#it's about transmisogyny and the way we interact with other trans women

[euchreiade]

God, some people have no idea how to read books, huh.

#infect your friends and loved ones is NOT about the apocalypse of the setting #its premise is not about its post apocalyptic world #it's about transmisogyny and the way we interact with other trans women #'how do people know that trans women started it?' because even if 2 trans women didn't start it it would be blamed on all of us #this is just what the culture war does already

[mr-ribbit]

this isn't meant to soften or reduce the objective transmisogyny + additional hate action going into this, but since the people running these harassment campaigns are acting like they're literal baby children who need their hands held to understand anything, maybe this needs to be said:

what you're doing and how you treat trans women on this website is fucking MEAN. if you want to sit there and honestly convince yourself that you're *not* a transmisogynist or a transphobe or a misogynist or any other type of bigot - like if you genuinely believe that and are confused why people are calling you these things - then maybe we need to start from little primary colored building blocks and tell you that you're being fucking mean and rude and actively harmful to real people who read the things you say. im not sure why we need to start off with "trans women have feelings" - just kidding I know exactly why we need to - but maybe you don't.

no matter who you're talking to, do you honestly think accusing someone you do not know of being a pedophile, en masse, behind their back /and/ in a public forum, is a reasonable way to treat someone for making a tumblr post about video games or political opinions? even if you strongly disagree with the post, you think someone deserves to be treated like that by people they don't know? take a second please and sincerely imagine how that would feel. wouldn't it be scary? wouldn't you wonder who the people were who thought this about you - if they're people you know - if they're just a few people that will continue saying mean things to you forever or if there are thousands of people who choose to dedicate their time and energy specifically to making you feel bad? if you accidentally write a post in the wrong tone or unknowingly interact with a shitty person, that there are uncountable people that will keep track of that just to hurt you later? that's fucking horrifying

and to zone in on what's specifically happening here: do you think randomly accusing people of being pedophiles or sexual abusers has no effect on them? like a lot of you tend to excuse yourself in these discussions by saying "I didn't actually see the context of what they were saying" or "I didn't see that they apologized already" or "I didn't actually understand the post was a joke" or whatever other kneejerk response to make sure *you* aren't seen as a bad person. do you realize that makes you look even meaner? you didn't bother to actually follow up on a thought you had about someone before sending them hateful messages or making public accusations about them? those actions are harmful whether or not you like the victim at the end of the day.

believe it or not some people you send this shit to are survivors of abuse themselves, or have their own historical personal reasons to be weighing in on a touchy subject. when you baselessly decide it's ok to call someone an abuser of any type, that person is probably *also* disgusted by whatever horrible shit you're accusing them of. as someone that hates these things as much as you do in order to attack someone for them: what do you think it's like to have complete strangers think that about you? how many eggshells would you walk on if random people thought so little of you that they were ok doing this?

it's mean. it's heinous, cruel bullying, and if you genuinely think you are not doing it from a place of transmisogyny or hatefuk bias over the victims' identity, then you need to understand that that's not an excuse. "i didn't even know she was trans" ok, it was still mean to call her a pedophile with 200 of your closest friends in public. "im trans so it can't be transphobia" ok it was still mean to assume someone was endorsing abuse when they were talking about being accused of abuse. "i didn't see the post where she said it was a joke" ok it was still mean to actively harass someone without bothering to look into the full context.

at the end of the day, yes, obviously I still think you're all transmisogynist assholes who are clearly willing to gang up on a woman who has nothing to do with your problems simply because she dared to speak on them. i think you're bigoted and unwilling to examine that if it means giving up your vitriol against someone who doesn't like your favorite video game or whatever excuse of the week. but like even if you were just doing it for love of the hate game, it's fucking weird heinous shit and i hope you're happy having that be a central part of your life

to be clear: im not transfemme and if I'm overstepping or talking over anyone please let me know. im not speaking for anyone's actual experiences except my own, which is the experience of being angry at how much literal bullying and harassment I see excused on this so-called progressive queer blogging website

#cw transmisogyny discussion #cw discourse idk #sorry pls tell me if im out of line and for gods sake dont go harass anyone ELSE if you dont like my post

[drdemonprince]

Hey, I just wanted to thank you for your honesty and willingness to explain how queer spaces can be a lot less transphobic than discourse within the trans community can make it seem. A lot of the past few years for me have been spent closeted out of fear that reactions around me would be uniformly hostile. Things are obviously going to be different for me as a transfem, but I have a much easier time being optimistic now!

I am so glad! Listen, the people who post online all the time about how miserably hard it is to find a place for oneself as a trans person create a kind of reverse survivorship bias. They are the people who have already convinced themselves it's best to forever remain closeted or that forging any kind of accepting community for oneself is impossible. Often, they are also people who once harbored unrealistic fantasies about just strolling up one day into a pre-existing community that was perfect for them, not realizing that we must form our relationships painstakingly one by one (it tends to be the white eggs/unhappy lonely trans people who are most prone to thinking of community in that way). there's plenty of trans guys who are doomers like this too and they really tend to actively encourage one another to remain locked away. it's like incel kind of behavior when it's taken to its most extreme form. sometimes, it can be outwardly really nasty homophobic shit too (especially among "afabs" who complain about "cis gays" never accepting them and being super privileged). in its milder form, it's just extreme trauma brain.

The people you do not hear from so much are the people who are busy out in the world going on dates, acting in plays, getting their asses spanked in dungeons, playing tabletop roleplaying games, and going to farmer's markets with their three also transgender wives. Those are the people who know (that is to say, have learned!) how to interact with their fellow queer people, have spent some time out in the community, and in all likelihood have many rich friendships with cis lesbians, cis gay men, enbies, asexuals, bisexuals, straight ish poly people, and everybody else under our big umbrella.

I don't want to be overly pollyannaish because of course trans people have a tough time, and especially trans women have unfortunately to be on the lookout for really vile transmisogyny. But I think when people are wounded and traumatized by these things, they sometimes make the entire world sound incredibly unwelcoming, which creates a self-limiting feedback loop of isolation and mistrust. That is what trauma does! But it is not the truth. and we only learn otherwise when we give other people the chance to prove our worst fears wrong.

Like, just for an example, this Sunday I was at a silent book club at Dorothy, a gay bar on the west side that skews lesbian but is for everyone. I'd never been there before but it was an absolutely charming experience! Dozens upon dozens of lesbians draped over couches and curled up in chairs with their books, quaffing cocktails, alongside a few random dots of gay and/or trans men. Trans women were just a natural completely unremarkable feature of this environment. I couldn't even tell you how many t girls were there. It would be like counting plus sized girls or butches at this lesbian function. If it's a good lesbian function, there's gonna be a diverse crowd and it won't be weird or a big deal to anyone, they'll just be like any other women there. a lot of the big lesbian events here in Chicago (like Strapped) are organized by trans women, so of course there's a robust trans femme presence there.

And all of these groups at this function were getting laid. the couches were overflowing with women, so many that girls were grabbing pillows to sit on and huddle together with their books on the floor. Girls canoodled and cuddled on couches. I saw a cis alt girl covered in facial piercings flirting with a very prim and proper trans girl who was dressed like a victorian governness. they didnt know one another, but after the silent book club hour was done, they left for a while together, then came back with some food. across from me and my friends, i watched them gathering up on the couch, the space between their bodies slowly closing up into nothing over the course of the evening. they flirted and touched and then left the bar together to (and im no expert on body language but i could pick up on this one) fuck eachothers tits right off.

and of course plenty of other lesbians and wlw paired off or tripled off and had their fun too. again, just like steamworks, fat people, thin people, black and brown people, white people, disabled people, neurodivergent people, trans people, older people, younger people, everybody was there. like any good queer space, it was just a reflection of humanity. there is always more that can be done to make these spaces more broadly accessible to full community. but part of that is by putting ourselves there.

again i dont mean to make it sound like finding and making one's space is easy! especially not for trans women! but I also don't want people to get seduced by the hopeless jadedness that some foment online. there are spaces that some trans women I know will never go to -- even an explicitly trans affirming bookstore like Women and Children First gives many trans women I know bad vibes they cant quite explain but all feel (the store is owned and run by old white cis lesbians, it's not surprising to me that it's a little fucked no matter their good intentions) -- and ive heard people say transmisogynistic stuff at events, particularly from "ill date anybody but cis men" type t boys (my brothers, i hate you). shit can be tough. very tough. but also, the world isn't all uniformly as hostile as it's made out to be. there are people who are desperate to meet you. I hope you will come out to find them.

[systemrestart]

From Alison Bechdel's "Dykes to Watch Out For". Strip name "Au Courant", from 1994

I'd never seen this strip get posted, so I want others to see it. Mo, the character expressing 'concern' over the inclusion of trans women (as well as bisexuals) in lesbian culture, is often portrayed as being overly self-righteous, jumping to conclusions about others, and not critically examining her own biases and worldview. She was also the character in the comic commissioned for Transgender Warriors, where she learns she was wrong for being anxious about sharing a bathroom with a trans woman.

Mo is often either the butt of the joke, or receives a stark lesson in these interactions (whether by confrontation or just becoming socially isolated, because she's difficult to be around). And I found this framing important, especially as I've heard discussion of TERFs trying to claim Bechdel as one of them.

This comic was not made to validate Mo's opinions or feelings. The characters in Bechdel's comics are often messy, short-sighted, even bigoted. They're human. This comic does not valorize or 'condone' these flaws, merely shows them for what they are, as well as the consequences that come with them, and the effects they can have on your communities.

[Update Note: Recently learned some new things about Bechdel's feelings/choices regarding trans issues (particularly transmisogyny), link here if you're interested in reading. It seems that beyond DTWOF, Bechdel 'supports' trans people in an esoteric sort of way, but is seemingly unwilling to unpack deeper transphobic feelings/views, or her ties with TERF-aligned people. Deeply disappointing.

I don't think that impacts DTWOF itself much (except the framing of the character Janis, may make a post about that someday), as again all of the characters in DTWOF have wildly varying views, and that's The Point, but, it's something I think people ought to know if we're going to have a discussion about Bechdel in connection to TERFs and transmisogyny]

Transcript of the comic below the cut:

[ID: A "Dykes to Watch Out For" comic strip by Alison Bechdel, featuring the characters Mo and Lois. The conversation is as follows:

MO: Oh, jeez. Here's a submission for "Madwimmin Read" from someone named Jillian who identifies as a transsexual lesbian.

LOIS: Cool.

MO: The cover letter says, "I hope you'll consider changing the name of your reading series for local lesbian writers to be inclusive of transgender and bisexual women writers too." Oh, man!

LOIS: Guess it's time to get with the program, huh?

MO: What am I supposed to do? Have bi women and drag queens come in here and read about schtupping their boyfriends?

LOIS: Why not? I'm sure they'd have a unique perspective on the topic.

MO: Lois, I'm still trying to adjust to lesbians using dildos! What am I supposed to make of a man who became a woman who's attracted to women?!

LOIS: Love is a many gendered thing, pal. Get used to it.

MO: Well fine. Let people do what they want. But I'm not gonna add this unwieldy "bisexual and transgender" business to the name of my reading series. I don't even know what transgender means!

LOIS: It's sort of an evolving concept. I mean, we haven't had any language for people you can't neatly peg as either boy or girl.

LOIS: Like cross-dressers, transsexuals, people who live as the opposite sex but don't have surgery, drag queens and kings, and all kinds of other transgressive folks. "Transgender" is a way to unite everyone into a group, even though all these people might not self-identify as transgender.

LOIS: In fact, the point is that we're all just ourselves, and not categories. Instead of two rigid genders, there's an infinite sexual continuum! Cool, huh?

MO: How do you know all this stuff?

END ID]

#alison bechdel #dykes to watch out for #dtwof #transgender #lgbt history #thought it was important to share this. ive been reading a lot of dtwof #theres another strip im thinking of sharing about Mo being called out on her ableism #just not sure how to word my thoughts or if i should just post it or something #(update has been adding with new info for the bechdel-transmisogyny discussion)

[trans-androgyne]

Sorry if this is an irritating ask or anything, but could you please explain to me what people find wrong about the term transandrophobia? As far as I’m aware it’s literally just a word to describe trans men’s oppression. I’m not against the idea that it might have something wrong with it (as a transmasc person), but through all this fighting I’ve never once seen someone clearly explain what the problem is.

I’ve seen people claim that transmascs keep throwing transfems under the bus, but the only thing I’ve ever seen is actually the OPPOSITE way around, and only when I go searching for it (but that might just be because I make an effort to keep my dash free of that kind of thing) again I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I just… don’t quite understand all this.

Sorry abt this rambly ask, I’m just tired and frustrated and I HATE that we’ve been pitted against each other

I will do by best to genuinely present and respond to the main arguments I have heard made against using the term. Apologies in advance for the length.

The most common in my experience is that “androphobia/misandry doesn’t exist,” or “men aren’t oppressed for being men,” based on the terms transandrophobia and its origin, transmisandry. It feels like a non-sequitur to me, completely bypassing the actual meaning of the term. Some people do include androphobia or misandry in their definition of the term, but many more don’t and just use it to describe the intersection of transphobia and misogyny in the lives of transmascs or even just “transphobia against transmascs.” I personally do believe androphobia exists in a literal sense—the fear of men that has serious consequences—but not in the way they mean it. They are attempting to paint us as MRAs, but nobody who gets any eyes on them using the term has ever argued that women oppress men as a class. MRAs are antifeminist, and the transandrophobia conversation is very much a feminist one.

The simplest is just that transmascs just “don’t need a word” to talk about their oppression. Our experiences are called “just transphobia” or “just misogyny” based on whatever they think applies most in the moment. Our theorizing is painted as useless infighting or just being jealous that trans women have a word to describe their oppression. I vehemently disagree with this one, I think everyone deserves language to describe their experiences. I think it’s impossible to ignore the way that both transphobia and misogyny interact to affect us in a new way (the very definition of intersectionality), and that we deserve to recognize and describe that intersection. Even the coiner of the word “transmisogyny” appears to agree with us on this.

Other people will focus on the term’s perceived origins. They frequently call the person who changed the term “transmisandry” to “transandrophobia” a “lesbophobic transmisogynist” and rape fetishist. From everything I’ve been able to put together on the matter, it seems to be that they’re referring to him having engaged in someone else’s detrans kinks as a sex worker on a private blog. I’ve heard from others he may have harassed people, absolutely cannot verify that. To me, it feels like another case of accusing trans people with kinks others find unsavory of being a sexual predator/sex pest, which people generally recognize as transphobic. In any case, even if every single part of their outrage was true, I do not think the behavior of a person who didn’t even come up with the ideas means that transandrophobia theory is inherently transmisogynistic.

In regard to “throwing trans women under the bus,” I think a lot of those ideas come from oppositional sexism. It’s assumed that what we’re saying is true of men must be the opposite for women. Trans women, including the woman who coined “transmisogyny,” have been using trans men’s perceived “opposite” experiences to prove their points for many years. They try to make a claim for transmisogyny by saying trans men don’t experience similar issues (violence, sexualization, demonization, safety issues, misogyny, trouble passing). But the reality is, trans men do experience those issues — some to a lesser extent, some in a different form, some just less visibly due to our chronic erasure — and have other issues of their own that trans women don’t face (like abortion rights issues). An attack on the idea that trans men have it easier is seen as an attack on transmisogyny as a concept. But it isn’t!! Transmisogyny is so blatant and oppressive of a system that it doesn’t need to compare itself to transandrophobia/trans men’s issues to have ground to stand on. Trans people are all harmed by transphobia in different, complex ways and none of us have gendered privilege.

Very few people engage with the actual meat of transandrophobia theory. We have really bad optics, I’ll give them that. It’s hard to like a word with “androphobia” in it, talking about men’s issues puts people on edge due to MRAs, and there are TERFs actively trying to recruit us. (The last part is used against us when it shouldn’t be, they try to recruit transmascs of all stripes for detransitioning and are only using us in particular because so many transfems have been awful to us because of the term. They are trying to widen that divide while most of us discussing transandrophobia are trying to close it.)

We (people who use “transandrophobia”) are often characterized as a unified movement that hates trans women (like in that post that blew up in the wake of predstrogen’s banning). We are not a movement any more than “transmisogyny” or “exorsexism” are. We don’t all believe the same things, the only thing we share in common is that we feel transmascs have a specific kind of oppression and deserve a word to describe it. And, obviously, we are doing our best not to perpetuate (trans)misogyny! The number of disclaimers I have seen people put on their post to make it exceedingly obvious to the piss on the poor website that they’re not talking about trans women is absolutely astounding. I’m sure our circles do have some transmisogyny in them, everywhere does! We do our best to combat it and I know my personal spaces have a couple transfems in them that help keep us in check. If we were being genuinely transmisogynistic, I would ask people to actually point to what they’re seeing that’s harmful instead of just dismissing all of us as evil bigots.

I think what contributes to the backlash the most is simply that trans men do not fit into current understandings of feminism well. People have gotten it into their heads that men are gender oppressors and not gender oppressed — which doesn’t shake out so well when you put being trans into the equation. I grew up hearing “ew men are gross” “I hate men” “kill all men” sentiments due to being in LGBT spaces. Some people really, really do not want to let go of the idea that men are bad and icky and dangerous and women are good and pure and safe, especially when it benefits them as non-men. Many transmascs themselves have internalized the idea that they are gender oppressors, traitors to feminism, more likely to be dangerous/predatory/misogynistic, and take up too much space because they are men/mascs. I sure felt like that before finding these conversations! I sincerely think that as we grow our transfeminism and heal from our gender essentialism a little more, this rhetoric will be left in the past.

#long post #resources #ask #mine #transandrophobia #transmisogyny #transphobia #intracommunity issues tag

[ftmtftm]

Can you make a post going over Serano's theory and the parts of it you don't agree with and why? I'd be interested in your perspective

I kind of have in the past if you dig for it. I think I'd reframe or rework a lot of it now though. I'm also not super interested in fully rehashing it in full at the moment because I'm reaching a point of burnout, but I'll talk about the easy surface level stuff.

My issues with Serano's theories have very little to do with the things she's explicitly written about transmisogyny and trans womanhood in terms of systemic transmisogyny and what that looks like* and it has moreso to do with the way she makes assumptions about the "opposite" experiences trans men "have".

"Have" is in quotes there because reading The Whipping Girl as a trans man it becomes very obvious that - at the time of writing - Serano had little to no interaction with trans men besides maybe two primary sources. Most of what she specifically says about trans male experiences in the book is conjecture and assumptions being made based on how Cis Binary Patriarchy works for cis binary people (when... trans people don't actually fit into Cis Binary Patriarchy on a systemic level, ever).

She opens The Whipping Girl by stating that she will be focusing on transmisogyny and trans womanhood and not focusing on other trans experiences, but she doesn't really actually do that though!!!! I wish she had!! It would have made her work significantly stronger because she had very real important things to say that do hold up and are real and that do matter!!!

However, instead whenever trans men come up, The Whipping Girl makes baseless comparisons that essentially go:

"Trans women experience [ a very real example of systemic transmisogyny ] AND AS SUCH trans men experience the opposite [ insert universalized experiences of one or two trans men that doesn't get examined at all and is given absolutely no nuance and the lack of nuance can be explained away by saying "well she did say she's only writing about trans women, why should she give examining trans men's experiences that much attention" ]".

She could have just stopped and not spoken about trans men at all and retained the scope she initially set for herself at the beginning of the book or she should have more directly acknowledged that her scope was limited and left a door open for others to step in - like she has since done and stated should be done.

It's very frustrating talking about the flaws and blindspots in her work - that she herself currently directly acknowledges - only to be met with "Well you just don't understand her!! You're trying to say she's wrong and that transmisogyny doesn't exist" because... that's not what's being said. That's not the conversation that's being had.

Transmisogyny does exist, but we can talk about it, Patriarchy, and trans oppression in better, more robust ways. That's what Intersectional theory is all about.

*I do take issue with the Whiteness and Binaryness of the way she writes about trans womanhood though. Especially because I think it's very clear that her theory is also heavily impacted by her background as a White biologist. She hasn't done any deconstruction of biology/sexology as racist, intersexist institutions and leaves little room for genuine intersectional thought in her supposedly intersectional theory. I think in many ways Serano is another White Feminist that's appropriated Intersectionality without examining her own Whiteness despite Intersectional theory having direct roots in Black Feminism BUT we can have that conversation after people start treating her like a human being, yk?

#asks #anon #julia serano #transfeminism #intersectional theory #intersectional feminism #transmisogyny

[ventbloglite]

Some of you really need to step back a little bit and acknowledge how ignorant you are towards how misogyny affects trans mascs and how you yourself may be perpetrating said misogyny when speaking ill of trans mascs.

Which is not something you should be doing at all, fyi. You can talk about individual shitty trans mascs and certain community issues you dislike which involve or are perpetrated by trans mascs without just being transphobic towards trans mascs in general.

So many times I've seen the sentient of 'AFAB's have it really easy, everyone accepts AFAB's as trans, everyone loves AFAB trans people, the world caters to you, there is basically no problems for you if you're AFAB unlike AMAB folk' shown in a variety of ways from a variety of people including just outright saying it. Not to mention the belitting of trans masc experiences with transphobia and misogyny + the way those interact because they identify as men even though transphobes still consider them to be women and don't give a shit about their actual gender.

A main crux of transphobia (though many other factors which result in hating us come into play, too many to go into now) is that trans people are seen as and treated as their AGAB and punished for not identifying as it or portraying it 'correctly' by society. So tell me why so many seem to 'forget' about how misogyny impacts trans masculine people. Could it be because you believe that advocating for trans women and trans femmes and fighting transmisogyny somehow must involve being transphobic towards trans men due to that radfem influence you've absorbed? The world will never reach gender equality of any kind if everything is 'men versus women' so can we just fucking not bring that into trans spaces please.

Examples!

I saw recently a post which perfectly pointed out the potential risks associated with someone considered 'male' growing out her hair but OP clearly knew absolutely nothing about the same risks associated with someone deemed 'female' cutting his hair. Instead of not making that post or doing some research, OP thus assumed there weren't really any risks likely due to already believing that AFAB trans people have it easy.

The ignorance! Misogyny heavily impacts the way hair is treated on those perceived as women (including body hair) and women/those perceived as women have no end of people policing what they can and can't do with their bodies often taking things to the absolute extreme to do so. Short hair on woman may seem 'more accepted' but AFAB people of any gender could quickly tell you multiple situations where it's not and results in the same violence, abuse, homo(lesbo/butch)phobia and yes possibly even death depending on the situation even if you still identify as a woman. Pretending this doesn't happen is straight up misogyny btw.

'AFAB's pass easily by doing basically nothing' is another frequent one which makes me laugh. 'Passing' for most trans people is so situational and so dependent on what you do or don't do to strictly conform to gender stereotypes if you're even able to do that at all. To suggest that the world ignores feminine gender markers the moment someone's hair is short and their chest appears mostly flat ignores both the complexity of how humans perceive gender and how misogyny comes into play whenever a woman/perceived woman shows any masculinity let alone maleness. Considering the same misogyny comes into play frequently against trans women you'd think it'd be easy to remember.

This general sentiment of 'Being born with a vagina means your life is easy and everything you do will be loved and supported because society adores you. You don't and will never have any real problems, not like anyone born with a penis.' isn't magically okay and absolutely super different to when misogynists say it about cis women because you're using AGAB language and cite 'because you're men and blah blah patriarchy' as the actual reason you're saying it. It's very clearly same shit different coat of paint. The pool is there, your toes are in, stop preparing to dive for Gods sake.

#transandrophobia #anti transmasculinity #transgender

[tirfpikachu]

heyy wassup i'm lay :]

♡ 27yo

♡ detrans soft butch dyke

♡ gendercrit tirf? idk

♡ single & yearning

♡ wheelchair user & autistic

♡ french, living in ontario (gta)

♡ feel free to send DMs/asks!

♡ if i sound stupid i'm probably high ✌👅

i'm currently writing a book about the possibility, issues and potential benefits of creating trans-inclusive radical feminist spaces, and how some trans people are actually joining radical feminism and doing feminism & trans activism within radfem! i'm still in the drafting stage, but i'm passionate abt it

i have many trans friends who i love dearly, i want a world where radical feminists and trans people aren't constantly at war so that we can all FINALLY use that energy to fight and dismantle the cispatriarchy 👏👏

more about that under readmore!

CW: misgendering in some posts i reblog!! this is a research blog, i will be reblogging from various sources to find writing material and just generally know what issues radfems have against some trans folks and the concept of gender as a whole. i believe in knowing thy enemy, in building bridges, and in respectful discourse. some radfems use male/female instead of amab/afab, and misgender based on sex/agab, make negative generalizations, and mock looks. it can be disrespectful. but if they makes good points on their post, i will reblog. i don't believe in "omg op is xyz" bc it just creates echochambers. that's not how real activism works, you need to actually interact w the other group, especially if both groups are oppressed. feel free not to follow, and i'm open to polite debates

i try to gather as much good info about radfem & trans issues as i can even if i don't agree with all of it, so if you're trans pls be safe! i eventually want to make a blog without transphobic posts in it but as of now i'm still writing my book and i want to learn more. be careful!!

(psst… i'm also a wheelchair dyke barely surviving on disability aid, with bills, debt, and bunnies to feed! i do writing commissions and take in donations. my post about that is here thank youuu)

i'm a detransitioned butch lesbian who still loves the trans community dearly, and while their struggles and traumas are very real to me, i do believe that cis women also have unique generational worldwide traumas and experiences that trans people can never understand and have often mocked and downplayed; afab-specific misogyny is a unique form of oppression. a cis woman is hated for her birth sex since day 1 and still identifies as 100% a woman. if trans women are uniquely oppressed for identifying as women, and transmascs are oppressed for their bodies, then cis/bio women are also uniquely oppressed and deserve to have their voices heard too

imo, transmisogyny and afab misogyny are two different issues, despite obvious overlaps, with unique experiences that the other camp just cannot understand. the afab misogyny experienced by both transmasc people and binary cis women is unique, and they need a voice. even if sometimes transfems are mistaken for us they still do not fully understand our oppression, and vice-versa. each side, cis women and trans people, needs to consistently show up for the other and be good allies

i want to know where things went wrong. i'm looking for instances of misogyny and lesbophobia against afab women, and other ills within the trans community that only radfems seem to call out consistently. i also want to find detrans community. i might not agree to many or any radfem ways of thinking. i'm just observing!

posts about my trans history will be put under the "my journey" tag

#text

[bandofchimeras]

if we wanted to get very spicy and kick the discourse hornet nest we might assert that okay, if transandrophobia isn't a real thing (?) then you might say trans men experience transmisogyny. not indirect or falsely directed transmisogyny, but transmisogyny. as in misogyny specific to the general trans experience. how do you feel about that? if you feel that takes away from the language of trans women available to discuss their specific experiences, because transmisogyny is a term for trans women, then okay. what do you suggest for trans men to use to theorize our experiences?

anti-transmasculinity? is that fine? and why? /gen

part of the discourse here is a pushback on the infantilization and patronizing tone people take with trans men or talking over the transmasculine experience in general.

that's all. also for the record I am genuinely not emotionally invested in this issue or reactive about it. I hold a lot of grace for fellow trans people's emotions and general attitudes intercommunity cuz man, the community is dealing with a lot. and if something like "Baeddel" is a slur and not a term self-claimed by a group of anti-civ anti-social anarchist-leaning trans women that leaned into high-control cult territory then I'll stop using it. (edited to change language of similarity bc harm levels were different) there is also a lot of damage in the online trans community due to the "AFAB only" FB group cults run by trans TERFs in the last 5 years, who were responsible for the general reactive vitriol towards "theyfabs" my main issue with the Baeddels I interacted with is that they were mean, dismissive, and genuinely seemed to be involved in culty dynamics that lead to increased community strife & increased risk for interpersonal abusive behavior. I don't think they deserved high levels of vitriol, backlash, cancellation or other transmisogynist abuse that unfortunately only made those other problems worse and further fragmented the community.

I still am friends with a few trans women who philosophically remain in this camp, and respect their views even though we disagree. unfortunately, both of these women are susceptible to and currently in varying degrees of abusive/high control relationships. They have not asked for help or indicated wanting intervention so I stay in my lane and provide affirmation & warmth when needed, but it does confirm my biases there.

the AFAB TERF groups were actively harmful to trans women and trans men, due to the way they weaponized transmisogyny, manipulated, groomed and emotionally abused trans men, and contributed to the wave of de-transitioner narratives actively in use by cis power structures. so they're not equivalent. and I can see why people might suspect the axis of analysis of transandrophobia might be TERFy or something...its not IMO because those groups tended to endorse self-hatred and barely identify as trans, and still engage in high levels of man-hating and "androphobia"

WHICH BY THE WAY almost always comes back around to harm trans women as well as trans men.

reading bell hooks' The Will to Change on masculinity informs my position here. so if you're looking to pick a fight, meh. i'm open to good faith discourse oriented towards restorative justice tho.

#transandrophobia #transmisogyny #discourse #trans discourse #long post #all of this is informed by people i actually know as well as general observation

[genderkoolaid]

“The white woman had just claimed that all women were bound together by their common plight under patriarchy, but the black woman disagreed. She asked: ‘When you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, what do you see?’ The white woman replied that she saw a woman in the mirror. ‘That’s precisely the issue’, said the other, ‘I see a black woman’. She then went on to explain how her ethnicity was part of her everyday consciousness, whereas, for white women, their colour was invisible because they were (and still are) privileged in that respect. Kimmel was profoundly struck by this exchange because he realised that when he looked at himself in the mirror, not only had he failed to see his whiteness, but he had also failed to see his gender. What confronted him was just the image of a person – an ordinary human being.” (quoted from Men and Masculinity: the basics by Nigel Edley)

So thinking about this quote, because this is very important when talking about intersectionality.

Dominant identities are seen as transparent. They aren't seen as material things in the same way marginalization is. We other people by their marginalization and therefore make their marginalization noticeable, while ignoring our dominance because we are not forced to acknowledge it (until we are). We see things like black womanhood as intersectional, but not white womanhood, because white womanhood has long been seen as the default, and black womahood as a deviation from the immaterial norm.

When trans men look in the mirror, we see a trans man. It's not like we see a nebulous trans person and don't see our maleness. They are intertwined; I see a trans man (amongst other things), not just a person. My manhood cannot be invisible or negligible for me, it has to be a part of my everyday consciousness.

Transness changes gender. Transness intersects with gender and changes how it is treated. It changes how womanhood is perceived, and the intersection of transness and womanhood and it's unique oppression is transmisogyny.

We cannot ignore the intersection of transness and manhood. To do so would be to do the same thing Michael Kimmel found himself doing in that quote: making manhood invisible.

Except here, manhood is being viewed as privileged because people refuse to see the intersection. They see it as manhood + transness, two separate things. People view it as "you are privileged for being a man but oppressed for being trans," which is not intersectionality. That treats transness and manhood as two things which do not interact with each other. Even more, it views "manhood" as being defined by cis manhood, as if trans men are simply cis men with some amorphous "transness" applied (and therefore possess some level cis male privilege, which is only weakened by being trans).

Transness impacts gender. Transness impacts manhood. It changes how manhood is perceived and treated. Transness turns manhood deviant. There is an intersection between transness and manhood, and there is a unique oppression experienced by those at that intersection.

When we deny that manhood and transness can interact and that transness changes manhood, we are denying intersectionality on this specific point for no other reason than we see manhood as transparent and immaterial.

When we see dominant manhood as transparent, it's a benefit to dominant manhood because it goes unquestioned. When we view marginalized manhood as transparent and ignore it's intersection with gender, it is a detriment because we ignore so many interactions between the patriarchy and transness, race, ability, colonialism and prevent the people at those intersections from having a voice to describe those experiences.

#m. #transandrophobia

[autogyne-redacted]

tbh, your recent post about transandrophobia synthesizes my thoughts about it very well, and im surprised you're getting backlash. the only additions i would make is that the gender/sex binary in the west was originally very explicitly a white supremacist creation, even down to the categories of male/female, and lionizing any aspect of that tends to get really racist really fast no matter how feminist or well intentioned. i guess you'd call me a trandandrobro bc i hang out in the tag and sometimes use the word for specific things (like when the lab threw out my cervical cancer test cells bc the cup was labelled M) but, i genuinely don't disagree with a single one of your points. i've been getting uncomfortable with the increasingly reactionary nature of the conversation on transandrophobia and i appreciate your take a lot.

Rambling about transandrophobia

Tbh It's been really surprising to see transandrophobia types interacting with that post all around.

And mostly it boils down to me having had windows into transandrophobia discourse that makes it seem bad*. And other ppl treating these aspects as exceptions to a discourse they see as basically good.

And I recognize that in part this is just how polarized internet discourses work. Like, if my windows into transandrophobia are largely when something egregious gets said and passed around in my circles, that's gonna give a way different impression then if ppl are part of the discourse and curating a slice they agree with.

And the consistent overall harassment of any attempt to talk about transmisogyny and constant bad faith engagements (eg attacks on agab and cagab language, cafab attempts to ID as trans women and as direct targets of transmisogyny) mean few of us are still in a position to assume good faith with internet strangers we run into who identify with a discourse that very much seems to have a massive transmisogyny problem.

.

My slightly more extended position on transandrophobia, since I've been thinking about it the past few days is:

1) I'm broadly supportive of ppl talking about their experiences and trying to find common ground even around shared ~privilege~, so long as it's done with a commitment to broader, collective liberation. (Eg cis men getting together from a feminist perspective to talk about patriarchy = good, cis men doing so with no specific opposition to normative masculinity = fashy).

2) the general attitude I've seen from transandrophobia world is to say: this has nothing to do with anyone other than trans mascs ppl other than trans mascs aren't welcome as part of this discourse: it's by us for us. Intentionally creating an insulated discourse especially around a point of (partial) privilege has a terrible track record. But regardless of relative positionality insulated discourses are just going to be more limited. They can create theory that's empowering for the creator group but it's probably not gonna get much mileage beyond and it's easy for it to be actively harmful.

3) I've thought for ages that trans masc experience seems ~under theorized~ and that transphobia is rly under theorized too. And it'd be really cool to see this addressed in a way that isn't rife with transmisogyny. It does seem like transandrophobia discourse is addressing a real hole, it's just doing in a way that rly sketches me out.

4) really I think gender discourse overall is just not in a great place rn. It was 1990 when Judith Butler questioned whether it makes sense for women to be the sole/primary subject of feminism, and we had major interventions that I'd say reached a peak in the early to mid 2010's (criticisms of white feminism, of cis feminism, intersectionality becoming a dominant framework).

There's a strong tendency to say that we're basically in a post gender world, or that race is just a more fundamental framework (which I strongly disagree with)** and I do think we really need a rebuilt gender theory that has teeth to it. Trying to build theory around transmisogyny I've found it necessary to do a lot of general theory building around gender. How normative masculinity and femininity work, how gender is policed. I don't think we're gonna be able to make a clean break from identity politics until we can have a strong theory framework that lets us talk about this shit from outside identity politics.

5) this is v rambly but I'm inclined to engage with transandrophobia discourse a little more than lots of my circles in part because I really want there to be more good theory building going on around gender, from different positions and across positions. One day, maybe.

*full of transmisogyny/denials of transmisogyny, trans masc exceptionalism and a failure to recognize and be in solidarity around shared issues with trans fems and cis men.

**getting back to the part of your ask about the history of gender and white supremacy, there's a huge entanglement between gender and race, gender and civilization. Normative gender differentiation has been a classic way the civilized set themselves apart from those they deem savage.

Broad claims like the one you make in your ask anon get messy tho. Like, a largely binary model of gender is older than history but you can also talk about the modern binary having really only come about over the past couple centuries (and obviously it's heavily contested and changing rn). Similarly you could say the modern concept of whiteness came about through the trans Atlantic slave trade (and then has been constantly shifting and getting redefined ever since) but there's obviously much older histories it's building off of.

I'm realizing now that maybe you meant the binary divide between sex vs gender as opposed to the male vs female binary but I can't tell which. Either way, my position here is mostly that it's really really messy to make big historical claims. It's such a high level view you can tell a lot of different stories with the available historical evidence. Ideas about gender and race have a heavily entangled history tho and it's certainly gonna go poorly if you treat either as natural.

#transandrophobia #discourse #gender #transmisogyny

[abalidoth]

Die a Hainly or Live Long Enough to See Yourself Become the Vilia: Gender, Breath of the Wild, and Representational Sterility

Thanks to @start-anywhere for encouraging me to write this essay!

Major spoilers for Breath of the Wild, minor spoilers for Mass Effect Andromeda and Horizon: Forbidden West, as well as the Tears of the Kingdom trailer and H:FW Burning Shores.

cw: transmisogyny.

"Be careful playing the Gerudo segment," I heard from friends. "There's a transmisogynist joke there."

There's a lot I don't remember about 2017. That year was a perfect recipe for dissociation: I was finishing a very fraught and frustrating PhD dissertation and TAing at the same time, with very little sleep. I was constantly worrying about finding a job after graduation, and moving to a new city sight unseen. I spent the first two months of the year away from Emma for a math fellowship, the longest we'd ever been apart.

And on top of that, I was a closeted trans femme living in Laramie, Wyoming, a town famous for a homophobic hate crime, during the first year of the Trump administration. My gender pressure had been building for years, out to friends online but not to anyone in person save Emma. I knew I wasn't a man but the closest I could come to expressing it was wearing skirts at home, and nail polish on the weekends. (Apply Friday afternoon, remove Sunday evening, repeat weekly.)

But I do remember playing Breath of the Wild with Emma.

Zelda is in the DNA of our relationship -- Emma showed me Ocarina of Time before we even started dating, Twilight Princess was one of the first games we played through together, and I proposed to her with a ceramic replica I made of Anju and Kafei's wedding mask from Majora's Mask.

So, getting to play a new Zelda game -- an extremely good one, at that -- with her, during one of the worst years of my life, was an incredible beacon of light.

So the warning about a transmisogynist joke in the Gerudo segment was disappointing, but I kept it in mind as we played.

For those who haven't played the game, here's a quick synopsis of that quest: Link, our hero, needs to access Gerudo Town, a town of all women. (Sorta. Put a pin in that. 📌) You talk to a male shopkeep outside who tells you that he's heard "a man" has been "sneaking" into town, and he's waiting to catch a peek. Other (Gerudo) characters mention an odd human woman, a merchant, who hangs out on the roof of a bazaar a ways outside town. Up there you find Vilia.

(image source: Zelda Wiki, which correctly genders Vilia unlike some wikis 😒)

If you accuse her of being the "man in disguise" she brushes you off and won't speak to you further. If you compliment her, she'll offer to help you get into town, sell you the Gerudo clothing set (grab another pin 📍) and say how pretty you look, making Link blush. Then the wind will blow her veil aside, which we only see obliquely, but we do see that she has facial hair. Link acts surprised.

Okay. Let's unpack.

First off... Vilia is a trans woman with a beard. I'm just gonna treat that as a fact from this point forward. Everyone who actually interacts with her refers to her as a woman, she refers to herself as a woman, we will set "but maybe she's just a crossdresser" or whatever aside, she's a trans woman. With a beard.

Is that problematic?

A big theme of my evolution as a social justice advocate is that "problematic" is meaningless in a vacuum. The existence of a trans woman with a beard is not, itself, problematic. Otherwise that's pretty bad news for me, a trans femme with a beard.

But her depiction... There are definitely some elements of cultural transmisogyny being upheld here. Stubble is a common feature in popular caricatures of the Gross Tranny. Link's reaction being played for comedy makes Vilia's existence sort of a big joke.

And on a surface level examination, it looks like this is a straightforward "man dresses as woman to gain access to women's spaces" story, straight out of Joanne's Twitter-addled fever dreams.

But other than that, Vilia is pretty well treated by the narrative. All of the Gerudo refer to her as a little odd, but fundamentally a helpful person, and they respect her identity. It's clear when Link runs around Gerudo Town that multiple people clock him, but nobody ever throws him out because they just assume he's a trans woman and therefore implicitly welcome.

Vilia's character model isn't exaggerated in any way I'd consider transmisogynist, aside from the facial hair, and Link in the Gerudo outfit is, well, far from an unflattering portrayal.

And importantly, you cannot progress the main story if you misgender her.

There is no other way to get into Gerudo Town, and thereby the Divine Beast Vah Naboris, if you just say "you're a dude, right?" and don't walk it back. You can technically finish the game without any of the four Divine Beasts, but they make it MUCH easier, and a significant chunk of story is locked behind her quest.

So back in 2017 I played this, went "well that wasn't great but it wasn't as bad as I thought," and went on to wear the Gerudo outfit as much as humanly possible.

Flash forward to my 2023 replay, in anticipation of the sequel. I'm avidly curious to replay this section, given my evolution in my own gender understanding. (The first time around, I id'ed as genderqueer and Definitely Not A Guy but I'm not sure I was comfortable with "trans" yet, and definitely not "situationally a girl".)

Turns out? Vilia fuckin' rules. Gender icon. They hate to see a girlbeard winning.

Ok, I'm exaggerating. (A little.) But there is a reason I'm writing this essay, and I came away with a much improved sympathy for her character and her position in the story. I want to talk about why, but first let's clear a couple of those pins.

📌 The Gerudo are an all-female race. This is historically true in the Zelda games, with the single exception of Ganondorf, an ancient incarnation of evil who is born as the only make Gerudo once in an age. Ganondorf isn't in this game (though he is in the sequel!) so he's not relevant here. There are two things to note here: one, the Gerudo are nonwhite and heavily middle eastern coded. This is something I can't get into, as an Extremely White Person, but their interaction with gender is not without racial context and it would be irresponsible of me to not mention it.

But second, and the thing I will talk about, is that they seldom use the words "man" and "woman", but rather "voe" and "vai". We get these translated for us, but they are just that -- translations. They are gender concepts unique to the Gerudo that get mapped imperfectly to Hylian standards. The Gorons, a race of rock people who all use male pronouns and forms of address, are allowed into Gerudo Town, being "neither voe nor vai". And all of the Gerudo characters treat you differently when you're in the Gerudo clothing, even though it's clear that many of them have the perceptiveness to see through it.

I think it makes perfect sense to interpret "vai" as less "woman" and more "fem presenting". The Gerudo's actions are consistent (arguably, more so) if you do so.

📍The Gerudo armor. There's a few things to talk about here. First, Vilia sells it to you rather than just giving it to you. This seems a bit callous, but there's other similar monetary roadblocks in the game, and she's explicitly a traveling merchant and jewels are (as she says) expensive. I don't blame her.

The Gerudo armor is also, in game, pretty terrible. If you're wearing all three pieces you get a tiny bit of heat resistance, but it has basically no armor and can't be upgraded. There is a purchaseable "voe armor" with similar aesthetics but much better stats, but it can't be used to access Gerudo Town.

This is... Not ideal. I like to run around in the Gerudo armor because Link looks absolutely adorable in it; that was more of a priority back then than it is now that I have my own fem wardrobe, but it's still true. I wish it could be upgraded. I also wish you could just wear whatever armor aesthetically and get a different set of bonuses.

Okay. Now. To explain what it is I actually like about Vilia's portrayal, I want to talk about two other transfeminine characters from open world games: Hainly Abrams from Mass Effect: Andromeda and Wekatta from Horizon: Forbidden West.

Hainly Abrams is a scientist on the planet Prodromos in Mass Effect: Andromeda. In her first conversation with you, you can ask her why she came to Andromeda, and she says she was looking for a fresh start for her transition, and then... weirdly deadnames herself, in a way that feels utterly alien to anyone who's interacted with trans people. BioWare took criticism on this... sort of, and patched that conversation to only happen after you gain her trust by saving her fiance. But it's still extremely jarring. I cannot find information about her voice actress.

Wekatta is a troop leader of the Sky Clan Tenakth in H:FW. Like Vilia, the narrative is actually somewhat cagey as to whether she's a trans woman or not. I don't believe anyone actually refers to her with she/her pronouns, unlike Vilia, and the closest she gets to saying she's trans is

Aloy: And you think he's crazy for trying?

Wekatta: I'm not a fan of that word. When I chose to wear a woman's armor, people called me crazy, too.

Wekatta only shows up for a single minor side quest, and doesn't really get to actually do anything. She is at least voiced by a trans voice actress, Rebecca Root.

Both of these portrayals are mostly free of overt transmisogyny. Hainly deadnames herself in a strange and off-putting way, and Wekatta's portrayal is ambiguous to the point of over-caution, but there's not much that could be read as a transphobic joke like in Vilia's story.

They're also both boring as heck. And neither of them really feels trans.

Both of these characters feel like existing bit-player characters with one "bee tee dubs, I am A Tran" line slapped into their dialog. Sure there isn't anything overtly wrong with that kind of representation, if it's done carefully, but this is "minor character mentions he has a husband" rep, not "on-screen gay kiss with main character" rep. (Side note, though, good for Guerrilla for making Aloy canonically queer in Burning Shores. Haven't played it yet but I'm stoked to. Hell yeah.)

Vilia, as problematic as elements of her portrayal are, feels like a real transfeminine person. She feels more like me. Her gender is kinda messy! She has a girlbeard! She gets to call you out if you misgender her!

And best of all, her interactions with Link (excluding the shocked face at the end, which is pretty annoying) can be read very easily as an older, more experienced trans woman helping a younger trans girl with early transition, giving her her first feminine outfit and complimenting her. There's no wonder why transfem Link is such a popular headcanon. (My personal favorite for Link is some kind of transfeminine genderfluid.)

Vilia isn't perfect, but truly great and realistic trans representation is going to be easier if you start with a Vilia and clip off the overtly problematic bits, than if you start with a Wekatta or a Hainly and try to make them feel more real.

#botw #breath of the wild #vilia #tesserants

[coelii]

hi so i have a question that you can absolutely ignore if you think it's not worth your time to answer but.

what's the deal with trans women and femboys? i know everyone is their own person and each trans woman is gonna have their own take on it but i've seen a LOT of posts lately about femboys and egg-cracking and the ethics of it all and it seems to be related to finnster coming out as trans rather than a femboy now? and idk i can see how that can cause discontent but as a trans guy that sometimes uses the word femboy for myself regarding my remaining connection to femininity and someone who knows guys that identify as femboys but not women im just confused! i feel like some people are starting to latch onto the term femboy as a nonbinary identity too so. what about that concept i'm hmmmmmmm

and tbh i haven't seen you specifically talk much about this so really you can delete this if you want but. i really trust and value your takes on things so i can't help but be curious about your thoughts...

So I did have a bad take on femboys a couple months ago but I feel like I can expound on it a bit more eloquently.

As a trans woman looking back I spent an unhealthy amount of time thinking I was something that I’m not. All research I did as a teen/young adult in the 90s/00s pointed at me being a crossdressing man. This was because I’m not a “true transsexual” as that term was defined at the time (wasn’t suicidal over having a penis and lack of ovaries).

In my past online I’ve had a couple tumblr blogs where I shared pictures and interacted with others like me, and about a decade or so ago I spent an unhealthy amount of time posting on 4chan for validation while running a headless crossdressing blog. It wasn’t super popular (maybe 100 followers) but I had several moots in the same realm as me and we specifically weren’t trans or women. We were “femboys” or “cds” or “traps”. We explored gender nonconformity in dress and speech and circlejerked about it in much the same way trans women now circlejerk about things like “tummy tuesday”.

During my time on tumblr back then I continued losing mutuals to transition. They all kept coming to the same conclusion, they weren’t just acting like women - they were women. I was so proud of them every time but it kept delaying my own transition despite all the very obvious signs I was the same.

To me, “femboys” and “traps” have something of inherent transmisogyny baggage that a lot of people aren’t willing to unpack. When you watch a video of someone femme presenting on Omegle or whatever talking to a guy in a very femme voice and then switching to a deep voice for comedic effect, the “punchline” of that joke is “oh they were a dude all along and now it’s gay” and that’s frankly kind of offensive when you really think about it. A lot of people still see trans women as just “men choosing to go by feminine pronouns” and I genuinely don’t see that as the case.

Do I still think femboys have a place? Sure, I think it’s perfectly valid for men to exist who genuinely are into dressing feminine but embrace their masculinity. I think trans men who want to present femme at times or all the time are completely valid. Identity is personal and no one can tell you what you are except yourself.

I just know for me, personally, being a femboy delayed my own transition by several years and I hope anyone out there who is GNC that reads this knows it’s okay to be introspective and explore your gender. Try new things, don’t ever feel you need to pick a label and live with it the rest of your life. Do what you want forever, you only get one life and you might as well enjoy living it. ♥︎

#coelii.ask #mom answers

[butchmartyr]

Apologies I phrased that very poorly, transfem/otherwise AMAB (not all AMAB nonbinary/genderqueer people identify as transfeminine which is why i use agab, but TMA would be more appropriate!) GQ experiences are different enough from AFAB (etc etc) or TME transgender ones to classify them as different things? Lumping both together under “transgender” widens the experience the term captures. the experience of transmisogyny is 90% of transphobia, I don’t believe transmascs face any systemic discrimination aside from reactive misogyny before passing, and most have extremely different experiences from transfems: Are they similar enough to be recognized as transgender in the same way? Or would another term be more appropriate. Something I’ve been thinking on for a while

ahh, i see, thanks for elaborating. while i get your meaning, i would disagree. i think its certainly true that trans experiences range pretty broadly across the spectrum and that transmisogyny is really extreme and probably the most numerous example of transphobia, but im not sure id go so far to say that it is wholly representative of transphobia; although id get pretty close, a lot of transphobia and bias is influenced heavily by transmisogyny or other generalized fear of transfemininity/failed masculinity, like a lot lot.

moreover, i worry that this kind of analysis could lead to overfocusing on some aspects of gender, and losing sight of other vital key parts to how gender is actively lived and enforced (such as class, race, culture, whole milieu). i also want to push back a bit on the "transmascs dont face systemic discrimination" because i just think its too black and white since they definitely do (not mentioning other axes of oppression here, though you should when thinking this out because systemic discriminations interact in many ways with transness), just sometimes less or in different ways than transfems/tma folks. as an example, trans women have been observed on avg to be paid 60% less than the avg worker (horrendous), trans men arent much above that being observed at 70% (referencing this). sure the gap sucks and is evidence of the privilege that comes with not being tma, but they’re also still getting screwed, right? i also dont think we need to chalk these issues they face up to misogyny imo, i think its more accurate to describe it as transphobia as its denying their worth based on their divergent gender

tl;dr, while this feels a little baity, transmascs are definitely also discriminated against and while they can (and do) perform terrible transmisogyny to transfems and completely not understand their transphobia due to their own unique trans situation (many such cases), as a whole we have more in common with each other than against each other, most importantly the value of trans liberation and a cuter future where gender isnt so big of a deal. but to be clear if you're a snake about trans women and fail again and again to confront and learn from your transmisogynistic biases, you are poisoning the well by spreading such ideas in the community

#i say this because not only do you make it unsafe for tma ppl but by doing so you create a self policing atmosphere that becomes #more and more hostile towards 'nonconforming' gender expression in general and its cringe #transmisogynistic thinking leads directly to other bioessentialist brainrot and then you got ppl saying trans men are testosterone poisoned #asks #long post #genderposting

[molsno]

just because transmascs don't face the exact same type of oppression that transfems do, doesn't mean that we don't face oppression at all. you don't have to use the term transandrophobia, but don't act like we're the pinnacle of society and we garner respect wherever we go, whoever we interact with. we tried to make our own space in the trans community wider by creating a term to describe our unique experience with oppression, and the community immediately shot us down.

it's a good thing I never said that! c'mon now, do you really think you're gonna convince me to change my mind by putting words in my mouth?

if I started smashing together different aspects of my identity and pretended they formed a new and unique kind of oppression, where would it end? should I start talking about "alesbophobia" because I'm an asexual lesbian? sure it presents some challenges that manifest in specific ways but those challenges aren't unique, other asexuals and lesbians experience them separately.

what if added my transness into the mix to call it "transalesbophobia"? yeah these are all inseparable parts of me and again, I do feel like I experience them in ways specific to my being an ace lesbian trans woman, but none of these things meaningfully intersect in a way that makes the resulting product unique.

except, oh wait, whoops, I've only been giving you examples of mashups between actual marginalized identities I hold. I almost gave you too much credit there! let's go with something more analogous to transandrophobia.

suppose I were to start talking about the specific experiences I have as a white trans woman, and I decided to give those experiences a name like "blanchetransmisogyny", and I started insisting that this is something important that white trans women need to be able to talk about. even though yes, my whiteness is inseparable from the rest of my identity and that results in the transmisogyny against me taking shape in specific ways, those manifestations aren't unique. if they were unique, then that would imply that there's a widespread hatred of white people within society, a la "reverse racism". but there's no such thing! I may be marginalized for being a trans woman, but I still hold privilege over trans women of color because I'm white. insisting otherwise would absolutely reek of white supremacy, and poc would have every reason to "shoot me down" as you put it.

that's what you're doing with transandrophobia. it's not about "describing your unique experiences with oppression", it's about denying your male privilege. yes, you are oppressed for being trans, and within the context of larger society, you will very much feel that oppression. but the fact of the matter is that you still hold privilege over trans women just by way of being a man. and guess what! denying that fact is extremely misogynistic. if a cis man did the same thing you're doing but to a cis woman, there would be no denying his misogyny. so why is it ok for you to do it to a trans woman?

and if I'm being honest, having misogynistic trans guys coming into my inbox to mansplain oppression to me every week is testing my patience! I don't have to explain any of this to you, especially not when I've already written numerous posts about it that you can browse at your convenience. next time I might just decide to be the mean bitch tranny you all seem to think I am!

#ask #Anonymous

[ftmtftm]

as a straight trans man I'd like to add to the discussion surrounding sexuality and being "accepted" as trans - straight trans men such as myself do still get painted as predatory. we're subjected to the ideas of the "predatory lesbian" trope, and then amplified by the fact that we're "just straight men preying on innocent women". the transandrophobia presents differently, but is definitely still there - and it fucking sucks to see other trans guys perpetuate homophobia and take out their internalized transphobia on gay trans dudes. especially if you're non-passing or take pride in your trans identity: we get shunned from both queer communities ("you're just a straight man trying to take up queer resources") or ("at least if you were bi I'd feel safer around you"), but in cishet society we face large amounts of lesbophobic assumptions about our sexuality and gender presentation, as well as the garden variety transandrophobia. transhet men also, even by the most accepting queer people, are often pressured toward heteronormativity in our relationships and into being queer in an "acceptable" way even though they do not apply those standards to other queer people. please do not fall into the trap of thinking that gay trans men are the ones who suffer most from transandrophobia, as I've seen just as many gay trans men as straight try to deny its existence. while I know you mean no harm by it, please don't create the same sort of binary axis of "we have it worse" while trying to destroy that same sort of binary wrt transandrophobia and transmisogyny. we're on the same side here. this post isn't meant to shame you or be a callout of some sort, just a friendly reminder :)

Oh absolutely!!!! I'm sorry my post missed the nuances of your experiences, my goal with it was more to say "I understand why people might see the flawed logic for that argument with straight trans guys, but it's completely not applicable when you try to interact with it outside of heterosexuality and I can speak to that directly"! It was definitely not to say that straight trans men aren't also often treated as predatory or in transandrophobic ways if that makes sense? Basically I was just acknowledging the line of logic and saying "This is flawed and here's one of the way I directly know it is flawed"!

I apologize for not being clear enough with that!! I definitely don't think gay trans guys suffer the most though, we're brothers in this, we've gotta be there for each other!

Thank you for sharing your experiences though! They're vitally important to talk about and good for everyone to remember! Especially because y'all really do experience brunt of lesbophobic transandrophobia and also a lot of ostricization from the broader queer community!! I don't think people realize that even though (false) safety can be found in straight trans men's assimilation, that doesn't mean they necessarily want it or even truly benefit from it because of the lack of community it can provide.

#asks #anon #transandrophobia