The biggest issue with the label "baeddelist" is that baeddelism requires the belief that gender is a choice.
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The biggest issue with the label "baeddelist" is that baeddelism requires the belief that gender is a choice.
You are not and cannot be a baeddelist (under the consensus definition*) if you do not believe that your gender is a choice that you have made (and could change if you wanted to).
That is the most core, fundamental aspect of the ideology that all other aspects of the ideology are derived from.
*See footnote coming at the end of the thread.
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The Fedilore Otter 🦦replied to The Fedilore Otter 🦦 last edited by
If you take as given that gender is a choice, then baeddelists take the radical feminist position that being a woman is the "morally correct" choice.
But this is a label being applied strictly to binary trans women.
When is the last time that you met a binary trans woman, who told you that being trans was a choice that she freely made?
When is the last time that you met a binary trans woman who believes she could choose to "become a man"?
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The Fedilore Otter 🦦replied to The Fedilore Otter 🦦 last edited by
If you are calling somebody a baeddelist, you are saying that they experience their own gender as just some random decision they made.
That's an incredibly fucked up claim to make about a trans person.
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The Fedilore Otter 🦦replied to The Fedilore Otter 🦦 last edited by
You're talking to somebody who probably has gender-related trauma.
You're talking to somebody who probably experiences gender dysphoria.
You're talking to somebody who's had all of society telling them one thing about themselves, while knowing the opposite was true, and making it through that.
And you are telling them that they believe that their gender was a choice.
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The Fedilore Otter 🦦replied to The Fedilore Otter 🦦 last edited by
*The postscript bit starts here*
The consensus definition of Baeddelism is silly because there never was a consensus about what Baeddelism was at the time.
It wasn't a unified movement, it was a handful of bloggers who almost certainly spent more time disagreeing with each other than they did with anyone else.
When most people talk about baeddelism, they're referencing this one Tumblr post, describing the community from the outside and from well after the fact.
https://www.tumblr.com/nothorses/678483300672749568/lets-talk-about-b%C3%A6ddels-a-comprehensive
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The Fedilore Otter 🦦replied to The Fedilore Otter 🦦 last edited by
There are some people who use still use "baeddel" in 2024 as a term of self-identity.
Not very many, and basically none who adhere to the version of the movement that monetizeyourcat wrote about.
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Hrefna (DHC)replied to The Fedilore Otter 🦦 last edited by
@fedilore Really when I see a transfemme call themselves a bæddel it tells me very little about what they are (today). Usually it's a bit like queer in some older circles: a term with sharp edges.
When I see a masc person—cis or trans—use it I am about 90% sure I'm about to see an attack on trans women with some pointing to a group from 2014 that the trans women people in question may have zero affiliation with and have almost certainly evolved from even if they _were_ participants at the time.
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@fedilore It feels entirely too common to essentially use "bæddelism" as a way to differentiate the "good ones" from the "bad ones."
If I were to do an analysis of 2014 I would be remiss if I didn't mention the "proud misandrist" trend on twitter as a "f u" to guys crying "reverse discrimination" (c.f., gamergate). But in truth it doesn't matter if you were a member of the group at all or if you use the term to describe yourself.
It's become a term for "trans women I dislike [acceptably]"