#and yes the ending will be happy don't even gell bad for spoilers

[fearoftheminotaur]

So a trend I've been seeing, and not quite aligning with in transmisogyny discourse, namely discourse over the B*rbie movie ending on here (which, non-transfems should be fucking off from), and twitter discourse on body hair, is a sort of choice to differentiate instead of to show solidarity, in circumstances where I actually see solidarity being the better choice.

Because the point where solidarity stops being the correct option is when something is not speaking in favor of your interests, and I think that in both of these cases the transmisogyny present actually presented ample opportunity for favorable outcomes. In fact I think a lot of transmisogynistic discourse is doing the same thing to us, claiming differentiation and appropriation when we call out problems that affect more than just ourselves.

To zone in on the Twitter example, there were some posts about how women shaving our body hair is an unhealthy beauty standard. And while this sparked the general "it's my choice/I am not shaming you I'm just saying we live in a society/well I think she should be shamed" back and forth, there was also some that honed in on the way that shaving can be a part of transfems' survival, and how trans women's hair is scrutinized in a way that non-transfems' is not; and that piqued my interest because I truly did not see a contradiction between critique of our society's attitude towards body hair, and the fact that I'm going to keep shaving.

I guess what I'm driving at here is that if body hair discourse is being promulgated by people who don't include trans women in their beauty standards, I think that hypocrisy is a great jumping off point to talk about how this stuff affects us, and that the main alternative we have is continuing the propagation of this beauty standard that hurts us. I'd rather have a hypocritical enemy than a consistent one.

And it's not just about stigmatizing vs encouraging transition/assimilation, because with the post I saw about the MargRob movie it's the opposite. This is kind of a spoiler, but a certain movie ends with a female character who earlier stated she did not have a vagina, going to a gyno. In context this did stem from a cis-centric view of feminism, however it was also compatible with the experiences of many transfems. I think in a time where healthcare for trans people is so under attack, it feels a little misplaced to attack the idea that someone would be happy about having stereotypical feminine anatomy - some women have penises, and the ones who want to change that shouldn't be told "be happy with what you have".

Yes, when a lot of people say the word "woman", they aren't thinking of us, and maybe they don't even include us: but we are women whether people see us that way or not, and that means that not everything they say will exclude us and that is an opportunity to prove we are who we say we are. We shouldn't have to, but we are being asked to, day after day.

Obviously, the pink movie is a giant hit that probably most transfems who watched it liked, and body hair discourse basically did what it needed to do; I just think there's an interesting trend in discourse arguments that I disagree with - something about this pseudo-separatist point of view that isn't gelling with me.

And I think it's the same thing that fuels charity streams being taken down because the people and content weren't 100% unproblematic, even if the recipients were clearly worthwhile; or a hashtag for a killed trans teenager being called in bad taste because the girl was white - things that kinda feel like they are derailing positive change.

I don't care about civility and respectability. I don't care about compromise. I care about being able to identify the best action in the long run, and I think that focusing on the ways that we are different only matters when someone is trying to make your life worse. Otherwise the instinct becomes to punish wrongdoers, even if that means hurting yourself in the process.

An instinct to say "you don't include me, so I'm going to be the scorpion to your frog". Maybe that has validity in the long term, at least for one or two of the examples I gave above; maybe cracks in an "inclusive" movement fester into something far worse, like often happens to certain pundits and YouTube channels shifting to the right.

But in the short term I just look at conversations that separatism (from any group) derails and think, "this could have helped us all".

#//genital mention #//barbie spoilers #//death mention