You may not have had the default feminine childhood that AFAB people like myself had, but I have seen trans women work so much harder and bust their asses just to be called “Ma’am” so in my eyes? You’re absolutely a real woman. You just played the game on hard mode while the rest of us were on easy and normal mode.

You’re as real a woman as any of us.

You worked for it rather than inheriting it.

Our reward circuits go off when someone mentions taking a rest.

Bee reward circuits go off for things that we would consider work.

Basically, the whole time they are face-first in a flower slurping up nectar and gathering pollen, the thing going through their tiny brains is “Fuck yeah I needed this”.

If you gave a bee the day off the general sentiment would be “What the fuck man, this is bullshit, I demand you let me go and collect nectar right fucking now!”

Banning vs. not banning are not hallmarks of leftism, rather it’s the difference between communities that are making an effort to be inclusive (a hallmark of leftism, btw) versus communities where the mods are so tired and overworked that it’s easier to ban people than adapt to the disruptions they may cause (a capitalist reflex that prioritizes being palatable to everyone over being fair to everyone because it’s more time-efficient to be blandly palatable and to enforce case-by-case fairness).

So yeah, from a certain point of view, because of the simple fact that you are being tolerated marks Lemmy as a more leftist platform.

That’s big talk from the generation that unironically said “RAWR :3” to each other.

I was there.

Livejournal? Emo? “Lol I’m so Random”? Leet speak?? And we took it SO seriously. Peak “No mom it’s not a phase”.

We were criiiiiiinge.

I just remembered that brief trend where teenage boys were wetting their pants in order to look more vulnerable and soft, took selfies of themselves looking vaguely ashamed with a giant wet spot, and a lot of girls really seemed to like it??

And even if you weren’t peak emo, Elder Millennials were wearing flannel and pretending to be just as jaded as Kurt Cobain because they were sad no one was playing POGs anymore, while Younger Millennials had skunk hair and that “greasy sk8r” look.

So what if Zoomers are embracing “Coastal Grandma” looks and TikTok dances? We can’t really point fingers.