River doesn't know what to say
@riverraven.bsky.social
96 followers 110 following 1.9K posts
Il est toujours fatigué. he~they~il
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Reposted by River doesn't know what to say
translash.org
The new season of Anti-Trans Hate Machine is here. From anti-trans laws to book bans to “school choice” schemes, the far right is using fear to dismantle public education and democracy itself.

@imarajones.bsky.social exposes how anti-trans hate fuels it.

🎧 translash.org/antitranshatemachine
Reposted by River doesn't know what to say
translash.org
Today we honor Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (1940–2025), a leader in the fight for trans liberation. @imarajones.bsky.social spoke with her on TransLash Podcast in 2023 about family, Stonewall, and sustaining the movement. 🎧 linktr.ee/translashmedia
Reposted by River doesn't know what to say
translash.org
We honor the legacy of Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a fierce protector of our collective freedom. Our hearts are with her loved ones and all who carry her vision forward.

"We will honor Miss Major forever." - @imarajones.bsky.social
An illustration of Miss Major surrounded by candles with blue background and a famous quote of hers written in gold. The quote reads“I don’t need their permission to exist; I exist in spite of them. I want you to train and teach and love on and create families within my community and gender non-conforming people, so that we can understand that we have a culture, we have a history, we have a reason to be here. We have a purpose. We’re entitled to be loved, and seek happiness, and share that with the people that we care about.” -Miss Major Griffin-Gracy
riverraven.bsky.social
Her "journalism" is like a building facade of Greek columns, a design created with decorative elements on what is elementally a structural and mathematical design. The columns on a facade serve no structural purpose, hold nothing up, but gesture at an idea of something we perceive as such.
riverraven.bsky.social
It's different from how most right wingers argue, who understand an argument, even if it's only to take advantage of the form for deception, or people who are arguing just from a different set of foundational framing.
riverraven.bsky.social
It's strange to watch Bari Weiss speak, because it is just like that. She speaks as if the noises coming out of her mouth are only form and not meaning. It's the performance of reasoning, without understanding the structure behind it.
riverraven.bsky.social
Sometimes in American movies, there is a character that speaks a non-English language that the actor doesn't know, and so the actor memorizes it as if it were just a series of sounds and this is instantly recognizable to people who speak that language and not recognizable to people who don't.
jamellebouie.net
one of my takeaways from this great piece is that weiss just doesn’t…sound like an intelligent person? or at least, not someone who has thought even a little bit about how and why they think the things that they do. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gieT...
Bari Weiss: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
YouTube video by LastWeekTonight
www.youtube.com
riverraven.bsky.social
Maybe it would be a good kick in the butt to know that as a gender theorist, your theory sucks if you hate yourself.
riverraven.bsky.social
A transmasc who believes that only women can say something meaningful about gender, or that they only could have ever said anything worthwhile as a woman, is suffering massively from internalized self hatred but they are held up as fonts of wisdom.
riverraven.bsky.social
This doesn't mean a work created under these circumstances isn't valuable, because the way we think under that kind of duress is important, but that it isn't actually at all enlightening or forward thinking.
riverraven.bsky.social
And yet and yet! Internalized self hatred is what people want from transmascs because it reinforces their prejudice and desire to control us.
riverraven.bsky.social
If you are an academic work recommend to me because of your gender theory, but also you are written by a person who finds it impossible to transition, despite the intense desire for it, then the work you do on gender is going to be rife with internalized self hatred.
riverraven.bsky.social
That is how to trans people are thrown under the bus, because not pushing for our rights too, means that the fascists were correct in their calculus that if they just took as much as they wanted, they would gain territory, even if they finally reach a point of being stopped.
riverraven.bsky.social
So whether we return to democracy or not, trans people are not considered people under that democracy, and what happens to us is not in the calculus for the return.
riverraven.bsky.social
Throwing people under the bus is how the least impacted are the most desirous of returning to their normalcy, that Jimmy Kimmel is the marker for things getting better, so that is the extent to which they will fight.
riverraven.bsky.social
It's also why people who are feeling better about the state of things because Jimmy Kimmel is back not only don't make me feel better, but make me feel increasingly alarmed, because for me as a trans person, things are continuing to worsen at a rapid pace.
riverraven.bsky.social
It's amazing to watch in real time as the people advocating for the rights of marginalized people, y'know, the ones actually being attacked, to be increasingly framed as anti-solidarity. This is how people are convinced that throwing people under the bus is saving democracy.
riverraven.bsky.social
Someone who manipulates you to perform gender for them does not respect you! They use you as an attack dog and don't see you as a real human being much less a real man.
riverraven.bsky.social
Anyone, including women, including trans women, including trans men, who requires any gender conforming behavior from you for your manhood to be acknowledged are only interested in manipulating you. And they will manipulate you against other trans and nonbinary people.
riverraven.bsky.social
And recognize that you are not the only person denied manhood, it is more common among cis men that society is willing to admit. Being sure of your own self will make you stronger than any validation anyone else would give you.
riverraven.bsky.social
Trans men, do for transmasculity what you wish cis men would do for you. Treat you as respectfully as a real man, while not putting that in conflict with the real ways in which you differ from the idea of what a cis man is,
riverraven.bsky.social
I would like for trans men to support transmascs as much as transfems, and not pit us against each other to alleviate their own dysphoria. I would like for trans men to celebrate the bravery and variety of transmasculity, and be proud to be included with us.
riverraven.bsky.social
because frankly just about everyone will discuss gender relations using the definition of man by the patriarchy, but then woman with the width and breath of womanhood via feminism.
riverraven.bsky.social
You can see transmasc invisibility at work, but also the erasure of the width and breath of what manhood and masculinity is,
riverraven.bsky.social
Trans men are just as much men as cis men, and are also just like cis men, because "cis man" itself is a construction. These are manmade boundaries, so to speak.