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Random bit of trans vocabulary as I've recently seen people rejecting a phrase because they were confused by it.

"Socialized male" and "socialized female" aren't synonyms for someone's sex, they are experiences and culturally relevant.

People are confused because the term "socialize" has multiple meanings.

One is something done by you: "I was socializing with my friends"

One is something done to you: "I was socialized as a man"

To summarize Webster respectively:

The first is "to participate actively in a social group"

The second is "to fit or train for a social environment'

We say someone is "Socialized Male" or "Socialized Female" not to indicate what their sex is, but to indicate that in their formative years they were saddled with the expectations and treatment associated with "male" or "female" in our society.

The trans women getting confused think it means something like "grew up as men" or that our social groups were men, and that's not at all it.

It means we were treated as men.

We usually grew up with more women in our social circles than men, even if we didn't know we were trans yet. We were often seen as an exception, which means even our acceptance was flavored by it.

What "socialized male" means to me is that I grew up being labeled a predator and a threat by default.

Even if I wasn't specifically raised such, I was still affected by the fact that so many men were raised to believe it was okay to lie, cheat, and manipulate to abuse women. And because of that there was literally nothing I could say or do to convey that I was being genuine because far too many were dishonest about it.

I had to build entire patterns and routines of behavior around how to behave around women to make them feel safer, almost always to my personal detriment.

I to this day am still anxious and hesitant in so many interactions because for decades of my life they were forbidden to me because they were far too likely to make someone I care about feel unsafe.

When I say I was "socialized male" it means that was something done to me. I had to figure out how to navigate life and survive while being forced into a traumatic box by society that didn't remotely fit me.

#Trans #LGBT #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA

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in reply to Juniper 🏳️‍⚧️🌲 (baking?)

So overall, saying that trans women have male socialization is inaccurate and harmful. It ascribes a similarity to the experience of cis boys that does not exist, and it gives license to treat trans women as being really or essentially men. I think that what you are talking about fits better under what I understand as gender assignment rather than socialization. I think it is common to treat gender assignment as something that happens in the moment when an M or an F is recorded on our birth certificates and then is done. But really in just about every social interaction we have (there may be some spaces, particularly queer ones, where this happens less), the people around us will try to figure out what gender box we fit into. They assign us a gender. From that assignment, they will derive expectations of how we will act and how they should treat us. Because most people's gender boxes are a strict binary, many trans girls will have the experience of being assigned male across many interactions, same as cis boys. But they will often not react to this assignment in the way that cis boys do, so they will not receive the same socialization as cis boys. 2/2
in reply to Juniper 🏳️‍⚧️🌲 (baking?)

@Juniper 🏳️‍⚧️ ugh... socialization has absolutely no reference to how we respond to it.

This is an actual academic sociology/psych term and is entirely about the environment we were raised and the expectations we were raised with.

For instance, someone who grows up in a conservative household and community is socialized conservative, this is regardless of whether they ever accepted any of it.

If you're assigned male across the majority of your interactions growing up, that's what this means. It doesn't mean you are a man, it means you had to deal with the traumas of being treated as one.

And yes, this is something that's shared with cis boys, because it's not about how we responded to it.

Like I've said elsewhere, if we transition early and are accepted then we don't deal with it because we get socialization that matches our real identity.

Saying trans female socialization literally means that we were raised with the expectations that we would act and behave as other trans femmes.

I'm American, I was socialized hyper-capitalist... does that make me a capitalist? No. It means I dealt with the expectations and trauma of hyper-capitalist expectations being put on me.

What about being socialized Christian (which basically means growing up in a Christian, even non-practicing, home), does that make me not Jewish? Nope. Do I get "Christian Privilege" for it? Hell no. Does that mean people can call me Christian? Still no.

And we do end up with many of the traumas of cis boys/men, the difference is for us is that it's in stark relief as we move away from those expectations and re-socialize ourselves.

Socialization is explicitly the expectations that were put on us and not how we responded to them.

If you want to talk about socialization specifically in how we responded to it? It's failed socialization, they wanted us to be men and we rejected it, they failed. But failure doesn't mean we didn't deal with them trying, it just means it didn't take.



Mutual Aid Request (no cw because apparently some systems hide hashtag posts that have cws?)

gofundme.com/f/assist-a-jewish…

I'm on the last leg of preparing, apartment is nearly finalized and booking travel arrangements.

Unfortunately that's pretty much everything that's been donated so far by itself.

I can't do a flight mostly because my cat can't safely fly, and to a lesser degree to keep at least some of my things.

My current car can't survive the trip and the option we settled on is I'm going to rent a car and my beloved sister Chelsie is going to drive me up, then take a flight back.

We've got a wonderful friend covering hotel stays, but even then a flight and a cross country car rental is over $1000 combined... that's before we even get to gas.

I also still need some more funds for gas and deposits (because of credit issues my current place took a bond instead of a deposit, so I get nothing back, I almost didn't get an apartment at all because of those issues), plus any setup fees for utilities that come up.

#MutualAid #LGBT #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Trans



CW: mutual aid, escaping texas

An update on my request for help. It looks like the move is set, just got to get some final numbers for budgeting. At this point every little bit helps drastically in making sure I don't run face first into another roadblock.

gofundme.com/f/assist-a-jewish…

#MutualAid #Trans #LGBT #LGBTQIA #LGBTQ



Mutual aid request for help to leave Texas

Resharing this again, because I need the help and it's what it takes to get it.

Current update on things is that I've just gotten over nearly a solid week of sobbing... I'm struggling hard physically and mentally just to function at a base level right now.

The state I live in is just about to pass a bathroom bill, and it's a minor miracle that the drastically worse bills didn't move forward this session, but they're coming.

Until I have enough funds to feel remotely confident that I can afford the costs of the move all I can really do is just keep putting one foot in front of another.

gofundme.com/f/assist-a-jewish…

#lgbtqia #lgbt #lgbtq #trans #MutualAid #CrowdFund



us pol, trans genocide, call for mutual aid

They're trying to spin a version of things that suddenly claims that most or all mass shooters are trans, despite zero evidence of that fact. And why are they doing that? Because it gives them an excuse for platforms like this...

This asshole is literally calling for me to not only be arrested, but experimented on!

... Things are speeding up.

I sorely need help getting at least to a state that will be more likely to defend me: gofundme.com/f/assist-a-jewish…

#lgbtqia #lgbtq #lgbt #trans #MutualAid #transwoman

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in reply to Shiri Bailem

us pol, trans genocide, call for mutual aid

Sensitive content



One of the things that pisses me off the most is the people always saying "violence is not the answer".

Do you know why Nazi punching is a thing? Why it goes beyond just "fuck nazis"?

Let me break it down a little:

Is violence in self defense okay when someone is attacking you? Obviously, because they're attacking you and "please stop killing me" isn't going to make much difference to someone in the process of killing you.

How about when they're just pointing a gun at you but haven't fired? Yes, because if they pull that trigger you're going to die.

What about when they're just threatening you? Like if someone says "I have a knife and the moment no-one is looking I'm going to stab you"... do you just ask them nicely not to? Do you wait for them to start stabbing before you think it's okay to fight back? You probably recognize that words can be violence then.

Let's go a bit further... let's say someone is stealing and destroying a diabetic's insulin? This is a life saving drug, do you think it's valid to use violence to stop them even though it's not directly killing them? Then you probably recognize that violence isn't just physical attacks on a person.

How about someone rallying people to get together and kill someone? Do you just debate them or do you stop them?

So if someone says they believe trans people shouldn't be allowed to exist? That we shouldn't have access to basic rights like being ourselves in public, or access to our medications? These are people rallying others to attack us, to destroy the things that keep us alive. They may not be actively stabbing us in the moment, but it's still violence against us.

Nazi speech, Terf speech, etc. IS violence. And violence is the appropriate response to violence.

Note how we're not talking about punching someone for just being capitalist, for shouting about free market bullshit. We're talking about punching people calling for our eradication.

Again: violence is the appropriate response to violence.

#PunchNazis #MakeNazisAfraidAgain #LGBT #LGBTQIA



Something I felt like i should share, because I really don't think many realize...

I don't say this to surrender, I say this to say how big the fight is and how important each and every one of you is to it.

Do you know when the vast majority of people realized how real the threat was of the holocaust?

... when they saw a pile of shoes when the camps were being cleared out.

The holocaust meant nothing to those fighting the war, it would have been trivial for the allies to save so very very many lives... they simply didn't really care, they didn't see our suffering as real... until they saw that pile of shoes.

Don't count on Trump or the Republicans to finally be recognized for the Nazis they are and the majority to suddenly be in revolt.

Prepare for a fight and know that every fighter counts.

And know that every life saved matters, especially when the threat is extinction.

#lgbtqia #lgbt #lgbtq #trans #transwoman #uspol

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Just highlighting that I'm right there in Texas, right in the "Do Not Travel". I am definitively not safe.

#lgbtq #trans #uspol #lgbt #lgbtqia

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99% of the time "Judeo-Christian" is antisemitic. And yes, I will absolutely elaborate on this if asked.

Credit: @Rabbit Cohen

Edit because this blew up far more than I expected and multiple people have asked for me to elaborate, here's a copy of my elaboration with follow up questions encouraged:

It's a messy topic and it's late here (I'm a bit sleepy), so feel free to ask follow up questions.

The short version of it is that Judeo-Christian is almost always used in one of two harmful ways:

1) To try and give more credibility and weight to something that is purely Christian by claiming that it's part of Judaism as well when it's not (like the above example, because Judaism explicitly permits abortions)
2) To try and talk about broader groupings of related faiths while ignoring the many other Abrahamic faiths (the proper term, though that one more often hurts the lesser known groups, don't use it unless you also know it applies to groups like the Baháʼí, which I'll admit even I know next to nothing about, but it's valid here because all I'm doing is naming their religious family)

Because many (cough most cough) teach a bastardized form of Judaism through the lens of Christianity, and because that's the only exposure many get to our faith... they get skewed harmful and hurtful ideas about us.

Some highlight examples:
* We don't have an established afterlife (we don't say there isn't one, we just have zero information on it if there is)
* We don't seek "eternal reward", the reward for our faith is being a better person than we were the day before
* We have forgiveness baked into our faith, and no it doesn't require animal sacrifice (it requires you to actually ask the person you wronged...)
* We thoroughly encourage arguing any topic with anyone (right time and place of course), and that includes picking a fight with God if you think they're wrong about something (you have a 99.9% chance of being wrong... but we commend the effort and every once in a while someone wins the argument)
* We have a rule, Pikuach Nefesh, roughly meaning that life is the highest commandment. Your well being takes precedence over your faith, if it would hurt you or others to be observant than you are exempt from that requirement. It's unacceptable to hurt others for your faith, and for yourself it's frowned upon
* We actively discourage conversion, it's allowed but it's not a trivial process. We don't want people to become Jews, we just want people to be better.

Unknown parent

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Shiri Bailem

@Shannon (she/her) @Pedestriansfirst I suppose you're technically correct, I guess I usually never think about it because there's always more apt descriptions (ie. Nazis are often Zionists because "Blood And Soil").

And yes on the antisemitism of it, I just chose not to say anything about that in favor of a chance at education. (Also a love for getting into arguments with aggressive militant atheists because it's so fun to see their talking points shatter and the confusion that comes from it)

And I didn't bring it up later because I felt from the conversation that it wasn't going to be a problem again from them because they learned some things about Judaism, Jewish Culture, and that religions people can in fact own and acknowledge bad behaviors in their own communities.

Unknown parent

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Shiri Bailem

@Shannon (she/her) I don't think believing all zionists are jews isn't that messy of a idea because it impacts so little, especially since the zionist behavior of non-jews is already easily discernible on it's own as awful anyways.

And keep in mind that the comparison is that this started from assuming that all Jews condoned the atrocities committed by the Israeli government and has walked away knowing that it's not uniform.



This is a long article, but the theory hits *hard* with me and connects really well.

The basic gist is that autistics almost always define our identities by what we do and our personal traits, while non-autistics almost always define their identities by their relationships (in particular to social groups)

If you don't have it in you to read all of it, definitely read the section: "How does having an experientially-constructed identity impact relationships?".

neuroclastic.com/the-identity-…

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Shiri Bailem

@bike I suspect it isn't that much different. Collectivist societies can be awful in their own ways.

They're still better imo, but they have a tendency to focus too hard on traditions and conformity on top of the ideals of communal responsibility.

But in all cases it's a mesh of peer pressure and group identity vs our value identity.

Unknown parent

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Shiri Bailem
@bike I get that, I mostly mention that so I don't come across as bashing collectivist societies incidentally. My point was more that I doubt there's that much difference for us, just swap out one set of rules that don't make sense for another set that don't make sense for a different reason.


Why You Must Keep The Monsters Human


*(Reposting because my node crashed and lost all my posts and I want to keep this one pinned)*

I've been mulling over making this post for a little bit, but I think it's really **really** important.

It's critically important that you remember and acknowledge the humanity of monsters. Not for their benefit, but for *everyone else's* benefit.

When someone commits a monstrous act or shares a monstrous belief, we want to think of them as an inherently vile and non-human thing.

But doing so shields and protects other monsters.

When you make a Nazi, or any kind of abuser, into a one-dimensional monster. When you make their whole existence *center* on this monstrous act or belief... you make it hard to see their humanity. And that's the point, you don't *want* to see their humanity.

*** You Don't Want To Believe That Someone You Know And Trust (Maybe Even Love) Is Capable Of Such Atrocity. ***

And that's the problem. Because when you reject their humanity, that humanity becomes their shield. Your friend Bob can't possibly be a Nazi or a child-abuser, he's such a loving father and he helped you move!

Because you see their humanity, you can't possibly imagine them as monsters because the monsters have no humanity in your eyes.

There's a reason that when serial killers get caught their neighbors say they couldn't imagine them doing such things.

So don't ignore their humanity, keep it in your mind... so the next one can't use it as a shield.

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