#THE transmasculine saints

[catholicsapphic]

So I began having a gender expression crisis some weeks ago due to noticing I desperately want to come across more masculine. And then I immedaitely felt the call to get closer to st. Francis of Assisi and st. Joan of Arc. What is this. How did they clock me so fast

[st-dionysus]

Gang, I am looking for a photograph I know exists, but I can not find. It is a historic black and white photo of a group of butches/transmen with a sign that say's "Who says there are no boys in Chaigao" (I believe, in reference to the draft)

[gamblegun]

You know I am 110% for trans unity, and I try to be careful not to bad mouth transfems and other trans folk, so I get the urge to compromise, but posts that paint the transandrophobia discourse as a "two sides" argument are wrong. There is a clear aggressor. One side is asking for a spot on the table, and the other IS in fact lying and being transphobic.

[kekkuda]

another piece from last week, lil warmup drawing of mothman

[huginsmemory]

When everyone was like yo crocodile is so transmasc coded I was like yeah he really is and then I got to the scene where we see crocodile in impel down and Iva threatens him and like. holy shit. It's. It's so clearly canon? Like sure it's not explicit where they are like he's transmasc!!! But theres basically LITERALLY no other way to explain it the interaction. Like holy shit Iva, Queen of the Queers who gender yoinks people threatening him so he cooperates and Crocodile so clearly being like don't you fuckin dare talk about my past and what you did for me. It's so fucking obvious holy fuck. This man is transmasc.

[st-dionysus]

I highly recommend reading "Hung Jury: Testimonies of Genital Surgery by Transsexual Men" a book about FTM bottom surgery that also discusses some of the reasons why FTM bottom surgery (especially phallo) is so often demonized.

One (and just one, there are a lot of reasons) why is because it was the argument used to convince courts to not require bottom surgery for transgender men to change their gender marker (instead only requiring top surgery, a requirement still common in most states). It used to be that a transgender man could not change his gender marker unless he had undergone both top and bottom surgery. SO, in order to sway the courts to remove the bottom surgery requirement, they had to be convinced that bottom surgery for transgender men was something horrific and a mutilation. The lawyer who did most of this convincing writes a part of the book and acknowledges the horrible damages caused by this route that the transmasculine community to this day has not healed from.

Are there issues with phalloplasty or metoidioplasty? Yes, of course there are. Are Phallo and Meta mutilations of the body, barbaric, and disgusting? Not at all. They are surgical procedures that have benefited man thousands of transgender men and transmasculine people. Were some of these men forced to get phalloplasty to transition several decades ago? Yes. Are there transgender men today who are fighting to have their desire for bottom surgery respected. God, yes.

There is a lot of misinformation about FTM bottom surgeries, and we need to avoid spreading that information and actually look into what those surgeries are like, what they do, how the final product functions and looks, and for the love of God -- we need to respect the trans men and transmasculine people that have or want to have bottom surgery.

You can find "Hung Jury" on genlib. Other recourses for learning about FTM bottom surgery include the subreddit for phalloplasty, the subreddit for metodioplasty, ftmsurgery.net, and medical papers about the procedures.

people be fucking normal abt ftm bottom surgery challenge.

[pansylair]

I REMAIN

cone 5.5 ceramic stoneware, underglaze, glaze, nichrome wire

Transmasculine lycanthrope depicted as the martyr Saint Sebastian.

We will always remain.

Currently available to view via my exhibit “Shifting Bodies” at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery until January 14th, 2024.

[assignedgod]

In many cases, 'headcannoning' a character that has transfeminine subtext as transmasc leads to a weaker or in some cases, hateful, transgender narrative overall. For example, Miquella from elden ring. In the case of transfeminine miquella, you have a narrative in which miquella seeked to give up her heart, burying and hiding her heart, her love, everything that was feminine so far down that nothing could ever reach it, hoping it would either and die, and this ultimately leading to her downfall because she could not ever hope to succeed without her heart, her love. She throws it away, and it destroys her. The story is obvious in a transfeminine reading of the story: By not embracing herself as a woman, miquella threw away her heart and her love and all joy she could have felt. It's a beautiful, tragic, heartwrenching tale about how the choice to never transition will slowly eat away at you, leaving you a loveless, joyless shell of a person. On the flipside, we have the case of a transmasculine reading of the character, and the exact *opposite* narrative: By transitioning, miquella loses any chance of joy and happiness, becomes an incomplete being, and is doomed to fail because he could never hope to be a god since he threw away saint Trina. By choosing to interpret the story this way, you make an implicit reactionary statement that being transgender is a curse, something that holds you back. It's a cruel and hateful reading, so that begs the question, why would anyone interpret the text that way? Or did they perhaps not engage with the text to see the implicit meaning, choosing a shallow desire for 'representation' over proper literary analysis?

[st-dionysus]

Reminder that Transandrophobia was coined by a Mestizaje trans man who was raised in a poverty-stricken barrio and is the son of a brown refugee who had to flee his country after his mother was starved to death because brown/indigenous people did not get the same amount of rations as the white people did.

Anyway, the next time one of you gender-essentalist racist ass motherfuckers try and whitewash the word I made to discuss the way that androphobia effects trans men both socially in the queer community and systematically under the patriarchy, racism, and capitalism, I am going to KY.

I’m so tired of this claim I’m so emphatically tired of this claim. Even here where it’s recognized that some people talking about transmisandry are trans mascs of color, (what else can “most” mean?) anything they might have had to say is immediately discarded and dismissed.

And in addition to that, this post is another potshot at the language of people trying to talk about anti-transmasculinity. Despite the fact that time and time again folks like @genderkoolaid and @spacelazarwolf (among others I’m sure, they’re just who I recall off the top of my head) have demonstrated that it doesn’t fucking matter what language we use to discuss it, the problem people have is that we’re discussing it at all.

[nothorses]

You've made a lot of really great posts about transmasc experiences and struggles, and they really resonate with me! So I guess I want to in complete earnest ask: why the push for 'transandrophobia' when anti-transmasculinity as a term has been around for longer and faces little friction by comparison? I don't really *dislike* transandrophobia, but its meaning gets muddied everywhere from different directions, while ATM is pretty direct and succinct I feel. It's very clear that it's about TRANSmasculine oppression. I'm not against having a dedicated term at all, but the content of our struggles gets lost in the weeds of attaching kind of understandably divisive terms like misandry and androphobia in an attempt to mirror a phenomenon very specifically about misogyny; it seems more trouble than it's worth considering ATM is right there

I'll be honest, this ask is confusing to me for a few reasons.

When I started talking about transandrophobia around the summer of 2020, the conversations I was encountering were very much, like, a handful of people across Twitter and Tumblr (literally, a handfull!). I picked up "transandrophobia" because it was one of two words I saw in use, and the other- "transmisandry"- felt much less clear and much more contentious. It seemed super obvious to me that people would draw a line from "men's rights activists" trying to push this idea that "misandry", as a systemic oppression of men by women, to "transmisandry", and assume some ill intent where there was none. It's confusing!

"Transandrophobia" was the better of two options being floated at the time, at least in any conversation I saw. "Anti-transmasculinity" was not really a term I'd been made aware of, if anyone at all was talking about it at the time.

I have seen people pick up "anti-transmasculinity" more recently (maybe in the last year?), and this is definitely the first I've seen someone shorten it to "ATM". The people I've seen use that term have been mostly people who seem really new to the conversation, and the vibe I've gotten has been very, like, "we're the Good Transmascs, our word isn't dirty and gross like those other Bad Transmascs everyone hates. you'll listen to us now that our word is Good and Pure, right?"

Which is like... kind of frustrating, and kind of sad, honestly. I think these people honestly believe that if they just choose the right word, all the people who've been dragging me and every other transmasc talking about these issues through the mud for the last 4 years or so will really just stop & listen. If they can just say it right, these people- who have been relentlessly harassing and spreading lies about every single transmasc who came before them for years now- will care what they have to say, and will be willing to engage with them in earnest, compassionate dialogue.

If you just find the right word, all of these people will care about your hurt, your pain, and the suffering of your community.

It kind of breaks my heart. It's an incredibly hopeful, kind, loving way to view the world. It's compassion and patience and forgiveness that these folks are not being given, but that they so badly want to offer to others.

And at the same time, it sucks to be the Bad Transmasc. It sucks to have fought so hard for so long, and for the people I've been fighting for all this time to turn around and say, "you're gross, and dirty, and evil, and everything you've done is a mistake." It sucks to see the people I've been fighting for agree with the people I've been fighting against, and shove me under the bus in an effort to appeal to the people running me over with it. Knowing that the bus is going to aim for them once it's done with me just makes it sadder, yknow?

@saint-speaks wasn't the first person to ever speak the word "transandrophobia", but he is the one who coined and popularized it in its current form. And then he was dragged through the mud so hard and so brutally that some people think I coined it, just because when I defended him (too little and too late, imo) I withstood the mud-dragging better than he did (and gee, I wonder white.)

And now people take for granted that everything everyone said about hymn to justify that frankly fucking evil harassment campaign was true, actually, and we should abandon the word he coined and find one with purer origins.

If you honestly think "anti-transmasculinity" is just a more practical word, that's fine. I don't care what word we use. But they're going to cover it in mud, too. They're going to cover every one of you in mud.

Will you keep fighting for "ATM" once they make it the new dirty, gross, bad, evil word? Will you keep fighting when they drag you and everyone else through the mud for using it? Or will you agree with them, make up a new word, and never look back?

Please don't let us drown in the mud. We've been fighting for you, and we want to fight with you. Please.

[st-dionysus]

"People don't spread Misinformation about transmasc HRT! Because of their male privilege!!"

I mean that's straight up a lie. That's not even like willfull ignorance, that's just straight up lying.

Fear mongering about Testosterone and the effects it will have on "young girls" has been the primary source of validation for all of the current passing of anti-transition legislation. Fear mongering and misinformation about transmasculine HRT is so severe that it's literally the main weapon of the enemy when it comes to making it impossible for people to acsess puberty blockers and HRT.

Not to mention even intthe queer and trans communities, testosterone is treated like a dangerous poison that causes unededing toxic symptoms from anger issues to suicidal ideation, despite the fact that it's been proven again and again that these statements our misinformation.

Trans men are tought to be terrified of their HRT, which is a literal life saving medication, by everyone - from talk show hosts, politicians, and misinformed doctors to conservative parents, liberal allies, and other trans people.

Anyone who tells you that misinformation about Testosterone based HRTs isn't a thing, is lying to you and wants to hurt you, if not kill you - because a lack of acsess to hormones can be a death sentence for many. And by claiming that misinformation about transmasculine HRT doesn't exist, they are claiming that the fear mongering made about it, is legitimate.

[clowncaraz]

a transandrophobic's guide to transandrophobia

a small and short guide that oversimplifies things so even normies can understand. basically "don't say these things, be normal about queer men."

what is transandrophobia?

transandrophobia was coined around 2017 by a user named Saint (st-dionysus). it's a term describing multiple ways transmascs, trans men, or genderqueer men experience a form of androphobia that has the main goal of separating manhood from trans identities.

what is transandrophobia made of?

transandrophobia is made up of transmisogyny and androphobia. the transmisogyny is the ideas that trans men are either women in disguise, traitors or alien to womanhood, or lost little girls fetishizing lesbians. the focus on trans men as confused women is to assume that women cannot be anything but little innocent girls or servants. if a woman is not of those categories, then they are traitors, snakes, and are not real/pretending to be women. we see this in all sorts of spaces. if a woman is not subservient and tolerable, then they must be a "bitch," or a man in hiding. for trans men, this narrative means that they are failing womanhood because they too are not tolerable or subservient.

androphobia is the fear of men or the patriarchy. it affects women more than it affects men, and most trauma resulting from it comes from direct or indirect sexual violence or misogyny. androphobia in terms of trans men would be the fear of manhood or isolation of manhood from transness. a common pushback against androphobia and transandrophobia seems to be the idea that trans men are just trans, not men. they aren't women, but they aren't men either, so they stay in the gray zone of being defined by their agab or their sex traits.

the isolation of manhood from transness is a tactic used to correctly gender trans men without having to acknowledge their gender as being related to manhood, even if that fear is towards those who uphold the patriarchy - which trans men, by identity, do not fit in the patriarchy. it is why androphobia is known as irrational or abnormal, as all phobias are, but isn't recognized as hate or discrimination. when trans men and cis men are perceived as the same type of manhood, the assumption becomes that trans men are of the patriarchal system instead of being completely outside of it.

why androphobia and not misandry?

misandry was created to be used as a gotcha towards feminism. no one wants that. misandry is real, but is not represented in the term. instead, the subsequent discrimination and hate of men would stem from androphobia's fear. fear is the reason many people say they hate something that could cause it, and it's not irrational to fear, but the consistent anxiety and distrust leading to narratives that affect men who are not of the patriarchy is a phobia.

no one hates cis men for being men, it is hate of their ability to use their cis status and patriarchal power. cis manhood is preferred, it is widely accepted, it is natural.. trans men on the other hand are hated for being failed cis men and confused women, who are then hated for being related to cis men by being men incorrectly.

you might be transandrophobic if..

...you see trans men as the cis men of the trans community. this is a running joke in some spaces, but it perpetuates the idea that since cis men are of a higher power due to privilege, that trans men must have the same privileges and the same status due to them being men. this is not how you affirm transmasculine identities and frankly, it's downright gross. when you begin to see trans men as trans men instead of removing their manhood from their transness, you see that the manhood is inseparable from our transness and is in close quarters to how our identity functions. without that manhood, we are not trans and we are no longer of that community - we are then lumped into three categories; "non-men," nonbinary, or afab. when trans men say that we do not want our manhood to be reduced/separated from our transness, we mean that the other terms to categorize us are inaccurate, false, or derogatory.

...you don't think theyfab is a slur. it was made specifically to go after those who were assigned female at birth and used they/them primarily. this affects most if not all trans people who are genderqueer/nonbinary and were assigned female. it's a slur and is used that way.

...you don't say trans man, but instead say "tme." tme is transmisogyny exempt, and is known to be used as a stand in for anyone not presenting as a woman. it's a bioessentialist/intersexist term alongside it's counterpart; tma. these terms leave out and actively discriminate against intersex bodies and identities - and if pointed out - those who use the terms tme/tma will have a meltdown.

...say more slurs. if any of this is in your daily or private vocabulary and you actively refer to trans men or transmascs like this, there is a problem.

...you position our HRT or manhood as poison. i don't have to explain this that much but would it be acceptable for a trans man to say that estrogen is a poison and womanhood is essentially harmful by nature? if not, that might be a reason as to not do the same to trans men who need it.

...you position our oppression as lesser or never experienced. trans women face transandrophobia. that's the truth. the fear of supposed men in women spaces is one of the most rampant forms of prejudice against trans women.anyone can experience transandrophobia and transmisogyny. anyone can experience exorsexism. the main point of it is what it is supposed to be attacking. transmisogyny attacks womanhood that is trans or queer. transandrophobia attacks manhood by removing it from transness.

...you ignore the quarrels of trans men against rampant transandrophobia that seem to revolve around fears of being excluded due to not being feminine or woman enough, which the community seems to gravitate towards.

...you make transandrophobic claims that don't make sense at all.

[seraphim-coinz]

Aahh, hello again! NPTs seem fun :D

May we request one based on goth angels? Maybe demons too? Thank you!

System Names: The Baby Bats. The Ruby Gloom Collective. The Melancholy Sys. The Sacrificials. The Demonic Sweethearts. The Sorrowful Angels. The Vile Wings. The Haloed Demons.

Names: Cherry. Bael. Ash. Ruby. Maeve. Saint. Crimson. Angelo. Ange. Evan. Choir. Demonesse. Violetta. Divina. Cannibelle. Woundie. Axelle. Myrette. Serenity. Iris. Misery.

Pronouns: Halo/Halos. Horn/Horns. Night/Nights. Cloud/Clouds. Ghoul/Ghouls. Ae/Aer. Gore/Gores. Rot/Rots. Dark/Darks. 🐈‍⬛/🐈‍⬛s. Fang/Fangs. Snake/Snakes. En/Envies. Fie/Fiends. Creep/Creeps. Sin/Sins. Moon/Moons. Rose/Roses.

Usernames: demonicangel. rubygloomsguardianangel. halosonhorns. angelwingeddevil. cherryhalo. melancholyangel. sacrificialseraphim. gothicdove. macabrewings.

Titles: The Angelic Monster. The Gothic Devil. The Dovewinged Daemon. The Moonlight Daemon. [prn] who is Melancholy. The Macabre [term.] [prn] the Demon-Angel Hybrid.

Genders: Eeriething. Angelx. Corruptangelic. Angelmortuic. Batgothedral. Decayedgender. Demohuntix. Eerangenic. Deangelgender. Gothlitacoric.

Labels: Goth Transmasculine/Goth Transfeminine/Goth Transneutral. Demonic Lesbian. Dark Cute Transmasculine. Vampire Aromantic Asexual. Cannibal Lesboy.

PS: Would you like an anon tag, bud?

[nicosraf]

hi rafa ! quick question, do u have a favorite saint? it’s just that u have recommended saint augustine related texts here and there and i personally adore his works but there are other saints who weren’t church fathers or necessarily philosophers who i think are very interesting so i was wondering if there are any that u like or feel a connection to

It's probably not a surprise but I love Joan of Arc! First in the tradition of transmasculine people who hear the voice of archangel Michael in their heads (joke. i know some people get upset about alluding to Joan being potentially non-cis, and it's probably best not to speculate on the gender of people very very dead).

But really I like and relate to Joan for a lot of reasons.

[boreal-sea]

I hate having to block people who aren't outright bigots, but that person won't stop tagging me on someone else's post to tell me I am wrong over and over when I am literally quoting OP.

[edit #1] I have unblocked this person so hopefully they can see the discussion between myself and Saint and see that neither of us are being hostile towards one another and just having a discussion.

I like the word transandrophobia. I think it has a precise and clear definition that many people find helpful. Saint has defined it as the way a fear of men negatively impacts trans men in material ways. It touches on a lot of things I have expressed over the years when I first started trying to use the word transmisandry. Saint's clarified definition includes the line "transandrophobia is not when trans men face misogyny". He then clarified in a response (to the person who kept harassing me) that he feels there are situations where transandrophobia describes things best, and situations where misogyny describes it best.

[edit #2, everything past this is changed slightly]

He then clarified a third time (because that other person wouldn’t stop commenting) that if the misogyny is directly because the person is transmasc, then it’s part of transandrophobia.

Personally, this broadens the word for me compared to Saint’s original phrasing. I definitely get it better now. He also clarified that he sees transandrophobia as a specific type of anti-transmasculinity, which makes sense!

I support Saint and the word transandrophobia. I always have.

[cadyrocks]

I keep mulling over in my head why Housebroken works so well for me. By all rights it shouldn't - the characters are largely shallow, the gags are consistently dumb as hell, and the plotlines are consistently ridiculous, but in a mundane, realistic way. The animation is acceptable but nothing special. It's also very gross - our male lead (our female lead, Honey, being his put-upon and extremely intelligent wife) consistently draws gags from vomiting, shitting himself, and eating anything and everything, including what just came out of him. I'm certainly sick of Peter Griffin/Homer Simpson wannabes, and he's egregiously dumb even by those standards.

But it works, and I think it comes down to the show's central gimmick - they're all house pets. Why is Chief so incredibly dumb? Because he's a massive Saint Bernard. Why is Chico so fat? Because he's a cat whose owner leaves him home alone with piles of food, and he's a nervous eater - that's just something cats do in isolation! Why is Nibbles a murderous psychopath? Because she's a golden hamster who has to constantly deal with being handled by 3rd graders, which golden hamsters find stressful and will often respond violently to.

All of these tropes and ideas that should come off as overplayed just sorta work when the reason the cast is like that is because they're animals known to act that way. It also doesn't hurt that the main setting they all meet is a group therapy session, which gives more opportunities to dig into where these typical pathological behaviors come from, adding extra depth.

This is is the glue that binds Housebroken together, and elevates it far above other derivative trash in a similar mold. It also lets the show get away with stuff other shows could never get away with. Example: the scene early on where Chico suddenly and unexpectedly gives birth to kittens in front of everyone - made even more exceptional because he's, well, a guy, and nobody thinks that's weird before or after. That's right - this show didn't just say trans rights, it threw in a transmasculine character giving birth in front of everyone, and it wasn't treated as something worth commenting on! Diablo gets on antianxiety medication that also gives him a massive boner, and because he's a dog, this is less cringeworthy and more hilarious as he drags a little trail in the sand while he walks.

In short, this show is definitely lowbrow schlock, but it's exceptionally good lowbrow schlock, and I'm definitely enjoying it.