welcome to the fest

I've been following Sinfest for quite a while now, and enjoyed it very much, but today's will be the last comic I read.

Why? I'm trans. And it has become very clear over the last few weeks that Sinfest has adopted a position of trans-exclusionary radical feminism, sometimes abbreviated as TERF, in which, paradoxically, while the gender binary is excoriated as part of the patriarchy, those who try to subvert it are also regarded as the enemy. The slogan "Gender Is Sexism," and the series of cartoons in which it has been foregrounded, make it very clear that in the artist's view, anyone who was assigned male at birth is male forever and therefore the Enemy, and the adoption of non-gender-specific pronouns is represented as a device of the enemy to attack and weaken "pure" feminism, in which only those who were assigned female at birth can be Of The Good.

I'm sad to see myself and people like me demonised in a webcomic that used to give me so much pleasure. I'm even sadder to see it adopt a view so illogical, denying the reality of gender while at the same time founding its entire worldview on the irrefragability of the division between male and female.

I'd like to thank the artist for his work over the years, and wish him well in his future career. I hope he can resolve his issues and arrive at a more inclusive view.

Love,
Zanda

I'm also concerned, hoping there's more to it than just vilifying the evolving, complex rhetoric of gender.

I have a friend, born male, who's beginning the challenging transition to female.
The parallel: I support her, but resent how it makes me stumble over pronouns when referring to her. So inconvenient for me.

zandamyrande wrote:I've been following Sinfest for quite a while now, and enjoyed it very much, but today's will be the last comic I read.

Why? I'm trans. And it has become very clear over the last few weeks that Sinfest has adopted a position of trans-exclusionary radical feminism, sometimes abbreviated as TERF, in which, paradoxically, while the gender binary is excoriated as part of the patriarchy, those who try to subvert it are also regarded as the enemy. The slogan "Gender Is Sexism," and the series of cartoons in which it has been foregrounded, make it very clear that in the artist's view, anyone who was assigned male at birth is male forever and therefore the Enemy, and the adoption of non-gender-specific pronouns is represented as a device of the enemy to attack and weaken "pure" feminism, in which only those who were assigned female at birth can be Of The Good.

I'm sad to see myself and people like me demonised in a webcomic that used to give me so much pleasure. I'm even sadder to see it adopt a view so illogical, denying the reality of gender while at the same time founding its entire worldview on the irrefragability of the division between male and female.

I'd like to thank the artist for his work over the years, and wish him well in his future career. I hope he can resolve his issues and arrive at a more inclusive view.

Love,
Zanda

bye =)!

Was that really necessary? Someone leveled decent criticism (whether I agree or not, it was at least constructive and polite), and your only instinct is to belittle and insult? Were you personally attacked in that post? No? Then why respond with a personal attack?

Chill. Out. Sister.

You don’t want to include trans women in your definition of feminism? That’s your prerogative. You don’t want to personally advocate for them? Okay, your call. But throwing shade on someone else for expressing themselves and opening up is just cruelty and oppression of another nature.

Don’t be a bully.

This person, this human being, made themself vulnerable in a hostile space. That’s deserving of at least basic respect and dignity for another person.

Gender abolitionism and transgender identities don’t have to be mutually exclusive for both groups to achieve their goals. There are trans people who are gender abolitionist radfems too. They’re here and reading, like zandamyrande was, and trying to reconcile the parts of the message they agree with and the parts that attack them personally.

A little common ground and a little courtesy can go a long way. I’m not asking you to change your mind or to suddenly accept trans women. I’m asking you, please, to do what you’re asking men to do, to be mindful of the harm that you caused, and to stop causing those harms.

chill nostarion lol

nostarion: thank you,
zanda: not that i read the forums a lot, but you wrote perhaps the most thoughtful and classiest thing i've ever seen on here. if you've been a big part of this community, your departure is its loss!

nostarion: thank you for standing up. never chill because people like to use 'i'm just joking' to cover their bad behaviour and instead of recognizing that maybe they are wrong and should apologize, they tell you you're in the wrong.

zanda: I'm sorry to see you go and I also agree. Kinda, because I still do not know what is going on, these comics have been a little confusing for me recently. so I don't know what to think yet.

It went from the gender conforming camp where I thought this was a critique on performative and toxic masculinity, to... I don't know what. I'm not sure what the comic is trying to get at here because it's been a confusing ride for this arc and I don't think I've posted here before (hello), but this arc has not been the most... clear?

I'm not so sure what this comic is criticizing and it would be quite sad if this was an attack on the trans community.

But then looking at the one 'woke-man' strip, the 'problematique' character who is clearly problematic says 'women don't have penises'... and then the gender fluid tonic... I'm just really confused. Is it a critique on neoliberal white feminism? An attack on transitioning? Is it criticizing that the gender camps are so divided? What about those zombies with the different pronouns? Woke-man is... maybe not that woke so is problematique really that problematic? Which flips how she is problematic, on it's head? It's a lot of wrapping my head around this. I'm thinking it's more the latter... which I do have problems with since it focuses on binaries which is... weird because even human biology isn't so rigid. Like for the case of Caster Semenya, where she was subjected to sex-testing, and rules that were enacted that tested for androgen and testosterone.

So is the comic criticizing testing such as this and offering solutions to fit the binary as a problematic concept?

I'm not a huge fan of Jordan Peterson and I do want to avoid most of his 'teachings', and being from the city where he 'teaches' (I use that term loosely), it is kind of alarming to see shadows of this in sinfest, if that is what it is. But again I'm not even sure what I'm seeing?

I am disappointed if this is going in a trans-exclusionary vision, which really does break my heart. The trans community does face a lot of attacks as is and I'm not of the opinion that trans-women are NOT women, but it reminds me of something a friend of mine, who is a trans-women said. She did say that her experience as a trans-woman is very different from that of women who lived as a woman from birth. Does it make her any less of a woman? Is it a perceived privilege that gets so much vitriol from people? Or the perception of strangeness and other?

Still trying to wrap my head around the comic.

That's my main criticism on this.

Whether or not you agree with everything Tat draws and presents in his comic is your opinion, from whatever background you come. Whether or not we even understand what he's relaying to us, again, is a personal thing. He's communicating as best he knows how.

I just don't get why people have to criticize his point of view, as if his opinion is wrong. We don't know that it is, or isn't. Maybe sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong, and which percentage is which is going to be part of our own personal opinions. But as the creator and presenter of the comic, he's doing his best to relay his point of view.

If he's excluding the trans community, that's his business, and his right to his opinion. I don't think any of us has the right to insist that he include them if, in his opinion, they don't belong. Perhaps their fight is a completely different fight from that which he is portraying, and he sees them as exacerbating the RadFem point of view in a negative way. If that is his opinion, he has a right to it, and a right to present it. You can agree or disagree, but it's wrong to insist that he should include the trans community if he, in his opinion, feels that it does not belong.

Rather than hassle him or those who believe like him that the trans community is part of the problem, why not find someone who draws a fine comic in favor of the trans community and their struggles with life? Doesn't exist? Create one! There's obviously a market for it. Be positive instead of negative.

As for whether you stay or leave, that, too, is for you to decide. Just don't go throwing guilt trips at the rest of us or at the comic creator over your opinion of him, his comic, or those who agree with his comic. Guilt trips are unnecessary.

lol yall need to chill, specially the ones hurt by me posting an old comic strip as a reply to a cleary over dramatic post. it just shows truth hurts.

I hardly think it's overly dramatic, and I hardly think anyone is 'hurt' by your response, someone came here to speak their truth and you were appearing overly dismissive and people (rightly imo) called you out for it. And although it sucks someone felt attacked by the comic to such a degree they felt it necessary to stop supporting it, I can agree that the author/artist should feel free to pursue their stories no matter what the reaction. With that said however, accepting critique is part of presenting said stories to the public. You can't court controversy and then expect no push back. As long as the critique is constructive and respectful someone should be able to express it without immediately being dismissed, and yes, said critic should be prepared to defend their opinions against scrutiny.

No disrespect intended of course, merely my (admittedly useless) two-cents.

MakesYouWonder wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:44 pm

I hardly think it's overly dramatic, and I hardly think anyone is 'hurt' by your response, someone came here to speak their truth and you were appearing overly dismissive and people (rightly imo) called you out for it. And although it sucks someone felt attacked by the comic to such a degree they felt it necessary to stop supporting it, I can agree that the author/artist should feel free to pursue their stories no matter what the reaction. With that said however, accepting critique is part of presenting said stories to the public. You can't court controversy and then expect no push back. As long as the critique is constructive and respectful someone should be able to express it without immediately being dismissed, and yes, said critic should be prepared to defend their opinions against scrutiny.

No disrespect intended of course, merely my (admittedly useless) two-cents.

well you can't come here and state some bullshit and expect no push back either, buddy. so get off your high horses, idc about men getting their feelings hurt over a webcomic critizing those dumb made up pronouns and all the rebranded sexism that comes with it. they just come here to thrown a tantrum because they know it's true. otherwise why would they care? just go read another webcomic that pander to your delusion. in real life there's more women getting deplataformed, threatened, assaulted and killed because they don't believe a dude can be a woman than there is trans people dying from "misgendering". get a grip and give us a break.

Z6IIAB wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:58 pm

MakesYouWonder wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:44 pm

I hardly think it's overly dramatic, and I hardly think anyone is 'hurt' by your response, someone came here to speak their truth and you were appearing overly dismissive and people (rightly imo) called you out for it. And although it sucks someone felt attacked by the comic to such a degree they felt it necessary to stop supporting it, I can agree that the author/artist should feel free to pursue their stories no matter what the reaction. With that said however, accepting critique is part of presenting said stories to the public. You can't court controversy and then expect no push back. As long as the critique is constructive and respectful someone should be able to express it without immediately being dismissed, and yes, said critic should be prepared to defend their opinions against scrutiny.

No disrespect intended of course, merely my (admittedly useless) two-cents.

well you can't come here and state some bullshit and expect no push back either, buddy. so get off your high horses, idc about men getting their feelings hurt over a webcomic critizing those dumb made up pronouns and all the rebranded sexism that comes with it. they just come here to thrown a tantrum because they know it's true. otherwise why would they care? just go read another webcomic that pander to your delusion. in real life there's more women getting deplataformed, threatened, assaulted and killed because they don't believe a dude can be a woman than there is trans people dying from "misgendering". get a grip and give us a break.

Spotted the spoiled child.

Z6IIAB wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:58 pm

well you can't come here and state some bullshit and expect no push back either, buddy. so get off your high horses, idc about men getting their feelings hurt over a webcomic critizing those dumb made up pronouns and all the rebranded sexism that comes with it. they just come here to thrown a tantrum because they know it's true. otherwise why would they care? just go read another webcomic that pander to your delusion. in real life there's more women getting deplataformed, threatened, assaulted and killed because they don't believe a dude can be a woman than there is trans people dying from "misgendering". get a grip and give us a break.

I'm sorry but you seem to be making a false claim. If you really have data showing more gender critical feminists being murdered than the 360+ trans people and enbies who were murdered last year, I'd be very interested to see it.

Walkie wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:10 pm

Z6IIAB wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:58 pm

well you can't come here and state some bullshit and expect no push back either, buddy. so get off your high horses, idc about men getting their feelings hurt over a webcomic critizing those dumb made up pronouns and all the rebranded sexism that comes with it. they just come here to thrown a tantrum because they know it's true. otherwise why would they care? just go read another webcomic that pander to your delusion. in real life there's more women getting deplataformed, threatened, assaulted and killed because they don't believe a dude can be a woman than there is trans people dying from "misgendering". get a grip and give us a break.

I'm sorry but you seem to be making a false claim. If you really have data showing more gender critical feminists being murdered than the 360+ trans people and enbies who were murdered last year, I'd be very interested to see it.

Yeah, sorry you had to twist my words around and still manage to be wrong. I said WOMEN, not only "gender critical feminists", which I haven't even mentioned with that terminology. And I said trans people dying by "misgendering", which I'm sure is not the reason MEN kill them or they unfortunatelly kill themselves - it has more to do with homophobia and self-hatred.

But anyways, here's the proof of my claims thought I doubt it'll change a thing for you especifically, but it's worth sharing anyways:

“We’ll take 1.95 million Americans. If we figure how many trans people are victims of murder a year as a percentage, that figure is 0.0013%. Per capita, that’s a ratio of 1.3 trans people murdered per 100,000. The murder rate of women in the US is triple that, and of men, quadruple. Even with an extremely conservative estimate of 0.1% of the US population (or 325,000 trans people), we have a murder rate of 8.3 per 100,000. The murder rate of Chicago is twice that conservative figure at 16.02 people murdered per 100,000. In terms of gross numbers — that’s 11,535 murders of male Americans, and 3,292 murders of female Americans in 2017. 27 is small potatoes. That is not a murder epidemic — in fact it’s a murder rate per capita lower than Canada. It certainly doesn’t mean that there’s an ‘epidemic of transphobic violence’. That’s not something to campaign about — you’ve got it better than literally everyone else. Even if we use the Human Rights Campaign estimate of 750,000 trans people, which is half the 0.6% number, we get a murder rate of 2.7 per 100,000. That’s not a high murder rate. That’s lower than every other demographic in the US." (source: https://medium.com/@sue.donym1984/inaut ... 8eb6aa1a4b)