goddammit this is my blog and I'm gonna say things

[sciatrix]

The anxiety weasels have returned, but I should manage a linkspam this week. It has not been a great mental health week for me, but I think I have identified the issues with my sound chambers for now (need more base-line microphone amps, peering at the chambers I )

Made the mistake of accidentally kicking off my own exclusionist trauma issues on a Metafilter post, and will be taking a break from there (have locked myself out of my account for the rest of the week). I am reminded why I tend to view lesbians with guarded suspicion until they demonstrate that they don't hold with the TERFy and SWERFy corners of queerpolitik, and regret bringing up both that particular article and tensions in queer-female-and-adjacent communities more generally.

No, seriously, the word lesbophobia is a dog whistle, and doubling down on it when I go "are you--are you intending to communicate this?" and insisting I'm speaking in bad faith is, ah. Fun.

Also today, I had a horrifically-ill student attempt to isolate his own DNA with a cheek rinse and fill it with so much phlegm that I couldn't figure out what the hell he was doing wrong when he showed me his sample. I did not, however, find this out before that student helpfully tried to dip a micropipette with no fucking tip into his cup of filthy sick spit-water and draw up a milliliter of fluid, and then get confused when the tip didn't fit on the micropipette afterwards. I think I got it dried out enough not to bleed everywhere, but I'm not sure. I definitely went back and splashed ethanol all over that sucker after he left.

I can only hope he had the same nasty bug I did a few weeks ago, so maybe I can fight it off before he infects everyone else.

Comments

[notasupervillain]

Ugh you have my sympathies all around

[sciatrix]

thank. <3 I'm trying to fight off the urge to try to crawl into a hole to die right now, not gonna lie.

[felinejumper]

I did not trawl the entire metafilter thread there, but that original article you linked to is SO INTERESTING AS AN EXPERIENCE and I'm so glad I read it; I'm sorry about the associated Bad Times On The Net :(

and omg omg omg @ your student, good grief I know hands on learning is important but what a brutal abuse of a pipette.

[sciatrix]

It is an interesting article! And some of the discussion is probably helpful; I'm just really upset by the way that one particular participant, uh, keeps insisting that people who don't agree with her take on things should "listen to women," or insists on hauling the conversation around to predatory straight women creeping on lesbians. There's a particularly useful comment in the MeFi thread that points out the Skirt Club in the profile is, uh, a venue specifically run by a bisexual woman to give women who are questioning or want to explore sex with other women a low-pressure way to do that without having to commit to a long-term emotional relationship. Which adds its own interesting framing to the conversation, particularly in terms of what the author is excluding or including in her perception of the venue, and particularly given the absence of discussions of bisexuality in the narrative.

I had to go and clean it in the prep room to stop myself from going "excuse me sir but what the actual fuck." I mean, he did this immediately after an instructional video on how to use micropipettes, in slow and boring detail, and also a pause from me on how you correctly identify which tip goes with which pipette. And then he pulled that within five minutes.

I really hope it's just illness making him brainfoggy and impulsive. I really do. I've definitely done shit like that when I'm sick--I called out sick on a class for the first time in my life for what I suspect is the same bug two weeks ago because I didn't think I could teach like that. And he generally seems like a hardworking and focused guy over the last two weeks. But. Dude~!

[kaberett]

I really do not think this is you kicking off your own trauma issues. <3

also chILD DO NOT DO THAT TO THE PIPETTE DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW EXPENSIVE THEY ARE NO

[sciatrix]

I, uh, wow. Thank you for knocking that little bit of self belief loose: I tend to blame myself for not magically being able to navigate all conflicts, and also for bearing costs from those conflicts. I... had not caught that I was doing that before, and appreciate the knock at the bad mental framing.

HONESTLY I'M JUST SURPRISED HE CAME UP WITH IT

[silversandbea]

Yeah, logging out of metafilter after that post is probably the best for your mental health. After the last mod cleanup last night, I removed the thread from recent activities and am trying to use good old fashioned will power to avoid checking back in on it.

(I don't have an issue with lesbian identified folks until the conversation gets judgemental of other wlw or terfy, then I've got to back away)

Anyway, the link was interesting! I'm sorry the conversation didn't go better, and hope you feel better soon.

[sciatrix]

Yeah, not being able to comment and being able to say "I care strongly about this" has been a good state for me. I sent a pretty upset set of emails regarding the modding in that thread last night (and probably got the cleanup a little more carefully trimmed), but I don't have the fortitude or the energy or attention to bring to having this discussion over on the Grey. Especially because let's be real, outside communities of queer/lgbtq women observers wind up boiling all of it down to playing oppression Olympics, whether or not both sides are actually being equally insensitive to each other.

(I feel identically to you re your parenthetical, fwiw.)

[glorious_spoon]

Ugh, as a bi woman I back-buttoned the hell out of there once I saw those particular comments, I was just so bugged by the dismissal of an experience that almost every bi/pan woman I know has had at least once as, like, some OTT lesbophobic lie. I'm impressed at your graciousness, tbh.

(I have several lengthy rants on this topic, but I'll keep them out of your comments section, lol)

Although that was a really interesting article, if a bit boggling to me, so I appreciate the link.

[sciatrix]

I really hoped for better there, particularly given it wasn't just me going "wow this isn't okay." I just... Ugh. I think it got better after LobsterMitten's last mod note but things should not have been allowed to get that bad to start.

[aurumcalendula]

ugh that sucks

[sciatrix]

<3

[jesse_the_k]

I wanted to shower you with weightless, dustless flowers when I saw what was happening.

Thanks for posting an interesting thing!

(Some students aren't destined for lab life, after all.)

[sciatrix]

Thanks. That matters a lot to me.

(God I can't even remember what his career plans are. I really really hope it's just uncharacteristic sickness breaking his ability to brain.)

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

Oof. Here's to letting things settle down on their own and picking everything up again later with a fresh start.

[sciatrix]

*clinks glass*

[gentlyepigrams]

It never fails that every time I consider re-upping at Metafilter, someone reminds me not to. I'm sorry about your experience and even as a straight woman I give "lesbophobia" a side-eye. I don't have a lot of experience with openly SWERFY dialogue but I've heard enough TERFs talk about lesbophobia that I immediately thought the same thing when I read that post/comments.

[sciatrix]

I mean... 80, 90% of the time it's one of my favorite spaces on the web. This kind of intra-queer shittiness is so integral to my experience of existing in queer spaces--I don't think I have managed to avoid it ever in any online space I've had access to, including LJ/DW.

But when it goes bad for me, it goes real bad, I think because I wind up trying to thread myself though impassable needles instead of snarling at people who are acting poorly to knock it off.

This is the first time I've buttoned over it, though. I'm not feeling real good about that, but I don't have the energy to spark a proper metadiscussion over it and that feels like a more safe for me way of expressing that I am hurt, upset, and withdrawing from the larger community for a while as a consequence. I've been spending a lot of time wading in over there, and forcing myself to stop feeling like I have to say something while also declaring that I'm not present right now feels like a good way to self-advocate quietly, without having to deal with a lot of other people's opinions.

[jezunya]

I skimmed through the comments on that page and just… yikes. So much yikes. Your comments were characteristically thoughtful & even-handed, and it kind of seemed like some people – or just one person – were up in arms & looking for a fight from the get-go. I'm sorry you had to deal with that, and especially sorry that what read to me as you trying to explain your position & the reasons behind your reactions instead seemed to be interpreted as blame-throwing or assigning motivations to others, or something. That's always so shitty to deal with >:/

Also sorry about the gross undergrads, lol *shudder* Here's hoping your immune system is still working hard after the last bug! ♥

[sciatrix]

Oh, I'd name two people who were up in arms and... not looking for a fight exactly, but looking for people to validate their trauma (plenty of people happy to do that there) and, more crucially, their preferred blame for that trauma right off the bat. And saying "I hear you, but I need you to listen to me too" just isn't fucking enough for people like that, apparently.

I'm just hoping it's the same one so I don't risk getting infected with whatever terrible ailment he had! I wish sick days were more workable for both instructors and students--we have a drop lab for this reason, of course, but this early in the semester the students worry about not getting a good quiz grade and what if they need the drop later?? It's not a particularly difficult class, honestly, being an elective lab aimed at upperclassmen, but a lot of our students are often pre-med and they develop a habit of being very concerned about GPAs that I can't quite blame them for even as I wish they'd understand that both my instructor and I are more concerned about what they take away from the course than the grade they get assigned--and that's factored into the course design, too.

[sylvaine]

Oh no I should not have clicked that link. Right, this is why I don't like lesbians despite me being functionally one myself.

(NotAllLesbians etc)

Augh, student, no! *shudder*

[sciatrix]

I mean, same? Like, I'm--aw, hell, it's complicated and ace is always going to be my home identity, the people where I go home and I'm seen, but I'm also--insofar as I develop interest in anyone, it's never ever men, I prefer women and enbies on basically every level, and while I do have male friends it's never where my interest for committed relationships go.

Of course my interest in sex is effectively nil and I don't seem to have the starting crush thing on people, so it's all fucking complicated, and I'm shielded from a few of the complaints that the-sort-of-lesbian-who-likes-to-cry-lesbophobia have--I'm not trying to negotiate dating with people who ghost me, for one thing.

...Not exactly, anyway, and not anymore.

But I don't see why you can't hold the loneliness of having people repeatedly say that yeah, they're interested in what you want, they're interested in you, but also constantly peel away from the actual challenge of staying with you... alongside the essential loneliness of never being able to trust that groups that say they welcome people like you, that say they want you there, will follow through; the loneliness of never being seen as your true self no matter how loudly you scream it.

I mean. I'm butch. I collapse my nonbinary partner into "my wife" when it's easier on us both to just slide under the assumption. I pass as lesbian. I deal with the awkward wariness from certain kinds of straight women (or, at least, women who claim a straight public identity) just as much as anyone else. And I get to put up with both kinds of pain and trauma and isolation, so I admit I kind of... break my brain in frustration that other people can't see that they both are forms of pain and isolation and can't handle that shit without letting it bleed out and retraumatize someone else.

Which is literally what I see happening from these women; it's trauma weaponized to hurt other people. And I don't know how to get that across without getting run out of town, and I'm tired and insecure and hurting and probably being condescending, the amount of times I've repeated myself in that conversation, so I'm taking myself out of it before I can hurt anyone else.

[havocthecat]

I am reminded again why, even in fandom spaces, I am not particularly involved in discussions of queerness as a bisexual woman married to a man, because I have run into that sexuality-policing bullshit over and over again. Sometimes even in the femslash spaces where I thought I was, well, safer to be a bisexual woman married to a man, but whoops, nope, sometimes you trip and stand up and discover it's all LESBIANS ONLY up in this femslash arena, and you just have to say fuck you and the lesbian horse you rode in on.

It's honestly just exhausting and offensive. This is why I tend to keep my fandom activities concentrated to people who don't give a damn about questioning my sexuality or my relationships. Do I deserve to be where I say I am? Yes. Can I and should I write what I say I want to write? Yes. It's just so much healthier and less exhausting that way.

I hope your Metafilter break does you good - and I hope you don't catch anything from your student. I am certain he screwed up because he was sick. Probably the boringness of the film was not holding his attention because of the tiredness from the sick? I hope.

[sciatrix]

I mean, this is a non-zero part of why I sort of faded back from the f/f ship I was writing in very actively (for... me) and started avoiding almost all of the content/discussion, because most of it got very much like "yes they are lesbians" (using that word very specifically) and often sort of... softly and without a lot of focus on the characters themselves or the complicated parts of them I liked.

The thing is, I do understand the trauma that people there are talking about! I just don't understand why there's a certain class of person who can't acknowledge trauma that's orthogonal to theirs, or even understand (and own) that saying "this traumatic response caused this other trauma and if we're ever going to stop it we need to listen" is important. I think that's the thing I always wind up breaking my heart over, and I need to just stop it and start losing my temper, or at least not blame myself for that being the choice some people make.

[sebenikela]

This is one of several reasons why I am terrified of trying to date women. I have zero way of ~proving I'm gay enough~ and I already have enough trauma about relationships of all kinds so I'd like to avoid collecting more, thanks.

<3

[sciatrix]

I mean like, don't ask me for dating advice; I barely understand the concept! I don't do--all the beginning bits of relationships, really, is the best way to talk about it; I have fallen into every committed relationship I've been in more or less by accident, by surrounding myself with people I liked who shared similar kinds of desires to me, and just... following my life where it went, I guess. Which is much harder when you're queer--my communities of fellow aces had mostly been online before I moved to Austin and built myself an offline one, and that sort of thing leads to transcontinental immigration issues. It's just hard in different ways, and when you're being deliberately run out of the most visible spaces to build those kinds of networks and relationships with other people who might be into a person like you, the whole thing gets so much more infected with fear and complication.

TBH the idea of being single and trying to deliberately go about changing that by looking for a Romantic Relationship (as opposed to people to spend time with/engage in mutually pleasurable activities/build up closer relationships with as opportunities and mutual desire for that appear) breaks my brain more than a bit. I get the feeling of wanting to be someone's primary person--oh boy do I ever--but the idea of selecting auditions for someone to do that without vetting them through friendships first confuses me on a pretty gut level. (I respect it! I just, not for me, no, no.)

[writerkit]

This is why I've been staying the heck out of queer spaces more generally; people like that... well, there's no reasoning with them. They have always been the most wounded in the world. It's the same with the lesbian parties at Pride; half of them are using it to mean women who like women and half them are using it to mean "NO BIS EITHER!" and I have no way of knowing which half. (I'm reminded of an apartment advertisement I saw recently that included "no men no straights", which I was staring at thinking "most of the people who phrase it like that with no qualifiers probably think I'm straight and also what about straight trans people?")

For what it's worth you seemed like you were being pretty reasonable, and the writer of the article seems very judgy about the whole thing-- though to me that judginess read as much coming from the kink part of things as the lesbian part; there are a lot of people in the kink community who think it's somehow "realer" sex, especially near the end when she starts getting judgy about them not wanting to use strap-ons.

[sciatrix]

Ahahaha, and I remember when we were actively looking for a new housemate before M moved in and we all gathered around to work out how to write the ad text so as to make it clear we were really kind of hoping for someone queer and maybe not a cis guy but also really anyone on the trans or nb side of things would be okay? I recall having multiple house conversations about how to phrase that before M helpfully simplified things by asking if the room was still up. (As it turns out we are an all-ace household, I think one of four now that have spawned out of my meeting space.)

Which is to say... It is not that hard to write this sort of thing while leaving room for people who aren't in the LG corners of the acronym; you just need to think about the kinds of people you'd be happy to live with and leave them room to see themselves in the pitch you're setting out!