I swear to god anybody I see getting militant over the difference between "transwomen" and "trans women" is getting the boot, immediately. Getting uptight over the supposed semiotic content of a space is just a bridge too far for me. You can ask for it. You can explain why it's important. You can even debate it with me. But if you flatly insist, I'm gonna insist right back, and I'll be pointing at the door, because I don't think that's a cultural authority you have—or need.

And yes, this is really a thing. And I have friends who are eagerly retweeting it. And they're already digging in and trying to tar anybody who gets it wrong as a transphobe.

And I just won't. I'm so fucking tired of armchair activists trying to dictate usage like this. It's so fucking prim and normative, and it feels so much like repainting the goddamn barn for the 5,000th time so you don't have to do your other chores.

And if your first reaction was an impulse to lecture me about why this space is really, really important and we need this and this group uses it in this context and blah blah blah, that's exactly the problem. This distinction means NOTHING to most people.

You're trying to quiz people on a 300-level class when they haven't even got their Trans Politics GED yet. If _I_ don't even give a shit, someone who's struggled with gender issues for approximately 36 years (if wanting very badly to be a pink plastic cyborg ponygirl at age 8 counts), all this is gonna do is help the 4channer types tar us as a bunch of insane prudes who want to remake culture in our own image.

We do, of course. But don't TELL them that. O:)

I understand the urge to be militant, I really do. But if there's one thing I learned from my stint as a Christian, it's that the best way to convert is to make your movement look FRIENDLY. Save the spite for actual TERFs and reactionaries, not for people who didn't learn Trans Prescriptivist Etiquette Du Jour before they had the unmitigated nerve to address you.

"I know this may sound pedantic but..." Yeah. It sounds pedantic. And I should have stood up to you instead of venting on Masto, but there is nothing more TEDIOUS to me than talking to someone that concerned about the purity of their semiotic environment. You are going to accomplish NOTHING against the TERFs this way.