Class vs. Ass: First Lady Edition

These first ladies have something in common.

None of them ever would have worn this classless and deliberately inflammatory article of clothing.

Melania Trump could have chosen to present herself with dignity and grace.

Instead she chose to look like a petulant teenager trying to defy authority.

The boorish tRump family: truly a shame on our nation.

~Sly Has Spoken~

image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Evangelicals: Vindictive and Scary

When I was in junior high, I had a friend whose family was part of the Cult of Christ (Church of Christ). I went with her a few times and couldn't do it anymore. I was a devout Catholic at that point in my life, but I thought these people were extremists. It ruined the friendship when I said I didn't want to come to her church's events anymore. She started spreading nasty rumors about me as revenge. 

I've found in my life that these kinds of people are very vindictive and often two-faced. If you aren't with them, you're against them. It's impossible to agree to disagree.

~Sly~

TERF is a Slur and a Call to Violence

Click to enlarge

Screen caps taken from terfisaslur.com

One of these talks about how women bleeding is "gross." That certainly isn't misogynistic and doesn't sound like all the chauvinist male assholes of the past who made similar anti-woman statements.

Did you know it is possible to disagree without resorting to physical violence?

You wouldn't know it if you asked today's radical "trans activists."
The term "terf" does nothing but endanger women. There is no equivalent term for men deemed transphobic.
As a person who has always felt a great deal of sympathy for transgender people and the obstacles they face, I still get branded a "terf" because I have stated that there is a difference in the way one is treated when one is born a female (otherwise known as assigned female at birth or AFAB) and when one has transitioned from the sex they were assigned at birth. I have never said that one situation is superior or inferior to the other, just that it is different. There is a great deal of intersection between feminism and transgender rights, and I think it is erroneous to be at war with each other.
I would never claim that I know what it is to feel like I was born into the wrong body. I was always okay with being female. What I wasn't okay with was the rigid gender roles which place me in a position of second class citizenship.
People can be labeled a "terf" for anything from using slurs such as "he-she" against trans people to simply not agreeing with 100% of the objectives of the extreme trans rights movement.

Shame on the San Francisco Public Library for praising and encouraging violence

This person is Char the Butcher, a white nationalist trans activist

Somehow, the "white nationalist" part is overlooked and her violent rhetoric (Die Cis Scum) is praised

Labeling someone a "terf" is a call to violence against that person. 

There are those who claim that using words such as "vagina," "clitoris", and "mother" are "violence against trans women."

These words are not violent, they are just words to describe certain parts of the anatomy. I also find it interesting that these same people are not decrying the use of the words "penis", "scrotum," or "father" with the same vehemence. Why are they hell-bent on calling for violence against women with whom they disagree while ignoring potentially transphobic men?

Further, offense is not the same as actual violence.

The majority of people who menstruate are XX chromosome women.

The majority of people who gestate and give birth are XX chromosome women.

The majority of women's health services are directed towards women in their child-bearing years.

Some people may find terminology aimed towards XX chromosome women in their child-bearing years "exclusionary" and may be offended by such. Personally, I am offended by depersonalizing terminology such as "menstruators." I feel such terms are erasure of women. However, I acknowledge that there is a difference between a statement I find offensive and a statement calling for violence. 

"Punch a TERF" is a statement calling for violence.

Referring to women as "menstruators" is offensive. 

I am not going to call for violence against those using this dreadful term. I am, however, going to say why I don't like it and to try and educate people as to why such a term is problematic.

Then there are the disturbing statements by radical trans activists encouraging sexually violent behavior towards women.

Telling women who disagree with you to "choke on my ladycock" may just be gross, puffed-up hyperbole. However, it sounds a lot like the anti-feminist men of yore who made such statements as "these feminists just need a man to slam them up against the wall and give them a good fucking."

I saw a statement which said that "TERF is just Feminazi covered in glitter. Meet the new boss. It's the same as the old boss."

How are these people any different than the so-called "Incels" who praise attacks on women by individuals like Elliot Rodger and who feel that women should be forced to have sex with any man who wants to have sex with them?
Even if you vehemently disagree with someone, violence is not the way.

I don't agree with people making ridiculous claims such as using the word "vagina" is violence and coining depersonalizing terms like "menstruator." However, I am not calling for them to be violently attacked.

If I violently attacked every person I ever disagreed with, I'd rightfully be in jail.

I couldn't stand Phyllis Schlafly and her ilk. Dear Phyllis had this sweet Southern Belle voice, bless her heart. Buttah wouldn't melt in her mouth, yet the most vile, awful words fell from her mouth, spoken in very honeyed tones. I still don't think calling for violence against her would have been right. I advised people to ignore her and denounce the bullshit she was spouting.

I didn't feel too bad when a protester threw a pie in the face of homophobic Anita Bryant. However, that was a pie, not a fist or an object meant to cause injury. I still didn't fully approve of the action although I understood it and didn't feel sorry for Anita. It was a violent action even if not an ultimately harmful one. The best way to fight people like Anita and Phyllis is to educate people as to why what they're saying is prejudiced and wrong. The more people understand that their agenda is bogus, the less of a following they'll have.

As to the modern, violence-promoting "trans activist" movement, I also disagree with their disturbing assertion that someone identifying as a lesbian has to be DTF with a person who has a penis. Nobody has to be DTF anybody. To insist that they must be is pretty damn rapey. How is this any different than "give me a chance, Baby, I'm a nice guy. If you won't do it willingly, I'll make you do it and show you what you've been missing."

Some dudebros love to claim that fat women (like me) want to force men to have sex with us. Like, no. I don't want to have sex with you assholes. I appreciate the fact that you wear your shitty personality on your sleeve so even if I was looking for a sexual partner, I wouldn't waste my time with you.

I don't like these jackasses, and I wouldn't be sad if they somehow ended up in a tar pit or on a rocket ship bound for the center of the sun. However, I am still not calling for direct violence against them. I feel that the best way to counteract their shitty behavior is a) educating people about why their attitudes are shitty and wrong and b) giving no fucks that they find me unattractive. The problem is theirs, not mine.

Having hangups about having sex with a person who has transitioned does not mean that the person with the hangup hates trans people or that they won't fight for trans people's rights to be treated equally and to not have to face scorn and violence. Sometimes people have hangups, and they are aware that the problem is theirs and they need to work on it. Sometimes people do just have awful beliefs and say awful things. Either way, nobody is ever required to have sex with anybody and a call to violence is never the first line of defense.

Other problems I've come to have with the radical "trans activist" agenda:

The Women's March should be about everyone except for AFAB women.

Women have all their rights intact? In what Universe is that happening? I'd like to go there.

I went to the Women's March in Denver. A man near me started chanting "her body her choice," and the women responded "my body my choice." Nobody was going around carding anyone or examining their genitals to see if they were an AFAB or trans woman when they responded "my body my choice." I hardly see how this was a "terfy" action. As to the man who started the chant, thank you for being an ally.

Wrong. Rigid gender roles are a social construct. Biological sex is biology.

As for the "transmedicalist" claim, I can tell you as a former nurse that there are actual reasons that your medical care team need to know your biological makeup. Sure, there are some awful people who become medical professionals who will be shitty to you because they think being transgender is a sin or some other such crap. Those people need to check themselves. However, from a purely neutral standpoint, the reason medical professionals need to know whether your chromosome patterns are XX, XY, or something else is because certain medications that are helpful to people with an XY chromosome pattern might be very unhelpful for a person with an XX chromosome pattern and vice-versa. Also, do you want doctors giving you something that might mess with your HRT or otherwise promote the very secondary sex characteristics that you've been trying to suppress?

In a social setting, it doesn't matter to me what gender you identify as other than wanting to be polite and not misgender you. (Yes, the TERF doesn't want to misgender you, oddly enough.) I'm not going to check your trousers to see what you're sporting in the groin area. There is at least a 99.999999999 percent chance that I don't want to have sex with you, because I have the sex drive of roadkill. I'm going to be approaching you from an above-the-waist perspective. I don't care what you have going on below the belt.

In a medical setting, I do need to know your biological makeup, not because I feel you should be treated poorly because of it, but because certain medications can do bad things to people with certain chromosome patterns. It's as simple as that. If this makes me a "transmedicalist," then I guess I'm a transmedicalist. What the hell, I guess I ought to go ahead and be a "transmedicalist," seeing as I'm already a "terf."

Labeling everyone who doesn't agree with 100% of your agenda a "terf" and then calling for violence against "terfs" does not make the world a better place for anybody.

Violence is not the answer.

This shit needs to stop before someone gets killed.
We should be trying to understand each other, not kill each other.

~Sly Has Spoken~

copyright juliahenze @123rf.com