The QUILTBAG Club (formerly the LGBT club)

pathos said:

This brings up an issue that I've been wondering about, which I guess for most people might seem silly, but it's really confusing for me. Which is simply, like, why do people do mean things...? Like, that dude you mentioned who would try to trigger you on purpose...? What is that function in humanity that just, wants to hurt other people? Pleasure from pain? There has to be some explanation for this, I mean, at our basis we are a pack animal, we are supposed to care for each other, and autistics are somehow made fun of for being less empathetic than others while here I am feeling sick because allistic people go out of their way to be mean to others. I feel like I'm missing something really simple. :\

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I pondered on this many times. The only explanation I can give is that every pack has an alpha, or leader. Let's face it; no one wants to be a nobody, so everyone tries to be an alpha. Packs, however, cannot have more than one leader, or they will split and separate. Seeing as society typically discourages physical fighting (for the most part), humans instead must resort to insults and backstabs to obtain that all-important superior position.

Long story short: People want to be superior, but instead of actually trying to be superior, they instead try to make others inferior.

Xion said:

I pondered on this many times. The only explanation I can give is that every pack has an alpha, or leader. Let's face it; no one wants to be a nobody, so everyone tries to be an alpha. Packs, however, cannot have more than one leader, or they will split and separate. Seeing as society typically discourages physical fighting (for the most part), humans instead must resort to insults and backstabs to obtain that all-important superior position.

Long story short: People want to be superior, but instead of actually trying to be superior, they instead try to make others inferior.

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Oh dear lord, can we refrain from engaging in pop evolutionary psychology. Saying "humans are pack animals and that's why we behave the way we do" is at best ludicrously simplistic.

Some people are a bad mix of 'i think hurting others is funny' and 'i don't mind hurting others'. :O

Blastoise Fortooate said:

Some people are a bad mix of 'i think hurting others is funny' and 'i don't mind hurting others'. :O

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Yeah, that happened today in my 1st period. Some idiots decided to launch a ball across the Health room and knock a boy in the head. This boy was gay and they were whispering mean things about him before they did it. They tried a couple of times before but missed. They waited until the teacher was out and kept trying. When the ball finally hit him, he went off. I wish some people were nicer, but the world is not perfect. There will always be those idiots who want to see others get hurt.

In my experience, people who're deliberately mean are desperately insecure individuals. I know a few people who feel big by making others feel small, and they have some family issues that aren't their fault, but that doesn't make being a bully anything other than deeply unattractive.

Was procrastinating on AE earlier and noticed two pretty cool things of note:

Firstly, Moffat's confirmed that River Song's bisexual. Which is funny, because I assumed from her very first appearance she was meant to be a Jack Harness-style omnisexual with the line "you're the only one here I don't fancy", but with Moffat's hints that the next Doctor might be a woman and loads of people going "But he married River!" as if that'd be a tremendous obstacle, apparently not everybody else thought so. So that's quite nice.

Secondly, Tom Gabel of punk rock band Against Me is the first "major rock star [to] come out as transgender". So that's nice, too.

Dannichu said:

Also, Tom Gabel of punk rock band Against Me is the first "major rock star [to] come out as transgender". So that's nice, too.

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I'm kind of fed up about hearing positive news about her, after hearing about how she's kind of a rapist. :(! (learn about it! though mostly I've heard about it through a friend's correspondence with the original poster, who's taken that down now) I just really didn't want this to be the spin on the news but ahahahaha as if people listen to rape victims anyway.


In my experience, most people who are deliberately mean are pretty much just mean. Maybe I'm just a little jaded after "I'm sure they have issues too!" being all I heard sometimes. :C

pathos: hugs are appreciated! :C every so often I get stuck into a but why do they do this?? why do it??????? about people who are dicks, but it's never gotten me anywhere.

I almost don't want to say anything because of the possible shitstorm, but that post already put a damper on my good mood so meh.

That post on tumblr is literally the only thing making those allegations. And they are made by a person who is known for being transphobic (as well as shaming asexuals). These posts cover most of my thoughts on the issue. The OP making the claims made a post later that admitted that she didn't have all the facts, and it's possible she got mixed up with another story someone posted on LJ about her fiance that beat and raped her (who later in life turned out to be trans). This particular paragraph sheds some light on things:

And, I should point out: The original post was deleted. The blogger replaced it with a vague posting stating that she was having trouble remembering her facts, and if anyone remembered better than they should come forward. Then that post was deleted. So now there are NO original sources on the post, just a swath of re-blogging through a group of people who should be able to recognize anti-trans rhetoric when they see it. But they don’t because, hey, they’re not Trans*, they’ve never actually had to think about these things unless they want to, and the phrasing of the original post was spot on for “social justice” format so they took it and ran with it.

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I'm aware of the issues that rape victims face, as this happened to someone very close to me, but in this instance, I really think we need to look at all the facts. The prevailing notion of transwomen as sexual deviants and potential rapists has been used to shun them for a long time, and the fact that this (frequently inconsistent from what I've seen) rumour came out as soon as she announced she was trans is pretty troubling. Not to mention the OP has a history of transphobia. Her original post is also extremely vague and seems designed to purely appeal to the emotions.

EDIT- Urgh, I've been scouring tumblr for ages looking for facts and I'm going cross-eyed now. There's also these posts which makes me even more confused about who even made the accusation in the first place, but I think it's worth reading too.

This is a PM from the poster:

"I’m really trying not to engage with this publically because it freaked me out to see so many people reblog it and it being such a huge thing and because I don’t know the survivors personally and feel really bad about bringing this up and fucking up their lives (beyond what it must already feel like to see your rapist in Rolling Stone, but eh, here goes: Laura Gabel raped at least 3 women during the time when Against Me was still with No Idea Records. The women tried to approach No Idea about dropping Against Me!, but they refused. I know that even in their own small town punk scene, these women got ostracized by people who were their friends because Against Me! was so beloved (and not going to lie, when I first heard the rumors back in 2003 I didn’t want to believe them because I loved Against Me so much too). They never made any public statement because they realized they couldn’t win against someone so popular. But they told their friends, and that’s how I heard and that’s how it got to be somewhat common knowledge among anarchist girls around 06/07. I don’t know if she’s raped any one else, but I’m guessing that somebody who rapes three women doesn’t stop at three.

And tbh, I don’t feel really invested in this beyond the obvious, because if I got emotionally invested in every punk rock hotshot who is also a sexual predator, I’d never get any sleep at night. It just annoyed me last week to see that article posted and to someone I know is a sexual predator spewing that same kind earnest political bullshit she’s been spewing for 10 years or more all to cover the fact that she’s a goddamn rapist. And now I wish I never had, because it has unleashed the kind of rape culture bullshit hypocrisy that I am so sick of seeing on the left: we always support survivors unless we can think of an excuse not to."

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I just... I haven't heard about this person being anti-trans or ace-shaming, where did you see about that? I've only known them as being pretty cool, and just. I just totally refuse not to look at things like this seriously, or at least not to have severe reservations. Also they kind of... have a different username to the apologiser you posted? Are there two of these stories going round?

EDIT: okay then I see things like this all over the original poster's tumblr:

But if we’re talking to people who think that “demisexual” is a thing, then we’re talking to people who clearly have no idea how human sexuality and institutionalized sexism even work. So I think we should be careful with how we use this somewhat sophisticated, easily misinterpreted feminist framework around people who just don’t have the foundational understanding.

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Demisexuals clearly have an insurmountable problem with this because the underlying theory of their identity is stupid.

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???????? wow

Because I think it’s not quite right, as missvoltarine says, that demisexuals, “specifically creates distance between those who ID as such and those who are condemned widely by society for engaging in casual sex.”

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**I don’t think every single person who identifies as demi/asexual is secretly a big ol’ homo but if someone is really trying to distance themselves from their sexual desires then I think we’re irresponsible to to not point out over and over again that internalized homophobia is one of the most popular reasons why a person would do that.

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no no no no no no no no nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnope

Argentina gender rights law: A new world standard

yay

pathos said:

This brings up an issue that I've been wondering about, which I guess for most people might seem silly, but it's really confusing for me. Which is simply, like, why do people do mean things...? Like, that dude you mentioned who would try to trigger you on purpose...? What is that function in humanity that just, wants to hurt other people? Pleasure from pain? There has to be some explanation for this, I mean, at our basis we are a pack animal, we are supposed to care for each other, and autistics are somehow made fun of for being less empathetic than others while here I am feeling sick because allistic people go out of their way to be mean to others. I feel like I'm missing something really simple. :\

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As far as I can tell, there would be three reasons that I can think of right now, probably a lot more though. That is, 1) feeling superior to someone and showing superiority through violence, 2) It becomes fun for them and they cease caring about other people's feelings about it, and 3) they feel like the person is doing something wrong and feels like it's their job to punish them for that.

Cirrus, thanks for elaborating. I completely understand that this needs to be taken seriously, but I don't think this knee-jerk reaction is the way to go, and people are flying into this thing with pure emotion and little logic.

It's completely unsourced hearsay from a random transphobe on tumblr, that she only happened to disclose as soon as Gabel came out. I'd also like to note that her original posting used the singer's old name and pronouns, the one you linked to was edited. I completely understand that trans people are capable of rape and it should not be excused because of of their trans status, but the fact remains that transwomen are often oppressed by being labelled as perverts who only want to go into the women's bathrooms to rape them. Can I ask why you didn't respond to that part of my post? I really think this element needs to be taken into account. Another user on tumblr (tal9000) made an excellent post on the issue if you want to read it.

Apparently the OP mentioned these rumours existed before the person came out and fans of the band denied it and such, but I haven't found any evidence of this, and I've been doing as much research as I can. I'm not familiar with this band or its fanbase, so it's been a chore. If you find anything, then please link me.

And I'm not completely sure on what the context of angrybanette's post was unfortunately, because yes, I've seen multiple rumours flying about.

I really do not feel like looking through galeofnovember's blog to find some more choice quotes, because she doesn't tag anything properly and her smug tone makes me gag. If the quotes you found weren't enough to change your opinion on her, then I can dig up some more I guess. Judging from other posts on tumblr, she isn't being very consistent with her story either.

I feel really shaky and shitty right now honestly... Apologies if I've made some missteps on this issue, but I just don't feel that randomly spreading rumours like this so casually (from someone who isn't the survivor) is the right way to go.

Rainbow Dashie said:

Argentina gender rights law: A new world standard

yay

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Holy crap.

This is awesome.

Byrus said:

I completely understand that trans people are capable of rape and it should not be excused because of of their trans status, but the fact remains that transwomen are often oppressed by being labelled as perverts who only want to go into the women's bathrooms to rape them. Can I ask why you didn't respond to that part of my post?

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Well, it's just... I know! That's a really serious thing and it's definitely the context that it should all be looked at, but also, if someone is a rapist that's also a pretty big deal. I guess I was pretty trusting because I have several trans* friends who somehow like galesofnovember and are friends with em. Now I don't know what to think, so I'm just going to steer clear of both sides because they both have questionable parts.

As for galesofnovember emself (herself?), yeah, believe me, I'm convinced that e's a pretty smug, gross person now. I don't get why e hasn't been called out by the on-top-of-it part of tumblr's ace community, 'cause e seems pretty well-known, especially now. :/

I don't feel like the "only rumours" argument is useful at all, though, because sometimes survivors cannot do what galesofnovember did, they just cannot talk about it, do not want to, don't want to engage in shit from fans or having to explain or dealing with 95% of everyone completely disregarding anything they say. I'm wary of both people who need 'more than rumours' to believe a victim's story, and of people who say this kind of thing about transwomen, and because the posts I saw seemed pretty respectful of her name, pronouns and situation and seemed extremely sincere - and also everything fit the pattern of what I'd imagine many survivors would do/act like in this kind of situation... but yeah, I definitely knew from the beginning this was still something that needed to be considered carefully or from a distance.

I'm really sorry this story has made you feel shaky and bad. :C

Rainbow Dashie said:

Argentina gender rights law: A new world standard

yay

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YES

SO MUCH WIN

Control of Dialga said:

Tried to tell my mom I was bi-. She told me, "I think you're just going through a phase. Stop listening to those people calling you queer."

She's wrong, I wish I hadn't brought it up, though.

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I feel you. :\

I sank into depression last Saturday (right before Mother's Day, whoohoo) after realizing my parents didn't actually accept that I'm trans and that the amount of effort they'd make to treat me like a girl would stay zero.
Because apparently if I was actually trans I'd be able to explain dysphoria better. That's honestly what they told me. That somehow if this disgust with my body were real I would be able to put it into words better and not be ashamed or shy about it.
Great reasoning there.

Control of Dialga said:

Tried to tell my mom I was bi-. She told me, "I think you're just going through a phase. Stop listening to those people calling you queer."

She's wrong, I wish I hadn't brought it up, though.

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:(

This is why I haven't come out to my dad - I'm 99.99% sure he'll say something to that effect.

Dannichu said:

HELLO! :D Oh, it's good to see you back! And I'm so, so pleased everything's going well for you, it's excellent you'll be going to NYU, and I hope everything's okay with your parents.

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Thanks! Everything's going well, and I'm much happier than I was a couple years ago. My mom hasn't mentioned anything remotely related to my gayness in forever, so I'm pretty sure she thought it was a phase, but that's okay because I'll be gone soon.

Seraph said:

Jesus Christ this is amazing.

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The original is much better...

Control of Dialga said:

Tried to tell my mom I was bi-. She told me, "I think you're just going through a phase. Stop listening to those people calling you queer."

She's wrong, I wish I hadn't brought it up, though.

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Yeah, my mom didn't believe me either, so I understand you there. For me, things were unbearably awkward for a couple weeks, but over time I got a lot better. Stick it out, I believe in you!

Star69 said:

I feel you. :\

I sank into depression last Saturday (right before Mother's Day, whoohoo) after realizing my parents didn't actually accept that I'm trans and that the amount of effort they'd make to treat me like a girl would stay zero.
Because apparently if I was actually trans I'd be able to explain dysphoria better. That's honestly what they told me. That somehow if this disgust with my body were real I would be able to put it into words better and not be ashamed or shy about it.
Great reasoning there.

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I'm sorry. *offers internet hug*

Effercon said:

:(

This is why I haven't come out to my dad - I'm 99.99% sure he'll say something to that effect.

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Yeah, if I'd known that's what she'd have said, I would've not mentioned it.

EvilCrazyMonkey said:

Yeah, my mom didn't believe me either, so I understand you there. For me, things were unbearably awkward for a couple weeks, but over time I got a lot better. Stick it out, I believe in you!

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Alright. I'll fight on with my head held high.