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3:22am June 10, 2014
behemothblogging asked: I'm sure you've heard this a lot, but I've read several of your essay-length posts recently and I feel like you're one of the most important and necessary people writing on Tumblr, or even the internet, today. You're challenging the popular viewpoints out there in a way that creates more space for the marginalised and those on the fringes. Every time I read one of your posts, I feel included, supported, understood in a way that neither mainstream society nor popular SJ ever has. Thank you.

Thank you so much.  The thing is… I always feel like I’m in those fringe spaces myself.  So I feel like I’m standing up for myself and for a lot of my online friends who simply can’t – not just won’t – fit into the narrower spaces for marginalized people that have cropped up online.  It’s always been my intent to just say what I mean, and say what matters to me.  And sometimes what matters to me turns out to matter to far more people than I thought it would.  And I’m very grateful that it does matter to other people, that other people feel like I’m making a difference, because I never know how much of a difference my words make.

And I feel like I’m in a good position to stand up for people on the fringes, because by now I have a fair amount of “activist cred” in certain circles (due to the amount of time I spent sticking up for autistic people when that wasn’t exactly the most common thing to do).  So even if people wouldn’t normally listen to what I’m saying, they also do feel like they should listen to me to some extent.  Even if they ultimately dismiss what I’m saying, I’m not as likely to get thrown out on my ass as some people would.  And I try to use that to my advantage and to the advantage of other people who don’t fit in, in some of these communities.  It’s not that I never get thrown out on my ass, it’s just less likely because, whether I want it or not, I have name recognition and people see me as someone who cares about activism.  (Which is true, I do care about activism.  I just don’t always care about it in the exact same ways that are popular at any given point in time…)

Anyway, thank you.  It’s always good to know that what I’m doing makes an actual difference and I’m not just pissing in the wind.  But I care about what happens to actual human beings more than I care about just about anything in the world, so I do my best, and I hope that my best does some good somewhere.

Notes:
  1. kelpforestdweller said: I feel the same as behemothblogging. What you do is so important. Thank you.
  2. withasmoothroundstone posted this