#Julia Serano homophobia

[small-strong-bookish-butch]

“What should be obvious by now is that all forms of gender entitlement and gender anxiety are, at their core, expressions of insecurity. After all, people who are truly comfortable with their own desires and expressions of gender and sexuality do not have any need to be bothered or concerned by dissimilar expressions and desires in others. However, when we indulge in our own insecurities and resort to gender entitlement, we not only deny the variation that exists in human gender and sexuality, but we arrogantly presume that other people should curb or conform their inclinations and desires in order to meet our expectations.”

—Whipping Girl by Julia Serano (from the chapter Blind Spots: On Subconscious Sex and Gender Entitlement)

{bolding is my emphasis}

[vaspider]

youve got a lot of really great thoughts on a transphobia and homophobia, tbh more critical thinking than most people on here, and i was wondering how much you knew about the theory of rapid onset gender dysphoria/if youd be comfortable sharing your thoughts on the ridiculous idea

It was explicitly invented by transphobes as a means of delegitimizing trans identity, and that invention was backed up by a "study" in which the person running the study never spoke to any trans people or to any professionals providing care for trans people, only spoke to the parents of trans minors, and those parents were specifically recruited from forums for anti-trans parents.

The paper which supposedly coined ROGD was taken down for a while and corrected. Further studies have found no basis for ROGD.

What's really interesting is in the cache of emails which became public earlier this year from a former detransitioner there's a paper trail which pretty clearly indicates that the term was actually created on a very heinous website called 4th/wave/now (forgive my anti-search slashes, these people are awful) well prior to the study.

Hey, you want to guess where the parents for this study were recruited from? If you guessed "the one where the term was invented," you're right!

But wait, there's more!

It appears from the journalistic work done by Mother Jones, Jude Doyle, and Julia Serano, that this term was created by an anti-trans activist who works extensively with right-wing think tanks and who went to great lengths to hide that she invented the term.

Jude Doyle:

Finding anti-trans narratives that would “sell” to the general public was a constant concern for this crowd, and Shupe says it didn’t much matter if the narratives were based in fact or not. Marchiano, for instance, eagerly watched the spread of the ROGD theory — “[transfeminist writer and researcher Julia] Serano has already written a takedown,” she exulted in one August 2018 email. Shupe suspects Marchiano’s role is larger than the public knows: “Marchiano never explicitly said she is the inventor of ROGD, but the evidence points to her, and she’s listed as a contributor to the [Lisa Littman] study on PLOS One,” she writes to me. “My ‘opinion’ is that Marchiano and the 4thWaveNow folks are behind the ROGD study, and Littman merely fronted it for them to make it appear unbiased.”

Jude Doyle again:

On July 2, Shupe sent Marchiano a link to Jones’ blog post telling her “you’ve upset Zinnia again.” (Shupe had a tendency to send Marchiano news of ROGD, and to attribute the theory to “you” — that is, to Marchiano — whether Marchiano was explicitly named or not. In the communications I’ve reviewed, Marchiano does not reject the attribution.) Marchiano responded by saying that Jones had done something to “make her nervous” — namely, she’d dug up a blog post about ROGD that Marchiano had written under her own name.

Julia Serano:

If all of this is true — that Marchiano ran YCTP and invented ROGD — then it would follow that Marchiano was also likely skepticaltherapist, the supposed parent of a trans child who invented the idea of “transgender social contagion” in the first place.

Julia Serano again:

Also on March 15, 2016, at 6:07am (so very early in the day, likely before the aforementioned YTCP piece is published), skepticaltherapist posts her final comment on 4thwavenow before mysteriously disappearing. In a reply to someone named Starrymessenger, skepticaltherapist says: 'I wanted to mention that this month’s Psychotherapy Networker is focusing on trans youth issues, and the tone of each article is uncritically celebratory — lots of mentions of “courage,” and “bravery.” You may need a subscription or at least an account to comment, but I have so far.'

At the time of this comment, "Lisa" is the *only* person to have posted a comment on this particular Psychotherapy Networker article, as the 2nd comment doesn't appear until later that evening (7:30:15 PM on March 15th; both 4thwavenow & Psychotherapy Networker appear to be based in the U.S., so the should be only a few hours apart, if at all). Therefore, "Lisa" and skepticaltherapist must be the same person.

Did you catch all of that?

This is a fraudulent "diagnosis" explicitly invented by an anti-trans psychologist who at times has used sockpuppets to manipulate online conversations, claimed at times to be the mother of a trans child, or maybe it was her friend who had the trans child, or maybe she just knew somebody who just randomly decided he was a trans boy after going on tumblr. (Boy, does Lisa Marchiano hate Tumblr, lol.)

After inventing this diagnosis and pushing it on a forum for parents who don't like that they have trans kids, Marchiano then approaches a different researcher and uses this other researcher to launder this term, launching it into the verbal stratosphere, while explicitly working with right-wing groups who used this "evidence" to manufacture anti-trans bills. This list of right-wing groups and individuals includes the Alliance Defending Freedom, the "American College of Pediatricians," -- not to be confused with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the legitimate organization, ACPeds is a fringe right-wing group.

They literally made all of this up, this idea that transmasculine people specifically are being "infected" by online sources, and then they laundered it through a shitty study and tried to hide the laundering they did, so that shit like this can happen:

The president of the American Principles Project, a member of the coalition, recently told the New York Times that his group’s goal is to eliminate all transition care, starting with children because that’s “where the consensus is.”

This isn't about protecting children or any bullshit like that, and it's not about this fallacious "disorder" because it doesn't exist -- and they know it doesn't exist. They know it doesn't exist because they were the ones who made it up.

Like... what else is there to say? It's like if I made up Purple Big Toe Disease and claimed that all people taller than 5'10" and born on a Tuesday have Purple Big Toe Disease and should not be able to buy aspirin, because it's G-d's plan that people who have Purple Big Toe Disease should not prevent themselves from feeling the pain that G-d has planned for them, and then I asked someone to write a paper about PBTD and pretend I wasn't the one who made it up so I could point at the paper and be like le gasp, PBTD is the number one problem! We need to stop everyone over 5'10" and born on a Tuesday from being able to buy aspirin! And then some dude in South Dakota starts writing up bills in consultation with a bunch of Evangelical lawyers to deny basic health care to people over 5'10" and born on Tuesdays.

If it sounds fucking ridiculous, it's because it is.

[goosemixtapes]

max's favorite short stories & articles!

to be updated as i read new things! "articles" could be anything from political points to philosophical musings to fascinating stories. obligatory statement that i don't necessarily agree with everything in every one of these stories/articles, but i think about them a lot and want to share :)

short stories

Avi Cantor Has Six Months To Live by Sacha Lamb (@kuttithevangu) (novella) (so says the writing on the bathroom mirror. of gender & judaism & magic and t4t trans guys. cw for suicidal ideation and bullying)

Epistolary by Sascha Lamb ("The [stuffed] frog you are selling on your blog is MINE and he is NOT HAUNTED and his name is MOSHE not BILLY HOPPER.")

Chokechain by Andrew Joseph White (a trans man discovers his parents have replaced him with a robot version of his pretransition self. cw for transphobia and violence)

Sandrine by Alexandra Munck (the tagline for this one is "I dated a sun god in college" but that doesn't do justice to the sheer concept here please read this)

You Wouldn't Have Known About Me by Calvin Gimpelevich (set in a hospital ward where patients are recovering from gender-confirming surgery)

No Flight Without the Shatter by Brooke Bolander (novella) ("After the world’s end, the last young human learns a final lesson from Earth’s remaining animals." cw for climate change/extinction)

And You Shall Know Her By The Trail Of Dead by Brooke Bolander (what if you had to death-match-fight a virtual version of yourself at your meanest made by your boyfriend whose life you're trying to save would that be fucked up or what. cws for guns and violence)

Hell is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang (stories that clock you in the fucking teeth in the religious trauma.)

A Serpent for Each Year by Tamara Jerée (microfiction) ("Our relationship is almost a year old when I ask Nal why she is covered in snakes." cw for animal death)

The Front Line by W.C. Dunlap (microfiction) (cited as one of the world's finest attention-grabber openings. cws for police brutality, racism, and SA)

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience by Rebecca Roanhorse (step into the simulation and gain an authentic experience! cws for anti-Native racism and alcohol)

The Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria Machado (one of the best stories ever written. once there was a girl with a green ribbon around her neck...)

City of Red Midnight by Usman T. Malik (a chronicle of nested stories-within-stories, set in old fantasy pakistan, inverting a myth from the one hundred and one nights)

We Work In Miraculous Cages by Brenda Peynado (following a college grad drowning in loans through the nightmare of neverending work)

Other Worlds and This One by Cadwell Turnbull (a brotherly relationship collides with a theory about atomic particles, space, and time)

And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker (a convention of alternate-universe selves--all Sarah Pinskers--becomes a murder mystery)

Fandom For Witches by Ruoxi Chen (fuck every other thing ever written about fandom)

Haunted Home by Conrad Loyer ("The ship features a recreation of a slave ship’s hold. The cruise prides itself on it. It is not a good recreation, if the metric is realism.")

articles & essays

Lockhart's Lament (on how math is taught in schools. that is, badly. one of the most cathartic essays i've ever read on education)

Against Cop Shit by Jeffrey Moro (on adversarial education)

Debunking "Trans Women Are Not Women" Arguments by Julia Serano (comprehensive, well-written, good to have as a reference point)

On Liking Women by Andrea Long Chu (and on the politics of desire)

Turning a Unicorn Into a Bat by Josh and Lolly Weed (on Mormonism, love, and whether a gay man and a straight woman can marry happily. cw for homophobia)

Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price (musings on motivation from a social psychologist and professor)

How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Peterson (how come everything happens so much?)

White Women Drive Me Crazy by Aisha Mirza (on the harm caused by white women. cw for racism)

Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong by Michael Hobbes (should be required reading for everyone at this point. cw for fatphobia and eating disorders)

Becoming Anne Frank by Dara Horn (on the cultural fascination with Anne Frank. cw for antisemitism)

The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem ([on/a] plagiarism)

On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People by Patricia Taxxon (video essay) (ostensibly what the title says, but actually a detailed musing on the essential properties of furry media and the freedom of dehumanization; changed my life a bit)

[gatheringbones]

[“If there is one thing that all of us femmes have in common, it is that we all have had to learn to embrace our own feminine expression while simultaneously rejecting other people’s expectations of us. What makes femininity “femme” is not the fact that it is queer, or transgressive, or ironic, or performative, or the complement of butch. No. What makes our femininity “femme” is the fact that we do it for ourselves. It is for that reason that it is so empowering. And that is what makes us so powerful.

As femmes, we can do one of two things with our power: We can celebrate it in secret within our own insular queer communities, pat ourselves on the back for being so much smarter and more subversive than our straight feminine sisters. Or we can share that power with them. We can teach them that there is more than one way to be feminine, and that no style or expression of femininity is necessarily any better than anyone else’s. We can teach them that the only thing fucked up about femininity is the dismissive connotations that other people project onto it. But in order to that, we have to give up the self-comfort of believing that our rendition of femme is more righteous, or more cool, or more subversive than anyone else’s.

I don’t think that my femme expression, or anyone else’s femme expressions, are in and of themselves subversive. But I do believe that the ideas that femmes have been forwarding for decades—about reclaiming femininity, about each person taking the parts of femininity that resonate with them and leaving behind the rest, about being femme for ourselves rather than for other people, about the ways in which feminine expression can be tough and active and bad-ass and so on—these ideas are powerful and transformative.

I think that it’s great to celebrate femme within our own queer communities, but we shouldn’t merely stop there. We need to share with the rest of the world the idea of self-determined and self-empowered feminine expression, and the idea that feminine expression is just as legitimate and powerful as masculine expression. The idea that femininity is inferior and subservient to masculinity intersects with all forms of oppression, and is (I feel) the single most overlooked issue in feminism. We need to change that, not only for those of us who are queer femmes, but for our straight cis sisters who have been disempowered by society’s unrealistic feminine ideals, for our gender-variant and gender-non-conforming siblings who face disdain for defying feminine expectations and/or who are victims of trans-misogyny, and also for our straight cis brothers, who’ve been socialized to avoid femininity like the plague, and whose misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and so on, are driven primarily by their fear of being seen as feminine. While I don’t think that my femme expression is subversive, I do believe that we together as femmes have the power to truly change the world.”]

julia serano, from excluded: making feminist and queer movements more inclusive, 2013

[baeddling]

Not to write an essay abt it but the thing that frustrates me the most about fans of "transandrophobia" theory is that not only are they completely illiterate when it comes to basic transfeminist theory (they will deny this and often attempt to smear Julia Serano as a "gender essentialist" truly proving they have never genuinely engaged with her work), but they also parade around other marginalized groups of men to claim men as a political group are oppressed, proving their illiteracy of any liberationist or feminist theory. Men do not face "anti-man oppression" by society, even marginalized men. They're affected differently than marginalized women of the same socio-economic groups specifically because they are not subject to the misogyny aimed at those women, and not experiencing transmisogyny or misogynoir or lesbophobia on top of homophobia or transphobia or racism is not a special new form of oppression in any way.

[man-squared]

I'm looking into Julia Serano a bit on my own and I ran across this, which sort of rubs me the wrong way in general:

"Cultural feminist views of trans male/masculine people are more complex and varied. Sometimes trans male/masculine people are viewed harshly, as 'traitors' who have abandoned sisterhood to join 'the enemy.' Other times they are viewed more sympathetically, as presumed 'lesbians' who are simply (and understandably) attempting to flee sexism and homophobia. Still other times they are viewed maternalistically, as young 'girls' who have been 'brainwashed by gender ideology' or 'groomed' by 'TRAs' (a gender-critical acronym for 'trans rights activists' intended to equate us with 'MRAs/men’s rights activists').

"'Gender critical' author Abigail Shrier recently wrote a trans-kids-moral-panic book entitled Irreversible Damage; the cover image is a cartoon of a young girl with a hole cut out where her reproductive parts would be (read: her body has been violated). Notably, the subtitle of the book is 'The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters' [emphasis mine]. And who is supposedly doing this 'seducing'? Trans female/feminine people, of course."

+

"Cultural feminists also tend to view trans male/masculine people as relatively 'safe' given that they are supposedly 'innately female' and 'lacking' the organ that imparts sexual stigma (and perpetrates sexual violence) upon other people."

I don't know. It just seems like she solely is focusing on harsher forms of transphobia for transfemmes and not as harsh forms of transphobia for transmascs. Maybe it's a play at painting transfemmes as more oppressed and transmascs as not (and therefore contributing to the idea that we don't deal with 'real transphobia/harm'). Or maybe she just isn't knowledgeable enough about us. Either way, it doesn't sit right with me.

[communistkenobi]

sure thing! It’s a fairly mainstream “trans-inclusive” opinion that while sex is still biological (which is to say, binary, “real,” outside of social opinion, it exists in nature), gender is socially constructed. This frames being transgender as having a socially constructed gender that ‘conflicts with’ biological sex. This conforms to mainstream psychiatric models of transgenderism, which frames trans people as having an identity disorder or something psychologically wrong with us that makes us ‘want to have a gender that is different from our biological sex.’ It is a handy way of conceding that gender is social while still maintaining the belief that sex is a real biological thing. It is very common among doctors, cis allies, policy documents about trans inclusivity (the ones I’ve read, anyway), and is also a common opinion among trans people in my experience.

I really dislike this framing for several reasons - one is that it is in fact arguing that gender is biologically based by tying it to our ‘natural sex’ (if our gender ‘conflicts with’ our sex, then gender is still biologically based, and if the reason you want to change your gender is because of mental illness, then a desire to change one’s gender can only be gained through psychological abnormality). It also maintains sex as something that is real, unchanging, natural, and universal across space, time, and culture. It is none of those things -

sex can change (HRT, surgery, and so on changes our sex, in fact it’s called ‘sex reassignment surgery’ and HRT is comminly understood as initiating a ‘second puberty’),

sex is not binary - a belief that it is binary is what constructs the category of ‘intersex,’ ie people who don’t fit this supposed universal sex binary, and this construction produces medical violence against intersex people by positioning them as medically defective/abnormal,

sex is not ‘real’ in the sense that the category of ‘sex’ is a social construction that bundles a complex series of properties of the body (external genitals, reproductive organs, hormones, chromosomes, gametes, etc) together by claiming they always 100% coincide with each other and form a coherent whole (this is not true, ‘sex’ is a spectrum because sex refers to many, many things). You can read the work of Julia Serano, a trans biologist who has published many open access essays on this subject. I believe she recently published a piece critiquing the idea that gametes are binary

The process of assigning sex at birth does not even follow this supposed scientific fact properly, because we don’t run chromosome checks on infants, we don’t do ultrasounds on them to see what their internal organs look like, we don’t measure their hormone levels, and so on. Sex assignment at birth is a social process of doing a quick genital inspection of infants and then writing down their sex on birth records based on that inspection, and if those external genitals don’t conform to binary understandings of sex (eg the infant is intersex), these genitals are surgically altered to fit this binary model. I believe Adamson describes this in Beyond the Coloniality of Gender as preparing children for a life of ‘good heterosexual sex’ (this is a paraphrase, I don’t remember the exact quote)

Because sex is a socially constructed category, it is not universal, because social constructs are dependent on the social context they arise in. I’ve read a number of papers from postcolonial/decolonial scholars in particular critiquing this supposed universalism as a form of colonial domination (María Lugones’ Coloniality of Gender, Sally Engle Merry’s Colonial and Postcolonial Law, Boris Bertolt’s The Invention of Homophobia in Africa, Jenny Evang’s Is Gender Ideology Western Colonialism?, B Binaohan’s Decolonising Trans/Gender 101. These last two aren’t postcolonial works but they’re very instructive for understanding sex assignment as a deeply oppressive and non-scientific practice: Heath Fogg Davis’ Sex Classification Policies as Transgender Discrimination: An Intersectional Critique and Toby Beauchamp’s Going Stealth: Transgender Politics and US Surveillance Practices)

essentially, “sex is biological, gender is social” is a massive cop-out that still accepts the framing of binary sexual biological legitimacy, which is the foundational belief that produces transphobic violence and discrimination in society. I really like Judith Butler’s framing of it Bodies That Matter: if sex is this supposedly biological reality that can’t change, but our understanding of sex is only always in reference to our social interpretation and application of it in the world (eg gender), then sex is also socially constructed

we never should have let cis people get away with “sex is biological, gender is social”

[small-strong-bookish-butch]

By insisting that the trans person's gender is "fake," they attempt to validate their own gender as "real" or "natural." This sort of thinking is extraordinarily naive, as it denies a basic truth: We make assumptions every day about other people's genders without ever seeing their birth certificates, their chromosomes, their genitals, their reproductive systems, their childhood socialization, or their legal sex. There is no such thing as a "real" gender--there is only the gender we experience ourselves as and the gender we perceive others to be.

While often different in practice, cissexism, transphobia, and homophobia are all rooted in oppositional sexism, which is the the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and nonoverlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires. Oppositional sexists attempt to punish or dismiss those of us who fall outside of gender or sexual norms because our existence threatens the idea that women and men are "opposite" sexes. This explains why bisexuals, lesbians, gays, transsexuals, and other transgender people who may experience their genders and sexualities in very different ways- are so often confused or lumped into the same category (i.e., queer) by society at large. Our natural inclinations to be attracted to the same sex, to identify as the other sex, and/or to express ourselves in ways typically associated with the other sex blur the boundaries required to maintain the male-centered gender hierarchy that exists in our culture today.”

—Whipping Girl by Julia Serano @juliaserano (p. 13)

[rjalker]

Anyways unless you're gonna tell transfems they're not allowed to use the word transmisogyny because the person who created it is exorsexist, homophobic, and transandrophobic, then no, you have literally ZERO right to tell transmascs they can't use the word transandrophobia because the person who created it is transmisogynistic.

Either the rules apply to everyone, or they don't apply at all. You can't have it both ways.

Especially when I have literally never seen a single fucking person talk about or even acknowledge how exorsexist, homophobic, and transandrophobic Julia Serano is until after I had to find out the hard way by reading it in one of her two fucking books that I spent $40 fucking dollars buying online when I could have spent that money on food. Literally not a single fucking peep about her fucking bigotry until after I had to find out the hard way. And even once I started looking, you know what I found? One single other solitary fucking person..

And everyone else is just dead fucking silent, because apparently transphobia and homophobia is okay as long as it's a trans woman perpetuating it!

Either you think words should be dropped like a fucking hot potato if the person who coined them is a bigot, or you don't. But you have to fucking pick one. You can't fucking have it both ways. It's no more fucking okay for a trans woman to be a transphobe than it is for a trans man to be a transphobe. They're both shitty fucking people, but if you decide that only one of them actually counts as being shitty, guess what? You're a fucking bigot!

Julia Serano's literal entire foundation for her argument that trans women are more oppressed than any other trans people is literally founded on her fucking lying about trans men and nonbinary people. It's literally fucking founded on her being racist and exorsexist and assigning trans men Schrödinger's fucking Privilege to whatever suits her current argument.

I do not expect transfem people to drop the word transmisogyny. They deserve a word to talk about the specific intersection of transphobia and misogyny that they face as transfem people.

But I do fucking expect everyone to shut the absolute fuck up about how transmasc people can't use the word transandrophobia or any other variation to talk about the specific intersection of transphobia and misogyny they face.

If you agree that transfem people deserve to have the word transmisogyny to talk about their personal experiences with oppression, and you agree that nonbinary people deserve to have the word exorsexism to talk about their personal experiences with oppression, then you must also fucking agree that transmasc people deserve to have the word transandrophobia to discuss their personal experiences with oppression.

If you think anyone who uses the word transandrophobia is automatically a bad person because the person who coined it is a bad person, but have no problem with people using the word transmisogyny despite the person who created it also being a bad person, you are literally upholding double standards and being a massive fucking bigot.

You are literally just admitting that you think trans men and nonbinary people being oppressed isn't a big deal or something worth getting upset about.

Either apply the rule equally, to everyone, or stop pretending like you actually care about trans people's oppression.

[womantichrist]

Hi ❤️ I'm using an amateur comic generator to put together a comic strip about TRA homophobia, and I'm looking for some good quotes saying gay ppl are bad for being (openly) gay from notable figures, not random anonymous people. I have quotes from Nancy Kelley (Stonewall CEO), Julia Serano (activist), Veronica Ivy (athlete), Owen Jones (journalist), Katelyn Burns (journalist), Autostraddle, and Pink News. I think I can squeeze one more short quote into the comic! Do you or any of your followers have suggestions for good ones, specifically about how it's bad for gay ppl not to date/etc opposite-sex transpeople?

Unfortunately I'm not great at keeping things organized, so finding things I've saved is a little difficult.

I don't know if this guy's really notable, but he is a journalist with a verified account and nearly 50,000 followers, so that's something?

Although I guess that's not much of a quote.

I think actor Nico Santos said something about it when he announced he was dating a trans man, but it's not in his Wikipedia page anymore.

Mutuals, do you have anything for her?

[transitioningforthebit]

Trans Woman Manifesto

by Julia Serano

This manifesto calls for the end of the scapegoating, deriding, and dehumanizing of trans women everywhere. For the purposes of this manifesto, trans woman is defined as any person who was assigned a male sex at birth, but who identifies as and/or lives as a woman. No qualifications should be placed on the term “trans woman” based on a person’s ability to “pass” as female, her hormone levels, or the state of her genitals - after all, it is downright sexist to reduce any woman (trans or otherwise) down to her mere body parts or to require her to live up to certain societally dictated ideals regarding her appearance.

Perhaps no sexual minority is more maligned or misunderstood than trans women. As a group, we have been systematically pathologized by the medical and psychological establishment, sensationalized and ridiculed by the media, marginalized by mainstream lesbian and gay organizations, and, in too many instances, been made the victims of violence at the hands of men who feel that we somehow threaten their masculinity and heterosexuality. Rather than being given the opportunity to speak for ourselves on the very issues that affect our own lives, trans women are instead treated more like research subjects: Others place is under their microscopes, dissect our lives, and assign motivations and desires to us that validate their own theories and agendas regarding gender and sexuality.

Trans women are so ridiculed and despised because we are uniquely positioned at the intersection of multiple binary gender-based forms of prejudice: transphobia, cissexism, and misogyny.

Transphobia is an irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against people whose gendered identities, appearances, or behaviors deviate from societal norms. In much the same way that homophobic people are often driven by their own repressed homosexual tendencies, transphobia is first and foremost an expression of one’s own insecurity about having to live up to cultural gender ideals. The fact that transphobia is so rampant in our society reflects the reality that we place an extraordinary amount of pressure on individuals to conform to all of the expectations, restrictions, assumptions, and privileges associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.

While all transgender people experience transphobia, transsexuals additionally experience a related (albeit distinct) form of prejudice: cissexism, which is the belief that transsexuals’ identified genders are inferior to, or less authentic than, those of cissexuals (i.e., people who are not transsexual and who have only ever experienced their subconscious and physical sexes as being aligned). The most common expression of cissexism occurs when people attempt to deny the transsexual the basic privileges that are associated with the trans person’s self-identified gender. Common examples include purposeful misuse of pronouns or insisting that the trans person use a different public restroom. The justification for this denial is generally founded on the assumption that the trans person’s gender is not authentic because it does not correlate with the sex they were assigned at birth. By insisting that the trans person’s gender us “fake,” they attempt to validate their own gender as “real” or “natural.” This sort of thinking is extraordinarily naive, as it denies a basic truth: We make assumptions every day about other people’s genders without ever seeing their birth certificates, their chromosomes, their genitals, their reproductive systems, their childhood socialization, or their legal sex. There is no such thing as a “real” gender - there is only the gender we experience ourselves as and the gender we perceive others to be.

while often different in practice, cissexism, transphobia, and homophobia are all rooted in oppositional sexism, which is the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and non overlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires. Oppositional sexists attempt to punish or dismiss those of us who fall outside of gender or sexual norms because our existence threatens the idea that women and men are “opposite” sexes. This explains why bisexuals, lesbians, gays, transsexuals, and other transgender people - who may experience their genders and sexualities in very different ways - are so often confused or lumped into the same category (i.e., queer) by society at large. Our natural inclinations to be attracted to the same sex, to identify as the other sex, and/or to express ourselves in ways typically associated with the other sex blur the boundaries required to maintain the male-centered gender hierarchy that exists in our culture today.

In addition to the rigid, mutually exclusive gender categories established by oppositional sexism, the other requirement for maintaining a male-centered gender hierarchy is to enforce traditional sexism - the belief that maleness and masculinity are superior femaleness and femininity. Traditional and oppositional sexism work hand in hand to ensure that those who are masculine have power over those who are feminine, and that only those born male will be seen as authentically masculine. For the purposes of this manifesto, misogyny will be used to describe this tendency to dismiss and deride femaleness and femininity.

Just as all transgender people experience transphobia and cissexism to differing extents (depending on how often, obvious, or out we are as transgender), we experience misogyny to differing extents too. This is most evident in the fact that, while there are many different types of transgender people, our society tends to single out trans women and others on the male-to-female (MTF) spectrum for attention and ridicule. This is not merely because we transgress binary gender norms per se, but because we, by necessity, embrace our own femaleness and femininity. Indeed, more often than not is our our expressions of feminist and our desire to be female that become sensationalized, sexualizes, and trivialized by others. While trans people on the female-to-male (FTM) spectrum face discrimination for breaking gender norms (i.e., oppositional sexism), their expressions of maleness or masculinity themselves are not targeted for ridicule - to do so would require one to question masculinity itself.

When a trans person is ridiculed or dismissed not merely for failing to live up to gender norms, but for their expressions of femaleness or femininity, they become the victims of a specific form of discrimination: trans-misogyny. When the majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on “men wearing dresses” or “men who want their penises cut off”, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults committed against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny. When it’s okay for women to wear “men’s” clothing, but when men who wear “women’s” clothing can be diagnosed with the psychological disorder transvestic fetishism, that is not transphobia - that is trans-misogyny. When women’s or lesbian organizations and events open their doors to trans men but not trans women, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny.

In a male-centered gender hierarchy, where it is assumed men are better than women and that masculinity is superior to femininity, there is no greater perceived threat than the existence of trans women, who despite being born male and inheriting male privilege “choose” to be female instead. By embracing our own femaleness and feminist, we, in a sense, cast a shadow of doubt over the supposed supremacy of maleness and masculinity. In order to lessen the threat we pose to the male-centered gender hierarchy, our culture (primarily via the media) uses every tactics in its arsenal of traditional sexism to dismiss us:

The media hyperfeminizes us by accompanying stories about trans women with pictures of us putting on makeup, dresses, and high-heeled shoes in an attempt to highlight the supposed “frivolous” nature of our femaleness, or by portraying trans women as having derogatory feminine-associated character traits such as being weak, confused, passive, or mousy.

The media hypersexualizes us by creating the impression that most trans women are sex workers or sexual deceivers, and by asserting that we transition primarily for sexual reasons (e.g., to prey on innocent straight men or to fulfill some kind of bizarre sex fantasy). Such depictions not only belittle trans women’s motives for transitioning, but implicitly suggest that women as a whole have no worth beyond their ability to be sexualized.

The Media objectifies our bodies by sensationalizing sex reassignment surgery and openly discussing our “manmade vaginas” without any of the discretion that normally accompanied discussions about genitals. Further, those if us who have not had surgery are constantly being reduced to our body parts, whether by the creators of tranny porn who overemphasize our penises (this distorting trans women into “she-males” and “chicks with socks”) or by other people who have been so brainwashed by phallocentricism that they believe that he mere presence of a penis can trump the females ness of our identities, our personalities, and the rest of our bodies.

Because anti-trans discrimination is steeped in traditional sexism, it is not simply enough for trans activists to challenge binary gender norms (i.e., oppositional sexism) - we must also challenge the idea that femininity is inferior to masculinity and that femaleness is inferior to maleness. In other words, by necessity, trans activism must be at its core a feminist movement.

Some might consider this contention controversial. Over the years, many self-described feminists have gone out of their way to dismiss trans people and in particular trans women, often resorting to many of the same tactics (hyperfeminization, hypersexualization, and objectification of our bodies) that the mainstream media regularly uses against us. These pseudofeminists proclaim, “Women can do anything men can,” then ridicule trans women for any perceived masculine tendency we may have. They argue that women should be strong and unafraid of speaking our minds, then tell trans women that we act like men when we voice our opinions. They claim that it is misogynistic when men create standards and expectations for women to meet, then they dismiss us for not meeting their standard of “woman.” These pseudofeminists consistently preach feminism with one hand while practicing traditional sexism with the other.

It is time for us to take back the word “feminism” from these pseudofeminists. After all, as a concept, feminism is much like the ideas if “democracy” or “Christianity.” Each has a major tenant at its core, yet there are a seemingly infinite number of ways in which those beliefs are practiced. And just as some forms of democracy and Christianity are corrupt and hypocritical while others are more just and righteous, we trans women must join allie’s of all genders and sexualities to forge a new type of feminism, one that understands that the only way for us to achieve true gender equity is to abolish both oppositional sexism and traditional sexism.

It is no longer enough for feminism to fight solely for the rights of those born female. That the strategy has dithered the prospects of many women over the years, but now it bumps against a glass ceiling that is partly of its own making. Though the movement worked hard to encourage women to enter previously male-dominated areas of life, many feminists have been ambivalent at best, and resistant at worst, to the idea of men expressing or exhibiting feminine traits and moving into certain traditionally female realms. And while we credit previous feminist movements for helping to create a society where most sensible people would agree with the statement “women and men are equals,” we lament the fact that we remain light-years away from being able to say that most people believe that femininity is masculinity’s equal.

Instead of attempting to empower those born female by encouraging them to move further away from femininity, we should instead learn to empower femininity itself. We must stop dismissing it as “artificial” or as a “performance,” and instead recognize that certain aspects of femininity (and masculinity as well) transcend both socialization and biological sexuality - otherwise there would not be feminine boy and masculine girl children. We must challenge all who assume that feminine vulnerability is a sign of weakness. For when we do open ourselves up, whether it be by honestly communicating our thoughts and feelings or expressing our emotions, it is a daring act, one that takes more courage and inner strength than the alpha male facade of silence and stoicism.

We must challenge all those who insist that women who act or dress in a feminine manner take on a submissive or passive posture. For many of us, dressing or acting feminine is something we do for ourselves, not for others. It is our way of reclaiming our own bodies and fearlessly expressing our own personalities and sexualities. It is not us who are guilty of trying to reduce our bodies to mere playthings, but rather those who foolishly assume that our feminine style is a signal that we sexually subjugate ourselves to men.

In a world where masculinity is assumed to represent strength and power, those who are butch and boyish are able to contemplate their identities within the relative safety of those connotations. In contrast, those of us who are feminine are forced to define ourselves on our own terms and develop our own sense of self-worth. It takes guts, determination, and fearlessness for those of us who are feminine to lift ourselves up out of the inferior meanings that are constantly projected onto us. If you require any evidence that femininity can be more fierce and dangerous than masculinity, all you need to do is ask the average man to hold your handbag or a bouquet of flowers for a minute. and watch how far away he holds it from his body. Or tell him that you would like to put your lipstick on him and watch how fast he runs off in the other direction. In a world where masculinity is respected and femininity is regularly dismissed, it takes an enormous amount of strength and confidence for any person, whether female- or male-bodied, to embrace their feminine self.

But it is not enough for us to empower femaleness and femininity. We must also stop pretending that there are essential differences between women and men. This begins with the acknowledgment that there are exceptions to every gender rule and stereotype, and this simply stated fact disproves all gender theories that purport that female and male are mutually exclusive categories. We must move away from pretending that women and men are “opposite” sexes, because when we buy into that myth it establishes a dangerous precedent. For if men are big, then women must be small; and if men are strong then women must be weak. And if being bitch is to make yourself rock-solid, then being femme becomes allowing yourself to be malleable; and if being a man mean taking control of your own situation, then being a woman becomes living up to other people’s expectations. When we buy into the idea that female and male are “opposites,” it becomes impossible for us to empower women without either ridiculing men or pulling the rug out from under ourselves.

It is only when we move away from the idea that there are “opposite” sexes, and let go of culturally derived values that are assigned to expressions of femininity and masculinity, that we may finally approach gender equity. By challenging both oppositional and traditional sexism simultaneously, we can make the world safe for those of us who are queer, those of us who are feminine, and those of us who are female, thus empowering people of all sexualities and genders.

[comrade-meow]

Below is a statement we received from LGB Fight Back in the States, a new group that advocates for LGB rights under vicious, homophobic attack by trans ideology activists.

LGB Fight Back, a US-based organization that represents the interests of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people, launched on February 14, 2021 with a Valentine’s Day-themed Week of Action. Protests took place across the US and Canada, co-sponsored by LGB Fight Back and Parents of ROGD Kids, a nationwide organization of parent support groups whose children are at risk of being medicalized and harmed by transgenderism. The protests sent a message of love to non-conforming kids everywhere: We love you just the way you are!

LGB Fight Back formed in response to the exponential rise of transgenderism and the forced teaming of the LGB with the transgender movement. Society at large is being gaslighted by activists into supporting the false idea that trans is “gay-adjacent.” The transgender movement, driven by medical corporations and Big Pharma, reinforces conservative stereotypes of male and female behavior, and directly targets LGB people for medical experimentation that shortens their lifespans, turns them into lifelong medical patients, and renders them sterile.

“Trans is not Gay Plus. It is not Gay 2.0,” says LGB Fight Back co-founder and lifelong progressive Belissa Cohen. “In fact, it’s just the opposite. The T is a parasite on the gay community.”

In pushing transgenderism for profit, Big Med preys on the internalized shame and external homophobia experienced by so many members of the LGB community. The invention of the “trans child” out of whole cloth reinforces the public narrative that trans identities are innate, lifelong, and unchangeable, and works to prevent LGB people from resisting medicalization.

“Not conforming to sex stereotypes is not a medical condition,” says Cohen. “It’s perfectly normal, especially for homosexual and bisexual people. So-called ‘transition’ is being used to force people, especially LGB people, to conform. Woke homophobia is just conservative homophobia with more glitter.”

The Valentine’s Week protests, most of which took place at youth “gender clinics,” addressed the harm being done to children by trans ideologues spouting the quasi-religious claim that it’s possible to be “born in the wrong body,” and their highly successful efforts to squelch research, discussion, and debate surrounding the subject. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the site of one of the protests, has opened a second clinic in New Jersey to capitalize on this profit-driven fad. And Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where protesting parents were welcomed by local news crews, currently refers healthy girls as young as 13 for double mastectomies that will cause them lifelong chronic pain. CHLA’s Medical Director Johanna Olson-Kennedy has also created guidelines that allow children as young as 8 to be poisoned with artificial hormones. 

Pediatric “transition” causes sterility and lack of sexual function, echoing the “progressive” eugenics movement of the 20th century, in which more than 60,000 Americans, primarily women of color and “mental defectives”–including homosexuals, who were pathologized in the DSM until 1973–were sterilized.

Medical experimentation on non-conforming children concerns LGB Fight Back greatly, as these children are likely to grow up to be the next generation of LGB people. Ample research shows that, if not affirmed as “trans,” the majority of non-conforming kids grow up to be healthy lesbians, bisexuals, or gay men. The “trans-affirmative model” that turns young LGB people into poor facsimiles of the opposite sex saddled with lifelong medical issues is highly unethical. At best, it’s a new form of gay conversion therapy; at worst, it’s a new form of LGB eugenics.

“Lesbians, gay men, and bi people have been intentionally targeted for medicalization at least since Nazi doctor Carl Vaernet started using hormones as a ‘cure’ for homosexuality in the 1930s,” 

says LGB Fight Back co-founder and former trans activist Carrie Hathorn. “Big Pharma and Big Med turned our community into a revenue stream, and now they’re doing the same to kids.

“I was once captured by this ideology, too,” Hathorn continues, recalling the two trans activist workshops she led in 2014. One of the workshops was designed for supporters of whistleblower Bradley Manning, a gay man who declared himself “trans” on the day of his conviction. “As a trans activist, I thought I was being supportive. But now I realize that Manning and my ‘trans’ friends were just attempting to distance themselves from their own homosexuality. Just like ‘praying the gay away,’ transing the gay away doesn’t work.”

Hathorn is hopeful that the growing tide of detransitioners, many of whom are lesbian, gay, or bisexual, will soon become impossible to ignore in the US. In the UK in 2020, a high court ruled that children under 16 cannot consent to bone-disintegrating drugs sold as puberty blockers. The ruling was prompted by Keira Bell’s lawsuit against the Tavistock gender clinic. Bell, a detransitioned lesbian, has been vocal about the internalized homophobia that drove her own “transition.”

“LGB Fight Back is standing up for LGB people because we know we’re perfect just the way we are,” Cohen says. “We don’t need to be ‘transed’ into fake straight people.”

But medicalization is not the only threat that transgenderism poses to the LGB community. Lesbian and gay history and LGB historical figures are being “transwashed”, or rewritten as “trans.” Stonewall icon Stormé DeLarverie, a butch lesbian, has been posthumously rebranded as a “trans man”. Malcolm Michaels Jr, a self-described gay man who sometimes went by the name of Marsha P. Johnson, has been rebranded as a “trans woman” and made the star of the Stonewall Uprising in the popular imagination, though historical accounts place him far from the scene. From Joan of Arc to We’wha and Billy Tipton, the Chevalier d’Eon to Moll Cutpurse and Elagabalus, historical figures who had same-sex relationships and did not conform to sex stereotypes are being subsumed into a revisionist “trans history”.

One of the most serious issues currently facing the LGB community is that of sexual coercion and shaming by heterosexuals under the guise of “inclusiveness”. Heterosexuals adopt trans identities in order to gain access to lesbian and gay spaces; they demand that lesbians have sex with straight men calling themselves “trans lesbians” and that gay men have sex with straight women calling themselves “gay trans men”. The concept of “same-gender attraction,” which transgenderists have invented to replace same-sex attraction, is a tool of sexual coercion and conversion therapy rhetoric. Lesbians and gay men who have themselves avoided medicalization face accusations of “genital fetishism”, demands that they undergo “therapy” to “rethink their genital preferences”, stealth rape by deception or omission, and an overall climate of gaslighting.

Of particular note is the insidious concept of the “cotton ceiling”, a term coined by pornographer Drew DeVeaux, a straight man calling himself a “trans lesbian”, for a coercive tactics workshop held at Planned Parenthood. The “cotton ceiling” is a reference to the cotton of a lesbian’s underwear, and the term is used by straight men who view lesbians’ homosexuality – to borrow a word from lesbophobic straight man Julia Serano – as “systemic” oppression against men.

The reframing of homosexuality as bigotry has been used to systematically colonize and destroy precious lesbian and gay bars, events, dating apps, and community centers. LGB people, who rely on single-sex spaces for socialization and community as well as romance, increasingly find themselves isolated, alone, and vulnerable to homophobic bullying and sexual coercion.

“A lot of straight people think that by paying lip service to ‘LGBTQ+,’ they’re supporting us,” Cohen says. “But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Our organizations have been ideologically captured, LGB funding appropriated by the TQ+ and our political movement co-opted. We understand that straight people want to be allies; they want to help. But the culture of No Debate surrounding transgenderism has turned the people who should be our allies against us.”

“If we don’t stop this new form of homophobia,” Cohen continues, echoing concerns expressed by former staff at the Tavistock, “soon there will be nothing left of our lesbian and gay communities. It’s time for LGB people to stand up to LGBT Inc. and say, ‘Enough! Leave lesbians alone! Hands off the gays!’”

Websites: LGBFightBack.org & parentsofrogdkids.com

[infiniteglitterfall]

For when you hear terfs, truscum, or other gross conservatives talking about "autogynephilia"

"Autogynephilia," if you haven't heard of it, is a thoroughly discredited theory from 30 years ago.

This guy named Ray Blanchard basically said that trans women all fell into one of two groups: either they were exclusively attracted to men, and therefore wanted to transition because they didn't want to be gay; or they were (also or instead) attracted to women, and therefore wanted to transition because they were turned on by the idea of having boobs and stuff.

(I doubt the dude ever heard of aces. Also: yikes.)

My favorite critique of this theory is basically, "oh, so cis women are allowed to think they're hot, but trans women aren't?" (I think I'm paraphrasing Kate Bornstein there?)

Bi trans author Julia Serano just posted a detailed explanation of how very, very thoroughly scientifically discredited this idea has been, for pretty much those entire thirty years. Even Blanchard's own studies didn't support it.

I just wanted to share my favorite part so far:

"Perhaps no evidence undermines autogynephilia theory more than recent studies that have shown that [sexual fantasies centered on being female and/or feminine] are quite common in cisgender women, and that cross-sex/gender embodiment fantasies also occur among the greater cisgender population.

"For instance, Veale et al. (2008) — the first autogynephilia-related study to use a control group (which Blanchard never bothered to do) — found that 52% of their cisgender female subjects experienced [these fantasies] at levels comparable to trans women that Blanchard classified as 'autogynephiles' (see also Moser, 2010).

"In a separate study of cisgender women, Moser (2009a) found that 93% of his subjects experienced [these fantasies] to some extent, with 28% experiencing them at high levels."

Serano goes on to explore the different reasons that people buy into this crap. Most of them, imho, are variations on "ignorance about trans experiences." (Not saying the nuances aren't worth exploring, just trying to condense it for this particular post.)

But one of those ignorant reasons is, "A belief that atypical and non-reproductive expressions of sexuality are inherently pathological."

Gosh, does that ever sound like the exclusionists who insist that aces are ace because of trauma, or internalized homophobia, and therefore, not really ace at all. Or that most people who think they're ace really just have a mental illness or a hormone imbalance.

And, of course, the truscum who need being trans to be a disorder, and only ever a disorder.

And, of course, the TERFs who pity and/or loathe trans women, non-binary people, and, frequently, trans men, for being "sick."

And who both - terfs, and truscum - seem to overwhelmingly be ace exclusionists. (I've looked through hundreds and hundreds of TERF blogs without finding one inclusionist. There are probably a few truscum inclusionists, but it seems to be very uncommon over there too.)

And another one is, "A 'gut feeling' that there really are 'two types' of trans women."

Regardless of what the two types are called, she observes, they tend to be:

1. "deceivers" - who pass, and in an outsider's view, transition for nefarious reasons like Infiltrating Communities and Dating People, and

2. "pretenders" - who don't conform to the speaker's idea of A Real Trans Woman, and transition for nefarious reasons like Getting Off and Being So Oppressed.

Gosh, does that ever sound like the truscum who group all trans people into Real People Who Want To Pass, and People Who Are Faking Because They Think Being Trans Is Cute/Trendy.

And the terfs, who buy into both the pretender and deceiver ideas, often projecting both of them on everybody at once.

And all exclusionists, including those who aren't terfs or truscum. Who have unconsciously revamped this into "Real LGBT Aces," (who they frequently hate for being ace, but who "pass" as Valid LGBT People), and the "CisHets" who they never actually seem to meet, but who definitely are trying to invade their community en masse to Steal Resources and Be So Oppressed.

[the-nerdy-autist]

I think for a lot of marginalized folks who experience a degree of privilege while also being oppressed there's a major...cognitive dissonance.

Everyone knows how they are and have been oppressed. No one wants to talk about privilege. Especially when it's often used as a club to deny oppression. You see this a lot with people sticking the word "white" in front of Jewish, gay, trans, or woman and thinking they're fighting racism.

Buuuuut on the other hand...those groups can be racist and can and do benefit from white privilege.

They ALSO face antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and misogyny.

And then there's visible vs invisible minorities. Erasure is no fun. Being visibly marginalized is also no fun and a totally different experience.

A closeted trans girl will grow up facing transphobia and not the same as a cishet boy. Absolutely true.

But they will still get treated very differently from AFAB folks/cis woman. And the problem is we can't have an honest conversation because TERFs wield the phrase "male privilege" to justify transphobia.

I honestly think Julia Serano in her book Gender Games has the best and most nuanced take on the situation and I also know it would make a lot of people on Tumblr Very Very Angry.

This is might end up being super edgy or smth, but I believe that a certain subset of transwomen, especially those who transitioned late in life, don't understand that they did benefit from male privilege for a significant portion of their life and that they socially don't understand the social oppression women, transmen, and generall AFAB people experienced growing up as "women" from birth. And that at certain points they'll still recreate that privilege subconsciously. This does not negate the experience growing up trans, queer, or with other marginalized experiences, it's just one puzzle piece making up an entire human being.

Experiencing a female upbringing is something you can never relate and experience if you just never did so in your formative years. That also applies vice versa. Meanwhile these subset group of transwomen still try to insert themselves into a conversation where they just genuinely have no experience with. This isn't some game to see who's more oppressed, or who's a "true woman" or some other bullshit. Transmen are men who also experienced a formative female upbringing, that doesn't mean that they're any less men because of it. This is legit just about how your upbringing from birth and your formative years shape you in your later years, and yes that it something you can't "catch up" with, either you went through it or you didn't. To make this about transphobia or trying silence transwomen's voices is dishonest, and makes absolutely no sense, and I don't understand why this is some times framed as such.

--

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

(1) Hi, I’m not asking this question to offend anyone, this is a genuine question I have. If I offend anyone for being insensitive I am very sorry. So I've been thinking a lot of the differences between transracial vs. transgender and the more research and opinions I find on it the more I get confused. The main argument against being transracial is that a transracial person hasn't gotten the full experience of the specific gender they are identifying due to them living as birth gender. continued

(2) Like Rachel Dolezal being told she is not allowed to identify as black because she hasn’t gotten the true experience of being a black woman in America due to her living the her life as a white woman. However, can’t the same thing be said, for example, a MTF transgender person? It is undeniable that there is a specific woman experience. And for people (especially who realize they are trans late) live their lives passing as a man and don’t get this experience. (continued)(3) Being a woman is being catcalled, is being objectified, and is being paid less than their male counterparts. A MTF trans person doesn’t experience those for most of their life until they begin to live their lives true to their real selves. Why does this ‘experience’ argument work to discount transracial but doesn’t discount transgender? Again I’m very sorry for this question, I will admit myself it is very ignorant. But I just really want an answer to this and I hope I can get that.Harper says:Hi there, I’m going to assume you are asking this in good faith but to be quite honest the phrasing of some of your questions seriously makes me doubt that. Before I start, I want to clarify as Kii does in this ask that transracial is a term that actually describes someone who has been adopted by someone to a family of a different race, rather than the racist stuff Dolezal is doing.First off I’m going to address some assumptions about being a woman that you make in your question: “there is a specific woman experience” and that that experience “is being catcalled, is being objectified, and is being paid less than their male counterparts.” It’s curious to me that you claim there is an “undeniable… specific woman experience” and then only cite moments that we can see other people who are not women experience. For example, homophobic catcalling, i.e. verbal sexual harassment can and does happen to effeminate gay men on the streets; black men are a site of sexual objectification in much of media, consider pornography for example; gay men, men of colour are also paid less than their male counterparts and have been for some time historically. If you base your understanding of what makes a woman entirely on something like misogyny, you have to be open to the fact that other oppressive forces will coalesce in the same way to recreate similar experiences in similar liberation groups. You should also acknowledge that gendered discrimination doesn’t operate on a basis purely targeting women. I think you should broaden your understanding on how such forces work. I recommend reading Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl:

While often different in practice, cissexism, transphobia, and homophobia are all rooted in oppositional sexism, which is the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and non overlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires. Oppositional sexists attempt to punish or dismiss those of us who fall outside of gender or sexual norms because our existence threatens the idea that women and men are “opposite” sexes. This explains why bisexuals, lesbians, gays, transsexuals, and other transgender people — who may experience their genders and sexualities in very different ways — are so often confused or lumped into the same category (i.e., queer) by society at large. Our natural inclinations to be attracted to the same sex, to identify as the other sex, and/or to express ourselves in ways typically associated with the other sex blur the boundaries required to maintain the male-centered gender hierarchy that exists in our culture today.In addition to the rigid, mutually exclusive gender categories established by oppositional sexism, the other requirement for maintaining a male-centered gender hierarchy is to enforce traditional sexism — the belief that maleness and masculinity are superior to femaleness and femininity. Traditional and oppositional sexism work hand in hand to ensure that those who are masculine have power over those who are feminine, and that only those born male will be seen as authentically masculine. For the purposes of this manifesto, the word misogyny will be used to describe this tendency to dismiss and deride femaleness and femininity.

I’d also like to turn your attention to Jacob Hale’s essay Are Lesbians Women? in which he lays out a list of factors of what makes a woman. He does so in such a way where each individual item on the list is not necessary nor sufficient in order to be a woman. For example, although he lists ‘presence of breasts’ as one such condition that is often correlated with being a woman, there are plenty of women without breasts in the world: trans women without breasts, cis women who have had double mastectomies, and so on. Hale also notes that his list is not entirely exhaustive: there’s always the possibility that this list will be added to in future. I’d highly recommend you look at it if you’re after your “undeniable” “woman’s experience”.Next I’m going to look at your claim that “an MTF trans person doesn’t experience those for most of their life.” This entirely constructs a similar narrative for trans women and entirely disregards the possibility that such a person was raised by understanding and supportive parents from a young age and grew up as a girl from an early age. Whatever your argument about ‘transracial’, it’s clear that you already have a reductive understanding of womanhood and a transgender experience. Such forces and experiences that play into gender interact in ways far more complex than what you’ve detailed above. I also want to point out here that you’ve failed to describe how the arguments above apply to trans men: that is to say a trans man who transitions in his late twenties in the western world will probably experience all of what you label as the “woman experience”, and yet they are men. The argument you present is typical of the considerations ‘transracial’ arguments operate with. They are often circulated by people with a vested transmisogynistic interest as a “gotcha!” designed to portray trans women as either dangerous or ridiculous. As a result they are designed to eliminate any shred of transgender voices. What is implicit in the argument you’ve laid out is that 1. trans women aren’t women and 2. trans men are. The argument fails completely to consider how a trans person articulates their own understandings which often run contrary to the line of argument. I urge you to consider how this argument is made and what purposes it serves. Is it an honest exploration of the workings of gender and race or is there a bias or a motive driving the ‘logic’ of the argument.On to the ‘transracial’ aspect of your argument. I hope so far I have managed to draw your attention to the implicit biases given in the argument, as well as the levels of complexities you have yet to acknowledge. Much of the same can be said about how you present race in the argument.First of all, I’d like to draw your attention that considerations of being perceived as a different race is a reality faced by many white-passing people of colour and many mixed-race people who live through this daily. It is a consideration that has been often articulated and is still often articulated. If the argument was an earnest exploration of the shifting and transitory nature of the perception of people of colour in a racist society, would it not rather look at this aspect? If the argument was an honest exploration of the similarities and differences a construction of both racialised and gendered experiences, would it not center trans women of colour’s voices as they are best situated at this intersection of race and gender to experience this? Is it not suspicious that such an argument doesn’t do this? In fact, go read Franchesca Ramsey’s article on this for a black trans woman talking about it, and Riley’s arcticle, a black non-binary person who highlights:

Rachel Dolezal flat out lied about her life and her experiences, and not to protect herself, but to protect the benefits she received and the space she acquired through those lies. She lied to protect her privilege, a trait of white people and all privileged groups. Her life could have been the same had she merely remained the white woman she was. White people already devour space in Black communities as a bonus of their whiteness, but she chose to take her farce further, becoming a “Black” woman who happened to be indistinguishable from the party in power.There is no benefit to being transgender, and there is no harm, but there is every benefit and harm to a white person picking a less privileged race to join because white features are privileged in every race and identification has no effect on that.

(my emphasis added.)In addition to the points raised by Riley and Ramsey, I’d point out that the move to make a blind comparison between race and gender on the basis of “they are both experienced by people” or “they are both social constructs” “so why can’t x” is just so materially and historically off. There is no consideration in your given argument over the differences between race and gender. There is no consideration that racism was founded by a white ruling colonial class to dominate a colonised and enslaved population. Such a population had within it differently gendered and transgendered people. There is no consideration that this domination was a product of hundreds of years of a capitalism that needed a large white working class to carry out a sustained colonial project: a colonial project that is still in action across the world today. There is no consideration of the formation of gender and the nuclear family as a product of the division of labour enforced by capitalism and the ruling classes on the working classes.In effect, gender and race are two different things. They of course intersect, but the ways in which they operate are distinct and different. Reducing both down to a level that strips them of their actual effects and lived realities in order to further either a justification for a racist white woman exploiting black people or to further a ridicule and strawmanning of the transgender community is a shameful act of bigotry posing under a guise of logic and inquiry.

Check out our /tagged/transracial for more commentary. 

[gcintheme-blog]

um. Trans women aren't "men pretending to be women". The scientific understanding of gender identity has passed that stage like twenty years ago. Also trans people aren´t asking women of color to be "props for them", they're asking to be recognized and not excluded which is like the bare minimum. You don't get away with being transphobic because you're a woman of color, just like for example gay people don't get away with being racist because they face homophobia.

Okay, let me call out your falsehoods for what they are. You are being intellectually dishonest here and this needs to be addressed.

Scientific understanding proves the opposite of what you’re saying because our brains aren’t gendered. There isn’t a “male brain” and a “female brain.” By suggesting that “feminine” things like makeup, high heels, and being emotional are intrinsic to how women are mentally wired (rather than social expectations) trans activists uphold the oppression of women.

Medical scientists examine sex characteristics including male, female, and intersex bodies whereas social scientists discuss gender because gender is a social construct.

Trans people are asking women of color to be their props when they suggest that sexual orientation is akin to racism and imply that women of color can be liberated by sex. Women of color globally are fighting for an end to sexism and sex-based violence and trans activists like Julia Serano make a mockery of us when they write about how our oppression is not in fact violence against our sexed bodies but "femmephobia.”

If women are oppressed because of our inner “gender identities,” why not just change them? You know just as well as I do that women cannot escape violence by declaring that no, we are not women at all! Nor can we escape violence by adopting masculine stereotypes.

Also, I really do not care if you call me “transphobic” for criticizing a construct that harms me and people that uphold that construct. I have not and never would call for violence against trans people, and I actually believe that healthcare--including mental healthcare--is a basic human right and that dismantling the patriarchy and the construct of gender will allow any man or woman to express himself or herself as desired without trying to conform to a constructed “identity.”