Okay Mastodon, I do a lot of finding common ground and making friends around here. Let's talk about some stuff that makes me different and some reasons I feel uncomfortable sometimes in this space:

My thoughts on authority and its abuses are influenced a lot by anarchist authors, but I don't call myself an anarchist because that could mean anything from "devolving state authority to local communities" to "destroy all governments forever" and I don't want to bear responsibility for those who don't think about the negative rights afforded to the vulnerable and oppressed by a responsibly checked and balanced system of power. If you don't think queer people are going to suffer when not institutionally protected, I have a few books you can read.

I'm extremely pro-labor but I don't call myself a communist not only because it doesn't describe my particular brand of voluntary syndicalist association thought well, but because I'm tired of internationalism gone too far. Communist groups defend all kinds of atrocities in the name of ideological solidarity. I'm definitely not going to participate in the export of the police state. Fuck that.

I try to avoid ableist language, but of all the things that you can declare takfir over, alienating people over where a word is on the euphemism treadmill in the present day is not something I'd do. We might have a discussion about who might be hurt by the language, but it's much less important to police word choice than it is the actual sentiments present.

Watching people who I hope and pray are mostly just teenagers figuring themselves out make intersectionality into the oppression olympics really sickens me. The analysis of the suffering of people with real world struggles is not a clever gotcha for arguments, especially if you can't prove that you actually care about the people getting the worst of it. Miss me with that.

I don't intend to sacrifice my freedom of association to make someone else feel comfortable. I have a lot of Problematic friends. 100% of them, to be exact. If you take an issue with someone I'm friends with, you can have that out yourselves, but don't put it across me.

And last but not least: I'm not about to play respectability politics with other LGBTQ people, but hearing about how a demographic I resemble bears nothing worthwhile all the time makes me pretty goddamned anxious. I'm white, not visibly trans, in a relationship with an AFAB person, and I kind of feel like I have to crow about my queerness and anti-racism occasionally to be Regarded Safe.

If I just wore this honestly all the time, I'd make fewer friends because people tend to assume ideological enmity, rather than a friendly but slightly different alignment, and that sucks. But if we can't be friends if I'm not on Exactly The Same Square as you, it's probably for the best if we go our separate ways.

Those who would like to argue about these points, please form an orderly queue in the comments section and thank you sincerely for your participation and willingness to listen.