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There is no fictional couple that gives toxic t4t more than Sophie and Howl…

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Hey I know that my blog looks fake because it’s 10 seconds old but i promise this isn’t bait, I am a trans woman and new to radical feminism thru trying to interrogate my feminism bc of recent irl developments (big fight with a radfem close friend who is also trans) and that’s why my account looks sus

I’m wondering what you mean by trans radical feminism & how you think it’s in your recent post? Like I dunno maybe im super naive bc I am only recently online again but to me a radfem critique has been really valuable in understanding my position as a woman & I don’t see it as transmisogynistic , but maybe my understanding is based on a different interpretation of it. Id appreciate your time and consideration in this 🖤🖤✨

Sure. I also recommend you read my posts and other peoples posts on this. I understand how reading some radical feminist theory or ideas could be helpful in understanding how patriarchy and gender works in our society, and I think a very critical reading of radical feminism can be valuable in certain ways. But the fundamental issue with radical feminism is that it can never truly escape essentialism, whether that’s bioessentialism or gender essentialism (they are one and the same really). It is also lacking in intersectionality because the reason it is called radical feminism is because of the belief that patriarchy is the “root” of all oppression. This reflects that classic “radfem” ideology was only meant to serve one group of women: white cis women. In reality, all oppressions are inseparable and intertwined. We cannot divorce patriarchy from capitalism, white supremacy, antisemetism, ableism, and all other oppressions that exist. Patriarchy didn’t develop in isolation: it is a product of how various human societies has been specifically working for about 10,000 years, which is only a small fraction of human history. There is nothing in nature that predisposes beings to patriarchy or heterosexuality. It is invented, and this is important, in tandem with all other oppressive systems in human society. Not in isolation.

Classical radical feminism is indistinguishable from TERFism because it posits not only that misogyny based on “biological sex” is the root of all oppression, but that sex and gender are immutable, binary traits. I just ask how anyone can take that ideology and make it trans inclusive without changing it completely. There is nothing radical feminism that doesn’t reproduce white cis feminism even if the people calling themselves radfems aren’t those things. Liberation from patriarchy can only be achieved with all trans people.

Classical TERF radical feminism says that trans women are dangerous men invading women’s spaces, and trans men are gender traitors/lost lesbians with internalized misogyny, and nonbinary people don’t exist. The only difference in “TIRFism” or “inclusive” radical feminism, is repeating all the same arguments as the classical radical feminist, but then supposedly “including” trans women as women. The transandrophobia and exorsexism remains, and so does the transmisogyny - it is just more veiled. But make no mistake, “trans inclusive radical feminists” still only accept trans women who can be neatly slotted into classical, gender essentialist ideas of what womanhood is. Multigender people, who identify as both men and women? Bisexual people? Radical feminists do not like them..

I suggest intersectional feminism, which acknowledges patriarchy as connected with all other struggles and rejects gender essentialism.

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In response to the recent rise in “trans radical feminism”, transmedicalism, exclusionism and bio/gender essentialism in the queer community, and the likelihood of a legal trans genocide in the US, it is imperative that you stop treating queerness as an exclusive club or as a slightly different way to participate in capitalism and patriarchy, and start actively being a menace to society as much as you can (if it’s safe for you of course, use your own judgement). Get offline. Organize. Start a zine /pamphlet distributing project or join one. Talk to the queer people around you if there are any. Embrace 2010s transtrender aesthetics, cut/dye/grow out your hair, wear that outfit, be as loudly and annoyingly queer as possible (if it’s safe). If there’s radfems in your local queer community, and they seem to be genuinely misguided, educate them — if they’re malicious, try to build community away from them and educate others. Make your gender presentation ungovernable. Refuse to declare your AGAB. Don’t make callout posts. Militantly combat exorsexism, transmisandry, transmisogyny wherever you see it. Be a direct threat to the people who want you dead. Keep yourself hidden if you need to. Find community if you can. Know that you owe cis/het society nothing. This is how we survived for thousands of years and it is how we will survive now.

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This might upset people, but I don’t like the terms “TERF”/“SWERF.” The reason is that there is an implication in those terms that not all radical feminists are like that, and the radical feminist ideology could in theory be trans/sex worker inclusive. Which simply isn’t true. Radical feminism is inherently sex/gender essentialist and puritanical, and always relies on the carceral state and gender policing - which are just tools of the patriarchy. Most of the entire history of the feminist movement was only for white cis wealthy women, to the detriment of everyone else. We can’t rehabilitate it with a fresh coat of paint, sorry not sorry, get over it. All of you “trans inclusive radical feminists” are lying to yourselves, you either swapped transmisogyny for transandrophobia, one type of gender essentialism for another, or you are on your way to becoming open “TERFs.” You can’t abolish the oppressive gender binary while upholding it.

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Shoutout to tboys I hope you’re enjoying a delicious snack and a nap today perhaps

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Check out the stats before you choose to shit on bi women and trans men.

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This is not easy to hear, but cis women and all marginalized genders who aren’t transmasculine will always be conditioned to throw transmasculine people under the bus to secure their own position within capitalist patriarchy, even if that is a deeply marginalized position too. There is some solidarity I don’t want to pretend it doesn’t exist but it is in the minority because in order to have solidarity you have to actually acknowledge and sit with another group’s oppression and very few people are willing to do this for us. This is obviously not a reason to be misogynistic, transmisogynistic, or enbyphobic. That would be upholding the same system we are targeted by too. But it is a reality we have to come to terms with and deal with that we do not have anything like widespread support from any other marginalized gender, usually because we “make them look bad.” This is not our fault but we have to come to terms with it.

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I pretty much entirely agree with what you’re saying here. When I made the original (half a meme tbh) graphic it was because I was tired of the way that exclusionists/radfems try to deny some trans people (trans men, trans women, and/or nonbinary people depending on the type of exclusionist) from experiences of misogyny and/or transphobia and the intersection of the two. I did think about the fact that bigotry is a collective and systemic force, and not something easily categorized - and putting people into categories of “men and women and nonbinary” already is problematic (like I acknowledged in the original post). Everything you bring up is true, cis people can be affected by transphobia and cis men can be affected by misogyny. Gender/sex isn’t a binary and experiences with bigotry aren’t easy to categorize. I don’t think it’s appropriate to call bigotry against someone “misdirected” because they aren’t the primarily targeted identity group of the bigotry. A feminine trans man mistaken for a trans woman or experiencing transmisogyny for his femininity doesn’t experience “misdirected transmisogyny” for example. Misogyny and transphobia are inherently connected forces and we all live in a patriarchy and are capable of employing patriarchal violence, people who aren’t cis men no less so.

I guess my single gripe with this line of thinking which I’m going to unpack because I think it’s interesting and worth unpacking is that the ideas that, for example, “cis people experience transphobia” and “cis men experience misogyny,” while true in many cases, shouldn’t be used to give cis people authority to speak on transphobia the same way a trans person can, or give cis men the authority to speak on misogyny the way a person who isn’t a cis man can. Thats a footnote that I immediately want to add after thinking about this, but honestly, I don’t know if my impulse to do so is correct! It might just be essentialism.

I think we are all the authority on our own experiences only, and that holds for anyone. No two trans people will experience transphobia the same way. So, it isn’t any trans person’s authority to speak on the experience of another trans person, and it also isn’t any cis person’s authority to speak on anything other than their own experiences with transphobia (if they have them).

I strongly resent the “non cis men vs cis men” binary that even I sometimes fall into when trying to articulate how patriarchy works in a more inclusive way. We could say, patriarchy targets cis women and all trans people, so simply all “non cis men.” But that’s not true. While I don’t believe in MRA talking points like the “male loneliness epidemic” (I believe there is widespread loneliness just not for men specifically), I do believe men, including cis men, are targeted by patriarchy in specific ways. The terminology currently used to describe this isn’t very good. It connects to capitalism, and competition, scarcity, homophobia, the viewing of women and marginalized genders (another term that has been used as a substitute for “non cis men”) as a commodity. These things are important to talk about even with imperfect language. But why is it so wrong to include cis men in these discussions, as long as they are participating in good faith and not only sharing their experiences as a way to belittle the experiences of others? I think having a distrustful reaction to this because of trauma from patriarchy is understandable, but is ultimately the same thing that leads to the exclusion of trans people on the basis of our supposed connection to cis men.

Another consequence of this, people will frequently use “cis men” as a substitute for “men” and vice versa without thinking of the implications because they do not think about trans men at all, and they are consciously or unconsciously transandrophobic. For example, grouping all men together when it comes to experiences of misogyny, reproductive rights, is very alienating to trans men who need resources for those things. Is the solution to this to separate trans men from cis men further, or to stop seeing cis men as the enemy and totally abandon all kinds of gender essentialism? No matter how many efforts are made to include trans men, if this inclusion is only there on the basis of us being trans, or being “AFAB,” not on the basis of us being men as well, it will always fall short. The idea that trans men are more victimized by patriarchy than cis men because of being born in a different body is true, but to say that we are either less dangerous or more dangerous than cis men on this basis, are both equally harmful.

Talking about patriarchy in terms of a binary, will always reinforce the binary.

Hope this helps. (I know it’s not perfect nonbinary isn’t a third gender i did my best trying to represent the intersections to show that)

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It’s truly sad how gender nonconforming trans men/mascs are still not accepted into the mainstream, are still seen as an embarrassment to the trans community, and are called fakers for exhibiting the same femininity that would be celebrated in a cis queer man. Transmedicalist ideology is often associated with trans men because of the Kalvin Garrah days of the 2010s, but all this does is erases the gnc trans men who fought to exist and still are fighting today. Yes, there were and are plenty of transmed trans men, but it was also mostly trans men and nonbinary transmasculine people who popularized “trendercore” aesthetics to push back to that (aesthetics that are still denounced). People who disavow homophobia against cis gay men freely mock “yaoi brained Aidens.” Let’s remember it wasn’t until Lou Sullivan that gay trans men were allowed to have hormones. The real history and suffering of gay trans men isn’t taken seriously or learned about. Queer people who claim to hate toxic masculinity take a lot of joy in forcing it onto trans men in a way they don’t onto anyone else, but trans men are seen as acceptable targets for being “cringe.” On the other side, trans men who do succumb under the weight of this pressure and adapt toxic masculinity for themselves are ruthlessly derided for it by the same people who forced that onto them in the first place. And often trans men can be called toxically masculine just for being uncomfortable with feminine things for themselves, which devalues the real issue of the transmedicalists who actually are uncomfortable with gnc trans men.

There’s a really prevalent idea in society and the queer community that being a man has to be about stoic suffering, which is similar to the ways people say that being a woman has to be about suffering so trans women can’t be women without a uterus, or whatever suffering requirement they have for womanhood. Gender is not about freedom of expression, it is about responsibility and sacrifice - sound familiar? So, a trans man who is confident in being a man without fitting toxic masculine expectations freaks people out even if they think they don’t have toxic masculinity to unpack, and they subconsciously or consciously push that onto trans men rather than examining themselves for even a second.

The idea of the trender is also a reason transmasculine people get gatekept from trans spaces. People see trans men’s manhood, transness, and experiences of misogyny as fake! This gives transmasculinity no space to exist at all. While people perpetuate this idea that trans men could never be really men, or really trans, or really understand so-called “women’s issues,” they also specifically say that trans men don’t understand what it is like to be read as a gnc man, while simultaneously mocking gnc trans men for just existing. These are all very similar arguments to the ones used against trans women being women — gnc trans men are lying that they’re trans to get into trans spaces when they’re just delusional cishet girls, gnc trans men could never understand how hard it is to be “socialized” as a gnc man, gay trans men are trying to force their boyfriends to be gay or force themselves onto cis gay men, gay trans men are pornbrained fetishists who want to look like little boys, trans men who talk about their experiences with reproductive rights are trying to play the victim to hurt women — but you will hear these arguments from people who claim to support all trans people.

All of these phenomena I think are why there is so much pushback to language for transmasculine oppression. Because in order to follow the transmedicalist framework and assimilate, you have to be exactly like a cis person of your gender. Cis men aren’t oppressed for being men, so trans men can’t be oppressed for being men. It’s a completely cis-centric take that ignores reality. Trans men’s experiences do not have to conform to anyone’s idea of what it is to be a man to be valid.

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All nonbinary people are deities

All trans women are goddesses

All trans men are god

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I can’t believe in 2024 people still think trans men and butches are on competing and non overlapping teams 😔

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If you don’t think cis women hold power over all trans people, and often enact violence in close quarters with trans men/mascs and afab nonbinary people to coerce them into womanhood, while gatekeeping trans women/fems and amab nonbinary people or anyone who presents too masc for them from accessing resources, you are not observing reality well enough. If you think the experiences of all people who were afab are the same, you are erasing the oppression that happens from cis women to trans men/mascs and nonbinary people. Cis women experience misogyny, trans people experience misogyny AND transphobia, often in multiple intersectional ways. Cis women benefit from cissexism, and by extension the patriarchy, more than trans people.

There is no male or female socialization because being socialized into gender is a process of violence that trans people often chafe against strongly before even becoming aware of it (read Memoir of a Man’s Maiden Years by Karl M Baer for one example), and there are also plenty of cis people who chafe against gendered socialization as well. Everyone is raised to enact patriarchal violence, including people raised as women, who often do that violence to themselves, to women and to trans people, and even to cis men who are lower on the social hierarchy. We all live in the same gendered hierarchy, no one is exempt from it. Learning to do gender in a way that goes against the “machine” is a task for all of us that cannot be construed as the work of one gender, it has to be a collective effort.

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Hope this helps. (I know it’s not perfect nonbinary isn’t a third gender i did my best trying to represent the intersections to show that)

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There is no difference between arguing that because cis men oppress cis women, and trans women are sometimes assumed to be or misgendered as cis men, that trans women oppress cis women, and arguing that because cis women oppress trans women, and trans men are sometimes assumed to be or misgendered as cis women, that trans men oppress trans women.

When cis women want to talk about misogyny it is framed as a threat to cis men. When trans women want to talk about transmisogyny it is framed as a threat to cis women. When trans men want to talk about transandrophobia it is framed as a threat to trans and cis women. See the pattern?

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It’s really interesting how everyone seems to treat gay trans men’s existence like a highly contagious plague.. I wonder why. I guess we’ll never know /s

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Society, late stage capitalism, kyiarchy, whatever you want to call power structures that exist, creates a literal or figurative prison for each and every person, to isolate us and keep us in scarcity and competition with one another. What is the prison for trans men and transmasculine people? Our suicide rates are the highest in the LGBTQ community. What are we asked to kill about ourselves?

First we are expected to fully assimilate ourselves into cis womanhood and hide being trans men, and if we can’t do that we are expected to fully assimilate ourselves into cis manhood and hide being trans. We must bury ourselves in other people’s ideas of us, never our own. This forced burial is used to deny us agency, and creativity, at the same time. Under cis hetero patriarchy, men are acting agents who must kill off their creativity, and women are creators who must kill off their agency. To join these creation and agency is considered a fiction, and would be terrifyingly destructive if possible - too much to think of.

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Trans men are men.

Men are cis men.

Therefore trans men are cis men and don’t need rights because they already have them.