#against transmisogyny

[kotoneshiomiofficial]

when transfems talk about how we live in a society, we mean that US culture only recognizes two sexes and two genders, and then equates them. male = man and female = woman, and its despises anyone who steps outside of those bounds (intersexism and transphobia). so when we talk about how you cant be perisex afab and then call yourself a transfem, what we mean is that society has (whether you like it or not) treated you as a girl/woman because thats what it said on your birth certificate. you cannot transition to be a gender you already a part of. and there are already plenty of nonbinary labels for people who have a feminine gender but dont feel 100% like a woman. and to imply that you can suggests trans women are not the same gender as women. so at best third-gendering us or at worst saying we're not real women. and when it comes to intersexism, listen to tma intersex people about it and not tme perisex people. and i mean actually listen, dont just use them as hypothetical talking points.

[gremlingirlsmell]

imagine concluding from this that transfems have disproportionately bad opinions, instead of tme people being disproportionately blind to transmisogyny

[die-tenebris]

don't wanna derail the post I saw this discussion on- it was all in the notes anyway, so it certainly isn't op's problem. I'm gonna say this with so much love:

Calling somebody a 'theyfab' is not punching up. If someone's being transmisogynistic, say that, or call them a bigot. Naming the tangible harm done to you will always be the most effective thing to do.

The cis people who created that term made it with the explicit intent to mock and insult people's identities. No matter what you mean when you say it, this is its origin and to most people, its only meaning. It describes nothing about the discrimination you face.

People afab are marginalized, especially if they're queer. You cannot "punch up" on a fellow oppressed group. I understand the specific vitriol that they inflict on you hurts.

You don't need a word to call somebody, you need and deserve adequate justice for the tangible harm done to you; and my heart aches that nobody queer- especially trans women- ever seems to receive that.

I'm aware I can't make anybody do anything, so I'm not gonna try to tell you not to use that word. I just want to say it can't ever address, undo, or heal any harm done to you. It can only redirect it.

[trans-androgyne]

Being transfem does not exempt you from being transmisogynistic any more than being transmasc exempts you from being transandrophobic. If you believe in male socialization you are transmisogynistic for it, no matter what your identity is. I've said it before and I'll say it a million times more: there is no one male/female socialization and if you think you can cleanly assume someone's life experiences from their assigned sex, you are a transphobe and a bioessentialist (parts -> specific personality traits? really?).

[joan-deactivated20230204]

so much of what is frustrating about the way tme people on here will talk about trans women is that you can tell they only think of trans women as this aesthetic category, an abstract identity collected through memes and porn posts and the vague knowledge that when you say "fuck terfs" it involves trans women somehow. its a culture which will pat itself on the back for how trans-inclusive it is while at the same time parroting transmisogynistic lines that drive tgirl circles to become increasingly isolated.

[zabreus]

threatening FBI intervention over a tom and jerry-esque “we would have beat ET with hammers” type joke post is the kind of thing a grown adult only does either if they’re being deliberately hyperbolic to save a bruised ego or if they’re so genuinely terrified of a minority that their frontal lobe shuts down completely

[gremlingirlsmell]

btw if you think "no one is transmisogyny exempt" thats just denial of transmisogyny existing and minimizing our opression. hope this helps

[pokemon-radical-red]

“Guys, come on, it’s not blatant radfem rhetoric. See! They didn’t say that they hate trans women. They said they hate trans men! So like it’s basically awesome now, because so many people don’t see you as actually transphobic if you take it out on any trans people who aren’t trans women!”

[theblockedtomb]

if you make posts about, e.g., trans men being seen as the worst of both men and women, denied the right to speak on either experience, and tag it as transandrophobia or something similar, you are making it very clear that when trans women talk about their experiences you either do not listen or do not care. Trans women also experience these things. It's not because you're a trans man. It's because you're trans. I know you're trans because you're a man but that's not the point, the point is all trans people are treated like this. Unless they either go stealth or gain high levels of social acceptance. Guess which subgroup of trans people that's easier for.

[trans-androgyne]

Trans people are not each other’s oppressors. That falls squarely on the shoulders of cis* people. We are all capable of harming each other; we can all weaponize or perpetuate exorsexism, transmisogyny, and transandrophobia. All of us. And we should talk about it together. We should talk about the different ways we are hurt both inside and outside the queer & trans community.

The community accepts us all only conditionally. Transfems cannot be masc or have kinks without being harassed and painted as a threat. Transmascs are ostracized for being too masc and misgendered, called fake for being too fem. Non-binary people are accepted so long as they can perceive you as and treat you like woman-lite. Any genders/experiences that fall outside or between these categories are mocked. And more. We all have stereotypes of us based on thin, White, perisex, gender conforming or neutrally androgynous, relatively privileged trans people. We all need to recognize and address these stereotypes. They are not representative of the diverse trans experience.

None of us are accepted on a wide scale by broader society. We are all in the fight against transphobia together. And it is a fight. Tensions are high and only mutual respect and support can relieve them. We can address intracommunity issues without power-jacketing each other or eating our own. No group of us has cis privilege. No group of us has male privilege. Nothing like cis men do. We need to listen to each other and overcome our assumptions to better understand trans experiences. I invite you to tell me how you perceive your oppression and I hope you’ll listen when I do the same.

[worstgirleva]

i'm sorry, but if you (not trans woman) was read as a trans woman and suffered transmisogyny and your biggest problem with that is that trans women are not willing to accept you as transmisogyny affect then you kinda are part of the problem here

[pathologictwo]

i fully believe that some gay men view their gayness through their hatred of and dehumanization of women rather than their attraction to other men. you put your hands on your female friends without consent, you dance up on them and grope them when you go out, you make disgusting sexual comments about them, and then you degrade them to their faces and talk about how disgusting vaginas and breasts and periods are. why is a core facet of your sexuality how much you don’t like women instead of how much you like men

[eileennatural]

is the unpopularity of transfem headcanons compared to transmac headcanons due to transmisogyny or is everyone just unenlighted

[lesbianchemicalplant]

and if I have to hear transmisogyny-exempt lesbians waxing nostalgic and pining to RETVRN to their precious bar scenes of yesteryear one more time, one more fucking time

[tipped-rigby]

I'm still not completely onboard with the term (and the little existing theory around) "transandrophobia" and I'm hesitant about discourse surrounding it. I've spent a while now just combing through discourse about it, and specifically I never see people engage with the actual points he (the coiner) makes about what transandrophobia is and isn't. Or at least that one specific post I come back to, I dunno. I've searched "transandrodorks" even for it and I've never seen a comprehensive rebuttal that these things don't specifically impact trans men and transmasculine people.

But one thing I see a lot about is how people don't like the term because it implies "androphobia." But doesn't that indisputably exist? Like the term in of itself, the literal meaning you could take out of it. Fear of men/masculinity.

Granted, I believe the literal definition is that a phobia is irrational, but I don't necessarily believe that of "androphobia." I think someone could be completely justified in their fear. But having that fear even in a completely rational and reasonable way doesn't change the fact that it can manifest in ways that harm people.

Also, even if "androphobia" implies that men are/masculinity is oppressed (i.e. how homophobia relates to homosexuality, homophobia not always being caused by literal fear), would cisgender men really adopt a term used by transgender men and transmasculine people like this? Am I not conceptualizing the doom that would be upon us if "transandrophobia" were even a little bit known? I don't know.

I'm still reading about transmisogyny and just the idea of transmasculinity at all, so this is not my #1 concern right now. But everytime I see a post about trans male and transmasculine specific oppression, I often feel it's written in bad faith. Could this be my own transmisogyny and unwillingness to give transfeminists the benefit of the doubt? Am I tone policing in my head? I don't know.

I'm not incredibly knowledgeable about theory at all. This topic has only been on my radar since I started following twitter discourse but I think it started on Tumblr.

[rotting-pond]

It is crazy how much time some TME trans people spend trying to prove that TERFs hate us too. Like yeah okay whatever, they hate us too, we know. But do you think the fact that TME trans TERFs exist maybe tells you something about the primary target of TERFs. Which is to say. Not us! Like do you think perhaps the amount of time TERFs spend harassing and talking about and thinking about trans women maybe says something important!!