#IDK I just think terfs would be happier without gender than they are with it.
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thorne1435 · 10 months ago
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Y'know. Considering how essential to the argument that point is, I'm surprised I can't remember anyone saying it.
Cis women just aren't in danger of being erased at all.
Even to the extent that you could talk over them or obfuscate their experiences (which we would be foolish to deny the possibility of), creating inclusive medical terminology isn't going to let people forget that cis women exist because...how could they?
I mean, hell, lite-feminism is mainstream enough at this point that I don't even think it's possible to completely erase the level of 'female empowerment' we've already achieved, either! The cultural presence of cisgender women as being a valid classification of "people" is enormous, and so is the vague idea that women either have nothing to prove or are actively proving something (depending on what ad you're watching).
To say that anyone could forget, to say that the idea of a women could be erased, by something as simple as, what, emphasizing individual biological functions over misconceived uniformity? I mean, you'd have to think it's a pretty fragile concept to even genuinely have a fear like that.
And if you're not genuinely afraid of that, well...then you're just talking, aren't you? Just getting mad at the misfits for trying to stay alive.
I just think that when you break the whole argument down like that, it's hard to ignore how fundamentally disingenuous it is.
the importance of inclusive language isn't just making sure trans people's feelings don't get hurt. like dysphoria can be life ruining yes & it's important to keep in mind. but trans inclusive language is vital because otherwise we WILL be forgotten. we will be overlooked by research and resources that are desperately needed. we cannot afford to be shuffled off into assumed-cisness because it's convenient
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b0x · 5 years ago
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😔 some Thoughts on the Trans Experience under the cut that i wanna vent out bc of some posts ive seen around that just kinda didnt sit right with me i guess
every time someone on here is like “trans men cannot experience eldest/only daughter trauma bc they are men and are therefore experiencing transphobic trauma” it’s like... man, gender is way too complex to be so cut & dry about a topic like this. many trans men grew up experiencing the traumas of being a daughter And being a trans man daughter, both pre-transition and post. saying that isn’t saying “trans men are actually women because they experienced this women’s trauma” it’s just recognising that many traumas overlap, regardless of gender. i know it comes from a supportive place, validating us as real men, but that should include validating our unique experiences too. 
i hope this makes sense, but a trans-man-daughter is still 100% a man, still 100% a son, but is very different to and does not have the same experience as a trans-man-son. and a trans-man-daughter doesn’t mean “a trans man raised as a daughter because they didn’t know they were trans at the time”, or “a trans man raised as a daughter by a homophobic parent even after coming out and already knowing they are trans”. no, a trans-man-daughter can still also be a trans man raised as a son with 100% support, because a parent’s trauma can still pass on regardless of the circumstance, because a trans person’s relationship with themselves and their own gender and body and mind is so unique and one-of-a-kind that we were practically designed to overlap the many gendered concepts that so many gatekeep as a sense of empowerment. 
and it sucks making our own posts/experience sometimes, because they never feel like “our own”? because they all come from traumas and bigotry that have already been boxed and labelled and sorted into sections, and to be someone who has bits and pieces from all those different boxes/sections? a trans person can, for example, experience misogyny one year and then transmisogyny the next and that doesnt make the misogyny the prior year “actually transmisogyny”, it was still misogyny that was experienced, even if it’s later relabeled as “transmisogyny”. if anything that just makes it TWO kinds of misogyny experienced instead of just one. it’s terribly confusing. and trust me, for every cis person confused by a trans concept, i can almost guarantee you it’s just as confusing for the trans person themselves. and this isn’t also me saying that ohh trans people have it worse because we experience Double the bigotry and trauma - no absolutely not. i just think it’s important for people to realise that there are people who will experience both misogyny And transmisogyny and that in itself creates its own new kind of bigotry/trauma experienced, if that makes sense?
of course, i don’t speak for every single trans man, but it’s a very specific kind of transphobia a lot of us experience that ties in directly with eldest/only daughter trauma, and why we relate to and connect with posts like that, even when they’re aimed specifically at those who identify primarily as women.
and on top of all that, i see quite a few of the same trans man “supporters” who say “trans men can’t experience daughter’s traumas because they’re men” do complete 180s and say that trans women can’t experience eldest/only daughter trauma bc their transphobia doesn’t correlate with “womanhood” at the source, because trauma that sons/men/male at birth experience is different to the trauma that daughters/women/female at birth experience, which is.. horrifically and bewilderingly transmisogynistic, transphobic, alienating, and just..  Shocking. shocking that these two points can be somehow made in the same breath together without any of them realising what they’re saying.
it’s like.. this weird group of people who are somehow both the opposite of and exactly the same as terfs? theyre more like... tirfs - trans Inclusionary radical feminists - the people who treat trans men like a substitute for the “effeminate cis gay best friend”, the one’s who will validate your masculinity but not entirely consider you a 100% guy, latching onto that “biological fact” of trans men being “female at birth” and therefore considering you more of a “sister” than a “brother”, regardless of them knowing and understanding that you are a man. i guess its kind of very similar to the transphobes who make awful comments that nonbinary people are just closeted lesbians/gays?
anyway, yes, many traumas are gendered due to binaries designated by society and a misogynistic and men-restricting patriarchy (and many other factors that all play parts in this whole big system such as religion and the upper class), but traumas are traumas, and honestly shouldn’t be gendered, because they all overlap regardless, and can be experienced by anyone if the exact circumstances are met. that and every single trans experience is so unique and so so complex because gender in itself is an extremely unique and complex concept that it just cannot in any way be monitored or labelled into strict rules and laws and binaries.
every time i see a post on here about womanhood and daughter traumas and cis women’s misogynistic experiences and hell even a lot of lesbian traumas/experiences, i find myself completely and entirely relating to many of them every single time even though i am 100% a trans guy, and half grew up as a son. and i guess it’s just kind of weird but not so weird because sure while some days it just feels like im not calling myself a true trans guy, most days its just me validating and relating to an experience that i had that was unique to me and doesnt necessarily mean that im a woman because of it
because womanhood and manhood are temperaments, traits we are either born with or without, traits that are ever-changing and developing as we evolve generation by generation. anyone can pick up or be born with parts of womanhood and/or manhood. like that’s what makes all of us so unique, not a single one of us are alike in any way shape or form because of that. the combinations are always unlimited. so it’s just dumb seeing stuff like that gatekeeped. you cant Own an Experience like thats... what the hell is going on. every time its always the same thing, everyone’s always tryna play god in some way, be it mastering themselves, their own emotions and life, or controlling others, dictating what they think how certain things should be etc
it’s like that one post that’s like everything would be so much simpler if everyone was bi and nothing was gendered ghadjgdkgj
idk.. just.. to gender conceptual things like gender and traits and personalities and traumas is just so... unhelpful and unopen to change and not fluid whatsoever as theyre supposed to be. i dont wanna be all “nothing is real” abt it all but labels and binaries and decided systems and set laws are literally the reason, since the beginning of time, for wars and bigotry and oppression and poverty and the whole shebang. bc Someone decided one day that being a woman means this this and that, and being trans means that and this and that, and those meanings will be the basis we will rewrite occasionally and maybe add to, instead of completely scrapping our whole outdated initial ideas about it bla bla bla. 
im just tired gender is weird and stupid why are we arguing why are we so protective like just have a convo man rule with curiosity not adamancy and you’ll be sooo much happier trust me
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ajaegerpilot · 6 years ago
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idk. its been on my mind lately wrt radfe/minism assigning moral value to certain .. demographics over others. like i get that there’s some type of appeal there. to be a lesbian, one of the most oppressed groups, and then to assign moral value to your oppression. but i mean, it doesn’t actually track. we’re all just humans. for good and ill. the way the world’s been split up, it could’ve split up differently and then we’d be shitty to each other in different ways. as it is, the dice fell where they lay and i’m not going to for example champion against misa/ndry where it doesnt exist. but saying that men are inherently oppressive.. they don’t have some type of gene that makes them hurt women. or even some unbreakable socialization. some assholes historically brute-forced or slowly boiled the frog to the point where equality was no longer an option socially or economically. there’s nothing genetically unique to white ppl that had us ripping apart the world. conversely there’s nothing about women or poc that invites oppression onto them. oppression isn’t logical.. (in the sense that you could justify oppression of a group, though oppressors try and indeed some members of oppressed groups eg te/rfs agree with them) beyond the logic of abuse and the benefits oppressors reap in a social system that allows them to and does not punish them for harming their victims.
idk. my - way of relating to this world has i think been guided by my desire to reduce pain. that’s why i’m confident in interacting with ppl i disagree with. if their way turns out to reduce pain then i’ll change my mind, as i’ve done in the past. but idk. its wild to me that some people can make some leaps of logic that i just can’t see how to bridge. like i was talking to some white supremacist on fucking runescape the other night (Dont ask how ThIs Shit got started) and like idk. that guy is kind of - okay like first of all. you know what fuck it. i know his game. his game is that he’s accepted a hierarchy of races at which he’s coincidentally at the top, and thus he views equality of other races as a threat to his position (and he’s correct!). and he views degeneracy (lgbt-ness) and probably women’s rights as a threat to his hierarchical position in patriarchal heterosexuality (and he’s correct!) he thinks that people would be happier and in less pain if europe was some white heaven and all the degenerates and poc were excluded, but that has nothing to do with how poc/degenerates are fairing, because he doesnt value them as full human like himself. so for him, everyone that matters is taken care of and pain has been reduced/eliminated (i mean, white supremacy is not sustainable like - it wouldn’t work, there is no white supremacist utopia because its an inherently violent ideology that requires subjugation of SOMEBODY to function it will never stop). but for me, everyone matters, unless they’re causing others pain.
ugh this is not cohesive!! but i lit a fire under my ass because i understand this dude again. but anyway, it’s frustrating because you really cannot convince people of universal humanity when their ideology and self-worth is hinged on there being hierarchies. transphobic radfeminism or like similar types of movements (i wont get into them because i’d be sticking my ass out of my lane) of people assigning hierarchical worth to their own oppression are different but similar. for one, the end result of transphobic radfeminism is, if you follow the logic - the assignment of babies as male or female, and the elimination of all males. like - there is the understanding that men are biologically predisposed to oppressing ‘females’, and that ‘females’ are inherently more worthy because they are biological martyrs in that sense, they are not tainted by a genetic compulsion or ability to oppress (incorrect of course for a number of reasons). so the only solution is to avoid relationships with ‘males’ and if you do they will without fail mistreat you and you’ve brought on your own suffering (by being a bi or straight woman). like i literally saw some terf say ‘welp it sucks that straight women are straight lmao lets get them robot boyfriends’ like WHAT?? there’s this huge disconnect to humanity and reality there, and a huge disconnect from empathy to vast swathes of the human population. it approaches things this bizarre sort of value judgement based on happenstance of birth (birthright, so to speak) from a different angle than ur average runescape white supremacist, but i think why there are parallels b/w te/rfs and white supremacists is because they both draw the same conclusion. like te/rfs say that men are subhuman because they biologically oppress women (and i’d agree within the sense that ppl who oppress others are less humane, except that te/rfs link it to something inescapable), white supremacists will say that poc/degenerates/women are less human because again - something apparently inescapable. the results of either of these ideologies is either genocide or seperatism, the former of which is horrifying and the latter of which is not actually feasible (at least without violence). it is the attempt of a scoundrel to comfort themselves by having pride in something they had no say in rather than their actions.
liike we have to understand that humans are like all CAPABLE of good shit, AND bad shit, and the fact that men (for example) can choose to fight for equality with women and don’t is what makes them uniquely bad. this is also is the only thing that brings hope. like, there’s also the fact that it is real. we are all working with humanity here. its just very hard to argue with people i think if they can’t agree with that premise. am i unique here? did my parents do me wrong by raising me to believe in my inherent humanity and the inherent humanity of others? i don’t think this was very coherent... but basically there is no value or worth that is granted to an individual being because they are a certain race or gender or sexuality. we are all the same damn dirty human worldwide, contending with lines that were drawn to subjugate some to raise up a few. but these lines were drawn, they are artificial. time to rip it down ykwim ;3c
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