, fuck you. I’m not a content making machine, I’m a person. Next time you talk to me like that - I’ll block you without responding. Who fucking let you talk to strangers like that? I’m not your best buddy.
If I want to talk about a witchy or pagan blog being a terf - I will. If I want to talk about such a blog being a fash, I will. Witchy and pagan circles are MY circles too. And I don’t fucking like sharing these spaces with fascists.
I’m not your content machine. Go fuck yourself and unfollow me with this attitude. There’s no “we”, you’re the only asshole in the room. Speak for yourself, coward.
Lots of my followers care because they kindly let me know if I accidentally reblog a post by one of them.
A lot of people on Tumblr actually take time to curate their space here and reduce the chance of interacting with terfs, tankies, neo-nazis, tradcaths etc. A lot of people don't want their religion to become synonymous with bigotry.
my absolute favorite flavor of anon is "how DARE you publicly speak on problematic community issues, shut the fuck up and give me your contenttttt do it content machineeeee"
also, shout out to anon saying that they're going to follow terfs if they damn well please. go off, anon. go off.
TERFs, fash, divine feminine tradwives, gender essentialists, islamophobes, homophobes, ablesists and sanists do not fucking belong in pagan and witchcraft spaces and I will do my duty in making sure they are identified, blocked and told to fuck off to their alt-right bubble.
Marginalised communities deserve to feel safe in our spaces, and anyone who does not understand can jump off the same cliff as the categories above.