#“if women are oppressed then why transmascs”

[transyashiro]

Hi, genuine question, why transandrophobia is not real? I just thought it was a word to describe the transphobia specifically targeted to transmascs, but if that is not the case id like to be corrected. Also your art is so beautiful I love it!

hey anon. firstly, thank you, i'm glad you like my art. secondly, i am at the end of the day just a guy who draws sometimes. this is a question which was already answered many times by transfeminists on here, and ideally you'd want to get the perspectives of tma people rather than mine. and just in general, keep up with discussions of transmisogyny and listen to transfems, yeah?

all that said, since you are asking me personally... to put it as simply as i can: transandrophobia, or transmisandry, is not real because misandry is not real. that should be the end of the discussion, really. there is no need for a special word to describe transphobia targeted at transmascs, because transphobia and/or other forms of oppression (real ones, Not misandry) depending on any particular situation already cover everything. why is there a desire for a special word to begin with, anyway? girls got one, we want one too? c'mon

but also like, all that aside, regardless of how real or not real transandrophobia is, it is a dog whistle. if someone associates with the transandrophobia crowd, they are most likely a transmisogynist. that should be enough of a reason to steer away from those guys and not trust them. sure, some posts by them might seem compelling or validating at a glance, i've definitely seen younger trans guys who don't know any better start looking in that direction because they feel like they are finally being given a tool to discuss their experiences. i assume that's partially why your question is framed like that, too, because a simple "we just want a word to discuss our oppression" is a lot more convincing than "we hate trans women and want to make them out to be the true oppressors" or "we're just men rights activists but with a trans flag, which also means that we are incapable of oppressing trans women because of our inherent connection to womanhood. don't worry about what that logic implies about our views of trans women" or... you get the picture. it's transmisogyny through and through, you don't even need to dig much

again, i hope you'll look more into what trans women have to say on this, it would do more good than my short clumsy explanation, but hopefully it at least gives you some vague idea

[thatweirdtranny]

stop downplaying transmasc oppression while advocating for trans women!! what is wrong with you people!! why can’t you talk about transmisogyny without implying transmascs are treated well by society!!

[mouseratz]

it's interesting how many transmascs on this site can observe the way that feminism has often been derailed by "mens rights activism", because feminism is seen as a threat to men's rights- women's rights are viewed as in opposition to men's rights & therefore incompatible (for the crime of merely admitting how misogyny has a place in our society)

and yet. feel no need to self reflect on the way transmisogyny is viewed, too, as in opposition to trans men. how trans women's rights are viewed as incompatible with trans men's rights, how transfemmes are pretty constantly attacked for expressing their experiences & struggles because merely saying they exist uniquely is seen as an attack on transmascs, is seen as denying the issues that transmascs have.....somehow, the "what about me?" response is all that matters.

that is why "transandrophobia" gets compared to men's rights activism. that is why it's so connected to transmisogyny (which you're apparently not supposed to admit that people within the trans community are capable of); it is a repeat of gendered issues, there is still a refusal to just try to understand what women are saying. a continued insistence of "my issues are more important than yours" (even though that was never really what was being said in the first place. all that was being asked was to listen, to try to understand....but when a woman says it, complains about something, that's what you feel is implied. for some reason. hm, is there a word for that?)

[anarcho-commeownism]

the avoidance of discussing the gender we as trans people were raised as really glosses over the fact that no matter what gender we really are, most of us did in fact spend most of our childhoods living the role of our assigned gender, and experienced and internalized the lessons everyone assigned that gender is taught.

the "trans men are not exempt from misogyny" posts are so exhausting to me because do y'all not realize that we lived through that for all our lives pre-transition and usually post-transition as well? even after transitioning people are quick to speak over us, brush away our experiences, and treat us like we're hysterical women—even other queer people.

like, we don't suddenly transformers morph into cis men. trans women also don't suddenly transformers morph into cis women. transitioning does not shed us of the baggage we carried pre-transition, nor the lessons and biases we internalized. trans women can be misogynistic against trans men just as much as trans men can be misogynistic against trans women, if none of us unpack and reckon with our previous place in society.

[jackedjacket]

Sometimes it feels like transfems get so wrapped up in what is going on to them personally that they forget what actual oppression is.

Reading Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters and theres a scene where the transfem main character goes to a boutique that caters to trans women for the first time, and while she's there a cis woman walks in, realizes this isn't a store for her, makes a polite lap around the store, and leaves. The trans women then has a complete meltdown about how the very presence of this woman completely destroyed the experience for her and made her feel unsafe (note: this woman said and did nothing outside of existing in the store for maybe three minutes)

I can understand how this experience can make someone feel put off but 1) a cis woman existing near you is not a threat 2) I would fucking kill to have what this woman is complaining about. I'm sorry you're in a STORE that CATERS TO YOUR TRANSNESS and is EMPLOYED BY TRANS WOMEN and you're mad that a cis person happens to come near it? There is nothing I would want more in this world than to have a store where I could actually try on binders and make sure it fit me instead of paying $80 for something that will permanently distort my ribs. I wish there were employees around that I could ask questions about STPs or packers. I wish there was somewhere I could get clothes made for my body, or has people who are like me shopping in it. And I wouldn't care if cis people were in it because, guess what? You can't tell someones gender just by looking at them and maybe this is the start of their journey. Maybe we can be less gatekeepy and appreciate the things we have and be open to sharing these things with the people in the world around us instead of getting mad at other people for existing?

[meshaamem-li]

oh that's new, someone blocked my main but not my political sideblog, what the hell lmao

[amalg-em]

The thing about the lateral aggression I see in trans communities is that it's everywhere. All the time I see people parroting this idea that trans woman = most oppressed, trans man = spoiled manchild that never has any problems ever. And it's pretty disturbing how many people I've seen regurgitating it. People I cared for. People I trusted.

Did you know that transmasculine people have the highest chance of being a sexual assault victim? Higher than cis women, trans women, or cis men? But certainly that's nothing, right? Certainly that sort of trauma isn't the thing that irreversibly damages you, makes it harder to make life worth living?

Do you really think invisibility is a privilege? That being forgotten and ignored is beneficial? The last 12 months have been the worst of my life, and I've had the least support that I've ever had. Even my biological family has fucked off. The only thing keeping me from offing myself is the knowledge that it would leave my partner abandoned and unsupported. But surely I'm just being dramatic, right? Somewhere out there is a trans woman who has it harder than me, so how dare I complain.

The thing about suffering is that it's not readily quantifiable. It all sucks. It literally all sucks, all the time, and people can have the exact same amount and kind of suffering and be affected by it completely differently. It's utterly pointless to try to create some sort of hierarchy of most oppressed and we know this. We've known this forever. We literally have a term for it (oppression Olympics). We know that it's counterproductive and pointless to lash out at people on the same sinking ship as us because, well, MY end is lower in the water than YOURS so YOU don't get to talk about your problems. In fact HOW DARE YOU coin a term for the problems facing you, that makes you exactly the same as a TERF.

It's so fucking bleak out here. We could ALL be talking about our problems without demanding silence from others while we do it. We could be building solidarity with people who have different experiences, acknowledging those differences without trying to rank them, and give everyone space to be heard. There shouldn't be imposed scarcity of compassion - but there is, from people who claim to be compassionate, who claim to care about the struggles of people not like them. Not really though. Not unless you're the Right Kind of oppressed.

Today my social circle gets a little smaller. The world gets that much more hostile. And the noose of isolation tightens around my neck that much more. And somewhere, someone will find a vent post that I made while trying not to be another trans su|c|de statistic, and use that as proof that transmasculine people are a Lesser Breed of trans and don't deserve support, acknowledgement, or the ability to name & talk about our problems.

[heartsmourne]

not to discourse but i think a lot of people in online queer spaces put so much stock in how oppressed their own personal gender identity is that the second anyone else talks about the ways a different gender identity is marginalized, they freak out and take it as a personal attack

anyway i think the easiest way to fix this issue is to stop thinking of transmascs and transfems as inherently different and opposite. you're reinventing bioessentialism and putting a trans hat on it. trans people of all assigned genders share the same struggle, it just comes in different flavors sometimes. not everyone gets the same rocks thrown at them. some rocks are different colors, or sizes. some rocks are sharp, and others are round. doesn't change the fact that we are all still getting rocks thrown at us. we need to stop blaming and attacking each other and start building shields for each other

[priestofberath]

i think if somebody makes a post on here calling trans women terfs, their computer should just immediately turn off and not come back on for at LEAST like a month. like a bit of time to go out and listen to the birds and the wind rustling in the trees and maybe check their house for gas leaks

[wawhii]

I don't know how to tell some of y'all this but transmascs can experience transphobia of a particular flavour without it being "transandrophobia"

[jules-hoard-of-stuff]

Stop feeling bad about my identity challenge

[cepheusgalaxy]

Hi i uh. Um I agree that patriarchy privileges men over women in general (like thats undeniable) but I'd also to politely point out that for trans men and mascs that masculinity that could give them this advantage/privilege and stuff also intersects with transness so a lot of cis ppl just ignore a trans man's manhood and see him as a Woman and a Tranny so in most cases the Privilege is kind of blocked out.

"pills that make you green" getting so many notes was a mistake because now i keep seeing additional massively popular pills that make you green offshoot posts by both the original artist & others that are massive and inaccurate political oversimplifications presented as if they're pithy and correct

[entropy-sea-system]

I have gotten annoyed when someone brings up that they disagree with me on a discourse stance because me stating it is not an invitation to debate it, but also I did unfortunately do the same thing in the past especially if I felt convinced that people on the opposite side were wrong, I'm glad I started just blocking people more than debating though

[nothorses]

do you know why people say trans women and trans men cant both be targets of misogyny? I was told that saying trans men are oppressed by misogyny was bigoted because it implies trans women aren't

imo it mostly comes from a binaristic and cis-centric understanding of gender.

"Oppositional sexism" (coined by Julia Serano) is a handy term here: the idea is that men and women are inherently rigid and mutually exclusive categories of people. Anything one category is, the other cannot be, and vice versa.

Here, oppositional sexism holds that if women are harmed by misogyny, then men benefit from it; women can never benefit from it, and men can never be harmed by it.

A lot of transphobia is rooted in the ways in which trans people fundamentally defy oppositional sexism, and thus endanger the gender binary. Men are supposed to be big, and women are supposed to be small; but trans men assert that men can be small, and trans women assert that women can be big (to use one overly-simplistic example).

A lot of trans people and trans allies still adhere to oppositional sexism, but claim to do it in a "trans-friendly" way: sex can be changed, but gender is instead rigid and mutually exclusive. Or- perhaps more commonly- gender can be expressed in any way, but the ways in which gender is experienced are instead rigid and mutually exclusive.

Which is how we arrive at this insistence that trans people fall into one binary gender experience, even if they don't actually identify as a particular "binary" gender. "Trans women are women" might mean trans women can look and act any way at all, but it also means they experience womanhood in the same way that all other women do, and that experience is rigid and mutually exclusive of "man" experiences.

It's also why so many people are so eager to create new "inclusive" ways of sorting trans people into the same gender binary using increasingly contrived language: People insist on knowing the gender someone was assigned at birth so they can categorize them as AFAB or AMAB, and thus conclude what gender experience they have: man or woman. People insist on categorizing nonbinary people as either transmasc or transfem so they can conclude what gender experience they have: man or woman. People insist on categorizing trans people as either TMA or TME so they can conclude what gender experience they have: man or woman.

The idea that trans men experience misogyny only implies that trans women don't if you believe that man and woman are rigid, mutually-exclusive categories.

[autolenaphilia]

I don’t care about accusations of ”pedophilia.” I will not give a fuck, I won't investigate your claims, I will just ignore it.

For one thing the accusation of pedophilia is often entirely meaningless. This is because pedophile/pedo etc are words that carry the taint of child rape, of calling up the disgust such an act naturally produces, but are accusations that don’t require such an act or a victim of it. If you call someone a “child rapist” that has weight, but you also have to back it up with a victim this person supposedly raped for the accusation to actually be meaningful. But words like “pedophile” carries no such demands, it literally just means “someone who has an attraction to children.” It doesn’t require an actual victim. It’s an accusation about how someone feels in their head and can thus be liberally applied. Someone criticizes your asinine submarine idea to rescue some children in a cave? Call them a pedo. And even words that once had a more specific meaning, such as “grooming” can be stretched beyond all meaning to mean whatever it wants to. Someone talked to under-18 people about sex and gender in a way you don’t want to? Call them a groomer.

In a culture of pedohysteria, pedojacketing is easy. And it’s especially easy to weaponize it against queer people, the idea that queerness spreads through queers recruiting children by molesting them is one of the oldest queerphobic narrativeness out there. I’m using “queer” here because this is a narrative used both against gay and trans people. But in the present transphobic/transmisogynistic backlash it’s most often used against trans people, especially transfems, as transmasc people are more often infantilized.

But on a more deeper level “pedophilia” is the wrong framing of the real problem of child sex abuse. It’s literally a medical term, a diagnosis. It makes child sex abuse a problem of some sick individuals with a diseased attraction.

This is of course a bad and antifeminist understanding of what rape and sexual violence is. It’s an inevitable and natural expression of power. The widespread rape of women is caused by the patriarchy, of men having power over women. And the misogynist oppression of women with sexual violence naturally extends to young girls. But all children are disempowered in our society. Adults have power over them in the patriarchal family, in the capitalist school system and other institutions of our society. Sexual violence against children flows from the power adults institutionally and systemically have over them. The vast majority of sexual violence towards children comes from the family and schools, not the “stranger danger” of creepy weirdoes hiding in bushes.

This is the reality that the framing of sexual violence as the result of sick individuals with a diseased attraction obscures. And it inevitably calls for a reactionary carceral and psychiatric response, justifying the police, prisons and psychiatric institutions. That’s why “what will we then do with the pedophiles?” is such a popular clichéd response to prison and police abolitionism. This very framing of the problem calls for a carceral response. If the problem of child sex abuse is sick individuals instead of the system, if we constantly root out and punish individuals we will eventually solve the problem.

In reality carceral responses actually make the problem of sexual violence much worse. The police, prisons and involuntary psychiatric hospitals are violent expressions of power and thus create the conditions for rape.

Pedohysteria is constantly used to justify the expansion of state power. Here in European Union we have had a legislative push to ban end-to-end encryption and make all online communication accessible to law enforcement, total online surveillance. And the reasoning is because otherwise pedophiles can use e2e communication to secretly send child porn to each other without the police being able to do anything, which is of course true, that does and will happen, but doesn’t justify killing all online privacy. This “chat control” act is literally called “regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse.”

The pedohysteria also justifies vigilantism, which tumblr callout culture is part of and is also a deeply reactionary and even fascist phenomenon. Vigilantism rests on the idea that what the police do is right, but they are not doing it well enough, because they are too reigned in by liberal ideas such as laws and regulations and the courts. So random people should take on the role of police to punish “criminals”, like pedophiles. And this goes through tumblr callout culture. A subtext running through pedojacketing callouts of transfems is the idea that transmisogyny does not exist and does not lead to transfems being disproportionately punished, but instead transfems are using their minority status to get away with sex crimes.

This standard conservative rhetoric about how liberals often literally let minorities get away with murder justifies their reactionary vigilantism. Of course in reality, transfems are far less likely to commit sexual abuse of children than other groups of people, because we are systematically excluded from the very institutions where such abuse happens, such as parenthood/the family or schools, because of the transmisogynist stereotype that we are all perverted child rapists. And the callouts of transfems as sex predators are in themselves abusive and protect actual abusers, just like how police and prisons are.

So no, I will continue to not give a fuck if you call someone a pedophile.

[transgymbro]

I think a vital piece of information that transandrophobes are missing is this:

Manhood is gatekept to all hell.

I'm so serious. To be a man, in the eyes of society, you need first and foremost a working dick and balls. Even if we shelve that clearly transphobic notion for a moment, there's still all this:

You have to have abs

You have to have wide shoulders

You need to always want sex and be good at it

If your chest isn't flat it needs to be because you have huge pec muscles and NO OTHER REASON

You're expected to be straight (into women)

You're expected to not present as feminine in any way (because that implies you're not straight)

You're supposed to be athletic or at least interested in athletics

You're supposed to have at least some facial hair

You're supposed to be at LEAST 6 feet tall

You cannot be fat

You're supposed to have a sharp, chiseled jawline

You're not supposed to take it up the ass

You need to have huge muscles, especially biceps

And this is just the appearance stuff. There's more behavioral stuff I could touch on that gets even stricter. The point is, if you do not fit ALL of these + the unlisted behavioral expectations, including and especially the dick and balls part, you are NOT A REAL MAN TO SOCIETY.

Trans men are not considered men by society. We are denied manhood, and any privilege that might come with it, because we are trans. We're not SUPPOSED to be men, or supposed to want to be men, according to society.

But we are. And society hates that. And transandrophobes will try to take that from us any way we can. By erasing us and lumping us with women. By forcing us to detransition, or not allowing us to transition in the first place. By gaslighting us (often via assault or abuse). By making everyone else think we're "confused and annoying children" so we're not taken seriously. By malgendering us (ex. "You're not a girl so I can punch you") when we're perceived as men. By leveraging misogyny against us when we're perceived as women.

Trans men are oppressed for being men, because we are refusing to "stay in our lane", and manhood is not supposed to be our lane. This is why we need the term "transandrophobia". The oppression of transmascs is a problem, and the problem needs a name so it can be solved.