also note that I am new to instagram and other platforms. if you notice that I am following someone who is an exclusionist, please tell me. I want all my spaces to be inclusive and friendly to my trans, ace, and nonbinary siblings throughout the world.
Lel I just learned a radical feminist group that got attention in the media for transphobia a while back was actually a front for a Christian fundamentalist organization.
Also I said a long time ago that Christians are beginning to use secular arguments to try to justify their attempts at establishing a theocracy…and people on both the left and the right are hand-feeding them this kind of approach.
Wow it’s almost as if actual radfems wouldn’t work with right-wing conservatives
This is an except from an article entitled “Christian Right tips to fight transgender rights: separate the T from the LGB″ by the Southern Poverty Law Center, posted on October 23rd, 2017. I recommend reading the entire article. It details how some radical feminists have actively collaborated with Christian fundamentalists, how some Christian fundamentalists are using radical feminist arguements to push for the religious traditionalism they want the country to adhere to, and it expands upon some of the events referenced in the first article I mentioned in the original post.
“Explain that gender identity rights only come at the expense of others: women, sexual assault survivors, female athletes forced to compete against men and boys, ethnic minorities who culturally value modesty, economically challenged children who face many barriers to educational success and don’t need another level of chaos in their lives, children with anxiety disorders and the list goes on and on and on.”
The list could almost read like a manifesto for intersectionality, if it weren’t for its exclusion of some key groups, most notably transgender people themselves.
For Kilgannon, an example of effective coalition building [among the Christian Right] includes the Hands Across the Aisle Coalition (HATAC), a group that unites religious and non-religious women to oppose transgender rights. The co-founders of the group are sexual assault survivor Kaeley Triller Haver and lesbian activist and radical feminist Miriam Ben-Shalom, who was discharged from the U.S. Army for declaring herself a lesbian in 1976. This started her decades-long battle against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
In 2016, Ben-Shalom was disinvited from being the grand marshal of the Milwaukee Pride parade because of her views on trans people and support for so-called “bathroom bills,” which would deny people access to public restrooms and other facilities that match their gender identities. Ben-Shalom claimed to Fox6Now in Milwaukee that “my fight is ensuring that women are safe from the pretenders who might use the trans issue to get in and hurt somebody,” a popular talking point on the anti-LGBT right as a justification for anti-trans bathroom bills.
The group, according to Kilgannon, is mobilizing seemingly progressive rhetoric to oppose transgender rights: in the group, she says:
“The feminists make eloquent arguments that gender identity really is the ultimate misogyny and the erasure of women. And lesbians in the group are concerned that trans and masculine girls is a form of lesbian eugenics.”
With little transparency on its website about who and what formed the group, HATAC might simply be a secular-facing iteration of the same anti-LGBT agenda that has driven the Christian Right for decades. Hands Across the Aisle sent a letter to Ben Carson, director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, speaking out against the inclusion of trans women at single-sex women’s shelters. Revealingly, the letter’s co-signers (which include Meg Kilgannon) also include Michelle Cretella, the current president of the American College of Pediatricians, an anti-LGBT hate group that pumps out junk science on LGBT people, including attempts to link homosexuality to pedophilia or claims that LGBT people are a danger to children.
The attempt to depict the pushback against nondiscriminatory measures that include transgender people as a feminist struggle (an ironic fact for a movement that often derides feminism) was also embraced by other panelists. Cathy Ruse and Peter Sprigg, both senior fellows for the anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council embraced this rhetoric. Cathy Ruse, who gave the opening speech of the panel, declared:
“Now what about girls? Did you know that feminists are at odds with the transgender movement? Last year a prominent feminist published a compendium of article under the title of Female Erasure. The subtitle is: what you need to know about gender politics’ war on women, the female sex, and human rights? What is the impact on girls who are bombarded with gender transition messages? In their young minds, do they hear that being female isn’t good enough?”
“It’s particularly ironic that as our culture has developed where there is a greater range of choices, of activities, of careers that are available to men and women, boys and girls than there ever was before. And it’s really kind of ridiculous and almost retrograde to assume that we have to identify somebody’s gender identity on the basis of their activities or preferences.”
In many ways, there are possible allies to this pivot toward anti-trans secular movements: trans-exclusionary radical feminists, dubbed TERFs by some activists, have made waves in recent years. Some TERFs have reclaimed the term and redubbed themselves PERFs, penis-exclusionary radical feminists. Their rationale is that people who are assigned male at birth can never experience the same conditions as women do, and still hold on to their male privilege. (The latter becomes harder to prove in the face of the discrimination experienced by trans and gender non-conforming people.) As reported by Political Research Associates, trans-exclusionary feminists “may actually be guilty of drafting [the Christian Right’s] talking points, adding fuel to the fire of this dangerous anti-trans frenzy.”
Kilgannon said secular arguments can reach a more diverse audience. Feminism is generally a dirty word among Religious Right activists; at the Values Voter Summit, Dana Loesch declared feminism “dead.” But Kilgannon said that the Hands Across the Aisle Coalition—which describes itself as a group of conservative and progressive women that rise above their differences “to oppose the transgender agenda”—includes feminists who argue that gender identity is the “ultimate misogyny” and “erasure of women.” She said lesbians in the group are concerned that “transing masculine girls is a form of lesbian eugenics.” Citing shared opposition to gender identity, pornography and prostitution, she quipped, “I had no idea we agreed on so much.”
To the folks who think there’s no way lesbians would work hand-in-hand with fundamental Christians:
hi as pride month draws near for june reminder that cishet aces/aros are not LGBT and don’t belong in our spaces
And like, just a reminder that people like op are the people I don’t want to share my spaces with.
Every time I see an exclusionist on here and I click their profile they’re like 17 or 19 or maybe 21 at best.
And that’s fair- it’s not like people that age can’t have opinions or be right, they’re people.
But when I think about how long it took me to work out my own damn sexuality, gender, and all that crap, and how gently I stepped once I realised I was queer, and how much listening to people I did to see who the hell was out there…how much I am STILL learning about people who have different experiences…
…it feels really odd to see people this young being so secure in their belief of who should be excluded from the community.
Not how to support and include, to help and support, but how to exclude.
Like…being confident in your own sexuality at 19? Fuck yeah, good for you, I’m happy you had a better chance and an earlier start than I did.
But… telling other people they’re not queer enough to be in ‘your’ space?
Your space? Not mine anymore? Huh.
I’m over here at 35 still listening and learning and trying to understand everyone’s perspectives, discovering that sexuality is even more complex and nuanced than I know…and all these people barely out of their teens are talking like they know everything there is to know about being LGBT, ever. Like it’s all been written down, stamped, sealed, confirmed by some Authority.
Mmmm. No. Just… have an ounce of humility. Try gaining some perspective, please.
You haven’t lived long enough to even really listen to real life aces, to really think about what LGBT means. I don’t mean this as an ageist insult, I just really think that this kind of shit deserves TIME- hell I know it deserves time and thought because I am STILL unlearning bad assumptions and behaviours, and STILL meeting people who define themselves outside of the frame that I was once taught meant ‘LGBT’.
And you, a teen raised in a world that’s still pretty fucking homophobic and doesn’t recognise half of what the LGBT community itself has taken years to acknowledge, you think you know it all?
Because you’re online?
While you’re here, read some posts where ace people talk about how they’re treated. Forget semantics for a while: read the experiences.
I’m online too, I have been for some time. Doesn’t make me right, but experience is of some value. Experience in listening to queer people who aren’t quite like me, that is, in trying to understand how I am similar, instead of trying to figure out how they do not belong. In how people rework things, figure out how they can be less harmful, more inclusive, more representative of all those who are marginalised.
See, Q is queer but also often Questioning. It’s still important to let people be Questioning, there is an astounding amount of queerphobia in the world and we are NOT done working out the labels. We may never be.
Not so long ago, the T in lgbt was under question. Bisexuals are still being excluded.
So I’m being told I don’t matter by people who weren’t even born yet when I realised I wasn’t straight. They’re skipping right over all the reflection and going straight to self-affirmation by exclusion.
Which, again- if you are born into a world where you never have to question your identity, oh good grief I hope that’s real for everyone some day.
But we’re not there yet, yanno? And I resent being told that after all these years of soul-searching and careful, very careful questioning of whether I belong and how I can be a good member of the community, people arrive so 100% certain of their claim to being LGBT that the first thing they do is try to kick others out.
tl;dr I was here first and I’m not amused.
My general feeling when These Kids start yelling about who does or doesn’t Belong in the collection of the broken, hurt and strange that is the queer community:
Pride month is an especially shitty time to tell queer people that they’re not queer enough and that they’re not welcome.
I’d like to take this opportunity to invite any exclusionists following me to kindly eff off (and also unfollow me while you’re at it 🙂 Happy Pride!
[ID: a picture of Mr. Rogers smiling, beside the caption “You are not acting like the person Mr. Rogers knew you could be.”]
The current set of Pride Flag candles are now up at geekstudio.ca. You can pick up one of these delicious vanilla scented beauties in rainbow, pansexual, bisexual, transgender, or asexual.
If you have requests for more flags let me know! If there is enough interest I will expand the line with more flags and more scents.
And here are some obligatory bright and colourful photos!
I know this is such a little thing but its something i see on a regular ass basis. Theres no lesbian pride flag? You guys always will bend over backwards to include ace people but not lesbians who are actually lgbt.
Then get off your entitled ass and source all the necessary lipstick shades in wax from a single vendor for them to use for the 2-year-old rebranded lipstick lesbian pride flag.
I’m sure it’s a piece of cake, so they must have just felt like excluding you. 🙂
I understand that it’s hard to source those colours but please do not call lesbians entitled, especially not just for asking why there’s no lesbian flag. Lesbians are the first letter in the acronym and historically (and modernly) some of the most important people in our community, they have every right to be upset and many people don’t know about the difficulty creators have producing things with the lesbian flag
Tl;dr stop calling lesbians entitled.
You understand this is not the same as saying, “Lesbians are entitled.” Correct?
It is not a default response for lesbians to condescendingly shit on the inclusion of the ace flag as if it’s a direct insult to their identity.
I 100% do not have a problem with the question, “Why is *any pride flag* not included?”
Regardless of if they were complaining about aces, you shouldn’t do this. And you know what if anything they are literally entitled to want be included because they are a Lesbian and yknow what even some inclusionist Lesbians are upset that they are almost never included in this stuff.
Lesbians aren’t being “entitled”, they’re upset and you, a non-lesbian, shouldn’t be arguing with them about this
Did you really just turn around with, “But is it really so bad to be entitled to other people’s labor?”
I am not the one who chose, two years ago, to try and turn the lipstick lesbian pride flag into the defacto lesbian pride flag. Like, I’m sorry that this is a consequence that has already been seen with the pride hoodies, and will continue to be seen with other physical merchandise. It’s much easier to find items like markers and paints in multiple shades.
And, again, I 100% do not have a problem with the question, “Why is *any pride flag* not included?”
Do not fucking say “regardless of if my identity is being shat upon.” That’s not a thing. People do not get to randomly throw out that they hate that aspecs are included as a justification for feeling entitled to someone else’s labor.
I’m ace and an inclusionist and even I could see you were out of line, and that doesn’t mean I think what they said was justified, of course I don’t like what they said but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re being a dick
Oh, cool, so then you also responded to all the REGs on this post to say a-specs absolutely 100% belong in this community and that they’re all out-of-line and being dicks?
Dude exclusionists very rarely listen to what we say, telling every single reg on this post that aces are lgbt+ would be a waste of my time and energy. I was however hoping you would listen, it’s seems I was wrong.
If you already know that, why would you start shit over a sarcastic and petty response to a REG acting like if I wasn’t being sarcastic they would have taken me seriously?
Your first response didn’t even acknowledge that it was blatantly acephobic.
This is so ridiculous. It is absolutely entitled for anyone to be offended that someone would include one lgbtqia+ identity in a post but not theirs and demand that they be included INSTEAD OF that other identity, which happens almost any time a creator of some sort makes a product using the ace pride flag.
The issue isn’t that they want a lesbian flag. The issue is that they think they can just demand someone make the lesbian flag and blame their inclusion of aces for the fact the lesbian flag isn’t there.
A lot of creators have trouble with the lesbian flag because there are so many shades of pink on it. That doesn’t mean they intentionally leave it out, but it means it might take a while to get the materials for it.
Others don’t know it exists, because the flag is so new.
Like, of course you should want to see yourself represented. But there are lots of other flags missing from this too; you don’t hear me screaming at the person for not including the enby flag or genderqueer flag or saying how dare he include someone else before including me, do you? Because that isn’t the way to approach it.
Plus, Tumblr has a 10 photo limit on posts. The person might very well have all of those flags, but just couldn’t show us in this one post.
Long story short, it was the first commenter who was out of line. @christopherokamoto shouldn’t be punished for pointing that out.
For the record, THIS is how you ask for the lesbian flag:
Not with some rude ass bullshit attacking aces.
Not to mention someone in the comments pointed out that the original post is old and @geekstudio is already promising to put out a lesbian flag version, so there is no need to be having this conversation anyway.
I’m… pretty sure people were just protesting to someone saying that the lesbian flag should be included instead of the ace flag, not that someone wanted to see the lesbian flag?
The repurposing of the lipstick lesbian flag to be the general lesbian flag is pretty recent, probably just within the past couple of years. There are a lot of content creators that don’t even realize it’s happened yet. Those content creators often include the rainbow flag as a way of including gay men and lesbian women.
Also, you have no way of knowing that these are the only flags the content creator has done or is going to do. Just because these are the ones they’re showing within a post doesn’t mean they’re the only ones.
Politely requesting a flag you don’t see represented is fine. Attacking the content creator on the assumption that they don’t intend to or haven’t done that flag and that that’s out of intentional exclusion and not ignorance is not okay. And suggesting that that flag should replace another flag already represented is doubly not okay.
Also…
Lesbians are the first letter in the acronym and historically (and modernly) some of the most important people in our community
I can’t be the only one who is really uncomfortable with the idea that some people in the community are more important than others…?
Right??? All people in the community are important.
Plus, the L being first has not always been the case, so using that as a reason why it’s okay to be angry that the ace flag was included and to feel that lesbians should be included before aces makes no sense.
And again, as said before, many lesbians use the rainbow flag for themselves. Many creators use the rainbow flag for both gays and lesbians. Many people use the rainbow flag for literally all of us! Let’s not assume that the OP is doing this to spite lesbians.
@im-glad-i-crashed-the-wedding is absolutely way off in their assessment, and I’m surprised to see that coming from an ace inclusionist.
No one here has a problem with lesbians. It’s @angryautisticaesthetic’s rudeness, aggressiveness, and ace exclusionary bullshit that is the issue.
❄💙 Bella 💙❄
Here’s the thing though:
When I first started putting up my Pride Animal shirts, I made SURE to post every single one in the lesbian Pride flag (as well as the queer chevron flag which @officialqueer & I dreamed up like … what, 2y avo? 18mo?). I made a big deal about them being available. I sourced the thread to make patches, too.
They didn’t sell. None of them sold. Not in the lesbian flag. I’ve sold exactly 3 of the pink lesbian Pride items, patches and shirts, in the 9mo. I’ve sold more women’s tank tops (just tank tops, not including anything else) with the word NO on it in the ace flag in the past 2 weeks than I have ever sold anything with the lesbian flag on it. I’ve sold more Bi Pride “the moon is my girlfriend” shirts than lesbian Pride shirts, and the bi Pride version was a custom request!
So clearly the items aren’t the problem. It’s that no one is buying the lesbian Pride versions.
Now.
I had something like 600 Pride shirts. It is impossible to set up Etsy listings with more than 2 variations. What that means is you can pick SIZE and SHIRT COLOR but not flag. I have to have a separate listing for each Pride flag.
Every time a listing renews every 3 months without selling? It costs me money. Not a lot of money, but enough that it adds up when you have six hundred fucking listings.
So, see, I did go all in on representation, and I bought the thread and I put up the listings and I’m still in the negative on those items, not even counting the labor and time to make those designs, upload them, tag the entries on Etsy properly, update all the attributes… just designing fewer than 20 items and updating all that tonight took something like 8, 9 hours.
My market rate for design is $25/h for community stuff. So on top of being in the hole on thread and listing fees, I’m way, way in the hole on time, and every hour I spend uploading things that don’t sell is an hour I’m not doing work I get paid to do from clients, or writing for clients or my Patreon, or designing stuff that sells.
Now, I have a line at the top of every shirt listing that says “send a request if you would like a different shirt cut or flag and i’ll list it.” And I do, and fast. Ask anyone who has gotten a custom from me. And a lot of people do ask for customs and get them.
But, frankly, I’m not going to default to posting that particular Pride flag, the same way I don’t default to posting the Queer chevron flag or NB flag either, and the latter 2 are MY identity. It just doesn’t sell enough. If you see either one of them in my shop currently, either it was a custom that someone bought and the purchase paid for the renewal of the listing or it just hasn’t timed out from the last auto renewal since I decided to stop bleeding money on listing fees for stuff that never sold.
All of that is just economics. Ace, Bi, Rainbow and Trans stuff sells, and sells well, so I list those 4 as my main flags. I have a mortgage to pay, a teenager to feed, 3 dogs to pay vet bills on… asking me to pay money to list things that don’t sell so that I don’t get harassed by people who feel entitled to my time and energy but don’t want to apparently purchase those listings is pretty much bullshit.
And boy am I starting to get real fucking weary of seeing artists get harassed like this, over the same exact subgroup, and protesting that the exact same other subgroup is getting included by default. Over and over again it’s “how DARE you make an ace one and not a lesbian one? I can’t BELIEVE it you are THE WOOOORST.” Over and over.
Well, idk about anyone else but in my case it’s simply proven that a given design in the ace flag is likely to get viewed hundreds of times and sell ten times while the lesbian version of the same shirt will get looked at half a dozen times and never sell. And I’m not getting harassed over not posting the NB or demisexual or Queer flag by default.
Demanding that small business owners/artists spend money and put up versions of their art that you don’t intend to buy is shitty behavior. Harassing creators and telling them they’re terrible, that they’re lesbophobes, etc, bc they’re not posting a difficult to make color combo that doesn’t sell is also shitty behavior. Unfortunately it’s become such a trend of late that if I didn’t know at least a good chunk of these blogs were legit I would think it was some sort of elaborate Russian “split the community” thing, or artists getting trolled.
tl;dr – if you intend to buy it, ask for it nicely and you’ll probably get it. Small business owners like selling things! It’s kind of what we do! If you don’t intend to buy it you’re literally asking someone do labor and spend money to make you feel good while giving them nothing in return, and that’s not okay. And harassment of creators is NEVER ok.
I cannot stress enough that the same pride animals and pride designs that sell in bi, ace, trans, queer, nonbinary etc DO NOT SELL in the lipstick-lesbian-made-lesbian flag. I have sold ONE lesbian pride patch ever, and sourcing the threads was expensive and not easy.
So, yeah.
Honestly this bit of knowledge makes the anger of the random exclusionists on this post even more ridiculous to me.
I 100% support everyone being represented, but not at the cost of content creators’ mental health, safety, emotion health, and income. No one deserves this.
This is just unbelievable.
❄💙 Bella 💙❄
I want to make it totally clear that I will, and do, set up any freaking flag someone wants. I got thread to make a leather pride patch, made an agender leaf patch… all you gotta do is ask nicely. Every small business owner wants to sell shit.
But this repetitive BUT WHERE IS THE LIPSTICK LESBIAN FLAG THAT BEGAN IN 2015 YOU HATE LESBIANS (that shit is NOT an exaggeration, I just went through the notes and there were multiple notes talking about how the OP hates and is excluding lesbians and how ppl trying to explain stuff and saying ‘stop being rude, y’all, you’re not entitled to someone’s labor’ is lesbophobic) is just NOT ok. Especially when it’s accompanied by not… buying the thing??
also i resent the implication that being in a certain spot in the acronym makes you more or less important than other members of our community…
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 