Why is gender/sex simplified and foregrounded on WP?

Post Reply New Topic

I can appreciate overthinking things. I can also appreciate that being amped up due to the reddit fiasco. If it helps any, I doubt this site is likely to go that route. I think the lack of changes/modernization is indicative of that. Further, the guy who owns the site has had opportunities to use public appearances and such as a way to boost site recognition/publicity and he doesn't seem interested in that. He could have done things by now if he was wanted to. This site, I believe, makes it money through ads and members who donate to the cause. I'd be shocked if the owner was seeing much profit here, just enough to keep it up and running.

(Noticed you posted while I was writing. Now I wonder if there are actually ads, and perhaps I just remember wrong. I use ad blocker since ads drive me insane and hit on my sensory crap in the worst kinds of ways. Maybe someone else can answer the financial aspect stuff.)

I'm in agreement about the gender not really being relevant here talk. I mean, it might become relevant if someone posts something for discussion about it, but beyond that, no one really seems to care much, if any at all. The majority of the people here are cool like that. This isn't a place that's keen on transphobic nonsense. Now standard disclaimer time, you might see something now and then that makes you have a wtf moment. But it isn't representative of the whole or the norm. I wouldn't stick around if it was.

And no worries, no hate. How are you supposed to get a handle on things if you don't ask questions?

My questions and all my BS has gotten me into so much trouble in life. I'm new to autism spaces only 6 months and the acceptance of certain things is still new for me. I'm crying as i write this. Thank you.

Sorry that's been your reality. If it's worth anything, it's not just a you thing. I find it odd that some people can read so much into questions, but I also know that's how things go a lot of the time.

So far I've found the atmosphere here very welcoming to all genders, especially compared to the last autism related forum I tried (Autism Forums) which had no rules about bigotry toward lgbt people and active transphobia allowed under the pretense of being useful discussion

The infrastructure is a bit outdated, and it would be nice to have more options for how to identify (or not identify) but I don't think it reflects the community itself all that much

I know.  But overthinking is such a normal part of our way of doing things that we often do not see ourselves doing it.

Call me crazy, but I'm still of the ilk who thinks this is, more or less, our powerful gift. Like anything powerful, you can hurt yourself with it, sure, but... whether I will become someone who can live in the moment, or not, is unclear. But what is clear is that today I'm someone who looks at today through the prism of potential futures and I don't like to start relationships I feel are on extremely rocky foundation from the get-go, relationships with a high probability of hurting me. Being alone doesn't hurt as much as that does. I'm too vulnerable and fragile to endure and survive another collapse underneath a neighborhood I've come to love. So... my overthinking is a kind of self-defense, a necessary guardedness I need, if others don't; it's not at least not today gratuitous, I don't think.

This reddit thing is hitting me harder than most personal relationships I've lost in life. I don't want to be teased for that, don't make me regret being vulnerable about that please. And obs. I know how stupid it is to plant your heart in a corporate platform, like... I see my mistakes. My questions here are born of that recognition.

I did a lot of personal work on reddit

I've never used Reddit or any other social media (Twitter etc.), but I know what you mean about feeling like it was a "personal relationship". The connections we make in these places can run really deep, even if it just means our connection to ourselves. I've learned more about myself here than anywhere in my life. It's a diary and work in progress for me to understand myself and my values beyond the daily chronicle.

Let your feelings feel. That's what they're meant to do.

Oh, and I forgot to say "welcome". Pull up a chair and make yourself right at home, if you so choose.

Yes, it's like losing a friendgroup and one's own collection of diaries, in one. you get it. reddit has been up to now the only place i have to discuss my autism, which was diagnosed not so long ago, and I'm having the oh-so-stereotypical re-reflection on it all, all the pains and disappointments. That work was there with those people, yknow. thank you.

If you have any sentimental works-of-reflection that you'd like to copy / paste here from there, I'm sure lots of us would be open to giving feedback or even a hug of encouragement. If you prefer to keep the two places separate and start from scratch, I understand that too. Whatever feels right is usually right.

Real question: do you really think anyone here wants to read an essay titled "Why Anti-Ableism is so important in Britney Spears spaces?" Doing my best to read the room, this doesn't feel like an audience that's going to jaw-drop at the potent necessity of the moment that required that essay, nor do y'all/they probably have the background knowledge I assumed the audience would have when I wrote it. No offense, but does anyone care about Britney Spears here? Do people identify with and relate to her struggle with coercive care and monster family? Is that a thing here? Is there soil for that seed to root here? I doubt there is even a single Britney Spears space here, so what is even the relevance? (I got low self-esteem)

As a writer, audience means a lot to me. Audience is awesome in a bad way, it is a scary, fire-breathing dragon, and I respect its awe-full-ness. Any audience, I have a very good impression of this place so far, but any audience is voraciously hungry for somethings (and not other things) and if you feed it something it doesn't want the world does not get better, one's mood doesn't get better, one's feeling of belonging in the world, to say the least, does not get better.

I think I'll just leave all that there, but I appreciate your invite. I think I'll just have to figure out this audience.

Last edited by azucarleta on 13 Jun 2023, 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'd read it, not because I have any interest in Britney Spears but because I'll read anything that's well written and I'm interested in what other people think. I don't know that I'd feel I had anything to comment on it thought.

And that can be a problem on WP, imo. Unless people reply, there's no way to see if anyone's engaged with what you've written. You can see views but that's not the same thing as a post being read and there's no way to 'Like' or anything if you don't have anything to add but just want to show appreciation.

I'm just thinking, if you have low self-esteem, that may be a problem. Because I see a lot of stuff on here which just appears to get nothing in response - particularly if you're long-winded like me . That can be frustrating if you're looking to get into a conversation and what interests you isn't doing it for anyone else. I'd say you'd need to be prepared for that possibility.

I'm actually very interested in Britney Spears.

Thank you for this warning. I get no satisfaction from "screaming into the void" and when I've said something I thought was potent and wanted feedback and engagement, and at most what I get is 'do you feel better now that you've screamed into the void?!" and it's like, uh, no, obs., no.

I'm an essayist, correct. Few things that are super succinct need to be said by me, I'll leave the things that can be said succinctly to others. I'm more interested in the hard-to-express and tough-but-true-and-necessary things everyone else is too daunted to take on or too polite to go there. Places in which "good vibes only" reign supreme are just so not my spaces. I'm the sort of person who believes pain and misery need to be tossed like a pile of compost if we hope to turn it into anything other than rot.

Thank you! noted and mulling.

That's not my type of music at all, but yet I've always really liked her music. I also feel profound sympathy and concern for what she's been through, from being a child megastar to having a breakdown and shaving her head, and now the conservator thing. I've always assumed she has CPTSD and / or she was SA as a child. She could be on the spectrum or ND in other ways. Regardless, it's a story that reminds me of Judy Garland and even Princess Diana at times. It's a tragedy all around. I don't know many of the details of her life but I'd be interested in your POV.

https://youtu.be/CduA0TULnow



WHOOPS!