#“but someone who is a cis man and is actually a trans one has ACTUAL benefits"

[rokosourobouros]

This sounds like a mix of things, some of them from TERF ideology and some of them distorted versions of bits of theory that were always intended as critical - not that I necessarily think you're the one who distorted them! No idea where you heard some of this. As someone who's been out for a long time and - critically - only medically transitioning for about a third of it, I'll break it down.

-Writers that spoke to very few transmascs: A lot of transmasc theory originally comes from both transmascs and people who love us! At least, the good stuff. Leslie Feinberg did more than just Stone Butch Blues; and more recently both Jude Doyle and Ky Schevers have been doing fantastic work. Julia Serano also does discuss transmasc identity, and Susan Stryker's work afaik talks about us too. As mentioned, a lot of the toxic stuff is actually TERF ideology sneaking in and getting conflated with trans studies. In your everyday life note when someone actually saying this stuff is cis and just scapegoating trans girls; it's annoyingly common.

-"Transmasculine transition is respected" -This sounds like, at some point, this was corrupted from the original theoretical point, which is that we're just less targeted and seen as less perverse. We certainly aren't respected for it, but there's an element of condescending understanding; "well of course you'd want to be a man, who would want to be a Silly Girl?" It's natural (in the eyes of a misogynist) that a "woman" would want to improve her station but horrifically perverse for a "man" to deliberately seek to lower it - this is where the contrast between transmasc and transfem comes in, but it's a deeply transphobic misreading all around to call it respect. From TERFs and radfems this is particularly prominent - James Barry is constantly being "reclaimed" as a woman who wanted Better Opportunities instead of the trans man he clearly was.

In regards to the sexual objectification, this one is *deeply* reliant on a million other factors. Certainly the moment I started passing, my relationship with sexual harassment changed. I'm not white, but I'm white-passing and so in daily life, I don't get lewd comments on my body anymore, I don't get grabbed or groped... It's absolutely a decrease, simply because I pass as a man. I wouldn't even be totally sure, except that I also do drag. And when I go out in drag, it pops right back up again (if not worse, because I'm clocked as A Drag Queen due to stubble, etc.) But thats just street harassment. Online and in interpersonal situations, it's just changed its nature, especially when I am being treated as a person of color. And not all trans guys pass - it's a very specific set of circumstances that has to happen.

Finally, "respected more for being men and protected for being AFAB" needs a lot of context. Respected and protected by who? Whose theory is this and who is doing the protecting? Because this is true in part - from other transmascs. We have a tendency to close ranks especially against trans girls. But this context is important because it also matters who is saying this and why. If this is coming from trans girls, it's a commentary specifically on how we're considered less threatening (conditionally, often relying on us Not Transitioning) by cis people; the consequences we face are very different and more survivable. But if this is coming from a cis person, particularly a cis woman, it is TERF rhetoric because it's referencing the bullshit idea that we ever have privilege over *cis* women. We can debate all day about the lateral issues we have with trans girls but it should be abjectly clear that any cis woman framing us as an oppressor is doing so for her own purposes.

The main reason I'm breaking these down, though, is to try show you that this isn't even a framework. These are scattered, distorted views with no context about who is saying them or why; no positionality, no additional factors given on passing, hormone access, race, class, etc. Of course this isn't a useful framework, but it's important to recognize that it isn't one at all and anybody who tries to push "disconnected and unsourced claims" as an actual theory isn't your friend and can be ignored. You don't have to have a reactionary response to it.

The drastic separation between social positions of transfems and transmascs is a theoretical invention of writers who spoke to very few transmascs and tried to fill the gap by assumptions that stem from the "opposite gender" crap.

"Transmasculine transition is respected in the society because cis people see becoming a man as stepping up" is one of the most hilarious and sad examples of that, but there's also "coming out as a trans man leads to less sexual objectification" and "trans men are simultaneously respected more because they're men and protected more because they're afab".

None of it is real. This is just a calculated inverse of what transfems go through. We should abandon this framework for the sake of something that's actually rooted in reality.

[drdemonprince]

Thanks so much for your input re the man/trans man issue. I knew it was fucked but it’s good to read others perspectives on it. One of the things that my gf said that set the “elders” off in the first place and turned them against her was that she identifies as straight. And apparently she has to identify as queer because I’m trans. Otherwise it’s offensive to Me. Like I can’t decide that. She’s a girl who is attracted to men. She’s never seen herself as queer, even though her last bf was cis male, before that was another trans man. Obviously we exist as part of a queer community, and she’s an active part of that and considers herself an ally. But she’s stanch on the fact that I’m a man and she’s straight. She comes from a family who were really open and didn’t care about identity as much. One of these people said she was trans misandrist. Negated my identity etc. She honestly gives no fucks which is part of why I love her so much but also why she gets so much grief. It’s more misogyny towards her than any kind of prejudice she holds against anyone else imo

EWWWW it iis so fucking gross and transphobic for people to say that a woman who dates men (some of whom are trans) cannot be straight!! fucking maddening. if someone said that men who date me can't really be gay id kill murder them forever. your GF is imo doing exactly what people who actually believe and support trans people whole-heartedly should be doing -- treating us and viewing us fully as the genders we are -- and everyone else is being a fuckin creep. yeesh

[lilietsblog]

a few notes on 'transmisogyny exempt'

part I

while there are many elements that go into transmisogyny, i believe it to be a shared understanding that the part that generally, usually, normatively elicits the violent, murderous rage that results in so many deaths is the idea of "a man pretending to be a woman in order to trick other men into sleeping with him"

there's a lot to unpack there, but the thing I want to highlight here is that this is not an accurate description of trans women. it both misgenders them /and/ ascribes decidedly untrue motives. it is generally /associated with/ trans women and used to /refer to/ them but it does not 'mean' trans women because it is fully untrue about them

like i would actually be surprised to learn that literally never in the entire history of humanity has there been a single trans woman who thought it would be funny to trick a man into sleeping with her only to surprise reveal her genitals. however, even this hypothetical daredevil prankster would still, by definition, be a woman, making the idea still untrue as applied to her

i would also be surprised to learn that literally never in the entire history in humanity has there been a man who thought it would be funny to dress up like a woman and trick another man into sleeping with him only to surprise reveal his genitals. this hypothetical daredevil prankster is meanwhile, by definiton, not a trans woman

so the iconic feature of transmisogyny, the most physical threat to trans women's lives, is based on a misconception and misgendering in the first place

this is also characteristic of other aspects of transmisogyny. they are not based on an accurate undersatnding of the world. see all the denial of science going on, among other fun facts

when transmisogynist decides to transmisogynistically attack someone, they do not first ask for their birth certificate or their pronouns

literally any gender non-conforming person, and also any person who does not conform to the corresponding culture's gendered appearance standards, is a possible target for transmisogynist violence

you can call it "misdirected" but that doesn't make any sense, because see above: the original idea does not refer to trans women in the first place, it 'intends' to target men who pretend to be women in order to trick other men into sleeping with them. trans women are simply the most common target for the associated violence to be misdirected towards

it usually targets trans women, yes. however, trans men, nonbinary people, intersex people of all genders, cis men and cis women are all not exempt since it's based on ascribing someone a spurious motive and making bigoted assumptions about their gender in the first place

part II

at one point in feminist history, 'men pretending to be women in order to trick men into sleeping with them' got a buddy

it was called 'men pretending to be women in order to trick other women into sleeping with them'

and also another more general friend called 'men pretending to be women in order to infiltrate women's spaces with nefarious intent'

that be the terfs, we all know of them

(terfs reading this, please think long and hard about why you think what you think. please take this chance to look up some science, crime statistics, etc)

and while there was some theoretical opposition to be had in 'actually men are not inherently violent, are our natural allies in the fight against sexism and patriarchy rather than enemies, and there are predatory and rapist women as well'

most opposition to the idea was 'actually trans women are women though'. people rallied against misgendering, invited trans women in as their sisters, and so on. it was very nice

you know who is not women though? trans men

'men in women's spaces tricking lesbians into sleeping with them'. 'men trying to access resources meant for women'. 'men are inherently misogynistic and hostile and hold oppressive views'

men pretending to be women with nefarious intent, where have we heard this before

concepts to look up for supplementary reading

gender essentialism

sexism

queer liberation

you can go from there, i believe in you

extra special supplementary reading by me

some notes on patriarchy

[velvetvexations]

It's been awhile since I elaborated on my gender feelings, and I've had a lot of further thoughts, so here's a post about that. It's kinna unfocused. I don't really have many segues between points, I'm just throwing stuff out there. Maybe I'll edit it into something more readable later.

I identify with both the words "male" and "woman" because I feel them both about equally, intertwined, and sex and gender are equally arbitrarily. Most trans women are female, and like, that's great for them, but I'm not. I'm a male and I'm happy to be a male. While the word "man" is completely alien to me and I have having it applied to me, I do feel a strong kinship with other queer males, particuarly trans men and gay cis men.

One could theoretically call me bisexual, but I don't really vibe with being bi. When I'm with someone who also identifies as male, I'm a gay male, and when I'm with someone who identifies as female, I'm a straight male. I feel very strongly about that, not because I have anything against bi people, who are all very lovely, but being a gay male and a straight male at once is very key to how I experience gender.

I actually feel very seen when TERFs talk about trans women being parodies of femininity, and feeling insulted by the appropriation of womanhood as a costume. Other trans women aren't anything like that, but actually, my womanhood is very much satirical, and people who are offended by that should be offended by me. I am mocking women and femininity when I put on a skirt and call myself a woman, at least to ones who find that insulting in the first place.

If you're a cis woman who isn't offended by the idea of someone AMAB wearing a skirt, there's nothing offensive about me, but for someone for whom that constitutes an insult, yes, good, that's what I'm going for! Be insulted! I am parodying you. Especially when I dress up in hyper-pink frilly sissy outfits. "Bleh, look at me, this is what a woman is lol!"

You'd think people who consider themselves gender abolitionists would be more onboard with the idea of parodying gender. But a lot of TRFs are also offended by me in the opposite direction, though they disguise it as parternalistic worry over my "self-hate."

I would probably be the most normie woman ever if I had been allowed to transition when I was younger, but I wasn't, and now I'm the pornsick male crossdresser some other women, both cis and trans, feel extistentially threatened by. And TRFs take that as me indulging in self-hate, when it's entirely love for who I am. I like being a pornsick male crossdresser and calling my womanhood fake and artificial. I'm a fake and artificial person.

You'd think people who talk about themselves as robot girls all the time would be on board with this, but they use robots as a tortured metaphor for their victimhood, whereas it's much more empowering for me, and tbh goes a lot harder.

The thing is, yes, I'm a pornsick male crossdresser who performs womanhood much the same way a clown performs at a circus, but there's nothing underneath that! A statue of a woman is a fake woman but that doesn't make the statue a man. I simply am the idea of artificial womanhood, stripped of what makes that cute and gender validating for people really into that doll kink universe. I'm built with the wrong parts, big and hairy, with a deep voice, and when people see me they see a fake woman, and that makes me kick my legs in the air because that's what I am. Still not a man. Just a fake woman.

That doesn't mean everyone with those traits is a fake woman. Gender is inherently fake and not real and has no rules. The same person could be a he/him or a she/her or a xi/xir and you would never know because it's just an internal thing. Only you can decide if you're a man or a woman or whatever, or if you're male or female or both or neither.

And my gender, in many ways, is the embodiment of the transmisogynistic caricature. If you're cool about very butch trans women my existence shouldn't be insulting to you and you just move on, but some trans women are really bothered by that, and like with cis women, it's like, okay lol, good. Be insulted. I am parodying all womanhood, you're included in that, you're welcome. I am a nexus of misogyny for people who want so badly to see misogyny in another person dressing and performing gender the wrong way. I am a living monument of spite towards anyone who wants to control the self-expression of others based on their own insecurities. And in the course of my being a gay clown who calls myself a woman, I will make gender into a balloon animal, and everyone else - the ones who accept and encourage freedom of self-expression in others, who know that nothing I do for myself has to have implications for them - will be delighted.

[whatdoinose]

really cowardly to restrict replies on your posts. but the male privilege that trans men experience (and we do! i would know, i'm a passing trans man!) isn't "cancelled out" by the transphobia we're oppressed by. both things can be true, that trans men are oppressed by transphobia and that trans men can benefit from male privilege. also, it should be obvious that a closeted trans person is only superficially "benefiting" from being closeted. closeted gay people are still hurt by homophobia, regardless of if someone knows they're gay.

LOL, yes i am such a coward random person hiding on anon. also none of my replies are off, check who youre seeing the reblog from. click on my post and reply to it, their settings may be overriding mine. yea.

anyways no trans person will benifit from a cis societal structure. they can find ways to "benifit" as good as you can just forget the whole thing and repress yourself forever. benifit from being "cis" there yea? anyways thats not how oppression nor intersectionality works. maybe try and understand some of the fundamental concepts before making stupid comments like this.

also why is a closeted trans person "superficially" benifiting but the random hypothetical trans man you enforce that every trans man is just "regularly" benifiting? absolutely absurd. no trans person benefits from these ideals. at best you can be hidden away and thus 'benifit' from any systematic structures thinking you are trans, but that doesn't mean the social oppression and ideals don't still affect you. this line of logic is absurd at best.

[ratbastarddotfuck]

A lot of folks in the trans community are terrified of being infantilised - for completely understandable reasons - I believe, however, this sometimes manifests in a nasty cringe response to anyone who self identifies with language which is seen as infantilising. You see this with the term "enby" as well.

I don't think many people have actually thought too hard about why they have this kind of cringe response to these words. But the truth is that nonbinary language was developed, by and large, by young people, on the fly. So some of it maybe does sound kinda silly, because it was often made by literal teenagers to use for their own purposes ("joyfriend").

I really don't think this is an issue. It is fine to have fun words for young queer people. And it is perfectly fine if adults use these words for themselves, also. So many trans people were denied their youth, I couldn't give two shits if that 45 year old is calling themselves an enby and covering their jackets in bright ass pronoun pins. The issue is that there are not analogous words to use for adults who do want more mature sounding language.

"Enby" has always been posited as analogous to "boy" or "girl", and I've always used it that way. However, I've seen very few proposed terms for an adult nonbinary person - enben is one I've seen, but it's not really caught on, likely due to its linguistic proximity to enby (note how "boy" and "man" & "girl" and "woman" are completely different words with completely different linguistic roots).

People mock nonbinary family terms, because yeah - when thousands of people are feeling around in the dark to create an entire new category of de-gendered and re-gendered language, sometimes it sounds silly. Yeah, yeah, I'd rather you call me a slur, whatever. But you know who loves the term "nibling" ("niece, nephew, nibling")? My old-ass aunty who didn't know what else to call me when I came out as non-binary. She is grateful to have a word she can use without misgendering me. She uses it when she talks about me on her Facebook and she explains it to all her friends. She writes it in birthday cards where she would have formerly written "niece". Allies love this shit, and real allies help to normalise our existence in day-to-day life. They don't waste time mocking or questioning the words we have. They just get on with it.

Boygirls are often not taken seriously and actively infantalised because of the way they identify their gender. This is why I made the switch - I want to be taken seriously. And it seems to have worked somewhat, I've not had anyone call attention to it in an attempt to discredit my opinion yet, as they used to with "boygirl".

However, whatever your personal hangups on language, there is no excuse to infantilise someone or discard their opinion based on their identity.

This type of infantilistic exorsexism is frustrating due to how frequently the people parroting it make out that the majority of people identifying as "boygirls" are trans people who were AFAB and still "have the presentation of a waifish cis woman" (quoted from a post I saw today, to which I'd like to ask: what does a cis woman look like? and why is this type of trans person a problem?) who utilise their "weird" gender identities in order to obfuscate real problems and shut down discussions because they're too stupid to realise they don't experience real transphobia. And it's frustrating especially due to how close this particular rhetoric comes to mimicking the TERF supposition that many trans folks who were AFAB are autistic, stupid, and infantile, and just using their gender to escape misogyny.

Idk. Sometimes I think about how we need to develop more useful, mature language for non-binary trans folks to use in order for people to actually take our conversations seriously. And sometimes I think it just could not be more clear that some trans people still hate it when other people do gender in a way they don't personally like.

I do love it when assholes go on about the boygirl fagdykes being A Type Of Cringey And Annoying Trans Person [and we're definitely not calling them trenders, we totally see them as real trans people and believe in their individual connections to their identities as more than a fad, we swear, their identity won't be one of the first things we attack if they disagree with us] as though Every trans person hasn't been the Cringey And Annoying Trans Person at some point.

I used to identify as boygirl. Then I matured a little, and now I identify as a Transgender Manwoman. Partly because of that broader conceptualisation of "boygirl" as a fad gender, and partly because - well, I'm not a boy, I'm a man. I'm not a girl, I'm a grown ass woman.

Still a fagdyke though <3 Multigender faggotry and dykery forever.

[captain-lovelace]

.

[catboybiologist]

“As a biologist, the terms biological woman and man don’t make any sense to me” okay then you’re an idiot and a terrible biologist. I swear to god, morons like you only become biologists just so you can hold it over others, when in reality, if biology deniers like you can become biologists, then being one really doesn’t mean much anyway. But this probably just gave an autogynophile like you a boner to read, anyway.

Oh fun! Haven't gotten one of these in a while. Disregarding the fact that you somehow think the qualification for being a biologist entirely hinges on defining womanhood, I do need to ask some clarification. I know I'm feeding the trolls here, but here we go: does your definition of "biological woman" mean:

Sociological woman? Eh, context dependent, I'm not fully out of the closet, but oftentimes, I am and present femme. So let's call that one 50/50.

Psychological woman? Because I am one.

Neurological woman? Because I am one [1].

Physical woman? My soft tissue redistribution is handling that well.

Hormonal woman? My blood tests are within cis female ranges.

Transcriptional woman? As a signalling molecule, the downstream effects of estrogen have broad transcriptional effects, completely changing the profile of gene expression and functional genomics of my cells. [2]

Genetic woman? I mean, see my above point- as far as my genes that are actually active, I have all of the same transcripts being produced, controlling which genes are expressed.

Karyotypic woman? I actually have a few signs pre-HRT that might point to a non-XY chromosome pair, but I haven't had a karyotype. We'll put that down as unknown. And hell, even if its XY, there's plenty of cis women who are karyotypically XY, with suppressed sry or complete androgen insensitivity. Interestingly enough, a completely androgen insesitive woman can go her whole life without knowing- and functionally, is very similar to a trans woman, actually. Fancy that. [3]

Reproductive woman? I can't produce an egg cell, but neither can significant fractions of cis women. Also, this is all gonna change soon, which is fun. [4]

There's also a lot of understudied aspects to the biology of HRT and even pre-HRT that are emerging, largely demonstrating widespread cellular and genetic remodeling of trans individuals undergoing hormone therapy. The field is a bit behind due to constant political pressure to revoke funding, but a lot of the results are extremely exciting in both testosterone and estrogen hormone therapies. I'm sure that, as a self professed biology As someone who presumably has a lot of expertise in biology, I'm assuming that you're aware of all of this cutting edge research, and are keeping up with modern papers, including but not limited to these cool findings:

Trans men on HRT exhibit significant genetic and transcriptional changes that make them biochemically male. [5][6]. It's a good hypothesis that the same happens with estrogen treatment, but those studies don't exist yet- I'm sure you're reserving judgment until more publications exist, of course.

Trans men on HRT develop male cell types and tissues. [7]

Trans women experience muscular and blood cell changes that align with cis women moreso than cis men [8]

And many, many more! This is an exciting, underserved, and groundbreaking field of research, and I'm sure you're keeping up with the latest in scientific journals about it.

I'm sure, of course, that you understand that it becomes impossible to draw a distinct line anywhere in here, and that words like "woman" are shorthand for the myriad of traits that invisibly synthesize in our mind and in society to represent a concept? I'm sure you understand that science is fundamentally descriptive, not prescriptive? I'm sure that you understand that these findings, while really cool and interesting, actually don't mean jack shit about what the word "woman" means or not?

As someone who is the ultimate decider in what a biologist is, I'm sure you know that bioessentiallism is a childish mindset that completely ignores and disregards the constantly changing, dynamic nature of biological systems, something that extends well beyond biological sex and its relation to gender.

I'm sure that also, that you understand that beyond just this, that the role of science in society is to advise how to achieve our moral principles, not create moral principles in themselves. And I'm sure that understanding means you know that trans affirming healthcare and supportive societal treatment leads to reduced mortality and increased happiness for everyone, right?

So great to talk to someone who is surely a scientist on this. You are a biologist, if you're talking like this, I assume? I assume you're not going to spit complete misreadings of scientific language from the background sections of these papers that only reveal you've never read a scientific paper in your life if you're thinking this way? I assume you have experience interpreting data like this?

Also, imagining my genitalia while writing this? Ew. Please stop projecting your fetishes into my inbox.

Works cited:

Kurth F, Gaser C, Sánchez FJ, Luders E. Brain Sex in Transgender Women Is Shifted towards Gender Identity. J Clin Med. 2022 Mar 13;11(6):1582. doi: 10.3390/jcm11061582. PMID: 35329908; PMCID: PMC8955456.

Fuentes N, Silveyra P. Estrogen receptor signaling mechanisms. Adv Protein Chem Struct Biol. 2019;116:135-170. doi: 10.1016/bs.apcsb.2019.01.001. Epub 2019 Feb 4. PMID: 31036290; PMCID: PMC6533072.

Gottlieb B, Trifiro MA. Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. 1999 Mar 24 [Updated 2017 May 11]. In: Adam MP, Feldman J, Mirzaa GM, et al., editors. GeneReviews® [Internet]. Seattle (WA): University of Washington, Seattle; 1993-2024. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1429/

Murakami, K., Hamazaki, N., Hamada, N. et al. Generation of functional oocytes from male mice in vitro. Nature 615, 900–906 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05834-x

Pallotti F, Senofonte G, Konstantinidou F, Di Chiano S, Faja F, Rizzo F, Cargnelutti F, Krausz C, Paoli D, Lenzi A, Stuppia L, Gatta V, Lombardo F. Epigenetic Effects of Gender-Affirming Hormone Treatment: A Pilot Study of the ESR2 Promoter's Methylation in AFAB People. Biomedicines. 2022 Feb 16;10(2):459. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines10020459. PMID: 35203670; PMCID: PMC8962414.

Florian Raths, Mehran Karimzadeh, Nathan Ing, Andrew Martinez, Yoona Yang, Ying Qu, Tian-Yu Lee, Brianna Mulligan, Suzanne Devkota, Wayne T. Tilley, Theresa E. Hickey, Bo Wang, Armando E. Giuliano, Shikha Bose, Hani Goodarzi, Edward C. Ray, Xiaojiang Cui, Simon R.V. Knott, The molecular consequences of androgen activity in the human breast, Cell Genomics, Volume 3, Issue 3, 2023, 100272, ISSN 2666-979X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100272. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666979X23000320)

Xu R, Diamond DA, Borer JG, Estrada C, Yu R, Anderson WJ, Vargas SO. Prostatic metaplasia of the vagina in transmasculine individuals. World J Urol. 2022 Mar;40(3):849-855. doi: 10.1007/s00345-021-03907-y. Epub 2022 Jan 16. PMID: 35034167.

Harper J, O'Donnell E, Sorouri Khorashad B, McDermott H, Witcomb GL. How does hormone transition in transgender women change body composition, muscle strength and haemoglobin? Systematic review with a focus on the implications for sport participation. Br J Sports Med. 2021 Aug;55(15):865-872. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2020-103106. Epub 2021 Mar 1. PMID: 33648944; PMCID: PMC8311086.

[doberbutts]

I also think that when I see people demanding a *unique* oppression, that they are asking for something impossible and also are very much misunderstanding intersectionality in the first place.

I don't believe any oppression is truly unique. I do think there are faces of oppression that change with the demographic, but more likely than not you as Oppressed Group X have way more in common with Oppressed Group Y than you might think.

But also, Crenshaw's original paper on intersectionality discussed a specific context: black women being skipped over for hire where black men and white women were both getting hired, making that specific context unique to the intersection of black womanhood.

People get skipped over for jobs they are more than qualified for all the time. Even within the paper itself, there is discussion about this happening to black men and white women at other companies, just that this specific company was excluding specifically black women from its pool of candidates due to their specific bias against black women.

Experiencing workplace discrimination and hiring discrimination is not at all unique to black women. The *context* was. It was not "just racism" because black men were being hired, and it was not "just misogyny" because white women were getting hired. It was the intersection of both that resulted in black women being excluded.

When a trans man states that he is being removed from, say, a reproductive rights conversation and it's happening specifically because he is a trans man, what's meant shouldn't be that no one else struggles with reproductive rights. It means that it's not happening to the cis women who are actively leading the conversation, nor is it happening to the cis men who are pitching in. It is, however, happening to anyone with a uterus who is deemed as too "gender devient" to count: trans men, trans women, intersex people, and nonbinary people. Albeit, for different reasons, and the face of which changes depending on the demographic of the person receiving it.

But the conversation around reproductive rights is also one that must include disability, must include race, must include sexuality, must include class, must include age, because these things also have a direct effect on discrimination within the medical field and whether someone truly has access to the autonomy needed to make reproductive choices of their own without others choosing for them.

Similar to how we can understand the context provided in Crenshaw's coining of intersectionality to examine how black women specifically were experiencing something that neither black men nor white women were victim to within that specific example, so too must we understand that these are contextual and circumstantial conversations that will not always be truly unique.

After all, black men and white women do both get rejected for jobs on account of race and gender. Cis women and other marginalized genders frequently must battle for their right to make their own reproductive choices.

But when someone says "this happened to me due to the combination of my race and my gender", we must understand that likely the combination, the intersection, created a unique scenario that cannot be understood by only examining a single piece of that person's identity. So, too, must we understand the same when someone says "this happened due to the combination of my transness and my gender".

So when I see a challenge to name something unique from someone also flinging around the "learn intersectionality" phrase at those who are trying to describe the things that happened to them that hurt them, all I can think is that clearly that person does not understand interaectionality. Nor have they ever actually read the words of the woman who coined it. She's still alive. Her TED talks are on YouTube. Many of her essays are online for free.

Finally, I must remind these people that Crenshaw is not the woman who coined misogynoir, and while both Crenshaw's and Bailey's theories do work in conversation with each other, being discussed by different people does mean there is not a 1-to-1 basis to compare them to. There will be disagreements and inconsistencies between the two because they are two different people.

[bingsoo-jung]

I said this in the comments of someone else’s post, but I’m going to say this here. Taash identifying as non-binary is good actually, and in fact better than the dev’s making up some new term for them. Let’s get into it.

So for a bit of background, I’m non-binary and Thai. If you don’t know, Thai has specific terms for different gender-sexual identities, they’re quite old, they date back a few hundred years. However, the thing about culturally specific terms is just that, they’re culturally specific. The reason you use them is because you are tied to the culture in such a way that you gender-sexual identity cannot be disassociated from it. Because, to be clear, these terms are never just about your gender or sexual identity. They encompass a role you play within society itself.

For instance, in Thai culture we have tom/tomboys. These are AFAB folks who occupy a masculine societal role and date women. If you’re AMAB you cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc and feminine? You cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc and not attracted to women? You cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc and mostly date men? You cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc but don’t particularly feel like taking care of the girl you date, taking her out, being the ‘man’ in the relationship? You can’t really be tom.

Because the thing about culturally specific genders is that they come with a lot of rules. Being tom isn’t being non-binary. There are cis women who are tom, and there are non-binary people who are toms. You do not get eschew gender roles in these cases. You are quite literally taking one on. You have a role and place in society that has been made for you, and you are expected to carry it out.

Because of this, none of these terms are a one-to-one for other identities, and nor should they be. Being kathoey or hijra is not the same as being a trans woman or non-binary, and visa versa. You can be kathoey and not be trans. You can be trans and not be kathoey. Being aqun-athlok or any other specific term shouldn’t be either. The idea that it is, is more ahistorical and inaccurate than the word non-binary itself. Giving Taash some new, culturally specific term, would inherently tie them to a culture, and one perhaps that they didn’t feel apart of. Especially since Taash’s entire story is about struggling to figure out where they belong. Arguably the biggest issue with their story is that you have to make them decide, and fundamentally tying them to a term would’ve compounded that problem.

The reason I identify as non-binary and not a tom, is because I am not occupying some specific role in Thai culture. Despite living in LA, I rarely interact with other Thai people who aren’t my family. I do not live in a cultural context that would allow me to identify as a tom.

The thing about terms like non-binary, or trans, or agender, is that they’re meant to be acultural terms encapsulating the concept of truth to oneself and ones identity. Whereas culturally specific terms aren’t, they’re about the role you hold in society and where you fit in. It’s about your identity within a status quo. Taash is a character who is eschewing societal roles, and breaking the status quo, giving them those terms just wouldn’t work.

And finally? Using non-binary itself allows the writers to very specifically say where they stand. There is no space given to transphobes. You either accept that DA is queer-friendly or bust. And that’s a very important stance to make in an era where trans and non-binary folks are being actively targeted. There’s no ‘well Taash isn’t actually trans or non-binary they’re [insert term here]!’ Because people would’ve done that, we know they would’ve. This means people can’t do that. They have to just say that they have an issue with the term, and thus we can call them for what they are. Transphobes. Plain and simple.

So yeah, Taash’s identity does have nuance, it has a lot of it. And to be honest with you, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trick Weekes, a non-binary person whose wife is First Nations and thus from a group with culturally specific gender identities, knows about the difference between something like two-spirit and trans. And to be honest with you, using something like non-binary has nuance I doubt was actually afforded to Krem, considering they cast a cis woman to play Krem.

So yeah.

[tirfpikachu]

are we just crazy or are lgbt spaces getting legit deranged?????

every unusual experience of sexuality/gender is a valid part of the bootiful qweer biodiversity of the world by default, but you can't be gay/bi/trans and not want to be called the q slur or see cishets say the q slur. and you can't say that you're afab4afab or amab4amab, that's just a creepy bigoted fetish you freak. unless you're transmasc4transmasc or transfem4transfem ofc, you get a free pass. but also kinkshaming is evil and deeply harms the most marginalized. but also make sure you don't have a fetish about genitalia... if you do, it's a "preference" not an inborn trait and you really can therapize yourself into liking it, just try hard enough. if you fail to you're a bigot, so just keep trying!! make sure to feel guilty abt it at least, you dirty homo. but getting beat up can be a cool sexual thing and bestiality or noncon is fine. but actual genitalia "preferences" are bigoted. if you don't call the genderqueer person pansexual instead of bi they'll chew their own arm off and hit you with it and call the cops but don't say you're a female trans man or that you're a trans guy lesbian or link it to being a female homosexual in any way ever okay?! you can't be at peace with acknowledging your sex/agab as a trans person!!!! or feel a connection to lesbian spaces as a trans man or gay male spaces as a trans woman!!! that's BIGOTRY and that's just feeding terf cunts you dumb theyfab. you can't link your cis womanhood to being afab AT ALL either bc that's transmisogynistic and dangerous rhetoric but every other group of gender marginalized folks can define their own identities and have a billion microlabels. you can't say you're not into girldick because not all trans women have dicks dumbass, surgical vaginas are defo the exact same as bio vaginas anyway so if you only like afab pussy & afab bodies you're a gross pervert mocking bottom surgery. and someone's upbringing as a male/amab or female/afab person definitely isn't a huge part of why homosexual ppl are into the same-sex/agab so you shouldn't give a single shit if a transbian flirting with you hasn't grown up facing misogyny or going thru afab/female body struggles or any of that, that has NOTHING to do with lesbianism between female ppl and has no bearing whatsoever on attraction you absolute psychopath. sexes/agabs is just a mix of detached body parts and you can play mr potatohead with it all and if you glued it good enough homosexuals wouldn't be able to tell at all that he used to be a mrs potatohead!! so they'd still hit that, right? homosexuals will go for anything anyway right?? homosexual love obvs can't be any deeper than genitals and fetishes. amab4afab ppl can be homosexual too anyway if they pass as gay irl too so homosexual isn't even a real tangible thing anyways it doesn't involve sex/agab at all and those ppl don't get to be their own specific oppressed class and do their own activism and have agency over their own identity bc they're super privileged worldwide and the enby living as a gender conforming woman in society dating a neckbeard looking for a third is more oppressed than a visibly gnc crossdressing bio guy holding hands with his normie bf. they might be gay but they're not qweer... except to the rightwing ofc!! oh and if you're trans and recently started passing as straight you're more privileged than an afab4amab couple who has lived as hetero til they transitioned! so shut the fuck up and listen to the New Gays. don't call yourself homosexual anymore or you're a cis bootlicker and if you're transmasc you're oppressing every transfem, including ones who have never faced misogyny irl a day in their fucking life!!! just be valid the RIGHT WAY!!!!!! be more queer you dirty normie homo!!!!!!

HAHAH i love it here

[velvetvexations]

I'd like to add something to the topic of forced impregnation / corrective rape of transmascs & men.

One thing I feel like other people tend to believe is that trans people with uteruses / the capability to get pregnant are "extremising" a problem that really only affects a few select trans people, surely not a lot.

What they don't get is that we're not extremising anything. Even just on the topic of forced pregnancy, I know barely a single trans man who hasn't been told that getting pregnant would fix him or that his whole worth as a person with a uterus is measured in how many children he can pop out at best, or being straigh up threatened with it or at worst having someone actually attempt to or fully act on that threat. And the ones who it didn't happen to? They know full well that it's always a "it didn't happen yet". That threat is still there, even without anyone saying it. People don't have to outright say it or threaten us because we just know.

It's not something we made up as a "gotcha" to trans women. In fact, it has nothing to do with most trans women at all, safe for the ones who can get pregnant! It's our lived experience. Our every-day life.

I was thirteen, just started my period, when my mother started to try to convince me that my whole worth as a person was making babies, that I needed to make kids the second I'd turn eighteen, that I would otherwise waste my life. And no, she didn't actually think that of all women. My cis sister? Never got to hear any of that. Just me. Because my mother looked at me being masculine and saw something she needed to fix (by only buying me extremely sexualised feminine outfits and telling me the stuff mentioned above, and that it was "only that" makes me one of the lucky ones). It happened to me not just because I was born with a uterus, because then it would've happened to my sister, too. It happened because my mother could tell something was "wrong" with me because I was too masculine. Got a little too exited when people mistook me for my brother. She didn't know what transmasculinity was back then in name, but she absolutely did know that it was "wrong" and needed to be "fixed" - and the way to fix a "broken woman" is to get her pregnant. She, of course, couldn't do that back then, but she could do her best to try to make me do that once I was "old enough" (I'm very glad today that she failed.)

And basically every trans men I've talked with about that topic had their own story like that or much, much worse. Only very rarely has a transmasc/man not experienced something like that, and even then, the threat is so omnipresent that even they tend to know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's a horrifying truth, it's uncomfortable, but it needs to be talked about. Our pain has been ignored and swept under the rug for so long, and people are still continuing to do so. So they can keep telling themselves that we "don't have it that bad" that we're "making a deal out of nothing" that what happens to us is just "individual cases" not something targeted. Because if people don't listen, they don't have to admit to themselves how they're playing into our oppression. Because to this day my mother is still claiming that she supports the trans community, after she did everything in her power to stop her son from existing. She won't listen to what I have to say because it "wasn't that bad", and my sister turned out great, so what do I have to cry about?

Nobody listens to trans men in general because it's never "as bad" as we make it out to be. After all, a cis woman said it wasn't that bad and she'll always be more believable than what ever a trans man or transmasculine person has to say. A trans man could obviously never experience anything a cis woman in his situation wouldn't.

This got longer than I anticipated. Thank you for listening and talking about this topic. I appreciate you, your work here is incredibly important and I'm glad you do this. Take care, and have a nice day!

(Also, this whole assumption about us "extremising" and "making a big thing out of nothing" also sounds a bit like hysteria talk to me, especially given that our conversation is about uterus-related things, but I might be reading to much into it here.)

the issue is that TRFs will take all this as "so you're saying that means trans men have it worse than trans women?"

like noooooooo you invented that sentence! that was nowhere in the original text girliepop!

[trans-girl-nausicaa]

its quite ridiculous when people browbeat transfems for “not trusting men” or being “misandrists.”

(misandry = generally not a real phenomenon, btw, so your standard of evidence you should require to believe someone is truly “a hater of all men” or whatever the fuck should be sky-high)

The social practice of holding men to a higher standard of trustworthiness before you let your guard down around them is actually an extremely fucking common survival tactic that your grandma most likely did too. Yet your cisgender grandma is not treated as quite as disposable as your transfem peers.

I mean for fucks sake @ men in case you werent aware, a lot of the time when one of your female peers (cis or trans) goes out on a date with you or any other man she sends the name and face of her male date to one of her female peers as a safety measure. Just in case she goes missing and her family has to figure out who the last person who saw her alive was.

[trohpi]

moonwater au where regulus is trans and his periods happen to occur around the full moon. when he befriends remus, remus immediately thinks that hes also a werewolf because of all the “signs” (ie being irritable and in pain around the full, refusing to change around others, knowing how to get blood stains out, etc)

and hes so excited to find someone else like him that he just sort of,,, tracks regulus down one day and is like “i know your secret” and regulus, thinking that remus figured out hes trans, freezes. he panics internally, his mind whirring with how much does he know? and who will he tell? but most of all, what lie can i tell that will be convincing enough for remus lupin to believe?

so when remus continues, saying “i know youre a werewolf too” regulus just sort of,,, goes with it. hes all “yup yup yup, totally a werewolf, thats my big secret, you caught me” and remus is just relieved that he finally has someone to talk about it with. because sure, he can complain to sirius and james and peter about the transformations, but its not the same as talking with someone who actually experiences it, who actually lives it.

and its when they start having these talks that regulus realizes that, funnily enough, being a trans man is not all that different from being a werewolf. when remus talks about looking in the mirror and seeing someone elses body, regulus gets it. and when regulus talks about the fear of losing your friends if they discover who you are, remus gets it too. its a weight off of both of their shoulders, having someone that relates so deeply to their experiences, and they start to become close. really close.

eventually remus starts acting different around him, small touches and lingering glances filling their time together, and regulus begins to feel guilty. immensely guilty. hes been deceiving remus, listening to him divulge his innermost secrets under false pretenses, and now remus has feelings for him. nevermind the fact that regulus returns said feelings, because thats irrelevant. after remus discovers hes been lying this whole time, about being a werewolf and about being a cis man, he wont want regulus anyways. and its not like he deserves his love, not with how cruel regulus is and how kind remus is.

then remus tries to kiss him, and regulus cant do it anymore. he starts crying and admits he was lying the entire time, that hes not a werewolf, that hes actually a trans man, and hell understand if remus doesnt want him anymore. remus is quiet for a moment out of pure shock before he just starts laughing. like folded over, belly-aching laughing. and regulus is internally panicking the entire time but remus just cant help it. he thinks back to every “sign” he ever noticed and cant believe that he missed this. finally he calms down just enough to collect himself and looks to regulus, who is still panicking, and says “i guess our times of the month arent quite so similar afterall”

regulus bursts into startled laughter and remus cant help but join him, but then tears of relief start clouding regulus’ eyes because he was so sure remus would hate him. so, so sure, but he doesnt and the relief is overwhelming. then remus pulls him into a tight hug, and he thinks maybe theyre alright.

[iam93percentstardust]

one of the things that i loved about barbie (2023) that i think a lot of the posts making fun of male-written reviews miss is that, though the movie presents itself as a commentary on the patriarchy and sexism, the message at the core of the film isn't actually limited to being about (cis) women. it's about anyone who is Other.

i went to go see the movie on thursday afternoon before all the big midnight premieres, and the theater was still packed. there wasn't an empty seat in the entire theater. i had a seat at the end of the row, which i had picked out in a faint (futile) hope that no one would sit next to me. thirty seconds before the trailers started, a family of about 10 black people walked in and split up, presumably because they'd only just bought their tickets and there were no longer 10 seats together. the dad and the son, who was maybe a few years younger than me in his early-20s, a good foot and a half taller than me, and who i recognized as one of the football players at the local university, ended up taking the two empty seats next to me with the linebacker in the seat right next to me. and that was pretty much the last time i thought of them until the last twenty minutes of the movie.

see, in the last twenty minutes of the movie, america ferrera makes an impassioned speech about not just the limitations that male-dominated society puts on women but the limitations that women put on themselves in order to survive in said male-dominated society. it's about the contradictions that we're subjected to--you can't be too much, but you can't be too little either. you have to lift each other up but you're also in constant competition with other women for the shredded dregs of respect that men have left over for us. you can't say yes to a man because then you're a whore but you can't say no because then you're a prude. it was passionate and bitter and furious and it had every woman in the theater, myself included, in tears.

and in the silence of the theater following america ferrera's plea for barbie not to make herself less just so that society isn't threatened by her, the linebacker sitting next to me said fervently, "i feel that."

it brought everything to a screeching halt. now i'm a white woman, and though i'm fat and nowhere near as gorgeous as margot robbie, from the very first trailer, it was obvious that this was going to be a movie for me. and if done right, it was going to be a movie for all women (and i would argue that it was). but the thing that it also did right was that though the surface of the message was about women making themselves lesser, the core was that it was for anyone who makes themselves lesser to fit in. yeah, it's for women who are trying to fit into a male-dominated society, but it's also for bipoc who are trying to fit into a white-dominated society. it's for trans people trying to fit into a cis-dominated society. it's for gay people trying to fit into a heterosexual-dominated society. it's for anyone who's been Othered and has to shrink themselves in a desperate attempt to survive.

i love the posts making fun of male-written reviews that are butthurt that this movie isn't for them just as much as the next person. but i think it's important that we don't forget that those are representative of the people in power, the people that could never understand this message. barbie is for me, yeah, but it isn't just for me. it's for my trans friend who is six feet tall and has a beard and wears pink dresses every single day because they make her feel pretty. it's for my labmate who could practically be a barbie herself and irritates me every time she talks about thinphobia but also can't find someone who wants to be with her because she's brilliant and not because she's beautiful.

it's for the black linebacker who sat next to me in the theater and felt heard when a fictional character in a movie told him not to make himself smaller just to fit society's standards.

[thereallyreallylatebird]

From some of the discourse I've seen, I've gotten the impression that some people think intersectionality is like math. Let me explain.

Some people think of certain identities as universally giving privilege (we'll say these have a value of +1) and some as universally taking privileged/causing discrimination/bigotry/etc. (we'll say these have a value of -1).

And what I've seen is that people will add these values and decide how hard someone has it based on the value of the product.

For example: A white (+1) Christian (+1) gay (-1) man (+1) would have a score of 2, since 1+1-1+1 is 2. (Keep in mind I'm not saying people literally do this sort of math, though I have actually seen charts that do, it's more of a way of illustrating a way of thinking I've seen.)

The problem with this, of course, is that this isn't how the world works at all. Depending on where he lived and his situation in general, that white Christian gay man could be bullied severely, called slurs, or even beaten and killed--all things you wouldn't expect going off a score of 2--because intersectionality is not like math. And because, in some places, this man's gayness would overshadow all his other identities.

Also, this mathy way of looking at things fails to consider how identities interact with each other. For instance, (and this is something several of my mutuals, but especially @dysphoria-things, have discussed in the past) a trans man's identity as a man does *not* serve to "cancel out" his being trans in the eyes of society. First, many won't even view him as a man. Second, even if he is viewed as a man by a certain group, he still may be subject to less explicit forms of transphobia. Not to mention the expectation many hold that he perform his man-ness in order for them to keep seeing him as a man. There's a lot more to unpack here specifically, but the previously mentioned mutual has already done many many posts on this, and is more qualified to speak on this than I am as a cis person, so I suggest you go check that blog out if you want to hear more on this topic.

Another example would be one of *my* identity intersections. That of being aromantic and allosexual. Now, being allosexual (not asexual) is not a minority identity. However, it by no means "cancels-out" my aromanticism. In fact, the specific combination of this majority identity (allosexuality) with my aromanticism actually leads to some seriously nasty assumptions and stereotypes. Because what do you think goes through the majority of people's (especially conservative's) heads when they hear "Oh I'm attracted to people sexually, but not romantically." Nothing flattering.

Point is, intersectionality is not like math. Having a majority identity does not necessarily mean that identity will always be rewarded (especially depending on the combination with a minority identity), and also this way of thinking is one thing that can start people down the "oppression-olympics/who has it worst" route, which is helpful and productive to exactly no one. The world is complicated, society is complicated, and people are complicated. And anything boiled down this much is usually inaccurate enough to be useless or actively harmful. Thank you for coming to my TED-talk.