#also about all the fighting over the term transandrophobia

[coral-skeleton]

The problem is mostly keyboard leftists, and hence online leftist spaces, like, eish, there's nothing that makes me wanna call myself a centrist quite like engaging with leftists politics online, and specifically on this website. There's alot of toxicity in the online spaces, alot of infighting over little things, and misplaced priorities in online spaces. Like to the point that every single irl leftist that's actually involved in local activism I've met are saying the online spaces are not worth engaging in. Online leftism has become more about being a subculture, an exclusive club that y'all want to keep the normies out of, especially among young people. And that's really not great, not only does this push people who are on the fence about the issues we all agree on further away cause they see all the toxicity, but it's also being very wasteful of a potentially very powerful tool we could have had. Like we could've used the internet for global organization and recruitment on a scale never before seen, but no, y'all are too busy feigning moral superiority and fighting with people who agree with you on the overwhelming majority of things, but have one differing opinion on a really small issue comparatively.

[a-polite-melody]

“I’ve never seen any cases of ‘transandrophobia’ where you couldn’t rebut the use of the term with ‘that’s just transphobia’ or ‘that’s just misogyny’ so I don’t think these guys understand intersectionality”

Okay, let’s presuppose that’s actually true, just to humour the argument here for a moment.

What happens when both transphobia and misogyny are components of what is making up the experience? What can we say we faced? What language can we use to connect specifically with other people who share the experience of being of our same identity and being targeted by transphobia and misogyny because of that identity?

“Just say misogyny and transphobia!”

And be in with the sea of other people speaking on their experiences with transphobia and misogyny with no way to quickly with language use further specify the force we’re talking about and what audience we’re seeking to connect with. (Don’t even get me started on the fact that there are people denying the use of transandrophobia who also say that trans men and mascs categorically cannot experience misogyny who we’d be making angry, so like, not really problem solved!)

And we certainly can’t call what we’re experiencing (ie. an intersection of transphobia and misogyny) transmisogyny else we’re talking over trans women and fems or taking up their space.

Like… people can see how much this is all just bullshit meant to make us go around in circles until we’re too exhausted to keep fighting for language or speaking at all, yeah?

[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.

[rin-tezuka]

i would personally say that the erasure of language for a-spec and nonbinary people is a real problem. granted that's not an excuse for brainrotting transmisogyny, but unlike """"transandrophobia""" aphobia and exorsexism are in fact real, you know? i don't know if I'm being very clear and I don't want to be a jerk in anyone's inbox just because i disagree with an offhand comment, but I was left thinking this basically. for every aromantic TME theyfab or whatever there's a TMA nonbinary aromantic transfem equivalent, and they have less institutionally vested interest in appearing the "most oppressed" to declare themselves ontologically privilegeless the way TME people often use other positionalities as a cudgel against transfems. but for that person, the erasure of aromanticism as a real possibility for humans to be that's equally healthy and important and not a mental illness to be fixed is a real problem. the fact that aromanticism is something to be mocked and dismissed both in and out of "queer" spaces is a real problem. That allo people who are queer some other way still benefit from the social legitimacy of getting into relationships and get to mock and dismiss aphobia as a problem while they fight to receive more social and legal capital for being in relationships is a real problem. binary people putting all gender oppression in binary terms (correctly) without accounting for the fact that you get shit on harder for being nonbinary because there is no framework for your gender so much as existing and that binary people have trouble even conceptualizing of enben as people who are in front of them and not abstract stragglers is a real issue even if TMEs use it to cry and wail and piss their pants over being called TME. you're nonbinary (referencing your bio), so maybe saying that is pointless, but I see even other nonbinary people forgetting exorsexism is a real axis of gender oppression and not an accidental attachment to oppositional sexism sometimes. and this isn't a thought exercise to guilt trip a stranger with to me, this is a real person, someone I know personally. and maybe someone making "just call me a slur" jokes at a-spec terms isn't quite a "real problem" compared to that, but it doesn't reflect well on your supposed "community"'s ability to take the power they wield over you and the capacity to hurt you with it seriously if they're rolling their eyes at you for merely having words to say it with, does it? I guess the point of this is just that I wish people would articulate their grievances with the "everyone welcome except transfems" culture without shitting on aspec people. Oppression based on aromanticism or asexuality is a real thing I experience and a lot of my friends experience, mockery of any aspec words and experiences whatsoever both from straight people and queer people is a thing that happens a lot, and it doesn't become funny to point and laugh at the sentiment that it's rude and gross and aphobic of some people to equate our words to slurs or assimilationist nonsense just because that person who said it is also a transmisogynistic bigot.

sorry for writing an essay. It's just something I'd like to stop seeing from the people whose posts i like, since I have to see it everywhere else in my life anyway. I really want to say that I'm not trying to crucify you or judge you by a statement on the internet or anything! It's Only A Blog and all that. I guess this is just to say that I personally dislike the conflation of discussions of aphobia and exorsexism as "fake problems" like "transandrophobia" for TME people to cover their asses when they are very much real things. that's it. have a nice day! :3

I mean don't get me wrong i don't really disagree. I kinda just think concerns about stuff like making jokes about QPPs (a term i haven't heard for like 8 years) is hollow coming from somebody who hates trans women, yknow?

[redheadbigshoes]

Sorry, I am not calling names, you can go to any "bi lesbian positivity" blog and find plenty.

That being said, the post that I tried to use as a block list was about how "lgbts are trying to persuade lesbians into fucking men" is a transmisogynistic dogwhistle.

Honestly, that's not very PC of me, but it feels like there is an actual war over this line. Some of the popular lesbian bloggers are all about "trans women are cool" and then go on talking about how transitioning is misogynistic, how badly they want to fuck trans men, organize hate campaigns on trans women and only on trans women (I saw one post accusing a trans girl of fetishizing black people, went to her blog, and turns out that she leaves sexual remarks on every fucking post. Not saying that it's cool, but it's definitely a different thing, and of course notes were full with transmisogyny) and so on.

And the entire circle of transmisogyny bloggers seems to embrace the idea that excluding men from lesbianism is a TERF thing. Like, they say that "of course it's lesbophobic to imply that lesbians are TERFs" and then proceed to talk only about cis lesbians being transphobic or "transphobic". I am already blocked by some popular ones probably for disagreeing with one "bi lesbian".

Yeah it do be like that. "Bi lesbians" are not yet a thing where I live, but a) they will be soon, b) it's still full of bullshit. I don't ever want to go into irl spaces

I don’t think I’m mentally stable enough to search for “bi lesbian positivity” blogs lol I’ve probably blocked most of them or am blocked by most of them anyways.

You know what’s ironic? That 99% of “bi lesbians” also believe in transandrophobia and usually don’t care at all about transfems. They’re obviously only using transmisogyny to attack lesbians somehow.

Seriously people need to start being more clever. A lot of people see terms that involve any prejudice and they instantly believe the person who’s talking about that. “Lesbians not being attracted to men is transphobic” and they genuinely believe that without questions. This is not only frustrating, but also sad. It’s ironic because the mindset of “I’ll fully believe something without any explanation or proof” is such a conservative thing to do…

You ask them to explain why they think what they think and suddenly they have no arguments, at least no logical ones.

I think those lesbian blogs you’re talking about are mostly not owned by lesbians. If they’re attracted to men they either aren’t lesbians or they don’t see trans men as men.

If you try asking any of those people about why they think it’s terf rhetoric to exclude men from lesbianism prepare yourself for either the most stupid shit you will ever see or for absolute silence lol

Most of the time whenever I comer across either terf blogs, “bi lesbian” blogs or any of those kind of people I usually just block them because it’s worthless wasting your time with someone who clearly doesn’t want to actually listen, they just want attention and by wasting your time with them you’re giving them exactly what they want.

That’s why I usually only block them and move on by still posting the things I like to talk about and fight against prejudice in other ways besides joining discourses.

[morallyneutral]

my thing about this is that it assumes that white straight man is the default instead of its own unique intersection of privilege.

I'm pulling much of this from my understanding and vauge memory of Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A black Feminist Critique of Anti-discrimination Doctrine by Kimberlé Crenshaw, so if anyone would like to correct me or challenge something I said please do. The way I think about it is this; a black women expreinces a unique intersection of her black identity and her feminine identity. her blackness influences her femininity in a way that is not true of her white counterparts, and her identity as a women is influenced by her blackness.

in the same way, a black man experiences a different intersection of masculinity and his blackness. a black man is absolutely discriminated against for being a black man, in a way that is separate and unique from the racism black women and femmes expirence. a black man's masculinity is often a threat, quick to be associated with violence and Mal intent. this is undeniably racism, but it's also an experience that effects black mascs more so than black femmes (who are more likely to not be seen in the first place or be seen as an over reacting angry black women.)

this is also not to say that black men do not hold power over black women or are uncapable of misognoir, but to acknowledge that the racism black men face is often different than the racism black women endure.

the same is true for white men. their whitness impacts their masculinity and their masculinity impacts their whitness. a white man's gender identity is shaped by privileges granted to him by his whiteness. It's why classic white man behavior has to do with power and conquring the land (think trucks, huge rideable lawn mowers past what is necessary). Masculinity is a unique identity that intersects with whitness as a unique identity.

The same is true for trans folks. trans women endure a unique intersection of transphobia and misogyny. their identity as women are impacted by their transness and their identity as trans people is impacted by their womanhood/femininity. Transfems face discrimination that targets that intersection.

Trans men are not free from this. Trans men's masc identity is impacted our transness and our Transness is impacted by our masculinity. my understanding of what it means to be Trans will always be influenced by the fact that I'm a Trans man, not a transfem. At the same time, Trans men endure a ton of violence on the basis that we are Trans men. Trans men face infantlization in early years of transition, violent corrective r*pe threats, and later in transition face ostrization, medical harassment and so on. Is it true that Trans men can expirence male privilege? absolutely. but often that privilege is granted on the basis of hiding ourselves or going stealth. more often than not, Trans mascs suffer forced detransition in order to access resources. and even still, our masculinity is used against us. This is the same issue that many butch and masc lesbians face.

I hate this discussion because I don't think it gets us anywhere. you can argue that Trans men just face both misogyny and transphobia or you can argue for the term transandrophobia but that doesn't change that Trans masc Trans fem and non binary folks are all at risk of having our rights revoked, our access to heath care revoked, and our lives threatened. we should be fighting for our collective liberation instead of fighting eachother.

Figured ppl on here would want to know Silas (sweatermuppet) doesn't support any usage of terms to describe the system of oppression against trans mascs

[frecklenog]

transandrophobia is a weird thing to think about for me as a transmasc because i’ve never once met a transfem who has openly considered me lesser or as a bad person or a freak for pursuing medical transition like hrt and top surgery, or even just for being a guy. in my experience, that kind of hatred and prejudice has only ever come from cis people. the same men who tell tgirls they’ll “never be real women” are the same ones telling tguys we’ll “never be real men.” the same women who tell tgirls they’re inherently dangerous and disgusting because they’re amab tell tguys that we’re “mutilating” our “beautiful female bodies” and that we just hate women. and yet a lot of people who are against transmascs having a label for their experiences seem to point to hatred of transfems and trans women.

i’m not going to make the argument that transmisogyny isn’t real, because it absolutely is. and it should be discussed and resisted. transfems are not just women/fems, but human beings with bodily autonomy, and are deserving of respect — regardless of how they present themselves. i don’t care how long her beard is, what her hairline looks like, or anything else. she told you her name is sarah, and i will fistfight you over it.

but the same is also true of transmascs. there are those of us who have been raped or otherwise assaulted because “a real man would be able to fight back” (a bullshit argument in the first place — assault is never the fault of the victim, and cis men are also often victims). transmascs are not just men/mascs, we are human beings with bodily autonomy, and are deserving of respect, regardless of how we present ourselves. i don’t care how big his boobs are, that he’s wearing a dress, or anything else. he told you his name is oliver, and i will fistfight you over it.

if i’m honest, i think my issue with transandrophobia is mostly as a term.

“transmisogyny” is described as the intersection of transphobia and misogyny — that is, a bigotry towards transfems in part for not fitting the platonic ideal of femininity.

“transandrophobia” in turn implies the intersect of transphobia and androphobia. but “androphobia” is defined as the fear of men — which, if i may be frank, i don’t think cis men have — certainly not on a large enough scale for it to be considered systemic.

to be glib — and this is just my opinion as one (1) transmasc — i think that what’s often defined as transandrophobia is an intersection of transphobia and either terfdom or misdirected misogyny. i’ve been very lucky in that my own experiences with it are limited, but much of the bigotry that i’ve faced specifically for being transmasculine has been born of people perceiving me as a woman (or rather, as a girl, since i haven’t really “passed” as feminine since i started my transition in high school).

as i stated before, afab bodies are viewed as commodities. how will anyone ever love you if you hack your boobs off? what about your potential to be a mother — the highest, most divine honor that can be bestowed upon a woman, and clearly the most important matter at hand — regardless of what you want? do you really want a disgusting scar on your arm?

(that last one is usually accompanied by images of phalloplasty skin graft sources in the early stages of healing, or that have become infected (as any surgical scar can), completely disregarding that 1. the donor skin can come from other places, 2. it normally does nothing to impede one’s ability to use their hand in the long run if the arm is chosen as the donor site, 3. phalloplasty isn’t the only type of bottom surgery available to transmascs, 4. the scar will fade with time, as all scars do, and 5. scars are absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in the first place. if you are self conscious about it, you’re allowed to tell people not to concern themselves with your medical history unless they’re providing you with medical care. otherwise, it’s straight up none of their fucking business.)

i don’t really know what question i’m asking, much less the answer to it. but ultimately, i do feel that the divide centered around transandrophobia — whether you want to call it that or something else — does more harm than good to the trans community as a whole. arguing that transmascs don’t face unique forms of bigotry is stupid, just like arguing the same about bisexuals/pansexuals/asexuals is. but we have more in common with our transfem sisters than we do differences from them, and we should focus primarily on fighting for each other and uplifting the other members of our community regardless of our perceived differences. sorry you forgot that this is supposed to be a place where people are accepted for who they are and diversity is celebrated, and not the fucking oppression olympics.

[none-gender-left-man]

No trans person has systemic access to male privilege, and if they receive something alike to it this is on condition of meeting cis standards for maleness conditionally. Therefore it isn't privilege.

No trans person has access to this privilege on a systemic level free of all transphobic microaggression and exclusion. To claim any trans demographic has privilege based on anecdotal experiences of a lucky minority among them (such as "passing" trans men for example) is bullshit, and to subscribe to any form of gender essentialism is also bullshit. If saying that trans people who are deemed "amab" don't have male privilege is true, the same applies to trans people who are deemed "afab" regardless of whether they are trans fem, trans masc, trans neutral, passing, not passing, or any form of trans that overlaps with distortions of cis perception (which is all of them). We cannot allow ourselves to normalize a new binary that is just another gymnastic routine to describe what our cisnormative "real sex" is. It's an invasive cultural problem among certain pockets of the community that cannot become the norm and will not liberate us from the oppression we all face. It's one thing to use transbinary terminology (such as agab, tma/tme) in discussion where it's relevant, and another to force it upon the unwilling or those to whom it may not apply based on how YOU perceive them and their identity.

This all goes without even mentioning how intersex trans people (such as myself) are being left out of this discussion across the board, or deliberately pushed out.

No trans people have systemic male privilege. This is on account of them being trans, therefore inherently being excluded from "manhood" in cisnormative society. No trans people are allowed access to the privileged hierarchical power of cis men in material terms. Even if they Think They Do, this is a subjective and rare experience not universal nor systemic to trans masculine people.

To any fellow trans mascs who may attempt to argue with me about this in bad faith, please genuinely hear me right now: You are fawning to exclusionary radfem rhetoric in compulsory self flagellation, but you're not just beating yourself down, you are beating down your brothers and trans masc siblings while tokenizing our sisters and trans fem siblings in the process. Fighting each other over who's allowed to talk about oppression doesn't get us closer to progress. Working together and giving one another platform and room to speak on All Diverse Intersectional Experiences with transphobia is essential. Making a word for a term of oppression to discuss how it intersects with other issues is just that, coining shorthand to help in the discussion. Nobody is minimizing transmisogyny across the board, and if they Are that's on that individual not every trans masculine person who uses the term transandrophobia.

Transmisogyny, transandrophobia, exorsexism, ceterophobia, and intersexism co-exist and overlap heavily. They ALL require our attention, and those subject to them should all be heard on what they face.

Yes, this applies even if you are a trans masc who experienced conditional "privilege" or biases that you perceive to be an "advantage". This doesn't undo the systemic oppression trans masculine people Specifically face. How in some countries and regions people truly don't even know we exist even if they know of trans fems, and how this effects trans mascs WHO LIVE THERE. This is not a privilege to either party! The trans mascs are abused and erased and girlbossified into tomboys while trans fems are abused and exploited and made into hypervisible caricature! We are both oppressed in overlapping, interconnected ways that manifest into different systemic material results, and transneutral people experience an overlap of more than one of these forms of gender and sex oppression.

Lower class trans mascs that can't yet transition or trans mascs who aren't medically transitioning for other reasons may not ever be perceived as anything but "unwomen" to cis patriarchy, and some trans mascs who ARE transitioning are still treated this way. This is not privilege. Really think about the mechanisms at play in this discussion and ask yourself who is trying to convince you that other trans people are the enemy.

The answer is usually Radfems (both trans exclusionary and trans inclusionary because BOTH exist and BOTH are bad), and reddit planted discourse from right wing trolls.

[icaruskey]

Yep, that’s totally what’s happened here. 

Me wanting to talk about how trans women over on reddit have been called out for DM’ng trans men/boys and fetishing their body parts is definitely transmisogynistic. Because *checks notes* trans women and girls can do no wrong. 

Same with calling out people who call T poison and who have actively hurt not only trans men and people who want the effects of T but are scared of it due to fear mongering but also young cis boys who listen in on trans conversations. 

But of course that’s transmisogynistic because to trans women, T is poison. But I never see trans men and masc people arguing that E is poison to them, except when it actively causes them debilitating physical illnesses. And even then, that’s only in response to a specific conversation being had in trans masc circles, not gen spaces. Not in a conversation where a trans boy and girl are both talking, and the girl says “T is poison. Sorry [trans boy] but it’s true.” 

I didn’t realize that it was my victimhood talking when I try to point out that my former role model JKR is fucking attacking trans men but the only conversation around her is “trans women are women”. I didn’t realize it was our ego talking when people rightly reminded me that this isn’t the fight to have because her activism is actually turning Britain into a hellscape for trans people. 

Ooh, maybe the transmisogyny is talking about how baeddels -- people who actively identify as baeddels -- are trying to co-opt a word more against intersex people and who are *checks notes again* trying to revive a word very closely associated with a cult-like movement where one of the inner circle raped another member and then lied about it. And then everyone sided with the rapist over the victim until the movement blew up. 

But right, baeddels are trans women so clearly they can do no wrong. 

What about calling out the active nbphobia in Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl? You know, where she says that nonbinary people and genderfluid identities are just a partial expression of their subconscious sex? That’s kinda fucked up, but I guess since Serano is the coiner of transmisogyny she can do no wrong either. 

I guess calling out how TME/TMA terminology is transmisogyny too, even if I’m just pointing out that all its doing is creating a new binary with how its used. 

What about all the talk that these “transandrophobia truthers” do when they’re not being harassed by other parts of the trans communities for wanting to use a useful term coined by someone who has been part of an overblown and unfair harassment campaign by two, now three people? But that doesn’t count I guess because those conversations actually stay within the community and isn’t seen like are arguments against people refusing to literally let us have language to express ourselves are. 

This is a bullshit post and a lukewarm take at best. 

And yes, I’m responding to this because you’re a fucking pissbaby who feels big mocking people and having your friends come up and join in on the bullying. I hope it makes you feel real big. 

transandrophobia truthers have made it impossible to talk online about transmasc experiences because they've co-opted all the fucking language for that for their petty little transmisogyny crusade. like there are meaningful aspects of transmasculine identity and relations that need to be talked about and reckoned with, including the nuanced and unique relationship that trans men have with misogynistic power structures, but you can't fucking talk about that without herds of guys who have primarily built their identity around victimhood and ego flooding into your home and claiming you as their own.

[sparklyeevee]

I hope I'm not derailing, but this post finally brought into focus a thing I've been trying to articulate for like a week and a half.

The focus on manhood is actually incredibly important, and not just for the reasons of "We need a term that's specific to us and distinct from transmisogyny", and the almost tautological "This happens to us because we are men." Although both those things are true and important.

There's a tendency, based partly in the idea that transmasculinity is new or recently discovered, that the people who would hurt us for being trans men have literally no idea who and what we are, to frame all the bullshit trans men go through as fundamentally rooted in misgendering us. That all of it is based in our oppressors, and most of the people who do lateral violence to us, seeing us as women who are Doing It Wrong. And that's absolutely a real thing that happens, and it's a big part of certain things like pressuring trans men to consider their reproductive capacity and sexual attractiveness, encouraging us to worry about those things, when considering our options for medical transition.

But there's a thing, yeah? On average, cis men do more violence to other cis men than they do to cis women. Cis women do more violence to cis men than they do to each other. I have statistics on this, but they are in physical books in boxes, and I will not be going through those until the heat is back on, which will be Monday at the earliest. Hell, I see it less than I used to, but one of the big misogynistic talking points for a long damned time was cis men being like "Oh, women should be treated like men, so I'm allowed to hit them?" (Compare and contrast adults arguing against youth rights "Oh, so I should kick my 11 year old out and make them get a job?") To like, most cis men, best I can tell, and to a lot of cis women, part of what Being a Man means is being an acceptable target for violence. See: the draft. See also: demographic differences in use of the death penalty.

And this framework absolutely gets applied to trans men. Women hitting me and asserting that it's okay for them to do so, but not for me to hit back, is a thing that I have experienced in real life. A distressing number of cis men, big guys, over 6 feet tall and more than twice my weight, almost all of them, have assumed, when I clarified that I'm a man, that I would challenge them to fights and then act like it was unfair because of how small I am. None of those guys ever did me violence, but one of them did respond to the news that I was going to the gym regularly and taking martial arts classes by expressing his appreciation that I was not planning to be one of those Starts Fights and then Whines About It short guys after all.

And I think, y'know, with the sexual assault statistics, this also plays a role. Some of it is trying to be "corrective", but some of it is like, and I know it's at least some because two of the people who sexually assaulted me fuckin said so, some cis men who rape trans men are pretty indifferent to the question of whether we're "actually" whatever, but we say we're men, and that means sexually assaulting us doesn't count because everyone knows men don't get raped.

I've had men and women both sexually harass me and claim they were respecting my gender identity by doing so. I've had men, women, and at least two nonbinary people dismiss my previous experiences of violence (sexual and otherwise) and concerns about experiencing more violence, with the justification that, as a man, I should just deal with it.

And this attitude absolutely doesn't account for every manifestation of transandrophobia. But it's a real thing, and because if it, I don't think there's ever gonna be an accurate term that doesn't emphasize the manhood thing.

Saw your tag on that post re: John Green and sexual harassment… someone drew a connection between transandrophobia and kinks? As in “transandrophobia being a bad word because kinks” …mental gymnastics are in the olympics this year, I see

On another note… does transandrophobia also apply to people who are only vaguely transmasc…? Like, say, someone demigender, genderflux, genderfluid, libragender who has a <40 percentage of being masc, could this hypothetical person use the term (where applicable) or would you they rather not…?

The whole drama around the word "transandrophobia" was started because a few people stalked the person who'd coined it on Tumblr & found kinks they didn't like on his password-protected nsfw sideblog, and they made a whole callout about how he (saint) was a Bad Person because of said kinks- therefore the word was also Bad and Problematic.

They've given other reasons since then, but none of them are compelling ("this guy who also talks about it sometimes is Problematic" is not a good reason, nor is "I, someone who is not a trans woman, have decided that the concept of transmascs talking about their experiences is actually bad for trans women")

RE: who is "allowed" to use the word to describe their experience, I don't think it's productive to limit words like that to and individual's identity. It's about systems of oppression far older than identities like transmasculinity, and created & enforced by people who largely don't even know the difference between a trans man and a nonbinary transmasc person.

What matters to the conversation are the ideas involved: the way transmascs are treated as if we "betray womanhood", or are "lost little girls"; removal of autonomy; the specter of the Evil Trans Man Stealing Our Daughters; the concept of transmasc transition as "mutilation" and testosterone as "poison"/causing aggression; the list goes on.

If you find yourself negatively impacted by the ideas fueling transandrophobia, you are being impacted by transandrophobia. Lots of nonbinary people, AMAB trans people in general, trans women, intersex people, GNC cis people, and honestly, cis people in general are negatively impacted by these things- to varying degrees, yes, but that's not singularly determined by how an individual identifies. All of us deserve the ability to speak up about those experiences, no matter how big or small.

I think the people who's lives are most heavily shaped by these experiences should be leading the conversation around transandrophobia, but that doesn't mean that nobody else should be listened to, either. We have to work together on this stuff, or nothing's going to get done.