oh yeah i forgot tumblr is great with helping folks out – if you wanna help me get a trike cause my inner ears are crap, that would be freakin amazing ^^U
So, as people are seeing the pretty extreme antisemitism in the new terf wizard game, it should be noted that this was not a case of “following existing antisemitic fantasy tropes”. This was purposeful. The ex lead designer is alt right and ran an alt right “anti social justice” youtube channel. The discovery of this channel and the resulting controversy lead to him later being removed from the project late in development but the main premise of the game was determined by him and others with his views.
The core concept of this game is antisemitic and fully intended to be. It is not a case of thoughtless devs or lack of cultural sensitivity. This game is intended to be antisemitic propaganda designed and developed by openly alt right devs.
Troy Leavitt is the alt-right, openly antisemitic, racist and misogynistic developer. His name was taken off the headlines after his “unsavory side” came out but he was in chagne in its early stages. As for the rest of the main credited people: Moira Squier is the game writer, Alan Tew is the director, James Cabrera is the lead producer. The existence of this thing is the product of a team’s imagination, and the vile antisemitism, which has been built upon and taken to extremes over time in the franchise is a collaboration. Everyone high up in the dev team either did this on purpose or endorsed it.
To reiterate OP’s point: this is not an accident, and it’s not the work of a single bigoted individual.
Thank you for the specific names. Yes it was a purposeful team effort and Troy Leavitt went on record as saying that he made WB well aware of his youtube channel and they had no problem with it. He said he was glad they didn’t seem interested in pushing a “social justice agenda”. He voluntarily left the team due to public backlash to his youtube channel (which he still runs). He was not removed by WB or Avalanche Software. Everyone involved in the project in any kind of higher up position was well aware of his history of alt right work and knowingly endorsed it.
Like do you think this shit doesn’t influence you?! Do you think playing hours upon hours upon hours of Blood Libel: The Game (Magic Edition) where you are a Wizard Cop hunting down a targeted minority isn’t going to fuck with your head the teensiest, tiniest bit???
The whole FUCKING POINT is that this shit is antisemitic, pro cop propaganda wrapped up in a nice shiny nostalgic package so you don’t notice, and it goes directly into JKR’s pocket, meaning that it directly funds anti-trans legislation in the UK.
The more you talk about Harry Potter, the more you give her air time, the powerful she becomes, and that has real world consequences that directly affect the people around you.
Don’t give her your money.
Save your $70. Spend it on something else. Or better yet, donate it to Mermaids, which is one of the leading charities in the UK helping trans and non-binary youth.
i want a baking competition show (in the style of gbbo, great canadian baking show, etc.) but for kosher baking
BUT
i don’t just mean “all the ingredients are kosher” or even “also the competitors are not asked to bake when it is shabbat” though both those things are also true
instead of the technical challenge where they have incomplete recipes to complete from memory/instinct, i want the “yom tov baking challenge”:
they get a recipe, but they are not allowed to measure anything. they get regular unmarked containers and spoons rather than measuring cups and measuring spoons. all the ovens are on sabbath mode, so they don’t display the temperature or time; bakers will have to keep track of what temperature the oven’s on and how long things have been in on their own - and they can’t write anything, either. they can use the stove but likewise can’t turn it off; they can’t use appliances like stand mixers, food processors, electric beaters, etc. - basically, nothing that needs to be plugged in / that can’t be just left on and only the temperature varied.
honestly i think it would be fun to give this challenge to non-jewish / non-kosher / non-yom-tov-observant bakers and see how they do with the new yom tov baking strictures but it would also be fun to see people who are used to it still struggling with those restrictions in a super constructed environment.
i really want this kosher baking show. i would pay money to ( a ) watch it, ( b ) judge or host it, and ( c ) compete in it.
tumblr can make fun of Blizzard’s Oppression Calculator all they want, that’s exactly how people act with discourse poisoned queer discussions.
“m-spec people are capable of being ‘straight passing,’ which means they Categorically Rate As Less Gay.”
“yes you’re Trans but you’re also a Man, and the Man Modifier makes you Less Oppressed By Default, which means you don’t get to decide what you do and do not experience.”
“yes you’re Nonbinary, but you have to tell us What’s In Your Pants so we can decide What Kind Of Oppression You Experience and How Much Of It You Experience.”
“aroace people don’t have Any gay points which means they’re Basically Straight and don’t belong.”
“you’re not allowed to mix the Counsel Decided-Upon Queer Categories, if you Bend The Rules then that means you’re Actually A Bigot Trying To Make Queer People Look Bad.”
just because you don’t have a literal graph that charts out which identities you think have the Decided-Upon Oppression Points doesn’t mean that you aren’t doing the exact same thing when you make sliding scales of oppression with “gays and trans women” at one end and “straights and cis men” at the other
Hey King, great post! But I just wanted to let you know, some of the points you’re making here kinda make it seem like your real beef here is with trans women hogging all the oppression points by talking about transmisogyny. You must really, really resent trans women for some reason and it is not subtle at all, great job! Keep it up! 👍
I suspect that there’s nothing that I could say in response to this that’s going to change your mind, but I want to address it anyways because it opens a conversation about the exact point of this post.
first of all, all of the identities listed in this post directly are things that I either actively identify as right now or that I’ve spent a considerable amount of time identifying as in the past. I didn’t list every conceivable instance where this mindset has hurt a group of people within the queer community, I listed the instances that I know intimately from my own experiences because that’s what I was confident that I’d be able Understand enough to speak on. just because I didn’t list an identity or idea here doesn’t mean that I don’t think it applies.
I Do think that trans women experience this kind of oppression olympics pokemon-type nonsense, particularly in how people will argue that trans women are “less” gay than cis lesbians or that their transness somehow takes away from their gayness. I Also think this applies to some drag queen spaces pushing trans women out, with the assertion that it’s either Cheating or that they don’t belong because it’s For gay men. but I don’t know these experiences intimately enough to feel comfortable boiling them down to one quippy irritated sentence in a post that I’m slamming out in 10 minutes without editing, because it’s not My experience that I understand intimately.
secondly, there’s this assertion in some parts of the community (both in an active spoken way and in a subtle subconscious way) that different Types of trans people can be ranked based on their oppression vs their privilege. and that not only can we concretely rank this Level Of Oppression, but that doing so means that we can dictate what experiences individual people have based on what rank they occupy.
and Not Only are all of those things considered true, but there’s this assumption then that anything that pushes back on these ideas Must Be insisting that this ranking should be reworked. if a trans man says they have an experience that someone else insisted that they don’t then that trans man Must be claiming that They’re the real highest on the list and the other groups are then (by proxy) More Privileged than them.
I think based on the context of this post that my stance on this should be obvious. trying to rank Level Of Oppression based on Types is not only foolish but leads to unproductive othering and arguments that take away from addressing the real problems people face in this community and instead provoke in-fighting and lateral aggression.
there is no quantifying Experience based on hard labels, because life doesn’t care. individuals are going to have highly specific experiences based on circumstance and luck. and we should never be in a position as a community where we’re willing to look at someone and either say that what they experienced didn’t Happen to them, Or that it doesn’t matter what they experienced because they aren’t in the group of people that’s allowed to talk about it.
the point of this post was Not to say “trans masc and nonbinary people are the poor oppressed trans people while trans women get an easy ride” or to say “trans women are bullies and bigots that hate other trans people.”
the point is that people see “potential victim of transphobia” and “potential victim of misogyny” as two points on the oppression meter and then try to quantify who belongs in those categories. and moreover, there has been Significant pushback against the creation of terms and categories to talk about the ways that other trans people’s experiences feature this complex intersection, which has been seen in the overt rejection of nonbinary people as a whole and in the assertion that trans mascs either don’t Need their own term because they “just” face transphobia or the outright assertion that they are privileged because of their identity.
and all of this can be a real problem, because it results both in these groups trying to carve out a space for themselves to talk to each other being vilified and busted up, And in their presence in the wider community being fraught with assertions that they don’t experience things that they do.
just recently I had someone tell me directly that trans men do not experience intersectionality at All while trans women do, which was exactly what inspired me to make this post. because it was a shockingly honest way of laying out this exact issue.
the problem is not that trans women have a Different experience from trans mascs or nonbinary people, the problem is that people view trans women as having a more complex relationship with their gender and trans identity than other groups of trans people in a way that gives them a Unique relationship to oppression. trans women have the intersectionality of misogyny and trans mascs (as the exact opposite) clearly Do Not. which leaves nonbinary people in an extremely awkward and often times not just uncomfortable but Hostile position, as they’re forced into another binary in a space that was supposed to let them embrace a life without them.
and none of this is specifically the fault of trans women, it’s the fault of radfem ideas and general conservatism invading the queer community in ways that they don’t recognize, which hurts trans women just as much just in Different ways than this post was specifically talking about.
people who accept that trans identities Exist but are still caught up in their very cis ideas of gender roles try to force the trans community to fit in those boxes and it goes very poorly and ends with a lot of experiences being either silenced or actively antagonized. and the perpetrators of this are Largely cis allies who haven’t examined their relationship with and understanding of gender and all of the complexities enough to understand what they’re doing, and young trans people who haven’t done the same.
and with that latter group it’s often Also an extension of their own insecurity in their experiences and in their identity, which is what a Lot of bad discourse in the queer community stem from. hurting insecure people engaging in lateral aggression because they either desperately want to fit in or desperately want to prove that their experiences matter and should be heard.
and that experience isn’t something exclusive to trans women. I’d actually say that the Majority of the time where I’ve gotten into an argument where someone told me that my lived experiences didn’t “count” or that they were Actually just misdirected misogyny because I’m transmasc/nonbinary came from other trans mascs. and I’d wager a guess that That happens because a lot of young trans mascs want to Reject any claim to femininity because it makes them feel insecure, in the same way that anything “feminine” or “cute” being associated with trans mascs or nonbinary people gets absolutely eviscerated (rip softboy self identifiers who got bullied for a month straight).
again, the fact that this happens doesn’t mean that trans women are Privileged. it means that there’s an experience that trans mascs and nonbinary people share because of the way that trans inclusive but uninformed people try to project cis gender norms onto the trans community. and in fact that Same impulse affects trans women, just in different ways. it’s just not really my place to talk about that in depth because I don’t Have those experiences and don’t have the confidence that I understand them well enough to boil them down flippantly like this post is styled after.
that said, any trans women that’d like to air the shitty awful ways that this mindset affects them on this post are more than welcome.
hey is anybody paying attention to the fact that it’s definitely the exactly same exclusionist groups that have been harassing other queer people and engaging in lateral aggression for literally over a decade on this site that are trying to strip trans men of their right to recognize and name their experiences? who do things like insist that trans men’s experiences either aren’t real or don’t matter because what they experience doesn’t Really belong to them?
it blows me away how often we see the exact same thing happen over and over and over again all stemming from the exact Same mindset, and every time it happens people who already knew that treating another group of people that way is wrong fall for anyways because it’s pointed at a group of people that they either know less about or care less about.
secondly: can we point out how goofy “transandrophobia truther” makes them look. okay buddy
actually, it’s been nearly a year, and I have a new perspective to add onto this.
All trans people experience unique forms of this particular bullshit, of quantifying how much they belong how oppressed they how deserving they are by cutting them up and picking out which identities they have and how much they weigh on the oppression scale.
but So Much Of It is the exact Same ideas pointed at different trans people with zero awareness or irony. down to the Details.
“this trans group is Privileged or even Dangerous because of their closeness to manhood. we may tolerate them, we may Graciously allow them to exist in these spaces as long as they don’t speak, but at the end of the day they are inherently the enemy.”
is this about trans men because they identify as and (Sometimes) transition into men? is this about trans women because of their biology, because of their “””socialization,””” and because they (Sometimes) exist as stealth in the closet? is this about nonbinary people who are being broken down Into a physical binary to either decide that they’re Basically cis men with basically cis man privilege or that they’re Basically trans men who Basically that same trans masc passing privilege (note: that last one is often extensions of the other two, but they can Also exist independently).
“this trans group doesn’t Need visibility like I do, if they join a discussion about trans My issues then they’re trying to Silence Me, Talk Over Me, Take Something Away.”
is this about trans women because people equate that hyper-visibility (which is often demonization) with a sort of Privilege within the community? treated as though the fact that they’re in the news and on tv means they’ve been listened to Enough? is it about trans women because they’re (Transphobicly) associated with their biology? associated with those toxic masculinity as if they’re poisoned by association, violent and attention hogging and dangerous?
is this about trans men because they’re seen as facing Transphobia But Less? because they’re seen as having their identities as men Take Away from the transphobia they experience, and so anything they’d have to say would be watered down and unnecessary (how could they have something to say about This experience when they surely don’t have it). is it because they’re viewed Exactly the same way as trans women but to the left? Becoming men and Becoming poisoned by manhood instead of being so by birthright?
is this about nonbinary people because they’re watered down to their physical sex? forced into a binary to say that they’re Really just cis anyways? forced into a binary to say that they’re Really just This binary trans people anyways (along with any baggage associated with it). because it’s Women And Nonbinary People (positive) (derogatory) up until a nonbinary person has a beard, up until a nonbinary person is tall or muscly or butch or or or or? is this about nonbinary people because people still think “nonbinary” isn’t Real? that it’s an identity for children who couldn’t Possibly understand was “Real” oppression looks like? that it’s an identity for Thieves trying to steal oppression from binary trans people?
“this trans group doesn’t Really experience oppression like I do.
statistics and studies don’t matter because they’re Actually privileged
because of-”
“this trans group Makes Us Look Bad. the cis people won’t take us seriously, the rest of the community won’t see us as oppressed enough. the doctors won’t think we deserve medical aid, the media, the lawyers, the police, the government, the- if we aren’t taken seriously because of Them, then obviously They’re the threat.”
“well see, it doesn’t Matter what some individuals may have experienced in this trans group, because Actually this trauma is about That group. it’s not about you, it’s misdirected, it’s bigoted for you to try to steal this oppression away, it’s Evil for you to try to use this experience to claim your own oppression.”
“this trans group is Inherently a threat to mine. they’re nothing but bigots who use their privilege to bully and harass, which means they’re Inherently Evil and justifies anything that I could ever do or say to them. they’re a faceless mass of evil and it’s a Good Thing that I hate them.”
“this trans group is Different from me, which means they’re a Threat To Me. if we let them speak out, if we let them get attention, if we let them matter, then it’ll obviously hurt Me. which means it’ll obviously hurt everybody Like Me. this is a very important threat, please everybody take me seriously.”
is the person saying this a man, a woman, nonbinary, somewhere in between, somewhere outside? cis, trans, questioning, somewhere in between? it’s all of it, it’s trans men saying it about other trans men, it’s trans women saying it about other trans women, it’s throwing mud across the isle, it’s people who call out this Exact Behavior and then point it at their nearest sibling instead. the crime of being different taken more seriously than active violence, because being different Is violence.
and when you’re Experiencing this (as All trans people do at some point) it’s Easy to look at other people calling out that behavior from members of your own group and Balk. how could you say that when it’s happening To Me? how could you say that when the problem is Obviously that My group is the one being demonized by the community? it’s an easy trap to fall into, it’s a trap that Every community within queer spaces seems to fall into sometimes.
but the truth is that people are going to opportunistically Despise other marginalized groups no matter what. because they have the power to do so, because they have internalized biases that they haven’t identified and dealt with yet, because they’ve been lured in by radfems and terfs and exclusionist groups that inject this mindset into their brain and either Successfully convince them to hate whatever group they want to hate, or convince them that they can take that exact same mindset and find a group that Deserves It this time.
I’ve seen exclusionist groups rise and fall, target dozens of different groups with the Exact Same rhetoric, the Exact Same arguing points, for 10 years. and None of them hate it more when you point that fact out. even when you can point to instances that are Word For Word The Same.
the act of Being in this community At All is to be vulnerable. both to the outside world and each other. Our Job has to be in protecting Everybody, in valuing Everybody, in not listening when the next asshole walks up and tries to convince us that This Group Is Lesser, This Group Is Violent, This Group Is The Enemy, This Group Is The Fakers, This Group- This Group- This Group-
People matter. People Matter because they exist, because they are real, because they want to reach out to a community and be understood and give that understanding in turn. “but who’s more oppressed, but who gets to make the rules, but who matters The Most” Shut Up. Who Cares, Who Cares.
a child whose never had anybody to talk to before in their life is logging on right now to a community that they Think will accept them, that they Think will listen to them, that they Think will give them the community they’ve never gotten to have before and absolutely None Of You have the right to take that away because you’ve decided that there’s something Wrong with x group this week.
People Should Matter Because They Are People. Every Single “Group” Is Just People. with all of the messy experiences and identities and personalities that “people” implies.
if you’re a trans man that hates trans women you’re a fucking moron, if you’re a trans woman that hates trans men you’re a fucking moron, if you’re a binary trans person that hates nonbinary people you’re a fucking moron, if you’re a nonbinary trans person that hates binary trans people you’re a fucking moron. Shut Up and Eat Some Bread and Maybe You’ll Calm Down.
I love how everyone’s guesses for what creature Luz’s palisman might become fits their character and how they relate to Luz
Camila:“What kind of magical creature will it be? A dragon?” —> a dragon is the quintessential fantasy creature and Camila knows just how much Luz loves her fantasy stories.
Hunter: “A bird?” —> Hunter associates Luz with the Owl Lady, and views her as a sister figure, so it would fit if she had a bird like he did. He’s also still processing Flapjack’s death, and probably wants to see someone have a bird, even though his is gone.
Amity: “Oh! An otter!” —> Amity gets to see the sweetest, cute-and-cuddliest side of Luz’s personality as her girlfriend 😌 also a reference to “I’m an otter! With a dark side >:3” from Grom.
Willow: “A spooky bat?” —> Willow knows Luz as a bit of a troublemaker and a free spirit from their times at Hexside. She also seems to dig the Halloween aesthetic based on her costume 😈
Gus:“A… snake?” —> Gus has struggled with being deceived by false impressions of other people, so his guess being the closest is a nod to his growing ability to see through illusions, and also shows how well he knows his friends.
“Surely nothing could be worse than a lot of women dying,” she thinks. “Ah,” she says.
this is why you don’t upload your photo to cool filter or facemorph sites like LensaAI or whatever. they will collect your photos and sell them to companies like this.
And people keep saying wearing masks “still” is pointless.
