after getting an ask about ‘monosexism”, i wanted to expand on the last line of my response, wherein i mention that ‘monosexism” is an abuse of liberatory/anti-oppressive discourse. an abuse via dilution and misappropriation.

it is a great example of how within activist/radical communities many ppl enter it and are simply parrots.

they learn the lingo. they are able to string together justifications and words that appear coherent and sensible on the surface.

but they remain on the surface because they aren”t actually engaging in the discourse with any real level of critical insight or understanding.

these ppl are the primary reason i have little-to-no desire to actually involve myself in so-called ‘radical” or ‘activist” communities. because these ppl are so much more dangerous that the vocal opposition. in part because part of the lingo they learn is stuff surrounding ‘community accountability” and ‘abuse culture” and the like. and they end up mobilizing these to perpetuate abuse and to disguise and erase it.

in a more general sense, they are dangerous to movements and liberation because of how they dilute the discourse.

why is monosexism a dilution?

because it contains no real analysis of power and oppression as an institutional and systemic reality.

every example i”ve seen of ppl explaining why this might actually be a thing regularly boils down to individual acts of meanness.

as influential as Gay Inc. has become, it still does not amount to ‘institutional power”. more to the point: the cases where it does are those wherein Gay Inc. mobilizes either transmisogyny or sexism or heterosexism (via moves towards assimilation rather than liberation).

it is actually (and for serious) an act of horizontal aggression to assert that one group ppl who experience the same kind of institutional oppression actually oppress your different/overlapping group.¹

likewise it is an act of horizontal aggression to mobilize one group”s particular experiences against them by colluding with power²

but do you see what i did there?

there is language and space to talk about things like horizontal aggression. and the ways that it impacts our communities.

which you”d know if you weren”t a parrot.