Smoking That Shit That Made The Femme High

YVES Fl!p That (2022)

I do want to touch on one more thing. When black people were stolen from Africa and put on those ships. They stripped us of our culture, our language and our history. A lot of us in present day can’t even say where our ancestors came from exactly, we can’t speak the language, we don’t even know the names of our forefathers.

That music scene was so moving because it highlights that despite all of the terrible atrocities, we are connected. Past, present and future. It’s in our soul, it’s in our very bones. We will always carry each other. It’s spiritual and it’s unbreakable. That power is our birthright.

im sorry but when you grow up and interact with people irl youre gonna have friends where you dont fw their tastes. sometimes youre gonna meet someone chill whos also a hazbin hotel fan or have a really nice coworker that likes taylor swift and youre gonna need to mind your business and shut the fuck up or youre gonna be real lonely

You're stuck in 2nd person and you can't get out. Help you. Help you. Please. Help you.

Im gonna be so real can yall actually talk about ways we can support trans women in the UK instead of giving all the attention to fucking JKR. I already know that Harry Poter sucks, I wanna know how to actually HELP people. Something something you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor

When the music business was first commodified in this country, y'know genre itself was a tool of racism. Like, if a black person sang a song and then if a white person sang the same song they would put those two songs into two different genres. The black song would be called a race record and then if a white person sang the song that might be called bluegrass. The music industry came before the film industry. It's an older industry so a lot of the film business follows the whims of music cause it's an older industry. That tradition causes certain genres to be ghettoized. Like this genre is beneath this genre. The horror movie is beneath the costume drama.

-Ryan Coogler on genre in Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler

i apologise if this is too venty or oversharing. i've been reading your and talia's essays while in the middle of my own gender-crisis and while i recognise them as the most comprehensive and sensible framework i've seen to understand how the patriarchy works - and i regret how this might come off as a whiny "what about me" - when patriarchy forces us into these strict biodestinies, what's the point of transitioning or trying to express your gender outside the box? again i do not mean this as a gotcha or declaring that people shouldn't transition ever, but the closest thing i've got to describing myself is "dykegender" and i know declaring myself as one would be met with raised eyebrows and "humouring the crazy" at best and being violently regendered into broodmare at worst. it's already so hard to explain and declare myself and just be seen as a lesbian, and i'm struggling to see if there's any benefits to openly being a deviant woman-dyke-thing vs swallowing my (relatively minor) dysphoria

thank you for reading this. thank you for your writing. i hope i come off as sincere and with respect.

I'm glad you find our writing thought-provoking. And yeah, first of all, I want to say that I empathise with your feelings--I think a lot of queer people struggle with existing legibly, because queerness is made illegible by the patriarchy. So your "what's even the point??" question makes sense.

Because I don't know you, I'm going to have to make some assumptions and answer from multiple angles, sometimes over explaining myself, because I don't know what baseline you're coming from. I hope that's okay.

Firstly, transition can actually change the way people gender you, even in places where trans-ness is very invisible. But based on what you wrote, I'm going to assume you're dissatisfied with simply shifting your perceived sex from woman to man or vice versa. Secondly, if you have physical dysphoria, addressing that will help you even if no one else on the planet recognises that as anything of importance. It's still your body to live in 24/7, and you'll be happier if you like living in it.

When it comes to the function of patriarchy, you probably understand that Talia and I talk about the overarching emergent system. Its details differ by location and culture and subculture--the core large-scale tendencies stay largely the same, but their expression and severity changes. More to the point, not all people follow patriarchal prescripts all the time or at all. So, an environment that does not denigrate you because you call yourself dykegender, and that does not treat you or women like would-be broodmares, is possible--I can attest to that from personal experience. Even if people in such an environment don't understand what your specific gender means, trust me they are capable of not treating you like shit. You are not submitting yourself to the judgement of the entire world at all times, and you do not need to measure the worthiness of your actions by the worst treatment you get or might get.

In other words, finding friends and community with people that do see you is possible--they exist, you're reading essays by some of them. I will not deny that there will still be people that meet you with confusion and hostility, but to say that their existence makes the entirety of your being a lost cause is a bit fatalistic. I feel like the good times we have in our queer communities, big and small, are not less worthwhile or fulfilling because of the suppression we face outside.

Lastly, I'm going to give you advice that you might scoff at, but hear me out. The thing with writings about social constructs of patriarchy and disability and so on is that they're not good at inspiring contentment and affirmative happy fun times. That isn't their purpose. But human beings need some amount of affirmative happy fun times, especially in crisis. That leads to some human beings sticking their heads in the sand and never emerging to face reality again, but you seem to have the exact opposite tendency.

So I will recommend that you seek out lesbian genderfucky fiction in whatever way you prefer to consume fiction. Talia and I both write that occasionally, but this isn't a plug and I don't know what you like. Regardless, the psyche is a muscle that needs rest, and escapist and cathartic fiction is a form of rest in which your mind gets to try on different realities and experience them in a safe environment. And, in seeking out people that create fiction resembling the kind of worlds you'd like to live in, you can also connect with people that also enjoy that fiction--meaning, they're probably like you, and will understand you. This isn't per se about fandom, but rather shared dreams and aspirations and communities. Even when you're isolated in a terrible situation IRL, that can give you solace for the moment and eventually strength to try and change your circumstance--and friends who can help you do that, including materially.