#Even some perfectly conforming women don't identify as women!

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

The thing about the whole "don't assume a gnc woman is trans/has a gender" thing is that most of the time you are unfortunately very fucking right lmao

[ventbloglite]

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

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

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

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

Examples!

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

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

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

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

[velvetvexations]

it's different for all of us <3

I'm happy to have provided that relief!

so even in very progressive and trans pockets of the kink scene, you'll still often find carried-over attitudes that implicitly "center" subs in the scene--workshops are catered to subs. writing is from the perspective of the subs' desires. doms are treated with suspicion if they're not directing their attention to a specific sub. etc.

and a lot of this creates a *really bad* environment for transfem doms in particular to feel comfortable openly expressing sexuality and desire, because the dom stigma is *pre-existing* on top of vanilla society already portraying transfems as predatory. and in the scene locally at least, transfems are generally only *provisionally* seen as women due to presenting as "soft" and intentionally effeminate, so that adds another layer on top of it--acting too dominant in the scene will often get you misgendered by people subconsciously associating dominance with manhood.

and then we get into how that crosses over with the intracommunity pressure from the transfem side of things to adhere to gendered stereotypes in order to be seen as a woman by your fellow girls, and how part of that is "kindly" meant pressure to cast away dominant and aggressive behaviors with the argument that girls are only performing them because they feel they have to conform to male social roles, but nobody likes it when i bring that up because nobody wants to admit there's intracommunity problems in trans groups 🙄 but the intracommunity problem does bleed over into the kink scene in my experience

IDK, I don't really have a problem with the idea that transfem dom content might be rare for a variety of reasons, but so are a doms in general when you compare them to subs, and I believe OP when she said she wasn't trying to say that trans women are inherently subby but she did phrase her point in a way that made it sound like a very similar sentiment I've seen a lot.

- Trans fem meetup group. Previously run by a trans woman who moved away. There was no group for almost a year before a non binary person started it up again. Huge FB outcry over this not being a trans woman and ppl bullied them into making a public post confirming they were AMAB and identify as trans fem. They have posted that they would be happy to hand the group over to a trans woman if people would be more comfortable with that but nobody is interested in taking it over. (2/5)

- General trans/intersex/etc advocacy group. Run by an intersex person who could be considered trans masc, I don't know if they identify that way. Pretty much everyone else I know of involved is trans fem aside from one cis woman, I don't know everyone involved though.- Radical trans group who organise protests etc. Leadership is all trans fem last I checked. They have some trans masc members and try to have some equality in representation re: who makes speeches at events. (3/5)

So, imho this is fairly balanced insofar as groups just tend to be organised by local people willing/interested in organising and so there is rarely any kind of perfectly equal distribution of who organises them. If one or two people quit or move the entire "balance" can be thrown one way or another. But there is so much hue and cry from a loud minority about how "all" the local groups are "run by trans mascs". (4/5)

Including ppl claiming "all the meetup groups are run by trans mascs" & when ppl point out the person running the trans fem group is trans fem you get "You know what I mean". Yeah, I know what you mean, and it's not good! (5/5)

Good analysis, anon!

Small minds have limited storage capacity.

[kogaan]

hey i saw you post that the only thing that makes you a woman is being female... so a woman can use her/him pronouns, and a 'male' name, and pass as a man, and still be a woman? if so, awesome!! im fine with you classing me as a woman if the definition of woman other than "can bear children" is non existent

so based off your profile and pinned post, i can only assume you aren't an adult. if i'm wrong i do apologize. you and your tumblr just kinda remind me of myself at 14-17!

since i believe you might be a bit younger, the only thing i'm gonna tell you to do is to focus on your education, your hobbies, and your RECOVERY most of all. many things in life will fall into place as time goes on and it will matter little if other people see you as a man or woman. i think maybe you want to be seen as a person, and your needs aren't being met. i truly sympathize with you! i felt the exact same way.

yes, a woman can pass as male and perform masculinity perfectly and still be a woman... dressing like a man and having a man's name etc. is not what makes a man a man. it doesn't make a woman or girl a man, either.

i think if you truly read my post you're referring to, you'd know that i know "woman" absolutely does not simply mean "can bear children". obviously that isn't entirely accurate. a more accurate statement would be something like "women, not men, are the ones with the ability to bear children, even if an individual herself cannot".

my point was that women and girls are those of us born female (or maybe you'd rather say "assigned female at birth". same thing either way, i guess) and our femaleness does not limit anything about ourselves. a woman can wear whatever she wants, including traditionally masculine clothing. a woman can go to a men's barber and get a men's haircut. she's still a woman. any amount of surgery, hrt, name changes, wardrobe change, personality changes, etc, will not magically or scientifically or spiritually turn a woman into a male. you are born female and will be female until long after you are dead. it's not how you identify, it's what you are.

and that's a good thing! being a woman is amazing. unfortunately society is extremely misogynistic and pretty much sexualizes us from birth. but the best thing you can do for yourself as a young woman is to take care of yourself! embrace your body because your body is you. it's all you've got! you don't have a male soul, you don't have a male mind, you don't have a male personality, you don't have a male body. that's impossible. you're a woman! and that means no limits! being female does not limit you! it does not mean you have to be feminine, it does not mean that when you conform to male standards that you are male. it means you're you, you're a woman/girl, and that's wonderful!

womanhood isn't something you can take comfort in. it's not something you can identify into/out of. it's not being totally feminine and wearing makeup and dresses and having long styled hair and being submissive to men. womanhood is being a woman. and a woman is an adult human female.

i know you might be dealing with a lot of trauma and stress rn so don't even respond to this. just read it carefully! and please be yourself, give yourself some grace, work on your recovery - at least, don't die; there is only time to recover if you are alive. i understand that some days it takes a lot of strength to simply remain here. 💗💗💗

[thelesbianpoirot]

Yes, exactly. I have very close female friends too, but I will always crave sexual intimacy as well. Even though I'm the kind of person who will only have sex with someone if I've known them for a while and I'm in a relationship with them, that doesn't mean I don't want to have it. And I honesly don't understand how your partner can bring you to orgasm and then you don't want to do the same in return? I know it's not a transaction and you can get something out of it even if you don't orgasm, but surely you want to pleasure your partner too because you're attracted to them and want them to feel good and it feels good to you to do that? Like I'm not against the concept of asexuality, I do think some people do have such low libido that it might be a useful descriptor, but it's just questionable to me how many asexuals identify as lesbians (or just how many are women in general), whereas I don't think I've ever seen a gay man say he is asexual...it's cool to just want to be celibate with your female friends but that's doesn't make you a lesbian

Forming close female friendships will make a lot of women more normal about their sexuality. It is crucial. You'll quickly see the difference between that and a real romantic relationship, even if there is a lot of over lap. We might raise a kid together, but it is no different to me from my mom living her her two friends for years because they were all single moms trying to get by. Women need each other, and you can experience that yearning for that, for female only spaces. But it is different from sexual desire. It isn't a transaction, but it should be a desire of yours to want to return a good feeling. It is a natural response of being attracted to someone, wanting to give them pleasure. I am fine with celibacy, and asexuality, but I do not believe asexuality is compatible with homosexuality, I think is it's own separate thing. Homosexuality is exclusive same sex attraction, asexuality is experiencing no sexual attraction, you can't remove sexuality from homosexuality, sorry. Low Libido lesbians exist and only want to have sex under their preferred conditions, committed relationships, without penetration, once or twice a month etc. I'm fine with this. I don't want all lesbians to conform to some standard, we are a diverse group like anyone else. You hit the nail on the head. There is no asexual gay man. There are gay man with sexual boundaries, and loads of preferences, who have been celibate for loads of reasons but you won't find one who says, "I don't experience sexual attraction to men but I still call myself a gay man". Yet online you'll find a bunch o' women who call themselves asexual lesbians, trying to barter their way out of eating pussy while calling themselves lesbians. I think we women are often insecure, and constantly trying to find ourselves, and in the process can get lost if there aren't understanding people to steer us in the right direction. And I want to kindly say to celibate "asexual" women, who don't experience sexual attraction to women, i.e don't want to eat pussy, that you are perfectly healthy, entitled to your boundaries, and deserve lifelong female companionship, but you aren't lesbians.

[absyn-th]

what i call myself

if you got redirected here from my pinned post, thanks for being here. if you didn't, i'll say some of the stuff i said there. i call myself transfem, nonbinary, polysexual, and grey-aroace. if you dont mind the word, i'm also okay with being called queer as a blanket term, and honestly, i generally just call myself "trans and queer" to other lgbtq+ people who barely know me. i'm going to explain what each of those words mean to me, and you can use some of them, none of them, or different words for me if you want. i dont know who would want to read all this about some random person on the internet, but it's here for you if you do for some reason. think of it as "the long answer" to every time i give someone "the short answer" on what i identify as.

i call myself:

transfem+nonbinary: (and sometimes also just "gender non-conforming" or gnc) i call myself transfem as in "transfeminine", not "trans female". thats why i feel comfortable calling myself transfem and nonbinary - i would call myself feminine presenting and nonbinary identifying, or would also be comfortable with being called "fem nonbinary". i feel like i can relate to some transfem experiences and some nonbinary experiences, too, even if im not exactly like people who are binary and transfem or like people who are androgynous/neutral presenting and nonbinary. of course, some people do actually identify as nonbinary women in good faith though, and i equally say "cool" and "you do you" to those people for reasons i got into in my pinned post/will get into later. and when i dont want to have to explain all that, i just say i'm gender non-conforming, which feels fair to me - after all, it's hard to say i am conforming to any gender norm.

polysexual: (and sometimes also just "queer") this one confuses people. my partner is bisexual, and ive had a lot of people ask me why i dont identify with bisexuality or what the difference is between the two. what i usually tell them is "i'm attracted to binary women and most nonbinary people, but not binary men, and so i feel more comfortable using a title that reflects that instead of one that suggests i'm also attracted to men", but honestly, i dont care too much about the difference between the two. i've had a lot of people say that counts as bisexuality, and you might be one of them or you might not. i'm agnostic on it. like i say in my pinned post, i dont really believe it's possible to make a conclusive set of labels that perfectly cover every nuance of human experience, and i also don't think it's practical for everyone to use all the microlabels that perfectly describe them all the time even if that is possible. my decision to call myself polysexual isn't based on any arbitrary standard of the "correct" definitions of polysexual or bisexual, it's because i've decided that it's easier to explain what polysexual means to me than to explain that i'm bisexual-but-i-dont-like-guys-no-that-doesnt-mean-im-lesbian, or to explain that im lesbian-but-i-also-like-nonbinary-people and have to deal with people questioning if im using the word "lesbian" wrong. oh, and i sometimes call myself "queer" when all of that is too much to explain - but i'm less likely to introduce myself as a queer person, because i know some people aren't comfortable with the word. just know that almost every word for the lgbtq+ community has been a slur at some point, including ones that are pretty tame these days like "gay", so it's a very subjective topic and depends a lot on the person.

grey-aroace: (or "grey aro" and "grey ace" or "grey polysexual"...) my relationships with romance and sexuality have been on-again-off-again for most of my life. i don't know if i'd be comfortable with saying they're fluid, but they're definitely weaker than "normal" if you believe in such a thing: for instance, i've never had a crush on anyone, regardless of gender, and i don't start having any sexual feelings for people until we've been in a romantic or queerplatonic relationship for anywhere from a few weeks to several months. and even then, those feelings come and go. for a couple years, i obsessively searched for romantic and sexual microlabels that perfectly described that experience, but after a while i realized that most people i met had to have it explained to them what "aromantic" means, and even if i did decide on titles that were more specific than these, they would never be useful to me for what i use titles for - explaining who i am to people in the lgbtq+ community. so i just say i'm grey-aroace, if i mention it at all.

lots of things! the secret about me is that i'm very agnostic about this stuff. humans are complicated, we can feel a lot of different ways about a lot of different things, and i don't expect everyone around me to have an encyclopedic knowledge of mogai microlabels just to know who i am. i think mogai and microlabel coining are valuable pursuits and worth the time - after all, most every label i'm using now were microlabels at some point - but the truth is that most microlabels will never become widely recognized, and i don't think it will ever be possible to come up with a dictionary that describes every possible nuance of human experience, where everyone who identifies outside of that strict guidebook must be faking or acting in bad faith. by all means, we should come up with new words, and we should discuss what these words mean. but i think the most important thing about labels is giving people a banner to unite behind - a way to find other people like them, a way to come together and ask for recognition and respect from others. but nothing will ever be as descriptive, as universally understood, and as "useful" in the real world as just describing who you are, with labels - microlabels and macrolabels alike - as loose guiderails, things with flexible definitions that only give us a surface-level insight into who you are.

the important thing is: i "am" all of those things, or none of them. you can call me what you like, since words are flexible. the only thing i really am is myself - a weird, squishy, featherless biped who doesn't fit neatly into a rectangular and brightly colored box. i'm me. and you're you. no matter what words we use.

i think the world would be a freer place if we could all keep that in mind. feel free to discuss.

[trixter-i-am]

On International Nonbinary Day, I’m sharing my personal story of embracing my androgyny.

For me, being non-binary means allowing myself to go beyond the frames I don’t fit into, both according to others’ views and by my own choice. And nonbinary visibility is what helps me understand that I'm normal, to come to terms with myself. It helped me realize that I'm not some sort of a bizarre creature, nor a comedy character, nor an unfortunate exception to the rule. I'm a person, like anyone else. A person who is perfectly aware of all the features of their own personality and looks to break free from conventional stereotypes.

Finally, I can be completely free to tell myself that no, I don’t have to stick to labels. I'm not bound to tropes and stereotypes. I can be more than a "masculine lesbian" , a "strong female character" that doesn’t conform, a "campy gay guy" or a "pretentious metrosexual". All these qualities might as well coexist together within me without any conflict, because why would I conflict with my own character traits and the way I live?

The most beautiful thing is that I am who I am. I don’t have to choose among all my unique features. I'm the whole package and that’s what makes me the person who I am, more so than a name or gender assigned to me at birth.

How long had I been thinking that I never wanted to be a girl, to do the things girls do, to act the way most of my peers or adult women did. And at the same time, I hated the idea of becoming a man when I started thinking that I could be a transgender man. At first, I hated myself for the fact that I would never be able to live as a fully functioning man and have sex like cisgender people do. Yet when I imagined myself with a male body, I realized that I didn’t want to live my entire life in that body. I understood that I didn’t want to be a hundred percent man. I knew there were androgynous people, but at that time, the society was so far away from tolerating homosexuality, not to speak of accepting binary transgender people. And for the most part, people around me didn’t seem to have enough emotional intelligence to not treat me as a threat or a broken cog in the system.

Needless to say my desire to use male pronouns for myself wasn’t taken seriously. I looked at myself in the mirror and I saw it, my curvaceous body, sexually appealing by traditional beauty standards, my “pretty” face features, and I was disappointed in myself. I believed that no one would ever perceive me as androgynous, nor as a boy, nor as anyone other than just female body parts. So I tried to socialize as a woman, to make use of this female body of mine, and only allowed myself to be in my natural state when I was at home or with my partners. Some might say, don’t be too soft, everyone does that. Everyone gives in to the rules of this world, everyone wears masks and only let themselves relax when they’re at home. Yet I doubt many people have to play the roles that feel so alien and hated. Even though these roles might have seemed easy at first, since others succeeded.

This incompleteness, this humiliating role, having to be someone I already hated were making it even worse. I didn’t want to go outside, my inner aggression and self-hatred grew inside me tearing me apart. I hated myself and everything I was doing. Everyday, I dreamed of not waking up. Besides, people felt that I was a so-so woman, a strange woman, a woman who doesn’t want to understand what other women do, and doesn’t behave naturally. They saw through me immediately. Well, I know myself that I wasn’t able to get over my feelings to an extent where I could always be comfortable with female pronouns, expectations society keeps putting on women, my female pseudonym and the attitude to myself in general.Everything related to female gender roles was so unnatural to me that it irritated and disgusted me.

When it all went too far, I wasn’t even able to leave home. I was anxious about people not taking me seriously, deeming me insane for using male pronouns while not looking as a bulky masculine man, blaming it all on fanfiction or something like that. Sometimes, I thought the same way, too. I’ve heard them say anyone can live their life normally, settle down, even change their sexual orientation after playing around in their younger ages. They just grow over it, people said. Why wouldn’t I try to pretend that I’m the same? After all, it’s what should make other people around me happy. I started imagining myself starting a heteronormative family, or maybe a lesbian one, and I knew that was it. The best way to dig my own grave and bury myself alive. Childbirth sounded like a sentence. I would never do that to my body, I would never put everything away for the sake of becoming a living incubator. Then, I started imagining living in a male body and all those surgeries to remove body parts or construct an artificial, insensitive penis. Or facial hair growth procedures. I knew for sure that I didn’t want to be a man. I wouldn’t even want to be born as a man. Men’s life experiences are just as far from a fairy tale as female ones.

And yet I knew I wanted to live in-between, break away from being a woman without becoming a man completely. What is that even supposed to be? Is it even possible? Can one survive in this society with such paradigm of thought? Nope, I believed, I must be crazy for sure. And if I’m crazy, if they deem me crazy, then the future holds nothing good for me. What kind of creature am I, not being able to understand who I am, to find a place I belong, to fit in anywhere?

One day, a friend of mine told me they write about people like me on the internet. That such things, have a name and one can say for sure that I’m not crazy. That my identity is one of transgender identities. Moreover, the world wants to know more about nonbinary people, which means there is a chance to be heard, not to be crushed by society, and it’s even possible to embrace the gender you identify with yourself, rather than trying to hide it and get into someone else’s skin. Thanks to the visibility of other nonbinary people, I was able to understand that I no longer had to swing between the two extremes and make painful choices. To tell the truth, I had already stopped trying by that time and lived my life stuck in endless depression, without contact with the world outside, without leaving home. I was sure people like me would never survive and fulfil themselves in a binary world.

When I realized that my androgyny wasn’t just a figment of my imagination but that I could and should always stay true to myself, I set off on my journey to a new life. I started developing my style the way I had always envisioned it, I started becoming myself. Each day, each month, each year I was getting closer to being myself, to finding my place and my voice in society.I managed to step into the light and speak out about who I am and what I want. I stopped being afraid of myself. We’re few in number, but I know for sure that I’m not alone in this world.

[cowboyjen68]

Hi Jen, I'm non-binary (Agender) and I can talk a bit about how I see my sexual identity/gender identity interplaying: I identify as agender, but female-presenting because that's what I'm (and my family is) comfortable with. I am also (questioning) bisexual, but I when I think about being attracted to males or females, I don't even consider the fact that I'm agender, really. I think it's more of a question of what you present as. If I'm non-binary but female presenting, 1/?

2/2 I can be called a ��lesbian”, even though I’m agender. If I’m male-presenting and I’m attracted to a guy, I could be called “gay”. I honestly don’t see the importance in precisely labeling it (for me, specifically). I’m attracted to who I’m attracted to, and what I’m presenting as at the time doesn’t really play into who I’m attracted to. It definitely plays into who is attracted to ME, but I don’t but too much importance on it. Does that help at all, other anon? 

I think some of my confusion lies in the ‘presenting’ part that I do hear NB people use. I am VERY often called a guy or asked to leave women’s bathrooms or called  “sir”. I have had people say I am “gender non conforming” or “male presenting” but I am neither of those things. I conform just fine to my gender. This is me. it might not fit society’s idea of what a female or woman looks like but my reality is I have a female body and i am very happy with that. I am not “male presenting”. Clothes are only gendered under cultural restrictions, as are haircuts and the way we walk or sit.  I don’t “present” ...I am. I dress as I like and what suits me. 

I have a female body and I am a woman and I am only attracted to female bodies. That makes me a lesbian whether someone thinks I am a guy or not. Perception does not change me. My orientation is not subject to the opinions of the general public. 

So I guess. What you say doesn’t really help me.  Other than what I have been saying.. some NB people are about the preception of others while some are about how they want to be seen. Still others just don’t feel like a gender role fits.. but that feels like many of us feel. Very few men or woman perfectly align with their gender roles, nor do they wish to. 

I have zero issue with NB people identifying as they wish. And I support people’s right to move in this world as they feel most as ease, most comfortable.  When I say I don’t understand... maybe that was the wrong word.. maybe I mean.. i just don’t relate. 

Different from you who I am attracted to is very important because my natural orientation is female, women and they must be lesbian or bi or is just won’t work. I can’t force a connection where there can’t be one, either physically or emotionally. I place the utmost importance of these things. 

I understand the complexities of gender as a construct. I also understand the scientific terms of male and female. I understand not wanting to fit in a box of rules applied to my physical sex and the idea that some people don’t feel a firm attachment to the gender our society places on them. I also understand dysphoria. I  also  have a very firm grasp on external and internal misogyny and how that affects how we feel and see ourselves.  

Non Binary is a concept I can understand by definition.. I just don’t relate. It absolutely does not mean that I don’t support people who are NB. I will always protect and support those people, younger and older who feel most comfortable in that space.. using that term, existing with in that identity. 

[labgrowndaddyissues]

The idea that transmascs are afforded male privilege ignores literally the majority of transmasc experiences. We are denied access to our healthcare, we are NOT welcome in male spaces, and believe it or not we don't just come out and then suddenly are able to go stealth. A lot of us don't go stealth. And if you do that doesn't take away the time before being able to go stealth.

When I was in highschool as an out pre-t trans guy, I was denied access to male roles in my theatre and male vocal parts in my choir because I didn't "sound like" a "real" man. I had people threaten to murder me in bathrooms. I had teachers misgender and dead name me because I looked like a girl, despite my best efforts to pass.

My family, who for the most part was supportive, immediately turned to misgendering and deadnaming me the minute I was anything less than hypermasc presenting. I grew out my hair, dyed it pink, and stopped binding and that was enough for them to denounce my manhood. Trans men are denied our identities the minute we don't try to perfectly conform to cis male standards, so don't even try to say we are afforded the benefits of male privilege.

I have also experienced so much sexual harassment and people attempting to "fix" me. I had a partner, who was trans and bisexual mind you, pressure me to delay my transition because he thought transmasc bodies were unattractive. This partner also misgendered me constantly despite claiming to see me as a man. When I started to present more femininely I was congratulated on my detransition, despite still identifying as a man.

The idea that trans men experience male privilege beyond just passing as a man in public is asinine. I am constantly misgendered and mistreated in medical settings. My reproductive healthcare has been deemed "unnecessary" on multiple occasions. When going into inpatient therapy in an emergency room I had to wait over a day in isolation so the doctors could find a place I could go to because they didn't want to put me with men or women.

I am terrified to use men's bathrooms, even on days I think I pass, because if another man hears me peeing in the stall they might clock me. I'm terrified that I look too masculine or feminine to dress how I want to because someone will know I'm trans. I am terrified to exist in public because I am visibly trans.

We aren't treated like men. We are treated like gross, confused women who need to be fixed or disposed of. We are treated as failures of patriarchal femininity. It doesn't matter how we want to be seen, because unless someone goes full stealth, they'll never truly get to experience what it's like to be a cis man. And even then there are some things that will never go away no matter how hard you try to appear cis.

The idea that transmasc people are all afforded male privilege is a transmedicalist perspective. It implies that we all are making a full medical transition and are going stealth, presenting completely as a man. It ignores pre-t and never-t men. It ignores gnc men. It ignores pre-surgery and never-surgery men. It ignores people who don't want to stealth. But even in trans spaces these men are never truly seen as men, are we?

I kinda just stopped watching videos by trans essayists. Nothing against them personally but there's just so much casual transandrophobia that gets slipped in probably without their knowledge, but it's hard to watch. Jesse gender from her barbie video, she says something that basically implies that somehow trans men are like the common transgender. That he gets praised and benefited from his masculinity in a way that trans women do not benefit from their femininity.

I just wish trans people would stop making sweeping generalizations about all other trans people solely based out of their own experiences.

The video was about white feminism and the lack of Barbies intersectionality but then just ignored the intersectionality of trans men.

[ventbloglite]

Let's break this down to some really basic levels. Is a female cat, a woman? Does the female cat 'go by' she/her pronouns? Does the female cat have 'gender roles' associated with it's very existence? Of course not. A female cat is a female cat. There may be some differences in mating behaviours and some animals do seem to have set 'roles' for different sexes, but on average a female cat doesn't care what pronouns are thrown it's way and is most certainly not a woman. At some point in history, the word 'girl' changed from meaning 'children' and 'boy' changed from meaning 'underling' to 'girl = female child boy = male child'. The word man used to be primarily used and in many cases is still primarily used to mean 'human kind as a whole' (from Germanic roots). 'Woman' as a word came later, though of course female humans always existed. Different cultures have different ideas about what a male and female should do, and what it is that makes men men outside of their sex and what makes women women outside of their sex. Sex based oppression exists, and is uniquely unfavourable towards those born female or assumed to be born female. A passing trans woman, assumed to be born female, will experience the same misogyny as her cis woman friend, but each faces unique medical misogyny. A woman who passes as a man, but does not identify as one, would still find that people's behaviours towards her are different to those of her feminine friend who looks obviously like a woman (based on whatever their culture deems as appropriate ways for a woman to look). This could involve more 'favourable' behaviour coming from misogynistic people.

A woman who is seen perfectly as a woman in one country could be accused of being 'immitating a man' in another country where wearing trousers and that's it is considered cross-dressing.

Intersex people, by definition, are not either male or female to begin with but will have a sense of gender identity and can be either men or women.

Cultures across the world have more than men and women as part of their default accepted genders.

Cis does not mean female. A female cat is not cis, because it is not a woman. Cis female simply means that you were born female and are fine with people saying you're a woman because of that. Trans female means that you were not okay with being told you're not a woman because you weren't born with a certain set of genitalia.

Trans women and cis women can both wear many different kinds of clothing and behave in many different kinds of ways and still be women.

The whole world, and history and modern times and probably the future shows us over and over again we invented complex additions to our existence as flesh piloted by electricity and we called it 'gender' and nobody can exactly agree on how many there are (don't be racist and say 'yes we do') or how those genders should act and dress. We just agree with whatever we're raised to agree with and hopefully somewhere along the line learn that this rigid dictonomy is absolutely barmy and stupid is part of why people born female are oppressed in the way that they are. It's why people born female and identifying as not woman are oppressed as they are for being born female and then uniquely for not conforming to be a woman. It's why people born male who identify as the gender associated with being born with a vagina are also oppressed in the same way.

Sexism is real. Nobody is saying a trans woman is oppressed for having a penis or having been born with a penis. She's being targetted by misognistics because misogynists don't just hate vagina they hate the entire concept of womanhood and all who display it and display traits of it because obviously to do so means you must be lower to them in some way. Trans men equally do not escape misogyny because of the hatred towards the female anatomy even if it no longer exists (via surgery) and the idea that trans men should conform to being woman because of it.

Gender and sex are not two floating concepts that don't touch. Their messy, interlinked, squashed and stretched and mixed all up with each other. For example, most of society seems female as equally women. So when misogynistic men stand up and say 'women should not be allowed to have abortions' they think this covers every person who would ever need an abortion but the statement does not. It excludes trans men/trans masc people. But trans men could not still get abortions because of it. If the laws only affected woman, why not allow trans masc abortions? Because it's the act of being able to get pregnant which is being targetted. Trans men are regularly grouped in with women even when they are no longer in possession of female anatomy. But a trans man is also not considered for a smear, or to be in need of services aimed at helping women and would be inherently rejected from women's shelters etc even if he had a vagina. Do you see how batshit it all is? Sometimes the oppression targets your sex, other times your gender? How it's all linked? How we should spend less time telling a trans woman, who will be subjected to all the hatred anyone who looks like a woman will be, that she just shouldn't call herself a woman and more time targetting unjust systems which decide to give and take womanhood and bodily autonomy in relation to womanhood at whim? (And as for the 'but then why isn't trans racial ok?'. That's actually a really good and thoughtful philosophical question. Unfortunately, instead of meaning 'why is it that we can observe people being trans gender (a socially created concept based on nonsense ideas about what biology means outside of just being biology) throughout history and in an ever evolving way but it seems that people do not experience the same fluid sense of identity towards other concepts of human existence, such as race? Or do they and we're ignoring it? What does that mean for these concepts in general?' and more 'trans racial isn't a thing so trans gender isn't a thing, there simply can't exist a thing like trans gender without every single thing being trans, this makes complete sense to me, that's why everything in the world is wet because liquids are wet')

[butchspace]

nobody eat me alive, please. I'm really confused and I'm not trying to attack anyone in any way. If pronouns don't equal gender, then why do we use them? If you can a ftm trans man a 'she', that's wrong. Because those pronouns are incorrect. Of course, non binary people don't identify with a gender, but then why even bother using 'they/them'? Because now pronouns don't matter. And if a man is a lesbian,,, then isn't he just,,, straight? Because he likes women? and that makes him,,, straight?

The question of “why do we use pronouns” would require a lot of time & and a linguistics degree I do not have to answer, so I’m just going to skip ahead to the use of pronouns by LGBT people bc that’s a little simpler.

So in English, at least, we have the personal pronouns I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, and them, all of which besides it are conventionally applied to people, and some of which (he/him, she/her) indicate gender. They/them is gender-neutral & has been used as both a plural and a singular pronoun for centuries, which is why some nonbinary people use it–because it’s gender-neutral and so doesn’t indicate gender at all.

Now, in a perfectly heterosexual, cisgender world in which everyone meshed perfectly with their role under patriarchy, everyone would fit very nicely into their gender boxes and–

I don’t know which mod started typing this, but I, mod q, am gonna finish it.

I have said this many, many times but people don’t seem to get it. When I say pronouns=/=gender, I am not saying they don’t matter or that they aren’t related to gender. People use certain pronouns because they are associated with gender and gender roles. She/her is associated with femininity and womanhood and he/him is associated with masculinity and manhood. So a lesbian, who may feel alienated from both womanhood and femininity, might not feel very comfortable using she/her, despite identifing as a woman. This is particularly true for butch and nonbinary lesbians.

Traditional Western womanhood doesn’t really give lesbians and LGBT women in general any space to exist. So many of us, especially otherwise gender non-conforming women, don’t feel comfortable using the labels and pronouns associated with traditional womanhood.

I also think this reaction to GNC people and their pronouns that uses trans people as a pawn/example as to why GNC people are doing something wrong is really bad. There are GNC trans people. Some trans people use pronouns that don’t “"match”“ their gender. And just because a woman prefers he/him pronouns does not suddenly give you an excuse to misgender people.

Pronouns go more with gender presentation than they do gender. Gender is not only as deep as what pronouns you use.

-mod q

[pro-abortion-rights]

@inferior-mirage Does the "very belated response" refer to my response to you? Because trying to get in a jab at someone for not being perfectly timely on an internet discussion makes you look entitled and demanding, frankly. Some of us have busy lives and a lot of notes. It happens. You also failed to show what I was misrepresenting, since I gave direct quotes and clarified the context of your quotes with links.

You might also want to clarify what you mean by "maintaining boundaries," because as I showed in my previous response, intersex organizations are supportive of trans women identifying as women. Did you mean boundaries in physical spaces such as public bathrooms? Yet every single intersex activist and organization I could find is critical of bathroom bills that would (among other things) exclude trans women from women's bathrooms. InterAct called such bills an emergency for all intersex people, so it doesn't look like intersex organizations are all that supportive of maintaining boundaries, as you call it, between trans women and AFAB people.

More fundamentally, I'm curious what you have in mind as advocating for trans rights while misgendering trans women and excluding them from women's spaces. If you could give an example of such advocacy I would be very grateful.

Is being intersex by itself a disability? Some forms of intersex (perhaps including yours) might be accompanies by sexual, hormonal, or other physical dysfunction, but it seems odd to me to say that not conforming to preconceived ideas of a sexual binary is itself a disability. What purpose does it serve to call healthy intersex people disabled, other than maintaining the increasingly shaky construct of a sex binary?

Pathologization has been and remains a potent weapon to coerce people who don't conform to social convention, with gay, trans, and asexual people being treated as ill to various degrees even in the present day. Without diminishing the struggles of intersex people who do want treatment, I think it's fair to say that it is inaccurate and harmful to conceptualize all the incredibly diverse forms of intersex as sicknesses or disabilities as a matter of course.

Pro-lifers and terfs aren’t feminists pass it on