ruthtearna

[ruthtearna]

Transmasculine oppression functions in two methods

The first is by treating him as a weak and confused woman. He is given space in various communities and groups with the sole intent and purpose to manipulate him into detransition and "fix" him. This is when bigots claim to see them as poor "groomed girls" either groomed by older method 2 trans guys and mascs or transfems who are always painted as predatory.

The second is by treating him as a systemic threat to the cissexist patriarchy, which he is. But this leads to false accusations of predation, danger, and violence, which he is not and does not. No longer is he allowed in "women's groups" they can't pretend he's a woman anymore and their own attempts to force detransition failed. He is danger to other fragile "cis women" and must be destroyed at all costs. He is slated as just as much a danger as transfems at this point. Violence is the only way that he is engaged with.

This dual method of oppression is why so called "women's spaces" (social spaces not medical) that allow in trans men are dangerous. They will inevitably brutalize and cast him aside if their attempts to force detransition through social pressures fail. If he rejects the idea he is still a "female" man then he is no longer of use. To try and push young transmascs who need actual genuine friends and real support not from people who show faux concern you must encourage them to find queer spaces or those that see them as the men or mascs that they are.

This is the framework I was operating on being the case when I spoke about the insidious nature of telling trans mascs that they SHOULD be in those "women's spaces" it is directing them to be groomed and abused, then ultimately abandoned or detransitioned.

These spaces are not safe for my brothers and I'm genuinely deeply concerned at how much people overlook the way they actively play a role in radicalizing them. The reason they're kicked out and abandoned is not because of fear of men it is because trans men prove the idea that men are an inherent born in class wrong. It proves man is just as sociological as all other genders and they are scared of that.

"Transandrophobia" theory is based on believing what TERFs are trying to force transmascs into believing. If you see the posts from TERFs talking about transandrophobia you will realize they're celebrating the faulty theory as it relabels transmascs as "female" it involves them in being the ultimate oppressed group of "wombyn". This is purposeful.

[ruthtearna]

always confuses the hell out of me when someone sends an ask that's just "you follow someone problematic" with no name or any description of what they've done. bitch what do you want me to do find their pages?????

[ruthtearna]

Something i feel the need to add is how the first method often weaponizes whitness,

I apologize if I do not explain it well but I will try my best

Anti-transmasculine propaganda more often than not portrays white transmascs, pictures of white transmascs right after top surgery, and white (or atleast white passing) transmascs who have just started testosterone or have alternative forms of expression (such as a goth or emo aesthetic).

Very rarely will you see these propaganda pieces use the photos of trans men/mascs of color

This is very deliberate,

I'm sure everyone here has already heard about the ways in which white women are often seen as being inherently more delicate, pure, and innocent than women of color

People of color are never can never be the "victims of brainwashing and grooming", they must always be the perpetrators

When a transphobe takes a picture of a white, post op trans man and goes "look ehat they're doing to our girls!", while yes incredibly transphobic and misogynistic, it is also trying to appeal to the fragility which is assaigned to that trans man because of his whiteness.

There is a reason why the venn diagram between transphobes and people who fear monger about "the great replacement" or white birth rates is nearly a circle

Again, I apologize if I did not explain this well, but I hope you got what I was trying to say

Transmasculine oppression functions in two methods

The first is by treating him as a weak and confused woman. He is given space in various communities and groups with the sole intent and purpose to manipulate him into detransition and "fix" him. This is when bigots claim to see them as poor "groomed girls" either groomed by older method 2 trans guys and mascs or transfems who are always painted as predatory.

The second is by treating him as a systemic threat to the cissexist patriarchy, which he is. But this leads to false accusations of predation, danger, and violence, which he is not and does not. No longer is he allowed in "women's groups" they can't pretend he's a woman anymore and their own attempts to force detransition failed. He is danger to other fragile "cis women" and must be destroyed at all costs. He is slated as just as much a danger as transfems at this point. Violence is the only way that he is engaged with.

This dual method of oppression is why so called "women's spaces" (social spaces not medical) that allow in trans men are dangerous. They will inevitably brutalize and cast him aside if their attempts to force detransition through social pressures fail. If he rejects the idea he is still a "female" man then he is no longer of use. To try and push young transmascs who need actual genuine friends and real support not from people who show faux concern you must encourage them to find queer spaces or those that see them as the men or mascs that they are.

This is the framework I was operating on being the case when I spoke about the insidious nature of telling trans mascs that they SHOULD be in those "women's spaces" it is directing them to be groomed and abused, then ultimately abandoned or detransitioned.

These spaces are not safe for my brothers and I'm genuinely deeply concerned at how much people overlook the way they actively play a role in radicalizing them. The reason they're kicked out and abandoned is not because of fear of men it is because trans men prove the idea that men are an inherent born in class wrong. It proves man is just as sociological as all other genders and they are scared of that.

"Transandrophobia" theory is based on believing what TERFs are trying to force transmascs into believing. If you see the posts from TERFs talking about transandrophobia you will realize they're celebrating the faulty theory as it relabels transmascs as "female" it involves them in being the ultimate oppressed group of "wombyn". This is purposeful.

[ruthtearna]

[ruthtearna]

the thing about transandrophobia is that its insisting that misandry is a real axis of oppression. its not just the ways transmascs & trans men experience transphobic oppression. its trying to make it seem as though transmascs are oppressed for being trans MASCULINE & not just trans people. when transmascs & trans men still benefit from the patriarchy & being perceived as men by virtue of being men. when ppl say 'transandrophobia isnt real' theyre not saying 'transmascs never experience oppression' theyre saying that no one is oppressed in a patriarchal society for being a male. transitioning to be a man gives you male privilege. 'b-but some of us are still seen as women!' yes yr being oppressed on the basis of being seen as a woman & not benefiting from male privilege. its not transandrophobia its just transphobia. transmisogyny, on the other hand, describes the intersection between misogyny (real) & transphobia (real). transandrophobia isnt real because misandry—systemic oppression of men—isnt real. ifs not that hard to understand.

[ruthtearna]

I used to follow genderqueerdykes years ago before the whole .. "transandrophobia" thing reached its current peak as discourse on this site.

I considered myself uneducated. It isn't my place, I'd say. I was afab. I'm white. How dare I speak this way about it. Who claimed to be a mixed black trans lesbian. No more.

I once considered it somebody who knew more about gender. About orientation. About the punk scene. Somebody who could teach me, a confused traumatized college drop out, how to accept myself. I was in it's server. I admit this.

This is a front Equinox puts up to morally grandstand over those it squeezes money out of.

For context, I was removed from the server years ago after blocking a mod who was giving me shit over language in the server. I was busy and didn't want to deal with the confrontation at that moment in time. (I said I "liked" an anti racist movement and admitted to being a white Canadian who was trying to be an ally regardless. This initiated a confrontation in my DMs about my racism. Do with that what you will this isn't about me and it isn't important but I will admit to it. I can dig up my old account if necessary as my memory is foggy).

So here is my repentance for having ever considered it anything but a grifter and a fraud.

I've archived on my blog the accusations against Equinox.

Racefaking (links to SA allegations)

Sexual assault

Transmisogyny and sexism (links to SA allegations)

This post will be updated as necessary. My intention is to dedicate this post as a collection of information related to Equinox. Please note it uses "it/its" pronouns as of the writing of this post.

[ruthtearna]

I do think we need more words though for specifically how the a the core of anti-trans masculinity is also a lot of misogyny but in a different way than for trans women?

An amazing transfeminist theorist, Talia Bhatt, actually has actually come up with a term for this! transemasculation

trans -> pertaining to how it is rooted in transphobia, and targets trans men/mascs

and

emasculation/emasculate -> to deprive of strength, vigor, or spirit, often used to mean denying or taking a way a man's manhood.

The act of emasculation is rooted in misogyny, as it is meant to present a man as having lower value by likening him to a woman,

I truly wish transgender men had their own "Whipping Girl", I believe this gap in trans men not having academic literature/theory to point to when describing their experiences has caused many trans men to make various mistakes in attempting do so, such as inconsistencies, inproper terminology, and the way bad faith actors have used the oppression of trans men to spread transmisogyny

I've seen so many try to cling onto Leslie Feinberg's "Stone Butch Blues", and Leslie wasn't even a trans man (though xie was transgender)

I wish trans men had a book that was specifically made for them that would make them feel seen in their oppression, the way Whipping Girl has done for so many trans women

The reason transandrophobia/transmisandry don't work as terms is because instead of coming up with a specific term for transmasc specific oppression, it instead tries to borrow the structure of the word "transmisogyny"

The word transmisogyny was coined as a way to describe the intersection between two axes of systemic oppression, misogyny and transphobia, as transfeminized individuals are both punished for their femininity or for being women, and punished for being trans.

The words transandrophobia or transmisandry imply there to be an intersection between transphobia and systemic oppression towards men. Men are not systematically oppressed, and trans men are not punished on the basis that they are men. They are punished on the basis of being trans and attempting to diverge from "femaleness."

This is why I prefer the terms 'anti-transmasculinity' or simply 'transmasc specific oppression'.

The discrimination which transmascs face is not the intersection of two axes, it is simply a type of transphobia, unlike transmisogyny which is both a type of transphobia and a type of misogyny.

Maybe this is dumb, but I illustrated it a bit, this is grossely oversimplified for the sake of the point being made, but I believe it to be an accurate dumbed down version explaining the roots of specific forms of oppression.

A more detailed version would include the overlap with racism (transmisogynoir, anti-blackness, the euro-centric origins of the gender binary etc), homophobia, and intersexism but again, this is purposely oversimplified version.

[ruthtearna]

The Sexed Regime, or: You Probably Have the Wrong Critiques of "TME/TMA" Terminology

Let's begin by looking at an interesting dichotomy.

There's an oddly pervasive idea in queer spaces that a truly progressive trans or post-gender politic underscores the irrelevance of sex. In contrast to patriarchal society's utter fixation on "natal sex", queer existence must be transcendent, a space in which one's bodily configuration is understood to be entirely under one's purview, where presentation is simply something we inhabit and implies nothing about our sexualities or embodiments. It is an idea of emancipation rooted in agnosticism, an anti-patriarchal revolution spurred by the lack of belief in our cissexist society's deranged emphasis on knowing what's in our pants at all times.

It's a very appealing idea, I'll admit.

Here's the thing, though.

The naturalization of sex is the foundation of patriarchy, as well as the basis of the heterosexual regime it instantiates. Humanity is cleft in twain, with one sex marked for reproductive-sexual exploitation by the other. Like most other regimes, this one is also powered by belief--belief in the superiority of the 'male sex', the unfitness of the 'female sex', and most of all: absolute belief that sex is immutable, exhaustively binary, and non-overlapping.

What this also means, ultimately, is that those of us who dare to desert the sex we were conscripted into face different pressures and violence. It is obvious that many trans people are also subject to reproductive injustice, as cis women are, and consequently the transphobia they face is very acutely a regendering impulse, a patriarchal desire to drag them back to the confines of womanhood to fulfill their patriarchal purpose. There is, understandably, a certain amount of solidarity between cis women and trans people who have suffered these aspects of the heterosexual regime.

This is in fact the understanding that gives rise to even liberal-progressive uses of 'male socialization' directed at transfems. Trans women are understood to have been spared certain excesses of misogynistic violence and therefore expected to see and approach the world differently. It is simply a neutral observation, of course, no judgment behind it ... well, until it comes time to deny trans women epistemic authority over experiences of misogyny or womanhood, even their own. After all, can transfems really be said to have a full understanding of patriarchy? They weren't 'raised AFAB'!

Oftentimes, this becomes a double bind of proving that transfems did experience trauma, feminization, and abuse even pretransition, often as children, which is then usually dismissed as "trauma dumping" or "equating womanhood to being abused"--despite the minimization of our experiences being predicated on our "lesser" understanding of the trauma of being "misogyny-affected". So let's not retread that.

Instead, I'll point out that people assume a symmetry, a complementarian equivalence, almost, between the experiences of trans people. What I would like to stress is that there is no such thing as a coherent "AMAB" class or a shared "AMAB solidarity" based on shared experiences of oppression, because I have some shocking news that readers may wish to sit down for:

Trans women are oppressed by cis men.

Cis men are overwhelmingly the ones who rape us, beat us, kill us, and seek to abuse us. When we were children, we were bullied and violated for our perceived effeminacy, largely by the cis boys we were most proximate to. Most of us have been around cis men when they've voiced their most dehumanizing, misogynistic thoughts about women, and have been punished for not participating in these rituals of misogynistic rhetoric, too. The trauma of our upbringing involves being locked into spaces with those who sniffed out our differences, our non-conformance, and routinely punished us for being deviant. When we grow up, they are the ones who largely continue to prey on us.

The chief characteristic of transmisogyny is the presumed artificiality of trans womanhood, the idea that we are mimetics, and our womanhood is a farce, a costume whose only purpose is sexual. This dovetails with our disposability--our inability to be women who can bear children, further patrilineality, and secure what minuscule respectability is afforded to the domestically-confined women who continue the male line. As such, our hyperfetishization marks us for extreme violence, as sexual objects that can be freely used and discarded, guilt-free, because after all ... We asked for it.

Why would we "choose" womanhood if we did not want this?

Which, ultimately, brings me to my point: Sex is a social regime of difference imposed on us, but it is, unfortunately, a regime still in existence. My sex is the basis upon which my womanhood is denied and my disposability justified, because the transfeminized are degendered--we are not, as a rule, provided a path "back" to manhood. Our "effeminacy" ensures that we are 'failed' men, because gender is ultimately hierarchal. Losing status, being unmanned, is frankly trivial, and is what underlies the oppression of queer men--trans men included. Most of us are ultimately subject to some kind of degendering, largely due to how a patriarchal society regards those who defy the reproductive mandate, but transmisogyny is a specific manifestation of degendering that trans women experience.

"TME/TMA" may well be an imperfect categorization--all undertakings in boundary formation are imprecise, though not always violent, given that we need descriptive terms to communicate--but the real issue with it is that it's an overly-ponderous and ultimately clunky terminology for the frank reality that the binary sex imposed on us shapes the contours of the violence we experience. I have never experienced the specific kind of misogyny that sees me as nothing but a broodmare, because I'm a filthy troon, that dehumanized abject thing whose only purpose is absorbing (sexual) violence. Yet the acknowledgment that transfems experience forms of violence that others do not--or sometimes, even the acknowledgment that transfems face violent misogyny at all--is much less forthcoming.

Our struggles are indelibly connected, of course, stemming from the same source and promulgated by the same regime that seeks to define us as nothing more than male property. The shape of each is distinct, however, and because people frequently misunderstand the shape of mine, the idea that my struggles are even connected to theirs, that I experience misogynistic violence homoousian with that which they experience, is frequently dismissed, or considered outright offensive.

This is why I talk and write about transmisogyny, and why more people need to become more familiar with how the naturalization of sex and the regime of heterosexuality under patriarchy necessitates our common struggle.

And unfortunately, in order to properly express these ideas, we do need to talk about the regime of sex.

[ruthtearna]

On the limitations of 'AFAB' and its attendant epistemic anxieties

Like, let's actually talk about the shortcomings of these linguistic tools, and how we--all of us--have been failed by those at the supposed bleeding edge of gender theory.

[ruthtearna]

“guy who finds ‘all men are trash’ jokes to be distasteful sweeping generalizations of men but is fine saying all people who were amab hold gendered power due to being born with a penis (magical and corruptive artifact) and are more likely to be rapist misogynists” and other magical examples of tumblrites dropping their so called principles all over the floor in order to be more efficient transmisogynists

[ruthtearna]

The thing about "Not all men" is that the men it applies to don't need to hear it. Like any actual principled male feminist doesn't need to be coddled and reassured that he isn't a "bad person" just because he's part of a privileged oppressor class in relation to women. You aren't much of a "progressive", even in the loosest uses of that term, if systemic critiques cause you personal offense

[ruthtearna]

I can't figure out how reproductive oppression works for intersex trans women who can get pregnant. How does this intersect with transmisogyny? I haven't seen anyone talk about it yet

Sorry for taking so long to answer this, anon, It took me a lot of time to come up with a post about this that I was satisfied with, due to how rare the specific circumstances presented are, however something being rare does not mean that it is not real, so I tried my best to answer the question.

Trigger warnings for mentions of sexual abuse, violence, medical discrimination and the such.

This would be intersex transfeminine people who were coercively assigned "female" at birth (CAH, XY chromosomes, and various forms of hyperandrogenism, etc.) but were then coercively assigned "male" through the way they were raised/gender of rearing. These people generally do have a lot of privileges over transfems who were assigned male both at birth and through gender of rearing, but they’re still transfeminine and very much affected by transmisogyny.

I can base my answer on what I’ve heard from other intersex trans people.

note; I will be using intersex transfem and intersex trans woman as reffering to this group of people. However, most intersex trans women were (c)amab, and they are also affected by reproductive oppression. I am simply referring to those who were (c)afab for the sake of this post. Additionally, I would also like to state I do not support the label of "afab transfem".

For one, if this intersex person is visibly transfem, she probably went through "male" puberty (or something similar). That means if she’s clockable as intersex/trans and is visibly pregnant, she could face serious violence. Pregnancy, in general, increases the risk of violence, and trans women already face a lot of violence.

One accusation people might throw at her is that she’s a "fetishist", westher that be the claim tat she got pregnant because it makes her aroused, or some people may assume she is faking pregnancy out of a fetish. I’ve seen this happen to trans women just for expressing that they wish they could get pregnant. That accusation alone can lead to physical, emotional, or sexual violence.

Like I said, something she might deal with is people accusing her of faking her pregnancy. People would use it to push the "fetishist" narrative further or weaponize it against her. Or it could be used by doctors.

If she was early in the pregnancy and tried to bring up her symptoms to doctors, they might just dismiss her as a "delusional tranny" (even if they don’t say it outright). A lot of doctors assume all intersex people are infertile, and they don’t see intersex women as women unless they were surgically mutilated at birth to fit "normal female" standards. If she made it through childhood with her intersex traits and went through puberty, she’s going to be seen as a disgusting transvestite trying to change her "God-given body" (even though those same people will still treat her like shit for how her body looks), even if she was (C)AFAB.

Doctors might also just straight-up refuse her any treatment she might need based on these things, which could endanger her life.

Intersex people are also frequently sterilized through "corrective" (and often eugenist) procedures, which could cause major distress or dysphoria in an intersex trans woman. In other cases, she might have been born sterile due to her variation. Either way, she would face the same discrimination other trans women do for being infertile. People could use her infertility to paint her as "disposable" or "not a real woman." And, like with most trans women, it could also be used as an excuse to sexually abuse her, since she can’t get pregnant, a rapist wouldn’t have to worry about that consequence. (As I mentioned in my other post)

There’s more I could say, but are the first things that came to mind. This was a really interesting question. Thank you, anon!

[ruthtearna]

hear them out

[ID: Three-panel Pills That Make You Green comic.

Panel 1: A tall purple person and the green person are sitting on stools by a table. In the background is some kind of bar desk with a plain person, a crimson person with a triangular torso and a sky-blue person with cat ears standing around it.

Purple: "Yeah so I don't really identify as transchromatic OR cischromatic actually"

Green: "Oh! uh-"

Panel 2: Zoom in on a perspective shot of purple on the left and green on the right. Green has a box above their head saying:

"Dialogue choices: -Semantic argument -Deny their lived experience >Hear them out" with "head them out" being selected.

Panel 3: Zoom back out to the same scene as the first panel. In the background another green person with a slight gradient on them has met up with the sky blue person.

Purple: "Yeah so when I was a kid they put me on pills that make you green, 'cause they'd diagnosed me with Unwanted Purple Syndrome. Thing is I actually did want to be purple once I thought about it, so I had to take purple pills."

Green: "Oh I get it now"

Purple: "So I think binary categorisation is a bit reductive about how I got to where I am now"

End ID]

Start - Previous - Next

[ruthtearna]

the wrong type of support

[ID: two-panel comic of a conversation between two green stick figures on a white background.

Stick 1 says, "hey I agree with you that infighting is bad."

Stick 2 replies, "cool so you'll hear people out in good faith when they bring up how they're marginalised?"

Stick 1 says, "no I just think they should shut up about it."

Next panel is a close up of Stick 2's face as they say, "never fucking pretend to agree with me ever again I do not want your support."

End ID]

Start - Previous - Next

[ruthtearna]

I posted this, and someone for real tried to claim that it could not be intersectional because it used the lens or radical feminism (as in, the second wave of feminism, as TERFs are not femninists)

A book written by a transgender south asian woman, which goes into her experiences as a transgender south asian woman, a book about TRANSMISOGYNY (the literal *intersection* between misogyny and transphobia).

That is what they were saying "lacked intersectionality."

Where you people not thought the rlly basic moral of "don't judge a book my it's cover?"

To be a radical feminist is just to believe that women’s liberation can’t be achieved without a radical restructuring of society, which is fundamentally built on patriarchal attitudes and institutions.

It does not inherently exclude any type of woman, that is what terfs want you to think.

from "Trans/Rad/Fem" by Talia Bhatt

[ruthtearna]

just. dont ever talk about any experience of sexist oppression having anything to do with a person's assigned sex at birth. i promise you that whatever you're going through """""""as an afab""""""""""""" is something that trans women routinely experience as well, and that for them it's worsened by transmisogyny. YES this includes reproductive health access dont even fucking start with me. have you ever even heard of a women's health clinic providing trans women with reproductive banking, or any options that would make it possible for them to become mothers at all? no? okay. every single sexist experience under the sun is one that impacts trans women except in their case they are completely erased from mainstream feminist conversations about the issue at all. none of this is afab specific and you dont just sound like a terf when you say that it is, you in actual fact are promoting transmisogyny. instead of issuing such exclusionary blanket statements you can just have some amount of humility and curiosity on the matter and listen to trans women

[ruthtearna]

"trans people deserve love respect and dignity" - sweet nothing, pablum, easy to co-opt into nonperformative statements, it's giving Labour Party

"Public Official X's specific decision to Y is completely unevidenced and is harming trans people. Public Official X should resign or face consequences." - unco-optable, focused on justice, deliciously angry