#Not a terf way tho this isn't for cis women to be like 'i'm a woman teehee' this is for cisn't women to be extra woman & you know what also

[this-is-my-main-i-follow-from]

Bigender but you’re just woman twice

[trans-leek-cookie]

also not adding to the previous post. Just bc it's more Abt features than culture. I rember a fucking transmed (remember those fuckers) posting like "real trans men hate themselves bc they have a soft face" (I'm being overly reductive but it was implying that masculinity Required the absence of soft facial features) and all I could think was

CIS ASIAN MEN JUST LOOK LIKE THAT SOMETIMES. MY DADS FACE IS PRETTY FUCKING ROUND.

Like. To be clear. Cis white men and women will have infinite facial shape variety like everyone else on this fucking planet. But some shapes tend to be more common in different ethnicities/races/whatever.

And this barely scratches the surface- a lot to f women of color, esp Black women face similar shit for """"masculine""""" features like their body type, body hair, face shapes esp noses, fucking!!!! And how that is doubly harmful for trans women of color!!!!

(I'd say east Asians tend to get the opposite, being treated as "inherently feminine" as opposed to "inherently masculine". And while I know generally Black, West + South Asian, and Nonwhite Central + South American women are similarly denied femininity, Im not familiar with how Southeast + Central Asians, and all diff indigenous ppls and groups thru out the world are specifically affected by racist degendering and similar stuff. I know colorism often plays a part, but from what I can tell that tends to be a bit different from the way- like a pale Arab and Black women will likely still be seen as "masculine" because of being Arab/Black, and it just become more severe with colorism)

[bandofchimeras]

if we wanted to get very spicy and kick the discourse hornet nest we might assert that okay, if transandrophobia isn't a real thing (?) then you might say trans men experience transmisogyny. not indirect or falsely directed transmisogyny, but transmisogyny. as in misogyny specific to the general trans experience. how do you feel about that? if you feel that takes away from the language of trans women available to discuss their specific experiences, because transmisogyny is a term for trans women, then okay. what do you suggest for trans men to use to theorize our experiences?

anti-transmasculinity? is that fine? and why? /gen

part of the discourse here is a pushback on the infantilization and patronizing tone people take with trans men or talking over the transmasculine experience in general.

that's all. also for the record I am genuinely not emotionally invested in this issue or reactive about it. I hold a lot of grace for fellow trans people's emotions and general attitudes intercommunity cuz man, the community is dealing with a lot. and if something like "Baeddel" is a slur and not a term self-claimed by a group of anti-civ anti-social anarchist-leaning trans women that leaned into high-control cult territory then I'll stop using it. (edited to change language of similarity bc harm levels were different) there is also a lot of damage in the online trans community due to the "AFAB only" FB group cults run by trans TERFs in the last 5 years, who were responsible for the general reactive vitriol towards "theyfabs" my main issue with the Baeddels I interacted with is that they were mean, dismissive, and genuinely seemed to be involved in culty dynamics that lead to increased community strife & increased risk for interpersonal abusive behavior. I don't think they deserved high levels of vitriol, backlash, cancellation or other transmisogynist abuse that unfortunately only made those other problems worse and further fragmented the community.

I still am friends with a few trans women who philosophically remain in this camp, and respect their views even though we disagree. unfortunately, both of these women are susceptible to and currently in varying degrees of abusive/high control relationships. They have not asked for help or indicated wanting intervention so I stay in my lane and provide affirmation & warmth when needed, but it does confirm my biases there.

the AFAB TERF groups were actively harmful to trans women and trans men, due to the way they weaponized transmisogyny, manipulated, groomed and emotionally abused trans men, and contributed to the wave of de-transitioner narratives actively in use by cis power structures. so they're not equivalent. and I can see why people might suspect the axis of analysis of transandrophobia might be TERFy or something...its not IMO because those groups tended to endorse self-hatred and barely identify as trans, and still engage in high levels of man-hating and "androphobia"

WHICH BY THE WAY almost always comes back around to harm trans women as well as trans men.

reading bell hooks' The Will to Change on masculinity informs my position here. so if you're looking to pick a fight, meh. i'm open to good faith discourse oriented towards restorative justice tho.

[name-that-isnt]

I woke up this morning and was reminded of "bi+" and DESPERATELY wanted to kill myself, not even joking. Putting a "+" after bi is the most degrading thing in the world after u notice the problem. Not blaming people who still believe it isn't an issue tho, it took me a while to notice it for myself, especially since some people want ur head on a pitchfork if u even think otherwise.

It's so fascinatingly contradictory how people use the term "bi umbrella" but then say "oh yeah THESE labels are actually bigger than bi because bi just means attraction to 2 genders". This can't be real, there's no way ur parroting classic biphobia. And no, adding the "or more" to the end of the statement doesn't help, it's just a crappy way u can avoid admitting that the new definition ur forcing onto bisexuality is problematic. Bi being the umbrella means it's the BIGGEST and everything underneath it is smaller, it is attraction REGARDLESS of gender. Why are u so afraid to think for a second? I PROMISE u that the world won't end if u use ur brain. I am okay with bi microlabels existing because there are many that make sense and actually fall within the umbrella without giving the tried and true definition of bisexuality to labels that are used out of poor understanding of the label! "What about bi/pan solidarity" I don't want fake solidarity with a label that degrades what I am just for the comfort of a few people who refuse to change and accept bisexuality for what it really is instead of what they think it is, sorry.

I promise u guys it's not exclusionism to simply say that people shouldn't be using a label that actively degrades another one that means and has always meant the exact same thing. No one is denying the queerness of people who identify as "pan" or "omni" or anything like that, they're queer as shit because they're bi. If anything it feels more terfy to insist that bi is a lesser label because a common terf pastime is of course bullying trans people, and what better way to convince others to get on board by perpetuating the use of a label that frames being bi as restricting, that pushes the idea that bi people aren't attracted to anyone except for cis men and women and therefore they don't support trans people. It's part of their little tactic to cut the t from lgbt when b and t have long been closely intertwined. There is already enough biphobia (and interlocked transphobia) coming from both queer and nonqueer monosexuals, so for the love of god can the bisexuals themselves at least be educated? I say I'm bi4bi but even then it's a challenge to approach bi people who are in the "bi+" mindset and don't want to hear anything else. Needless to say, I am in excruciating pain 👍🏾

[shinra-makonoid]

And what do you know of the "cis experience" and how it's different from the experience of a passing trans guy? From what I can see between us, it seems I have more in common with the cis experience than with yours tbh. So why should you be the one deciding that the cis experience is impenetrable? I'm also a trans man and a fag, disabled but not visibly. I was even homeless once, not because I was trans tho.

My points are relevant if you try to paint the idea that trans men and cis men issues are fundamentally different? Which you are, by claiming that only trans men are subject to the idea of not being the same gender as cis men, or not being really straight. On both posts you've been making that argument, and this response applies to them all.

You are no different than a TERF believing that women and trans women issues are fundamentally different. They just aren't.

No we're not. I'm sorry but you're the one being transphobic there. Neither you nor I are different from other kinds of men. Socially it's not the case. Biologically in the scientific sense it's more debatable, but it has absolutely 0 barring in your everyday life. Except maybe gyn appointments if you still have the bits (which I encourage you to do), so even that is not really applicable as a general trans experience. Like maybe medical abuse too, but even there, intersex and disabled men go through it... It's just not that "special" unfortunately, it's sadly very common.

What I meant is that cis straight men don't suffer from anything we don't suffer from too. There is no singular trans man social experience that is apart from other men. You gotta talk to men to realize that tho, which I'm doubting you do on a day to day basis.

I'm a trans guy??? I know trans guys??? Outed trans guys get treated as if we're lower men, we get beaten the same way feminine/"weak"/other flavor of men are, because we do not fit the standard of what a cis man is supposed to be based on society, just like the majority of cis men don't. Again, you claim that as if I was the one not talking to enough trans men, but have you got any guy friends???

Any kind of man outing themselves as a trans man will face the same shit too. Tho to be fair, if I out myself as having been born a woman, or having had a girl name before, people don't believe me now, just like most cis guys. Would it be transphobia to be treated differently and/or badly for outing yourself as trans? Yes absolutely. Is it a thing that only happens to trans men? No. Any kind of man who isn't fit to the social standard of being a cis man can be considered trans and abused on that basis. Cis people, like trans people, suffer from transphobia.

It doesn't really. We're lower men, just like any other lower man on the planet. We can die and nobody cares. We can be homeless and nobody cares, we don't have rights and nobody cares. People call us manlet if we're too tiny, cry babies if we have boundaries or requests to be treated right, or if we complain too much. We can get in trouble, get beaten in the street, disrespected, called a faggot if we look or dress wrong, or if hold the hand of another guy. That's all men who don't fit every flavor of the gender cis straight man created by society. It's not a unique trans experience. It's universal to being a man.

Everything phobic lmao

Everyone can hurt you. Other trans guys can hurt you too. I've been bullied and threatened by some trans men, years ago, for having the "wrong ideas". It's not ok, but everybody does it. It's not some special man kind of thing happening.

How do you define oppression?

I mean...

That's literally what you're saying? "Trans men are being oppressed for being men is true because while trans men and cis men are the same gender, in terms of relationship to society, trans men and cis men are not the same gender."

I'm not inventing it, it's right there.

I guess my question boils down to... what kind of experience in society do you have as a trans man and as a fag, that is completely separated from being a man? Or that a cis straight man cannot live through?

Also like this is probably way too big brain for 99% of people who wanna discourse but "trans men are oppressed for being men" is true because while (generally speaking, its more nuanced on an individual level) trans men and cis men are the same gender, in terms of relationship to society, trans men and cis men are not the same gender. Much how straight trans people and straight cis people have the same orientation, except when they don't. (Straight vs straight, remember that?)

[emi1y]

the whole point of transandrophobia is MEN experience MISOGYNY. Queen TERF joann wrote a whole manifesto on how trans men are just confused/crazy women who need to be saved with radical feminism. Transphobia ✅ Misogny ✅

but “men don’t experience misogyny,” and this isn’t transmisogyny even tho it checks both boxes because ??? girls only ???

The problem with transandrophobia are the people who think cis men aren’t oppressed by patriarchy. The entire point of discussing oppression in terms of systems or matrices is to direct attention to the policies, social anxieties, etc. that actually cause prejudices and bigotry to go unchecked. “Men aren’t oppressed” >> “Men are oppressors” Do you see how that is essentialist and TERFy?

The problem is this TERF rhetoric seeping into trans feminist spaces. The problem is people assuming the most logical root word is indicative of something that goes against the TERF rhetoric they’ve already ingrained. The problem is this requires them to unlearn and admit they were wrong. The problem is you.

the problem is ME? i literally agree with u. I've been saying that all day. sorry the original post implied i meant that only trans women experience an intersection of transphobia and misogyny, you're right that that's not accurate. the issue i take with the term transandrophobia is that it carries the implication that trans men specific experiences of transphobia occur because they are men, when the actual cause is that it occurs because society percieves them as women (to be clear what i mean isn't about whether individual trans men pass or not, just that the structures in society differentiating between how to treat men and women percieve the idea of trans men as a whole as part of the woman category)

yes, it's a subtle difference, but i believe it's worth pointing out because if we are going to work towards eradicating the root motivation behind that transphobia we have to name it for what it is, and its not any iteration of androphobia or misandry, it's misogyny. trans women and men experience that misogyny in different ways, because for trans women its a matter of society not wanting to allow them to enter into womanhood & for trans men its society not wanting to allow them to exit womanhood, but in both cases it is misogyny and the rigid ideas society has about how it wants to allow people to interact with the concept of womanhood. whether that means using transmisogyny to refer to both trans men and trans women, or naming something else entirely is a discussion that continues to be had in the trans community.

YES i am aware this IS semantics. but its not just me bitching over root words for no reason. even if We can agree that to use transandrophobia is to actually refer to the intersection of misogyny and transphobia that trans men experience, a huge portion of the population who uses the term transandrophobia are not using it to refer to that, theyre genuinely under the impression that the transphobia they experience IS due to them being men, when like we said above, it's really due to them being percieved as women.

you say that the point of discussing oppression in terms of systems is to direct attention to the social ideologies that cause that prejudice, and I'm saying that i agree, and that the term transandrophobia is not successfully accomplishing that. we can't just write off how many people use it for their belief that their oppression is caused by them being men. we can't just say that well they don't count because they aren't using it right when they're being as vocal as they are about their incorrect stance and affecting the rest of the community when we have to endure it.

i have never once said that men aren't oppressed, it's that they aren't oppressed FOR BEING MEN. the oppression men experience is due to the other identities they carry that are maginalized. and, sometimes the fact that they are men will cause the way they experience their other marginalized identities appear differently to how the women of that identity are treated. some of those differences might even seem like its worse than how the women are treated, especially when you look at statistics about violence at the hands of other oppressive classes. but there will also be differences in which the women are treated worse. and within the vacuum of just that marginalized identity, the men will be prioritized above the women.

yet society doesn't exist in a vacuum! so everyone is constantly experiencing overlapping prejudices and privileges all at once! but that doesn't mean that we should suddenly throw away all discussions of the privileges men, as a class, have over women, as a class. and in most cases, no, its not men who necessarily are the oppressors, its the structure itself placing men above women that is responsible for the oppression. but "the structure" isnt some nebulous indefinable thing, its the policies and ideologies held up by the culture, and those are determined within the government and the figures of authority within that government making those decisions, are men! or they're women whose ideology has been so shaped by the patriarchal society they were socialized in that they play a role in holding up that structure intentionally.

we can talk in circles about these concepts all day but my ultimate point is that you can say a word means whatever you want and it'd be ideal if everyone agreed, but that doesn't mean anything when the practical, concrete examples of its usage contradict what you say it is supposed to refer to. even if you say that transandrophobia is about misogyny and not actual androphobia, there will still be loud outspoken people who use the term transandrophobia complaining about how their mistreatment is the result of being men, and then extrapolate that into a belief that because men like them have struggles and prejudices against them, that somehow negates all other aspects of privileges that all other men (beating a dead horse at this point but: Men As A Class) have.

[thedreadvampy]

hey ik it cam b fun to clown on terfs but reblogging their posts and posting their anon messages with criticisms is a) not going to change any of their minds b) gives more of an audience to thei bullshit thus allowing them to recruit more people and c) if you respond in a way tht implies violence or anger, they will use tht as proof of the violence of trans women even tho your cis. trans women have repeatedly asked tme people to stop poking the terf bear and just deplatform them by blocking them

it isn't fun.

this isn't me having fun.

this is me having an emotional reaction to a bunch of people who showed up on a post I did not target at them or tag with the intent of it being findable.

I recognise that it can do additional harm to respond and I understand your frustration but here's the thing. what I understand to be the right thing and what I do are not always going to be the same thing, particularly when the way people speak to and about me is sending me into a PTSD spiral.

You might notice I've started blocking and stopped responding (also I don't think I have responded to any of the anon messages I've got from TERFs, at least not directly, and they are very much still coming in). The reason this took some time is not because I love to sport and play and Own The Radfems, it's because I sometimes have trouble managing my impulse control and getting past the need to be understood even when I know that other people aren't engaging in good faith.

all which to say: yes you're for sure right which is why I've stopped responding. but I want it to be clear that I'm not going looking for a fight here, I was sitting in place processing my own feelings about an issue that fairly directly affects me in an untagged post when suddenly my mentions filled up with TERFs slinging around the usual bullshit and sometimes you can know that what you're doing is the wrong move but that doesn't change how you react in the moment.

(please read the above in the spirit of recent posts vis a vis reasons not being excuses - this isn't a justification of my response, it's just a reason.)

(but I do feel like there's a meaningful difference between Looking For TERFs To Clown On and Having A Post Unintentionally Breach Containment And Getting TERFs Raking Through Your Posts To Clown On You and that on an emotional level one is a lot easier to avoid than the other)

[neonstatic]

in response to all that went down in this post (making a new post bc it was getting way too long for my liking)

sorry for joining this already never ending post but i think there's smth @veryrarelystable and @minato-arisato are missing here.

allogloss's post says that cis ppl don't get to decide whether someone is trans or not. that seems to be smth you two understand fairly well. but when vrs jumps in to argue that 'actually cis opinions matter bc how else would i be a good ally' is not welcome. this post never explicitly that cis ppl can't be allies to trans ppl. if there had been confusion abt this, he could've simply asked: “excuse me but what do you mean by this? does it mean we cannot defend trans ppl either?” to which she would have replied “no you can but/bc OR no you can’t but/bc" and queue an explanation.

i have to disagree tho with minato saying that vrs wanted to educate himself. the format of his response clearly wasn't conveying that message. he was clearly trying to educate /her/. and a cis person arguing with a trans person that they get to have opinions on trans ppl bc that enables them to be a good ally is, frankly, not a good look. i know you've got good intentions vrs but i can't help but feel like you could've gone abt this without taking the "b-but i'm a trans ally and i'm cis and i have good opinions!". i realize i might condescending myself but tbh, that's rly how it came across.

and minato, it's gonna sound weird coming from a nb person to a trans woman, but to imply that she was being terfy by saying she doesn't think a man should be in a feminist forum is also missing the point of what being a trans exclusionary feminist means. men can be dominating offline and online as well. not bc it's online that they can't ignore what women say and dominate the conversation. i know tho that a physical presence in women spaces adds a risk of assault for example so ofc a man in a feminist forum sounds less threatening. however many see feminism as a movement that should be led by women only so it's normal that some would think men shouldn't be in those spaces (offline or online). the thought process i often see is that if you allow them into the spaces, then are they feminist allies or just plain feminists/members? do their opinion matter as much as the women's? can they speak as much as the women or do we have to remind them to stay in their lane? a lotta complicated shit. all that to say that sharing one ideology with terfs is not automatically bad. not every ideology terfs have is terf rhetoric. that's a common mistake that often leads to unfair accusations and hurt feelings.

tldr; 1) the post isn't saying "cis allies don't matter we don't want cis ppl to defend us" it says "cis ppl don't get to decide what makes someone trans or not" it is pretty self explanatory, it applies to discourse on 'trenders', dysphoria and the medicalization of transness  -all intracommunity stuff no cis person should touch. it's not "charlie you can't say nb count as trans you're cis this isn't abt you".

2) not every idea terfs have is bad and automatically terfy (e.g. equality between men and women is smth terf believe in and that's not terfy that's just an ideology - what is terfy abt terf is their exclusion of trans ppl)

3) basically i think the rule of thumb is if you're cis, you can defend and argue for trans ppl but avoid arguing against them unless you got facts backing you up (e.g. arguing against a binary trans that nb ppl are trans if you've seen the video of the trans flag creator specifically saying that the white stripe is for nb ppl. that's a fact that can't be disputed.)

cis opinions on who is or isnt trans are irrelevant because cis people will never be able to actually understand what trans people go through.