Elsie

“Divide and conquer is best accomplished through silencing, through calling into question those who speak out. There is so much of this attached to the trans movement. Even just wondering about a profound concept such as transgender is labeled “transphobic”. What I think has happened is that people are now phobic about their own gut responses to life. We are being systematically separated from our own intuition. This is fatal for a civilization, I think. Not that our intuition always tells the truth with a capital T, but it is a critical piece of who we are. Without it, we remain profoundly directionless, and more susceptible to coercion of all types. What”
― Ruth Barrett, Female Erasure: What You Need To Know About Gender Politics War On Women, the Female Sex and Human Rights

“Mina and her brothers quickly learned that in America, “Iran” was a bad word associated with terrorists, mullahs, and hostage-taking. “Just say ‘Persian’ and make it easy for yourself,” Kayvon advised. “People associate ‘Persian’ with good stuff—like fancy rugs and fat cats.”
― Marjan Kamali, Together Tea

“A century on in 1984, black feminist, activist and poet Audre Lorde wrote in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches: ‘Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master’s concerns. Now we hear that it is the task of women of colour to educate white women – in the face of tremendous resistance – as to our existence, our differences, our relative roles in our joint survival. This is a diversion of energies and a tragic repetition of racist patriarchal thought.”
― Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

“I talked back because Internet trolls are not, in fact, monsters. They are human beings who’ve lost their way, and they just want other people to flounder too—and I don’t believe that their attempts to dehumanize me can be counteracted by dehumanizing them.”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman