That's right, folks, it's my third fucking Leslie post of the day and the Leslie posting does not stop. I aspire to be even 1/1000th as based as Leslie was. o7

Up for discussion this week is anything from chapters 3 through 6. These discussion points kinda majorly fucking suck and y'all are free to bully me for them but I'm trying my best here.

  • What did you learn?
  • Was anything eye opening to you?
  • Are there any misconceptions about particular aspects of the trans community that have maybe been torn down?
  • Did anything make you reflect on how you view your own gender identity or expression?
  • Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
  • Are there things that brought out intense emotion? (ex: literally all of chapter 5 filled me with miraculously even more hatred for this shithole country)
  • Did you learn anything new about the medical hardships that trans people face? What are your thoughts?
  • Was there anything that really reaffirmed your beliefs as a leftist? - Please, God. If you're there, please strike me down; this is terrible but I just can't stop.

Rereading through this book now being as comfortable in my body as I am and actually paying close attention, it has shaken me to my core. My eyes have been blasted wide open so hard that I'm not even sure how the fuck I even identify anymore and that discomfort has motivated me to try using the pronoun tags to experiment a bit. So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... yeah. That's something. O_O

This thread will be featured for 24 hours then will remain pinned in !transenby_liberation for the remainder of the week until next Saturday. Rinse and repeat one last time.

original thread
week #1 thread
pdf download
epub download
chapter 1 audiobook - Huge shout out to comrade @futomes for recording these. No words can truly express my appreciation for this. Thank you so much. ❤️
chapter 2 audiobook
chapter 3 audiobook

  • Gay_Wrath [fae/faer]12•4 years ago

    Quotes from this week i liked:

    On gender:

    If we hear someone described to us who we've never met, we've already unconsciously made assumptions about that person based on the pronoun used to describe them.

    If you assure the world you're not like us, then you've just locked yourself into having to super-conform to gender roles and stereotypes.

    On Solidarity:

    I believe that the liberation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trans people cannot be won without fighting back shoulder to shoulder.

    Mixed in the blood we shed when we fight back are all the elements of who we are.

    Fucking love that one. Everything we bring to our shared fight against oppression is the mixed in with our own uniqueness - to oppress it or try to conform is cheating both yourself and your comrades.

    What unites us is not a common sexuality or experiences or identities or self-expression. It's that we are up against a common enemy.

    When people from different walks of life find themselves together in a collective protest, later they remember who stood tall with them when times were tough. That's how genuine solidarity is formed.

    When we allow ourselves to be split along lines of oppression, we always lose.

    "Let us win our demands first" they plead, "and then your demands will be more easily won later on." That's a trickle-down theory of reform.

    I'm 100% gonna use trickle down theory of reform now for stupidpol losers, thank you comrade Leslie :sankara-salute:

    • qublics [they/them,she/her]9•4 years ago

      What unites us [...] It’s that we are up against a common enemy.

      I very much disagree with "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic, so is worth clarifying what Leslie meant with the longer quote:

      But we’re not taking away your identity. No one’s sex reassignment or fluidity of gender threatens your right to self-identity and self-expression.
      On the contrary, our struggle bolsters your right to your identity. My right to be me is tied with a thousand threads to your right to be you.

      We’re not trying to barricade the road you travel; We’re trying to open up more avenues to self-definition, and identity and love and sexuality.
      That’s a wonderful development for everybody.

      What unites us is not a common sexuality or experiences or identities or self-expression. It’s that we are up against a common enemy.

      So that "common enemy" here refers not to some group of people but rather opposition against "your right to be you".
      or as I personally would like to put it: our common enemy is opposition to self-identity, self-expression, and bodily sovereignty.
      and that is an enemy we share with anyone that wants to exist or explore outside such restrictive norms.

      • TransComrade69 [she/her,ze/hir]2•4 years ago

        Great clarification! I think it's worth noting that this concept could be further expanded upon by going back to literally the very beginning of the book. Currently, your "right to choose" who you are is a very small range of expression that society has deemed appropriate for the two narrow boxes that it tries to squeeze every human into. That reality drastically shapes a person's world as they age and continue to scarf down the societal expectations that people have of them based on sex and gender. Trans liberation seeks to break people away from the gender penitentiary that confines their right to self-expression whether they are trans or not so they may be free to do with their bodies and identity as they see fit. :)

        Passage - pg. 5-6

        Our struggle will also help expose some of the harmful myths about what it means to be a woman or a man that that compartmentalized and distorted you life, as well as mine. Trans liberation has meaning for you - no matter how you define or express your sex or your gender.

        [...]

        And if you do not identify as transgender or transsexual or intersexual, your life is diminished by our oppression as well. Your own choices as a man or a woman are sharply curtailed. your individual journey to express yourself is shunted into one of two deeply carved ruts, and the social baggage you are handed is already packed.

        So the defense of each individual's right to control their own body, and to explore the path of self-expression, enhances your own freedom to discover more about yourself and your potentialities. This movement will give you more room to breathe - to be yourself. To discover on a deeper level what it means to be your self.

    • TransComrade69 [she/her,ze/hir]6•4 years ago

      I fucking lost it at: "But those of us who have been trickled on in the past are not impressed with that strategy." Just... Damn. That's a fucking haymaker of a comeback for a shitty ass strategy of reform. That's just so hard hitting, haha.