#afab trans woman

[jimberoschwezer]

It's always super funny to see transfeminists refusing to take part in the debate on 'what a woman is' - understanding that it's fundamentally a reactionary endeavor, a site of reproduction of misogynistic and transphobic dynamics and that the refusal of a definition is the most viable, politically useful decision - imposing the same kind of transphobic debate about what a 'trans woman' and 'AFAB trans woman' is, thus betraying their allegeance to anti-cissexist/misogynyst logics and feueling the very transmisogyny they claim to be against! ''What a trans woman or afab trans woman is'' is the transfem equivalent of the terf ''what a woman is'', and a lot of of them aren't self-aware enough to realize it because transphobia obstructs their thinking.

Refusing to define these concepts is the path to feminist political organizing. In fact, this tactical move has already been adopted by some feminists as a means to avoid the reproduction of misogynist dynamics:

I want these transfeminists to answer or reflect on this question: why do you think debating what it is to be a woman is misogynistic/transphobic/reactionary/should be avoided ? And how does that logic you use doesn't extend to trans womanhood and afab trans womanhood ?

[caintooth]

From a transmasc who loves transfems more than I hate transmisogyny: If you are AFAB you should not be calling yourself transfem, a transwoman, or a transgirl.

Let me start this by saying that I agree, obviously, that our society needs to stop caring about AGAB. Ideally, we should not be assigned AFAB or AMAB to begin with, and we should all be able to use the language we feel suits us best. If you are both trans and a woman, it does seem like it makes sense to call yourself a transwoman, doesn’t it? Even if you were AFAB?

But let’s have nuance, please. Let’s start by acknowledging this: a world in which our AGABs have no impact on our social roles / perceptions / interactions is NOT a world we live in yet. No matter how badly we may want to simply be feminine and masculine and androgynous and outside of connection to a binary system and AGABs entirely, we have NOT achieved that sort of liberation. To pretend we have- to act as if your AGAB has no impact on the way you are perceived and treated- is an extremely privileged game of imagination.

The most common argument I have seen from AFABs using transfem / transwoman language for themselves is that they are someone who is both, by all definitions, transgender and a woman. This may be because they previously transitioned into manhood or transmasculinity, and did not identify as a woman or as feminine at all during that time, but now, for whatever reason, have started identifying as a woman / feminine again. Or they may be a person who identifies with any variation of non-binary woman, bigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, demigirl, etc. Any identity which is either “I used to not be a woman, but am a woman now,” or “I am a woman, and another gender or lack thereof, too.”

I understand. In whatever version of this scenario, they are both transgender or have transitioned at some point, and are currently feminine or a woman. It does really sound like transfem or transwoman should be the correct language to use in this scenario!

I am non-binary, transmasc, and was indeed AFAB. I get it. I am transgender. I am not a woman, but I am also, sometimes, a woman. I am transgender and I am a woman. And I spent years of my life fighting against femininity, only to find that finally being allowed to be openly masculine has helped me embrace femininity again. It seems this is not an uncommon experience. But I am not now, and never will be, a transwoman.

Because the word transwoman has very, very specific meaning. “Meanings can change,” and “words have more than one meaning,” you say? Yes, that is true! And it should be! Change and embracing of nuance is so important to our community. And nobody should be policing the language anybody else uses.

But that being said, please. Embrace this nuance, if you are so passionate about words having it. People who were AMAB and are women have extremely different experiences than people who were AFAB and are still / are again, in whatever form for whatever reason, women or feminine.

Being a woman who was AMAB has unique culture, intersectionality, and vulnerability. Countless transwomen have asked people who were AFAB not to use the language of actual transfemininity, because it is such a different experience than being trans and feminine separately. Let me make this clear.

People who were AFAB are expected to be and rewarded for being women. If we perform womanhood in an unpalatable way, yes, we do experience misogyny. If we are also transgender, yes, we do experience transphobia. But neither of these things, even when experienced at the same time, are the same as transmisogyny, which can only be experienced by people who were AMAB.

This is because of the patriarchy. Gender Issues 101. Manhood and masculinity are seen as the ultimate power. Womanhood and femininity, as less. So, yeah, I get your confusion here. People who were AFAB, especially if they are also trans or are women or feminine in the “wrong” way, will indeed always be seen as lesser than men, for the fact of being AFAB alone! Absolutely nobody is saying that misogyny and transphobia against AFAB people are not massively violent forces in this world. Nobody is saying people who were AFAB have it “easy!”

But again, again again- people who were AMAB and are women experience a form of violence and hate very different from the kind we as AFAB people do. You know as well as I do that the patriarchy does not view women who were AMAB as actual women. It instead views them as failed men. And to those indoctrinated, that is a crime worse than womanhood. It is the ultimate insult: “They are not women. They are clearly not men, either. They are third. Other.”

AFAB people who are trans or perceived as “failed women,” no matter our actual or internal connection with femininity or womanhood, are viewed by society negatively, yes, but not as third or Other. Because, despite the wording, “failed women” are still actually viewed as women. This is because the patriarchy views people who were AFAB as inherently flawed by mere circumstance of birth. We are inherently capable of failure, because we have already failed by not being born cis men… And cis men, on the other hand, are viewed as ideal, perfect, god-like, and thus not capable of failure at all.

Let me reiterate. Due to transphobia and the rigid structure of gender within the patriarchy, when people who were AMAB declare “I am a not a man,” they are denied the status of woman. But, due to misogyny and the position of men as supreme, flawless beings within the patriarchy, when people who were AMAB respond by saying “I am a woman,” they are also denied the status of man. It is this also which is so significant. They are viewed by the patriarchy as Other in a way that people who were AFAB never will be, because we will always just be viewed as women, which is at least human.

The fact that people who are AFAB will only ever be viewed as woman is a separate issue, with separate conversation around it. Because I understand, as one of them, that we may identify with a concept of thirdness and of Otherness. We, like women who were AMAB, are not men! We feel a kinship there!

But I think I have explained well why our experience of Otherness is not the same as Otherness experienced by transwomen who were AMAB. No matter how deeply we feel third, Other, different, strange, weird? Even if this is, from the depth our soul and core of our being, not how we want to be treated? Society is still willing to view us, at the very least, no matter how much we hate it, as women. Which, like I said, is at least one way to be seen as human.

Women who were AMAB, however, are only ever treated as Other. Not even as human beings. Do you see how this is different? Do you see how this is worse?

The two questions we are trying to answer in this post are, first, why is it wrong that some people who were AFAB want to call themselves trans women or trans feminine? Which leads us to, second, why would they want to in the first place?

Transwomen who were coercively assigned male at birth are, in fact, women. They are not Other. They are not third. They are human beings and the patriarchy is wrong. I know this. The wider queer community claims to know this, too.

But we must not let our desire to affirm transwomen in their womanhood cloud our eyes to the fact that the vast majority of the world still holds extremely violent and dangerous mentality towards them.

When people who were AFAB use the language of transwoman, transfem, and transgirl for themselves, they are equating their experiences to that of AMAB people. They are, in a way, fetishizing transwomanhood. They are saying, “I have seen those called transwomen also called weird, and strange, and third, and Other. I feel that way myself, sometimes. Words like ‘genderqueer’ and ‘genderfluid’ and ‘bigender’ and ‘demigirl’ and etc., though perfectly established and expressive of my gender, do not express to others the quality of inhumanity which I feel I am a victim of. They do not express my uniqueness. But transwomen are seen as inhuman, and unique in their suffering. I am going to associate my feeling of inhumanity with their word, too. I am going to make sure this association continues, so that my pain is acknowledged, too.”

It is a violent co-opting of language. It is self-victimization. It is denial of differing axises of oppression. You are allowed to hurt, to feel Other, and denied of your humanity. But what reason do you have to equate your experience of hurt with a more marginalized group’s oppression, besides selfishness? Especially when you have been asked, repeatedly, to stop.

This behavior creates an unsafe environment for actual transwomen, who deserve community with people who acknowledge the unique experience of transfemininity! Who should be able to comfortably find other actually transfeminine people to make friends with and confide in! Who should be allowed to have their own spaces, communities, and safety nets!

Transfeminine people deserve security. Sorry for the word play, but I literally cannot imagine anything more insecure than stealing language from transwomen.

[sirenium]

If you're against perisex people using labels like AFAB transfem and AMAB transmasc, please kindly shut the fuck up. If you're against perisex people using pronoun sets such as shi/hir please kindly shut the fuck up.

I, myself, am intersex. I do not *care* if Sally sees her womanhood through a trans lens while being perisex AFAB. I am an avid believer that enforcing the notion that such labels are 'exclusive' to intersex people is harmful. 'Oh but shi/hir has been used against us!!!' That is not the fault of Billy, who just vibes with the pronoun set.

The sooner we as a community can realize that these 'progressive' boxes aren't much better than the ones made by our oppressors, the better.

[hailmaryfullofgrace55675]

"Changing the well-established definition of “trans woman” to accommodate people who were assigned female who are bigender/genderfluid/nonbinary/detrans/retrans makes it harder for trans women to talk about themselves, their experiences, and their identities without constantly clarifying their AGAB."

"Changing the well-established definition of “woman” to accommodate people who were assigned male who are transfeminine makes it harder for cis women to talk about themselves, their experiences, and their identities without constantly clarifying their AGAB."

Literally no difference between what you're saying and terf rhetoric 🤨

Thanks for sending this ask, because I’ve actually been preparing a post about this exact take but it felt kind of “look at me, I spend 16 hours a day borrowing bad posts from the future to complain about” to post it unprompted.

So, the superficial persuasiveness of this ask relies on an unfortunately common misunderstanding of what this whole “transgenderism” project is about.

The understanding that a lot of people work on is that transgenderism is about “identifying how you want to identify”. This works okay for most encounters with trans people. It appeals to a basic libertarian impulse that also works for a lot of other stuff. Generally, people should get to do stuff they want to do and define themselves how they want to define themselves, and when applied to transgender desires this results in people expressing their felt relationships with the social construct of gender and transitioning.

This is not actually what transgender political activism or transfeminism are about. The project of transgenderism did not start with the application of the general concept of personal liberty to the sphere of gender, it started with the concerns of actually existing people: people whose felt and lived relationships with gender were contrary to - crossing - “trans” - the male or female roles they had been assigned.

The transgender project is the project of transgender liberation. It is the project of enabling access to social and biomedical transition. It is the project of enabling escape from the coercive social process of gender assignment. It is the project of creating space in which people who desire to cross the boundaries of their assigned genders can live fulfilled, happy, dignified lives; openly or quietly. Maybe sometime in the next few centuries it will become the project of total liberation through gender abolition, but for now it is the project of making gender work for trans people.

“Changing the well-established definition of “woman” to accommodate people who were assigned male who are transfeminine makes it harder for cis women to talk about themselves, their experiences, and their identities without constantly clarifying their AGAB” is a poor, transphobic understanding of the history of gender and of the impacts of trans activism on cis women, but to the extent that it is true, it is good. It is the transgender project. It is the transfeminist project. It is the gender-liberatory project. Cis people SHOULD have to specify that they’re cis. They SHOULD see it as not the only way to be a woman or a man. Cis women should adapt to understanding that they were not merely “born female” but rather assigned femaleness at birth. They should adapt to understanding that they do not have “female bodies” but rather whatever physical features they have and that these features are shared by people of many gender and not shared by all women. Is it inconvenient to learn about marginalized people and adjust your language to accommodate them? Sure, it can be. It’s also the right thing to do.

The TERF logic in “saying trans women are women is inconvenient for cis women” isn’t “uses of language can cause inconvenience for groups of people”, it’s “transfeminism is bad because it says cis women are privileged and not the only real women”.

There is no such implication in “using trans woman to mean a woman who is trans regardless of assigned gender is inconvenient for trans women”. Aside from sentence structure, these are not parallel statements. The underlying logic of “trans women are women” is the underlying logic of the transgender project: that trans people’s relationships with womanhood and manhood are as legitimate as cis people’s relationships with womanhood and manhood. It is the transfeminist claim that trans women ARE women, real women, that womanhood includes trans women and actually always has. It is the historical analysis that for as long as there has been gender assignment there have been people who crossed those assignments and for as long as there have been men and women there have been people who were told to be men and became women instead. The underlying logic of “AFAB trans people who identify as women are trans women” is “the words trans people use to talk about trans stuff don’t really mean anything, so I can use them for whatever”.

Quite simply, “AFAB trans people shouldn’t identify as trans women because it causes intracommunity problems for trans women, the assigned male kind” is not TERF logic because it is an argument in defense of trans women, in defense of the legitimacy of trans women’s identities and experiences as particular and meaningful, and against transmisogyny. “Trans women shouldn’t identify as women because it causes problems for Real Women, the cis kind” is TERF logic because it is transmisogyny with a feminist gloss.

[xxcalicofemmexx]

afab trans woman wallpapers!

requested by anon

flag credit: @genderstarbucks

AFAB Trans Woman: Someone who was assigned female at birth, but ended up transitioning to womanhood later in life. Coined by the intersex community to describe their experiences with being forcibly sexed by doctors

[our-honeybee-transfem-experience]

Our honeybee/afab transfem experience! This includes intersex people, multigender people, and anyone else!

inspired by @our-transfeminine-experience @our-transmasculine-experience, @our-transgender-experiences, and @our-queer-experience

info about afab transfems (examples & what it is)

also a thing on agab because i keep seeing people mess up on it

[404shcats]

More perisex singlets should identify as afab transfemmes and amab transmascs. Send post.

[thatdykepunkslut]

Back in my day we called people who were "afab women, but a little to the left" "demigirls"

[puppygirl-victim]

"we need more weird queers" you can't even handle afab transfems

Lowkey, a lot of the things you guys say about afab transfems sound like the exact same things transphobes say about amab transfems

"They're appropriating our existence, our title, our spaces, our oppression.." no they're not, they're just expressing themselves and their gender identity the way it is rigth for THEM

Someone can desire to be born amab while wanting to be a woman or wanting to look femme, these are not mutually exclusive things and there are PLENTY of intersex women who have been refused privileges cis woman have for looking too much like trans women but when they try to reclaim the transwoman title for themselves it's all of the sudden a bad thing?

There are millions of different experiences people have with gender, their bodies, and transness you cannot gatekeep labels without using bigoted talking points.

Afab transfems and amab transmascs are valid!

Intersex transfems/mascs are valid!

The genitals people are born with doesn't concers you! We had this conversation before!

[thekitchenywitch]

Alright I’m so sick of the fact that AFAB people don’t understand their own reproductive system. I have several issues with my own so for my fellow young AFABs:

What is and is not normal:

Normal:

Irregular or unexpected periods: when you first start having your period they typically won’t be regular and you may even have spotting (bleeding between periods) sometimes as an adult

Having an increased amount of discharge before periods: you will typically have discharge when ovulating and it may even happen more often and more heavily in the days proceeding your period. This is in fact normal and you can help protect clothes and underwear by using panty liners

Pain or discomfort during your period IN MODERATION (more later): of course you will have cramps during your periods and of course it’s not going to be easy. However you should definitely learn about pressure points to help with abdominal pain as well as using heat packs and learning what works best for YOU.

Not normal(please keep in mind that this is if these things happen consistently):

Excessive pain/soreness: If you have pain all throughout your period that does not stop or you have pain during intercourse when not on your period talk to your ob/gyn and if your doctor tells you that it’s normal/something you need to get used to, or dismisses it that IS NOT the doctor you need or want.

HEAVY periods: if you are changing pads meant for heavy flow every four-six hours I’m begging you to talk to your doctor, it is not normal or safe to be losing that much blood on a regular basis

(There is more I can put here but I can put them on as I remember)

IUDs:

IUDs are intrauterine devices that look like little plastic Ts. These are a form of contraceptive that are also used to treat things like Endometriosis (a disorder when tissues from your uterine lining sits on the outside of your uterus and ovaries, though it can move to other places in the body). If you have an IUD you or your partner may be able to feel string coming from your cervix out into the vaginal canal. This is normal. However if you feel the plastic connected to this string call your doctor, your IUD may be leaving your uterus and that is not a fun experience.(it’s happened to me.) When your doctor puts in your IUD they will open to your cervix (this does actually hurt) to insert it. Once the IUD is in your uterus you may have irregular periods as the IUD takes a while to work. (I had a 208 day cycle when I first got mine)

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND I AM NOT A DOCTOR THIS IS ALL MY RESEARCH AND EXPERIENCE.

tell me if there is more you’d like to know more about, I will help as best as I can

[mogayis-socool]

⛱ Radinclus afab transfem lesbian flag

This flag is inclusive afab transfem and transfemmasc/transmascfem perisex lesbians and non-SAM mspec lesbians.

[jimberoschwezer]

⁠✿⁠ ⁠⁰⁠ ⁠o⁠ To afab trans women:

· Being afab doesn't make you any less of a trans woman. You're as much a trans woman as amab trans women.

· Your existence is not transmisogynistic.

· You shouldn't have to justify your identity to be taken seriously.

· You experience transmisogyny even if it manifests itself differently from other trans women, and these experiences should to be acknowledged (as a form of transmisogyny).

· You're not an intruder, you're not invading transfem spaces, you belong there just as much as other trans women even if you have different experiences from them.

· You are part of transfeminism.

[t4t4t]

Terf screenshot. The blog is disgusting.

[fembutchboygirl]

Radfems suck my fat hairy tits and die LMAO

[jimberoschwezer2]

This will make my detractors angrier, but:

• An afab trans woman living as a cis woman is socially like a deep stealth amab trans woman

• in practice, when it comes to social treatement, there is no difference between ''being known as a trans woman'' and ''being a trans woman''

[hailmaryfullofgrace55675]

i don’t want people who identify as afab transfems/trans women or amab transmascs/trans men to get harassed or treated as less legitimately trans (99% of these people are nonbinary and their trans identities would be uncontroversial within trans spaces if they weren’t using words wrong) but i do hope that the greater trans community is able to appropriately treat “not knowing what these words mean or understanding why redefining them to mean fem-while-trans and masc-while-trans is counterproductive” as pretty discrediting of someone’s understanding of trans topics. i don’t know what, if anything, can be done to persuade people who have already become convinced that this is the new wave in gender diversity that all the experiences they’re referring to are already drastically better discussed in other language, but it is at least fairly easy to see that someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about and adjust expectations accordingly.