#and like I need to say this again this isn’t to excuse transmisogyny or transphobia towards trans men or whatever

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

like god some people are obsessed with whether you’re a Vagina Trans or a Penis Trans and if you’re nonbinary they’re like “okay! we will assume!” and like this isn’t exclusive to any “group” of trans people I'm not happy with people categorising my experiences as transmasc or transfem based on what they assume is in my pants regardless of which one they choose or if it’s to paint me as an evil Other Trans or the safe Same Trans. i'm neither. it’s an issue with the whole trans community and it sucks. being asked to centre your entire identity on whether you’re a Vagina Haver or a Penis Haver is fucking weird. (not to mention excluding intersex people!!!) and whenever anyone brings it up they’re like “oh so you hate transmascs and or transfems?” like NO?? i do not hate a group bc i would like to not be forcibly categorised under one without my consent solely going by whether people think I have Vagina Energy or Penis Energy. i can relate a lot to both transfem and transmasc experiences but i'm neither of them. no matter what’s in my pants. when did the trans community get so obsessed with what’s in your pants it’s fucking wild.

[khamomile-kitty]

i agree that homestuck is full of racist shit, but it that were the “real reason” that “most people” don’t like it then they’d have to show up for the similarly racist Doctor Who, Supernatural, Our Flag Means Death, Stone Butch Blues, Dykes To Watch Out For, Avatar The Last Airbender etc etc need I go on? Like Homestuck is racist & it’s good that some people are acknowledging that but isn’t it kind of worrying that the level of of scrutiny people apply to it is not applied to literally anything else made by cis people.

from my perspective, the racism is a convenient rationale for people who just find the fandom annoying to moralise their distaste of the comic (you must’ve seen the recent bout of anonymous a bunch of trans women got for even mentioning that they were analysing Homestuck’s racism)

like again I totally agree Homestuck is inexcusably racist in places but isn’t it kind of suspect that you don’t see transmascs getting anons about The Romcom About Real Slave Traders Being Gay with the same fervour that trans women gently praising Homestuck get sent atrocious levels of hatemail?

i really think the exceptionalism of “wow, Homestuck is so shockingly racist way more than anything else!!” lets a lot of people ignore just how commonplace racism is in fandom & in the source materials of many of these fandoms; I think diverting literally every conversation about the transphobia Hussie & transfem fans of the comic have faced into “well Homestuck is exceptionally racist, so…” waywardly normalises transmisogyny *AND* racism.

like we don’t need any more people adding to the pile of transmisogynists saying, “wow isn’t it a weird coincidence how transfeminine white people are soo much more racist than other white people? i probably shouldn’t examine where this is coming from and just accept it as true”

Ok so we’re heading into weird territory. Ppl DO criticize those things you mention as being racist?? Like there’s obviously ppl who refuse to engage w that and do stupid fuckin shit like fund a zionist, racist tv show that ENDED w over a thousand dollars, but there’s VERY MUCH ppl who have BEEN pointing these things out as racist.

I really think you are thinking of this the wrong way. This is heading into “It being made by tma ppl means the racism isnt as bad” territory, which I know isn’t what you meant, but the idea that media by cis ppl must be criticized and brought up first in a conversation about bringing up the racism in media made by tma ppl is like. So do you not want us to acknowledge that??

Also. Inexcusably racist in “some places?” Half of the characters are racist stereotypes. The whole thing is racist? And again, you are thinking abt this the wrong way. The reason tme ppl aren’t getting sent egregious hatemail abt shit like OFMD isn’t because of ppl critiquing tma ppl. It’s bc the ppl sending the hate are transmisogynist and racist, and they’re looking for an excuse to be a shithole. The hate isn’t going to stop if we just. Stop critiquing media made by tma ppl when it’s racist? The hate is going to stop when we confront the fucking rampant transmisogyny and racism. Idk if I’m putting that exactly how I want it, I hope you get the idea.

Also, yeah maybe there are ppl who think like that (it wouldn’t surprise me, ppl pretending like their championing a cause when all they rly want to do is make it seem like they’re paying attention while slapping a band-aid over their gaping and unaddressed racism) but acting like that’s all ANYONE who criticizes homestuck is doing is erasing the black and non-black voices who have been saying that for a while now. I agree that I shouldn’t have brought it up in a discussion not currently discussing it, that was a bad mistake. I will not make it again. But acting like discussing the racism in homestuck AT ALL contributes to racism and transmisogyny is?? I don’t get that at all.

Also. ?? I haven’t heard anybody saying that, maybe that’s just me, but if they are, it’s not because they’re genuinely caring abt racism or trans ppl, it’s bc they’re transmisogynist and racist amd refusing to confront it. And acting like that what I was saying when NOWHERE did I even imply it?? Is this the same anon that asked me to take them in good faith?? Bc it sure seems like you’re not even trying to extend that curtesy to me. This ask in particular os a lot more accusatory than the last one, and I don’t really know how to respond to it other than discussing it and hoping you’ll get what I’m trying to say. Are you still wanting to have a conversation with me? Bc if not, that’s fine, but let’s not pretend it is, that’s confusing as hell. It’s kind of hard to have a conversation when one party is determined to take everything you say in bad-faith.

[transmisogyny-explained]

Okay, today we’re discussing some common ways which transmisogyny is understood and talked about within trans TME circles — ways that it’s misunderstood, misconceptions about TME privilege, and the phenomenon of “oppression olympics.”

“extremely unpopular opinion but people treating transmisogyny like the worst kind of oppression you can face is... bad actually”

This isn’t an unpopular opinion; I’ve seen this same idea spread around by TMEs, both cis and trans, but it’s especially prevalent with trans men. Transmisogynists often downplay the severity of transmisogyny in order to excuse their own transmisogyny. This is nothing new.

Being affected by transmisogyny necessarily means being additionally affected by both misogyny and transphobia separately. Meaning that, on a gender-based axis of oppression, those who are affected by misogyny and/or transphobia but not transmisogyny may share something in common with transfems, but they are still privileged over us by virtue of being transmisogyny-exempt. Transmisogyny is not “worse” than any other form of oppression, but because oppression is intersectional and accumulative, transfems being affected by all three axes of oppression means that anyone who is not a transfem necessarily holds some kind of privilege over us. The same way that cis people necessarily hold privilege over trans people, even if they’re oppressed in other ways.

Transfems do not believe that transmisogyny is the worst kind of oppression you can face. I don’t think it’s fair to say that any form of oppression is “the worst,” as it is all bad. However, again, transmisogyny is the culmination of several different axes of oppression interacting, meaning transfeminine people (transfems of color especially) are the most affected by — and cannot be privileged over TMEs in terms of — gender-based oppression. Transfems being vocal about this is not a bad thing.

“it’s definitely really bad! and i don’t think people *intend* to do this. but at the same time it feels like a lot of ‘TMA’ (transmisogyny affected) people take that fact and hold it above others’ heads like it’s worse than any other kind of oppression. and that’s not cool”

Bringing up the fact that TMEs like OP are privileged over us is not “holding it above others’ heads��; this implies that transfems are trying to guilt or force or possibly blackmail TMEs into doing something. What exactly? The only thing I can think of is acknowledging their privilege. TMEs don’t often think about the ways their actions might affect transfeminine people without us trying to insert ourselves into conversations about the oppression of women and trans people. Of course, we’re discouraged from and often punished for doing so because of the abuse we endure from transmisogynists in retaliation, which is why some transfems end up either going full assimilationist or full separationist, but that’s a topic for another day.

I also want to point out that the second sentence strongly implies that transfems are incompetent in understanding and discussing our own oppression. “We don’t intend to treat transmisogyny like it’s the worst kind of oppression, we’re just too stupid and only think about ourselves because we’re entitled males,” is that right?

Lastly, notice how “TMA” is in quotes. Those don’t need to be there unless OP is expressing skepticism towards the idea that TMA individuals (and therefore transmisogyny itself) even exist.

“playing oppression olympics of any kind isn’t okay to do, and honestly i’m kinda tired of seeing it. and this isn’t even getting into how people will weaponize the idea of privilege, whether it’s actually there or not, which is another thing that plays into oppression politics”

I haven’t talked about this directly on this blog yet (though I may have alluded to it before) but the concept of “oppression olympics,” like cancel culture, is yet another attempt by those in a position of privilege to excuse their own bigotry, avoid accountability, and dismiss the concerns of those whom they’re privileged over. Once again, transmisogynists often downplay the severity of transmisogyny in order to excuse their own transmisogyny. “Oppression olympics” is the idea that a person of one marginalized identity will claim to be “more oppressed” than a person of another marginalized identity in order to...do something. It’s never really clear what the intent of “playing oppression olympics” actually is, and that’s because the actual intent is always getting someone to acknowledge that they can be simultaneously oppressed for one identity and privileged by another, and to reconcile with the fact that their privilege informs their experiences, beliefs, and actions. The only people who are benefitted by the perpetuation of the idea that “oppression olympics” exists (and is bad) are people who are absolutely averse to being held accountable for the ways they’ve contributed to the oppression of another group. When a trans woman tells a trans man to “check his privilege,” she’s not saying that transphobia isn’t real, that he doesn’t experience oppression, or that transmisogynistic discrimination is worse than transphobic discrimination. She’s telling him to stop being transmisogynistic.

The phrase “weaponize the idea of privilege” is an...interesting one. The whole concept of privilege, or really the lack thereof, is that some people are denied certain basic rights while others given institutionalized power over them. Yes, some people do weaponize their own privilege — we call that oppression. But an oppressed person cannot levy a privileged person’s privilege against them. That’s...the opposite of what oppression means.

“to clarify, again: i’m not saying that transmisogyny ISN’T bad, or isn’t ��that bad,’ or anything like that. i’m saying that treating it like it’s the absolute highest tier of oppression isn’t good. it’s like treating others’ trauma as if it’s not ‘as bad’ as yours. don’t do that!”

A more apt comparison would be like if there were two traumatized people and one of those traumatized people was continually triggering the other while insisting that the other is being ableist for asking them to stop because “we’re both equally traumatized.” Transfems and trans TMEs are both oppressed. Trans TMEs are still fully capable of being transmisogynistic.

“i really... hate how often we see takes like ‘trans men don’t know anything about trans women and can’t talk about their issues’ and ‘trans men have a [trans]misogyny’ problem as if there aren’t trans women who just [expletive] Hate Transmasc Guts for no damn reason”

I genuinely don’t know why a trans man would want to talk about our issues instead of just listening to us and boosting our voices. But, yes, if you’re TME then you cannot know what it’s like to be oppressed under transmisogyny, and you therefore are not an authority on the topic. Your opinions matter, but they should not be prioritized over the lived experiences of transfeminine people (which they often are because of transmisogyny).

“Trans men have a [trans]misogyny problem” and “Some transfems use transmisogyny as an excuse to be needlessly hateful and callous towards transmascs as a specific group” are two statements which can coexist. This is plainly whataboutism in order to dismiss the important discussion of misogyny within transmasc circles.

Conclusion:

Talking about transmisogyny is not “treating it like it’s the worst kind of oppression you can face.” Talking about transmisogyny is not erasing or downplaying the oppression of other trans people. Transfeminine people talking about transmisogyny is not speaking over TME trans people. The reason why TMEs are uncomfortable with talking about transmisogyny, the reason they work so hard to shut down and problematize discussions about transmisogyny, is because it forces them to acknowledge their privilege and the ways which they have (even unintentionally) harmed transfeminine people. Acknowledging your privilege should make you uncomfortable because you’re coming to terms with the fact that you have, in some ways, contributed to others’ suffering. What you should do with that discomfort is seek to change it by helping to dismantle the systems which have afforded you that privilege and uplifting those without; not closing your eyes and plugging your ears.

[Image ID: A banner of the pink trans woman flag with white text that reads, “I don’t want to see or be seen by transmisogynists” next to a green check mark /end ID]

[rjalker]

yeah, I fucking 100% support transmascs useing the word transandrophobia.

If you want to argue that they shouldn’t because “the creator is bigot”, well guess what? So the fuck is Julia Serrano. That doesn’t mean you tell transfems they can’t use the word transmisogyny.

People already shot down the word “transmisandry” because “misandry isn’t real” and like. what else are they supposed to do??? Do they have to misgender themselves in order for you to take their oppression seriously? They’re describing the specific intersections of transphobia and misogyny they face as transmascs. They kind of have to use words that mean “man” in the term. It’s a basic requirement.

Saying they /are/ oppressed but their oppression also doesn’t exist is just. ridiculous.

Turning every word they choose to describe their oppression into a joke is literally just bigotry.

everyone knows to listen to oppressed people when they talk about their experiences, but suddenly that rule doesn’t apply to transmascs because of the exact bigotry they’re talking about.

They’re supposed to silence themselves and not talk about their experiences because they’re not considered to matter. They aren’t actually oppressed and are just imagining it all. That’s literally the exact oppression they’re talking about. It’s a ridiculous and bigoted double standard and I’m tired of it.

Transmascs talking about their oppression does not silence anyone. Transmascs deserve a term that they can use to describe the specific forms of oppression they face, and they should not all be punished because the person who came up with the term is an asshole. That’s just a fucking excuse not to listen to marginalized people.

Because, again, I cannot fucking stress this enough, Julia Serrano, the creator of the term transmisogyny, is fucking exorsexist and yes, fuckers, transandrophobic as shit, who among many other bigoted things says gay people aren’t oppressed for their same-gender attraction. But I guess everyone’s just fine with that, considering I’ve seen only a single other person even talking about it -.-

No other identity is treated this way, and it’s ridiculous to act like it’s a normal reaction now just because the people affected by it are transmasculine.

Different forms of oppression existing and being acknowledged do not silence eachother. Trans people face different types of oppression, and we all deserve the language to articulate that oppression. If you understand that transfem people face a unique intersection of transphobia and misogyny, then how is it difficult for you to understand that that also means transmascs face a unique intersection as well? You might as well argue that nonbinary people don’t face any unique intersections of bigotry -.-

I just don’t understand how people who aren’t transmasc think they have the right to silence transmascs when they talk about their oppression. That kind of logic wouldn’t fly with any other oppressed minority, so why is it suddenly okay when it comes to transmascs? Is it, by any chance, the exact bigotry they are talking about??

If you want trans people to unite in solidarity, then that means that we all need to have the words to describe our experiences, and we need to listen to people when they describe experiences that we don’t share, instead of fighting and silencing eachother.

You cannot argue that they aren’t allowed to use a word because the person who created it is a bad person if you don’t apply that rule to anyone else. Julia Serrano is homophobic and exorsexist and yes, transandrophobic, literally lying and coming up with completely contradictory arguments against transmasculine people facing oppression or having priveledge, and unless you’re going to argue just as vehemently that people have to stop using the word transmisogyny, then you are not fucking allowed to tell people they can’t use the word transandrophobia.

It’s hippocrissy to the extreme, and it’s literal bigotry.

If you are not transmasc, you do not get to tell transmascs what oppressions they do or do not face, and you are not allowed to tell them they don’t need or deserve a word to describe that oppression.

Allowing a white trans woman who’s blatantly homophobic (she literally says gay people aren’t oppressed for their same gender attraction, and says butch women are treated better than traditionally feminine women!) exorsexist (says nonbinary people are actually binary trans, but refuse to accept it so that they can feel superior to trans women in particular) and racist (she insists that the white western gender binary is so prevalant because it’s the most natural and right, and only brings up the nonbinary genders of other cultures just to immediately dismiss them as “extraordinary” and therefore not to be counted as being real and natural) to act like the fucking authority on what oppression transmascs do and do not face and says they’re priveledged for being seen as women is not the fucking awesome progressive stance you think it is.

[kuromichad]

different subject that’s heavy on my mind rn but since i’m already being harsh let’s get into it. i wish it wasn’t automatically presumed to be some kind of truscum attitude when someone tries to express that different parts of The Trans Community have like, different needs and different risk levels and different experiences and that we have the ability to talk over each other, harm each other, etc... like when i put it that way people generally are like ‘of course that’s true!’ but is it ever really understood in practice? a number of people (not a large enough number, but still) are able to loosely understand ‘you can be trans and transphobic’ when it’s applied to the matter of transmisogyny but when a trans person tries to express distrust of or frustration with afab nb people due to how common it is that that category of person will, despite being trans/nb, espouse bioessentialist, anti-medical-transition, radfem-adjacent if not outright cryptoterf rhetoric, suddenly ‘trans people can be transphobic’ gets applied to... the person with a complaint about transphobia. 

because he’s clearly an evil truscum man! regardless of if the person making the complaint is a trans man or trans woman, oops, lol. he’s a bad person who is attacking and invalidating and totally hatecriming the heckin’ valid, equally at-risk transgender identity of “an afab woman who isn’t a woman except when she pointedly categorizes themself as a woman because being afab makes them a woman who is ‘politically aligned’ with women but she’s not an icky unwoke cis woman because they don’t like being forced into womanhood although Really When You Think About It 🤔 all women are dysphoric because obviously the pathologized medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in transgender people is something that equally applies to cis women just default existing under patriarchy 🤔, and no, equating these things totally does not imply anything reductive about or add a bizarre moral dimension to the idea of being transgender, whaaaaat, this woman who isn’t a woman doesn’t think there’s anything immoral or cowardly or misogynist or delusional about being transgender, they would never say that because THEY’RE transgender, except when she feels it’s important (constantly) to make clear that she’s Still A Woman Deep Down Inherently Despite Not Identifying As One, and none of this ever has any effect on how they treat the concept, socially and politically, of people who actually wholly identify with (and possibly medically transition to) a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, be it ‘the opposite gender’ or abstaining from binary gender altogether or ‘politically aligning’ with the ‘opposite’ gender from their asab. never ever!”

and like maybe that sounds like a completely absurd and hateful strawman to you! but in that case you’re either like, lucky, or optimistic, or ignorant. i’m literally not looking at random nb people and declaring that in My Truscum Opinion they’re ‘really a woman’ just because they’re not medically transitioning or meeting some arbitrary standard of mine. i am looking at self-identified afab nb people, who most often use she/they because, y’know, words mean things, especially pronouns, so people who are willingly ‘aligned with womanhood’ typically intentionally use she/her (sorry that i guess that’s another truscum take now!!! that pronouns mean things!!! the bigender transmasc who deliberately uses exclusively he/him wants it to invoke a perception he’s comfortable with!), who actively say the things listed above (in a non-sarcastic manner). 

like, the line between a person who says “i don’t claim to really not be my asab because i know no one would ever perceive me as anything else” because theyve internalized a defeatist attitude due to societal transphobia, and a person who says that because they... genuinely believe it’s impossible/ridiculous/an imposition to truly be transgender (in the traditional trans sense, beyond a vague nb disidentification with gender) and are actively contributing to the former person’s self loathing... is hard to define from a distance! i think plenty of people who are, in a sense, ‘tentative’ or like ‘playing close to home’ so to speak in their identity are ‘genuinely trans’ (whatever that may mean) and just going through a process. they might arrive at a different identity or might just eventually stop saying/believing defeatist stuff, who knows. but there are enough people saying it for the latter reason, or at least not caring if they sound that way, that it’s like, dangerous. it is actively incredibly harmful to other trans people. and it’s fucking ridiculous that it’s so difficult to criticize because you’ll always get the defense of “umm but i’m literally trans” and/or “well i’m just talking about ME, this doesn’t apply to other trans people” when it’s an attitude that very clearly seeps into their politics and the way they discuss gender.

because it’s just incredibly common for afab nb people (most typically those that go by she/they! since i’m aware that uh, i am also afab nb, but we clearly are extremely different, so that’s the best categorization i’ve got) to discuss gender in moralized terms, with the excuse of patriarchy/misogyny existing, which of course adds another difficult dimension to trying to criticize this because it gets the response of “don’t act like misandry is real” (it’s not, but being a dick still is) and “boohoo, let women complain about their oppressors” (this goes beyond ‘complaining’). a deliberate revocation of empathy/sympathy/compassion from men and projection of inherently malicious/brutish/cruel intent onto men (not solely in the justified generalizations ‘men suck/are dangerous’, but in specific interactions too) underpin a whole fucking lot of popular posts/discussions online, whether they’re political or casual/social, and it absolutely influences how people conceptualize and feel about transness. 

because ‘maleness is evil’ is still shitty politics even when you’ve slightly reframed it from the terf ‘trans women are evil because they’re Really Men and can never escape being horrific soulless brutes just as women can never escape being fragile morally superior flowers’ to the tumblr shethey “trans women who are out to me/unclockable are tolerable i guess because they’re women and women are good; anyone i personally presume to be a cis man, though, is still automatically evil, and saying trans men are Just As Bad is progressive of me, and it’s totally unrelated and apolitical that i think we should expand the concept of afab lesbianism so broadly that you can now be basically indistinguishable from trans men on literally every single level except for a declaration of ‘but i would never claim to be a man because i’m secure in the Innate Womanhood of the body i was born into, even as i medically alter that body because it causes me great gendered discomfort.’ none of this at all indicates that i feel there’s an immense moral/political gap between being an afab nb lesbian vs a straight trans man! it says nothing at all about my concept of ‘maleness’ and there’s no way this rhetoric bleeds into my perception of trans women and no way loudly talking about all this could keep trans people around me self-loathing and closeted, because i’m Literally Trans and Not A Terf!”

again, if that sounds like a hateful strawman, sorry but it’s not. i guess i’m supposed to be like ‘all of the many people ive seen saying these shitty things is an evil outlier who Doesn’t Count, and it’s not fair to the broad identity of afab shethey to not believe that every person who doesn’t outright say terfy enough things is a perfectly earnest valid accepting trans person who’s beyond criticism’ but like. this cannot be about broad validation. this can’t be about discarding all the bad apples as not really part of the group. we can’t be walking on eggshells to coddle what are essentially, in the end, Cis Feelings, because in the best cases this kind of rhetoric comes from naive people who are early and uncertain in their gender journey or whatever and are in the process of unraveling internalized transphobia, and in the easily observable worst cases these people are very literally redefining shit so that ‘actually all afab women are trans, spiritually, all afabs have dysphoria, we are all Equally oppressed by Males uh i mean cis men <3’ because, let’s be honest, they know that the moment they call themselves trans they get to say whatever they want about gender no matter how harmful it is to the rest of us. and those ideas spread like wildfire through the afab shethey “woman that’s not a woman” community that frankly greatly outnumbers other types of trans people online, because many of those people just do not have the experiences that lead you to really understand this shit and have to push back against concepts of gender that actively harm you as a trans person.

like that’s all i want to be able to say, is Things Are Different For Different Groups. and a willful ignorance of these differences leads to bad rhetoric controlling the overall discourse which gets people hurt. and even when concepts arise from it that seem positive and helpful and inclusive, in practice or in origin those ideas can still be upholding shit that gets other people hurt. like, i don’t doubt that many people are very straightforwardly happy and comfortable with an identity like ‘afab nb lesbian on testosterone’ and it would be ridiculous and hypocritical for me, ‘afab nb who wants to pass as a guy so he can comfortably wear skirts again,’ to act like that’s something that can’t or shouldn’t exist. it’s not about the identity itself, it’s about the politics that are popular within its community, and how the use of identities as moral labels with like, fucking pokemon type interactions for oppression effectiveness which directly informs the moral correctness of your every opinion and your very existence, is a shitty practice that gets people hurt and leads us to revoke empathy from each other.

like. sorry this is all over the place and long and probably still sounds evil because i haven’t thought through and disclaimered every single statement. but i’m like exhausted from living with this self-conscious guilt that maybe i’ve turned into a horrible evil truscum misogynist etc etc due to feeling upset by this seemingly inescapable approach to gender in lgbt/online circles that like, actively harms me, because when i vent with my friends all the stuff i’ve tried to explain here gets condensed down to referencing ‘she/theys’ as a category and that feels mean and generalizing and i genuinely dislike generalizations but the dread i feel about that category gets proven right way too often. it’s just like. this is not truscum this is not misgendering this is not misogyny. this is not about me decreeing that all transmascs have to be manly enough or dysphoric enough and all nbs have to be neatly agender and androgynous or something, i’m especially not saying that nb gender isn’t real lmao or even that it’s automatically wrong to partially identify with your asab; this is not me saying you can only medically transition for specific traditional reasons or that you don’t get a say on anything if you aren’t medically transitioning for whatever reason, now or ever. i just. want to be allowed to be frank about how... when there’s different experiences in a community we should like. acknowledge those differences and be willing to say that sometimes people don’t know what they’re talking about or that what they’re saying is harmful. without the primary concern being whether people will feel invalidated by being told so. because these are like, real issues, that are more important than politely including everyone, because that method is just getting vulnerable people drowned out constantly.

[cardentist]

the transmisandry “debate” and the attitude towards trans men is so transparently a retreading of literally every exclusionary movement of the last few decades and Yet it’s being perpetrated and tolerated by what otherwise should be inclusionist spaces because it’s once again being pointed at a more “acceptable” target

like, on some level I understand the gut reaction, the term itself is associated with a lot of negativity and “mens rights activists” and the like have made the idea of men specifically facing oppression for being men at best laughable and at worst a red flag for violent misogyny. it’s one of those things that a lot of people in left leaning spaces take for granted as being true across the board, something they don’t need to think about or examine. and to be clear “they” included me for quite some time, I do understand where the feeling comes from

but it’s not about oppression for being men, it’s oppression for being trans men, it’s transmisandry for the same reason that transmisogyny is transmisogyny. it’s a term specifically meant to cast a net over the broad array of experiences that people have specifically as trans men to give them an outlet to both examine their experiences in relation to the wider community of trans men and to specifically seek and give reassurance and solidarity to each other. 

the bigger problem with this argument is that many people will resort to denying what I’ve just said in order to reject the proposed term, whether it’s something they’d actually believe once they examined the situation in earnest or not. because people act as though acknowledging that trans men face oppression for being trans men will open up the floodgates leading to cis straight white men convincing people that they’re oppressed for being men. so trans men Can’t be oppressed for being trans men because trans men are men and men aren’t oppressed.

so leading from this line of thought what you’ll generally see is the argument that what trans men experience is “just” transphobia, and if you press the issue or bring up a personal example you’ll almost as commonly get that anything else is “just” “misdirected” misogyny. and just, there’s so So much to unpack there that I’m almost tempted to just leave it where it is, but ignoring the issue won’t make it go away and I wouldn’t be writing this post if I didn’t want the issue to change.

the point with, I think, the least baggage is one that I’ve already touched upon, that being that the experiences of trans men and trans women are just naturally going to be different from each other and it’s useful for both parties to have language to talk specifically about their experiences, in the same way that it’s useful to examine the differences between the experiences of binary and nonbinary trans people. it doesn’t matter who you think has it “worse” because this isn’t a competition to see who’s oppressed enough to Deserve having their experiences heard. the urge for trans men to make a term to describe their experiences isn’t some way to try to argue that they’re more oppressed, it’s born from the inherent need to be understood and to see that other people exist in the way that you have. it’s the solidarity that brought the trans community together in the first place

a point leading off of that with probably significantly more baggage is the idea that queer and lgbt+ spaces are a contest to measure your oppression in the first place. don’t get me wrong, it Is useful to recognize different axis’ of oppression, to recognize larger patterns of violence faced by specific groups of people at a disproportionate rate. it helps us, as an entire community, identify the most vulnerable groups of people so we can lean into helping them on both a systemic and individual level, so we can see whose voices need to be boosted so they can be heard both in and out of the community. and moreover having these numbers and experiences together can help people outside of the community see that it’s is a problem as well. 

however, the issue comes in when perceived theoretical oppression is used as a social capital to decide who is and is not allowed to be heard. I’m sure I’ve already lost the ace exclusionists ages ago by now, so that’s a perfect example. at it’s most extreme ace exclusionism is blatant bigotry and hatred justified with the excuse that they’re protecting the queer and lgbt+ community from privileged invaders, and even when in it’s milder form ace exclusionism is powered by the idea that asexual people don’t face oppression. marginalized people are denied resources, solidarity, safe spaces, and voices because they’re painted as not being oppressed or not being oppressed Enough. this wouldn’t be able to happen if your worth as a member of the lgbt+ community wasn’t measured by how oppressed your particular minority group is, if it didn’t have the sway that it has. creating a power structure in any way at all leaves people with the ability to exploit that structure, and the specific one that’s emerged within the queer community and leftist spaces in general allows people to exploit it while hiding it as moral, while hiding that they’re causing any pain at all. it’s the same frame of mind that’s made bullying cool in activist spaces 

another reason why this hierarchy tends to fail on an individual level is, of course, that the level of oppression that an entire group faces does not dictate someone’s lived experiences, which is an idea that goes both ways. the argument over whether or not asexuals are oppressed is ultimately a meaningless distraction from the lived experiences of asexual people. it is a Fact that asexuals face higher levels of rape and sexual assault than straight people, you can deny that what they’re facing counts as oppression specifically but what does that matter? there are people who are suffering and that suffering can be lessened by allowing those people into our community, shouldn’t that be enough? likewise, comparing the suffering of individual people as if they were the same as the suffering of their respective groups combined is absolutely absurd. someone who is murdered for being a trans man isn’t less dead than someone who was murdered for being a trans woman. a trans woman isn’t Guaranteed to have lived a harder life than any and every other trans man just because of a difference in statistics, and the same can be said for literally every other member of the lgbt+ and queer communities. other community members aren’t concepts, they aren’t numbers, they’re people with unique lives and sorrows and joy. neither you or I or anyone else is the culmination of our respective or joint communities and some people need to learn how to act like it.

again, there is Meaning in seeing how our oppression is different, it’s not inherently wrong, but creating a framework where it can be used to paint a group of people as both lesser within the community and less deserving of help is creating a framework that can more than readily be abused. and because it positions the abused as privileged it creates a situation where the abuser can justify it to themselves. you use another minority as an outlet for the pain you feel under the weight of the same system that hurts them while denying their pain.

but to pull the conversation back to trans men specifically, lets examine lived experiences for a while longer. “misdirected misogyny” and “just misogyny” are both employed commonly in exclusionist spaces to deny that either someone’s oppression happened to them for the reason they say it did or to deny that their oppression is their own, and often times it’s both. for instance, the claim that ‘asexual people may face higher rates of sexual assault but That’s just because of misogyny (and/or misdirected homophobia)’ is used to deny that what asexual people face is oppression for being asexual. if you can’t deny that an assault victim was assaulted without either violating your own moral code or the moral code of the community you’ve surrounded yourself with then denying the cause of their assault is a more socially acceptable way of depriving them of the resources they need to address that assault. their pain wasn’t their own, it belongs to someone else, someone who’s Really oppressed.

in the context of trans men the argument is, of course, that they’re men. if they just so happen to face misogyny then it’s because they were mistakenly perceived as women. this works a convenient socially acceptable way to deny the lived experiences of a group you want to silence both in the ways that I’ve already illustrated And with the added bonus woke points of doing so while affirming someone’s gender identity in the process.

again, I want to reiterate, even if it were objectively true that all trans men face transphobia and misogyny totally separately, like a picky toddler that doesn’t want their peas anywhere near their mashed potatoes, that is ultimately an insufficient framework when talking about individual lives. there’s literally nothing wrong with trans men wanting to talk about their lived experiences with other trans men in the context of them Being trans men. being black isn’t inherently a part of the trans experience but being black Does ultimately affect your experiences as a trans person and how they impact you and it’s meaningful to discuss the intersection of those two experiences on an individual level. 

but it just, Isn’t true. this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but trans men were born in bodies that are perceived as being women, misogyny is a Feature to the experiences of trans men inherently. even trans men who are fully transitioned, have full surgery, have all their papers worked out, completely pass, move to a new state and changed their name, and have zero contact with anyone who ever knew them before or during their transition still lived a significant portion of their lives under a system that was misogynistic against them. of course there’s still a spectrum of personal experiences with it, just like there are with cis women and trans women, but to present the misogyny that trans men face as “accidental” is just absurd.  and moreover, most trans men Aren’t the hypothetical Perfect Passing Pete. I’ve identified as trans for seven years now and I frankly don’t have the resources to even begin thinking about transitioning and won’t for what’s looking to be indefinitely, I don’t even begin to come within the ballpark of passing and it Sure Does Show. misogyny is just as present in my life as it would be for a cis woman but the difference is that I’m not supposed to talk about it.  and even barring That there are transitioned trans men who face misogyny specifically because they are trans men, before during and after transition. you could argue that that’s “just” transphobia but you could do the same for transmisogyny. if we can acknowledge that trans women have experiences that specifically come from their status as women who can be wrongly perceived as men then we should all be able to acknowledge that trans men have experiences that specifically come from their status as men who can be wrongly perceived as women and that both the similarities and differences between these experiences are worth talking about. 

another issue with painting it as “just” misogyny that ties pretty heavily into what I was just talking about is the fact that men don’t have the same access to spaces meant to talk about misogyny that women do.  again, this is something that makes sense on a gut level, it’s not like cis men are being catcalled while walking to 7/11. but like, a lot of trans men are. misogyny is a normal facet in the lives of trans men but male voices are perceived as being invaders in spaces meant to talk about misogyny, both in and out of trans specific spaces and conversations

trans men lose a solidarity with women that they do not gain with men. there’s a certain pain and othering that comes with intimately identifying with the experiences of a group of people while being denied that those experiences are yours, of being treated the same way for the same reason but at once being aware that the comfort and understanding being extended isn’t For you and feeling like you’re cheating some part of your sense of self by identifying with it.

part of that is just the growing pains of getting used to existing as a trans person, but that in and of itself doesn’t mean that we aren’t allowed to find a solution. if trans men can’t, aren’t allowed, or don’t want to speak about their experiences in women’s spaces then why not allow them to talk about their experiences together? the fact that we even have to argue over whether or not trans men Deserve to talk about their experiences is sad enough in it’s own right, but even sadder is inclusionists, people who should frankly know better at this point, refusing to stand up for trans men because someone managed to word blatant bigotry in an acceptable way Once Again.