My whole life, I had struggled with patterns of behaviour and emotion that I knew were “bad,” but couldn’t seem to control. I lied compulsively about things that didn’t make sense. I was terrified of being abandoned, to the point that I became furiously, sometimes abusively, upset if I thought that my friends were hanging out without me. I was full of self-loathing and anger that I bottled up, and then released by self-injuring.   

Yes, we’re visiting the pages of Everyday Feminism. How could you tell? 

And, of course, I had grown up as a closeted trans girl of colour in a cis, white supremacist society.  

So far, so humdrum.

Ever since I could remember, I had been filled with rage and fear and self-loathing as a result of the constant messages that society, friends, and family sent me that said I was deviant, bad, wrong to the core.

A chronic rage that, we’re told, prompted some introspection, of a sort, and a peek inside a textbook on abnormal psychology:

My “symptoms” fit the profile of a mental disorder called Borderline Personality Disorder, a condition closely associated with psychopathy. It was, the textbook said, historically considered untreatable.

Oh, I’m sure lashings of strident feminism and identitarian seething will put that right in no time. No? The author of this cheerless tale, Ms Kai Cheng Thom, a “trans woman writer, poet and performance artist based in Montreal,” then goes on to bemoan the fact that “disorders like violent psychopathy” are “generally considered unlikeable,” possibly hazardous, “even in social circles that consider themselves progressive.” And that, while the public at large may be sympathetic towards people suffering clinical depression, “compassion for psychopaths, pathological liars, or narcissists” is, inexplicably, harder to come by. It’s all terribly unfair. Because incorrigible monsters bent on the manipulation and harm of others have feelings too:  

Feminist Current is apparently “Canada’s leading feminist website.” Its editor Meghan Murphy tells us that “female students are under constant threat” and that all women everywhere live in a state of unending terror:

And who is it we fear? Is it other women? No. It is a male. A male with a penis that he may or may not use as a weapon.

Armed with a mind of infinite subtlety, Ms Murphy has more than a few ideas on how to combat this throbbing phallocratic menace:

There are solutions: a feminist revolution… an end to masculinity… all of that would help. 

An end to masculinity. Yes, I know, it’s quite a project. But first, baby steps:

It’s time to consider a curfew for men.

One more time: 

While a curfew would not resolve the problem of patriarchy and male violence against women, it does, in a way, address entitlement and privilege… The more I consider the idea of a curfew for men, the more it makes sense.

Why, it almost sounds like a gratuitous power fantasy, the product of an unwell mind. Of course a curfew will make dating rather difficult if you’re not a lesbian, and overnight motorway maintenance will have to be done exclusively by ladies. And there’ll be no more working nights to support your family, you indecently privileged patriarchal shitlord. Happily, however, our collective punishment as menfolk may not be eternal: 

It occurs to me that previous visits to the pages of Everyday Feminism may have led readers to suspect that said publication is a haven for the competitively pretentious and neurotically unemployable. Well, this latest article by the non-binary pronoun nightmare known as Kris Nelson™ is sure to shatter such idle preconceptions: 

As a follower of Diana; as a worshipper of the sun, the moon, and the earth; and as a witch, it is my responsibility to engage in radical politics.

In case you missed it,  

I am a witch.

Therefore, naturally, the non-binary pronoun nightmare known as Kris Nelson™ “seeks community building, universal respect, environmental protection, and alternative forms of healing and living.” And obviously, 

All of these aspects of my craft are feminist and revolutionary. 

It all sounds terribly radical.

My religious beliefs are inherently radical.

In fact, readers are informed of this radicalness no fewer than nine times. Repeatedly describing oneself as radical is, of course, a sure sign of throbbing iconoclasm. And as a creature of immense and non-conformist insight,

aligning myself with feminist politics is necessary.

Well, our greatest minds have always been drawn to The Indignant Sisterhood.

As you’d imagine, our radical healer is gifted with strange energies and uncanny knowledge:

There are many amazing things that modern medicine offers us that herbal, crystal, and energy healing cannot… 

The words efficacy and survival spring to mind.

However, it can’t be denied that the medical industry is just as much a site for racism, transphobia, homophobia, sexism, fatphobia, and ableism as any other institution of systemic oppression.

There’s so much sin to purge. Someone fetch the healing stone.

Via the pages of Everyday Feminism, Rachel Kuo instructs the dull masses on how to avoid “cultural appropriation” while eating: 

When we talk about “ethnic” food, we’re not referring to French, German, or Italian cuisine, and definitely not those Ikea Swedish meatballs.

I suspect few people think of German cuisine as particularly mysterious and alluring. There are, I fear, very few German restaurants beyond the borders of Germany. Good cars, though.

Usually, we’re talking about Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Ethiopian, and Mexican food – places where food is cooked by the “brownest” people.

As is the custom with articles in Everyday Feminism, the density of assumption in what follows is quite high. For instance, when my family ventures out for a meal, table for twenty, I can say with some confidence that the choice of restaurant isn’t determined by the melanin levels of the people cooking it.

What happens is that food becomes the only identifier for certain places. Japan reduced to ramen and sushi, Mexico reduced to tacos and burritos, India reduced to curry, and so on.

Again, note the loadedness, the questions begged. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten, say, chili while convinced that said meal was an adequate distillation of the entire population of Mexico and Texas, past and present. Nor can I recall “fetishizing the sustenance of another culture.” Or “subsuming histories and stories into menu items.” It’s a meal, not an attempt to absorb world history or to flirt with some notional brownness. Yet this is asserted as “what happens,” as some universal fact. And then promptly contradicted:  

Eating food from another culture in isolation from that culture’s history and also current issues mean [sic] that we’re just borrowing the pieces that are enjoyable – palatable and easily digestible. 

Um, isn’t that rather the point? You know, tastiness without baggage? Isn’t that what makes foreign cuisine commercially viable, a livelihood of millions? Or is ordering takeout only acceptable following lengthy, brow-furrowing investment in each and every vendor’s ancestral culture and current politics? Should every visit to, say, a Pakistani restaurant entail a stern lecture on the pros and cons of European colonialism and a lifetime subscription to the fever dream of Islam? Would that aid digestion? Stated plainly, it sounds a little silly. But Ms Kuo wishes to appear concerned, deeply concerned, that people of pallor might enjoy falafel and a spot of hummus “but not understand or address the ongoing Islamophobia in the US.”