#anti cissexism

[beyond-mogai-pride-flags]

A [intersex-inclusive] progress pride flag that explicitly includes disabled, altersex, a-spec, and ethically non-monogamous people.

The altersex symbol and intersex symbol interlock, to showcase unity within the varsex community.

The a-spec compass and ethically non-monogamous heart are both within a single symbol, to showcase the unity of going against amatonormativity.

Whenever I reblogged this post by @dhddmods, the flag and its meanings above got lost, so I'm reposting. -Ap

[agendercryptidlev]

One thing that really sucks is the expectation in feminist spaces, even supposedly "trans inclusive" ones, for trans men to avoid "taking up space" when it comes to issues that directly affect them as to avoid making cis women uncomfortable. Trans men are expected to just nod and go along with exclusionary language, never correct statements that directly erase their experience, and to see their right to exist in conversations about oppressive forces that directly affect them as a gift, and to never ever "take attention away" from cis women who are seen as so much more important to advocate for. And when you do call it out you're told "I thought you wanted to be a man" as if being a man is about pretending your life is at all similar to the life of a cis man, as if the closest a trans guy will ever be to a "real man" is when he's the closest imitation he can be to being cis. Trans men deserve better from mainstream feminism.

[shamebats]

It's perfectly fine to be uncomfortable with femininity especially if you had it forced upon you, especially as a trans person, btw. Some of us will never be comfortable wearing makeup, having long hair, wearing skirts or being called "girl" and it's not only perfectly ok, it adds to the beautiful rainbow of diversity that is queerness.

It's not toxic masculinity if it's gendered trauma from having been a trans person in a cissexist society all your life — and besides, the whole point of transitioning is figuring out who you are and what brings you joy! You don't need to repent for your personal discomfort with femininity. You don't need to force yourself into another box that doesn't feel right. I spent 27 long years trying to do just that & guess what, it didn't work!

There are plenty of flamboyant gay men out there who wear earrings and heels but hate women. Feminism isn't what's in your closet or on your face and misogyny isn't a type of gender expression either. Don't let people make you feel that way. Here's your free license to do whatever you want forever.

[emotional-moss]

even if we as trans people were to actually assume that the “cis is a slur!” and “don’t call me cis!” people were acting in good faith and just genuinely felt like that specific term had negative connotations, i’m inclined to believe it would still have no favorable outcome. in response someone would probably come up with an alternative term to describe someone who relates to and identifies with their assigned gender at birth. like, i don’t know, ‘sex-identified’ or something. the “cis is a slur” type people wouldn’t like that either. they would claim that it’s offensive again and come up with something else. like “natural man/woman.” or “real man/woman.” the reason you see so many of these kinds of people calling themselves “natural” or “real” is because what these people want is not an alternate term for someone who identifies with their assigned sex and gender that isn’t cis; they want a term that designates them as the only type of man or woman that exists. the “natural” ones. the “real” ones. a term that affirms their existence while also denying the existence of trans people. because trans people, in their eyes, will always be unnatural, fake, and othered.

[multiplasidentidades]

A causa e origem do exorsexismo.

Referência: Causa/origem do exorsexismo: a thread.

O exorsexismo, um subtipo de cissexismo, refere-se ao sistema que oprime pessoas não-binárias. Para compreender plenamente o exorsexismo, é essencial analisar suas origens históricas e estruturais. Esse sistema opressivo não apenas marginaliza identidades não-binárias, mas também reforça normas de gênero rígidas e tradicionais que têm raízes profundas na história da humanidade.

Origens históricas e estruturais

Por séculos, a sociedade impôs normas rígidas de gênero, perpetuando a ideia de que homens e mulheres possuem características fixas e imutáveis. Essa mentalidade discriminatória marginaliza e silencia as identidades não-binárias, negando-lhes espaço para existir e serem reconhecidas plenamente. A opressão de identidades não-binárias não é recente. Quando indivíduos europeus chegaram às Américas, encontraram comunidades indígenas com sistemas de gênero triplos, quádruplos e até quíntuplos. Essas organizações sociais foram brutalmente oprimidas, pois a elite europeia impôs seus próprios papéis sociais de gênero para facilitar a exploração e colonização.

O sistema sexo-gênero, que conceitua os indivíduos como “homem” e “mulher”, foi concebido com o objetivo de justificar determinadas explorações. Nesse sistema, o homem (branco, rico) ocupava o topo da hierarquia, com a mulher abaixo. Os papéis sociais de gênero obrigam as pessoas a se adequarem a um padrão, fazendo com que alguns indivíduos desenvolvam aversão a tudo que é diferente. A elite europeia garantiu que esse padrão fosse seguido em todas as suas colônias, pois a separação e desunião da classe explorada dificultava o processo de consciência e radicalização da mesma.

Exorsexismo no contexto atual

Atualmente, essas questões ajudam a manter estruturas de poder que perpetuam a opressão e exploração da classe trabalhadora como um todo, onde cada grupo minoritário é explorado com peculiaridades. No contexto exorsexista, essas explorações se referem ao reforço do binarismo de gênero. Esse binarismo se reflete na distribuição de papéis de gênero na sociedade, criando expectativas rígidas que marginalizam e excluem pessoas não-binárias. A divisão rígida do gênero é reforçada por instituições sociais como a família, educação, mídia e religião, perpetuando normas e estereótipos que encaixam os indivíduos em categorias restritas de acordo com seu sexo atribuído no nascimento.

O binarismo de gênero é utilizado para justificar desigualdades de gênero no sistema capitalista, através da desigualdade salarial, desvalorização do trabalho doméstico, limitação na carreira profissional, fermentação da cultura do estupro, discriminação com base em gênero, entre outros. A divisão rígida entre homem e mulher, masculino e feminino cria expectativas sociais que limitam a liberdade de expressão e perpetuam desigualdades, criando um ambiente hostil para qualquer expressão de gênero fora do padrão estabelecido. Pessoas não-binárias enfrentam desafios adicionais, sendo invalidadas, excluídas, marginalizadas e maltratadas.

O capitalismo lucra e controla os corpos das pessoas por meio de indústrias como a farmacêutica, que explora a medicalização de questões relacionadas à identidade de gênero e expressão. Pessoas não-binárias podem enfrentar barreiras ao acessar tratamentos de saúde adequados, reforçando a dependência de soluções médicas para se enquadrarem em padrões impostos. Outra forma de controle está relacionada ao acesso à reprodução e planejamento familiar, com políticas que restringem o acesso a cuidados de saúde reprodutiva com base em normas de gênero impostas.

A persistência além do capitalismo

A hierarquia de gênero, o patriarcado e as opressões de gênero são fenômenos que transcendem as fronteiras do tempo e do sistema econômico. Embora o capitalismo possa se beneficiar, amplificar e perpetuar essas formas de opressão devido à sua busca incessante por lucro e controle, sua queda não garantiria automaticamente o fim das desigualdades de gênero.

O patriarcado, como sistema social, político e cultural, estabelece uma estrutura de poder que coloca os homens no topo e as mulheres em uma posição de subordinação, reforçando estereótipos de gênero e limitando o acesso das mulheres ao poder, recursos e oportunidades, enquanto desconsidera outras identidades de gênero. Essa dinâmica não é uma criação do capitalismo, pois exemplos históricos de sociedades antigas, como a Grécia e Roma, demonstram a subjugação sistemática das mulheres, independentemente do sistema econômico em vigor.

Além disso, o patriarcado não se limita apenas à dicotomia homem e mulher, mas também inclui (ou melhor, exclui) pessoas não-binárias e com identidades de gênero que não se enquadram nos padrões culturalmente estabelecidos. Culturas indígenas na Índia e nas Américas, por exemplo, têm histórias de identidades de gênero não conformistas, como hijras e pessoas dois espíritos, que foram historicamente reconhecidas e respeitadas antes da colonização europeia. No entanto, essas identidades foram suprimidas ou ignoradas dentro do contexto eurocêntrico.

Conclusão

Para alcançar uma verdadeira igualdade de gênero, é necessário um esforço contínuo para desmantelar não apenas as estruturas econômicas opressivas, mas também as normas culturais e sociais que perpetuam o patriarcado e as hierarquias de gênero em todas as esferas da vida. Isso requer uma abordagem holística que reconheça e valorize a diversidade de experiências de gênero em todas as culturas e contextos históricos. A queda do capitalismo por si só não erradicaria automaticamente as dinâmicas de opressão de gênero e do patriarcado, sendo necessário um esforço contínuo para desafiar e transformar as normas de gênero e as relações de poder existentes. A verdadeira emancipação requer a construção de uma sociedade que valorize todas as identidades de gênero e que seja livre de todas as formas de opressão e desigualdade.

[aronarchy]

[CW: transphobia]

Transmisogyny is misogyny, transphobia is patriarchy.

The only main difference is that trans people are more oppressed than cis women so while cis women have gotten relative progress from feminism trans people are often left behind by cis feminists, and “progressive” transphobes will even naturalize patriarchal gender roles and definitions and manufactured constrictions, specifically bringing them out or bringing them back when it comes to defending transphobia.

This dynamic is especially exacerbated by racism, colonialism, Orientalism; the cultural imperialist Western gaze targets racialized trans people and even cis women and queers to naturalize or essentialize the patriarchal oppression they experience, treating it as an arbitrary cultural quirk occurring because of happenstance which must and/or can only be preserved, rather than a historically contingent form of oppression with specific material causes and consequences which can and should be overthrown. The relativist authoritarian often chastises consistent anti-authoritarians for supposedly being racist, white-privileged, disseminating “Western” viewpoints, etc. (erasing the non-white/Western intersectionally marginalized people who are the most harmed by such discourse, of course), but don’t be fooled: they’re the ones leveraging structures and ideologies originating in Western imperialism (the notion that The East and The West are ontologically different in grand historical ways, that nothing “Western” can be related to anything “Eastern” and vice versa, that The East is static and unchanging and underdeveloped, that The East’s cultures, values, practices, etc. are mysterious, exotic, inscrutable by The West, and so on), and when we expose this we peel away their façade (an important step that they always struggle to prevent by any means possible). (I don’t just say this in a vague abstract online discourse way; these dynamics also pop up in day-to-day personal political contexts, often the mechanism of violence/abuse; they are behind a great deal of material oppression in the real world today and have left a great deal of trauma upon marginalized people.)

It doesn’t occur to relativist transphobes that if someone doesn’t consider themself a woman / man because they feel they aren’t allowed to identify as or be one because they don’t fit the cissexist standard of having to be able to give birth (and fulfill the hegemonically defined (subordinate) wife role) / impregnate (and fulfill the hegemonically defined husband (patriarch) role), then that might possibly be a result of internalized patriarchy/misogyny/(cis)sexism and not an ideal state, and their mental health and self-image might improve and they might be living lives more closely in alignment with their internal selves if some friend went up and told them it could be an option. This is liberal choice “feminism” but specifically a version targeting trans people and transphobic oppression under patriarchy.

If a (white) infertile cis woman / cis man vented about feeling like they’re a failed Other rather than a real woman or real man because they can’t give birth / impregnate and the society around them says Real Women / Men are people who can give birth / impregnate (respectively), would people like this say as readily that it’s true they really are an ungendered unwomanly / unmanly Other, despite their own desire to be a woman / man and feelings which align with that? Or likewise for other forms of gendered nonconformity among cis people. (Much less likely, I think.)

Would they say, “cis women without children” is a whole separate gender from “cis women with children,” a third gender after “cis women with children” and “cis men with children”? Then “cis men without children” as a fourth gender. What about married with children versus married without? Then split the above into eight. Some trans people do get married, either while closeted, as an attempt at conversion or punishment by family or society, while passing for their correct gender (if they have a gender from the binary), or with updated laws which have assimilated trans people more. Trans people can have children too, even if not in the same patriarchal way which secures intergenerational patrilineal inheritance. More gender-categories for them then? (It’s obvious where this leads: there are in fact as many ways to be women and men as there are women and men, and different gender roles and social gender locations are assigned or designated in a gradient or internally distinguished way for all gender differences or social role differences, but there are some general categories which could be broadly termed different “genders” which group together, and thus it would be irrational/illogical and arbitrary to exclude trans women from womanhood or trans men from manhood under such a linguistic system.)

The transphobic takes above prioritize what “society” says, what other (cis) people surrounding someone says about what gender is, what their gender must be, as if what they say matters so much in defining us (or even at all), and then also equates the viewpoint of oppressive surroundings with the viewpoint of the oppressed individual (as if the oppressed will always just bow down and accept their oppression). That is not how we define gender or determine what anyone’s gender is, because that literally goes against the whole point of transness in the first place, which is that we define our own identities, we say what our genders are, we don’t limit ourselves by a cissexist society which constrains people by setting rigid inaccurate definitions; the subversiveness, the contradiction with surrounding norms, is literally the point; it wouldn’t be transness if there were no preexisting cisness (top-down/nonconsensual gender assignments) to struggle against in the first place.

It’s especially nasty to imply that Western trans people identify as “really” the gender they feel they are because the West’s social definitions of gender uniquely recognize that women don’t have to be wives, childbearers, and mothers (for patriarchs) and men don’t have to be husbands (patriarchs) and property-owning child-investing patrilineage-obsessed reproductive futurists. That erases the fact that there’s rampant institutionalized socially prevalent patriarchy in the West too; many people do believe that still; the point is, no society, no culture is a monolith. But it’s very obvious why sweeping portrayals of white, Western PoVs highlight the “progressive” parts while sweeping portrayals of non-white/non-Western PoVs highlight the “regressive” parts (racism, Enlightenment teleology). (And yes, people oppressed by racism can also be racist themselves.)

That also implies that trans people and our feelings and desires are dependent on cis people and their choices. That none of us will think against the grain until cis people create the conditions which allow for it. This prioritizes cis feminism and cis women’s rights over that of trans people, telling us they’ll always come first, we’ll always need them (though they won’t ever need us), if they’re not class-conscious yet then there’s no scenario where we might be more class-conscious already, which erases how we’re actually pressured to know much more about feminism than them, to understand their issues and ours and to be able to argue perfectly for both our rights and theirs in order to be relatively tolerated. These notions are only legible because of cissexism.

Trans people whose gender includes one (or both) genders from the binary are only treated as not being “allowed” to be “properly” considered as people of that gender because of cissexism. This denial is a form of oppression and social subordination, not something neutral or good or just naturally occurring. It’s cruel and it’s wrong. Notice how such discussions about “difference” never say that, e.g., “cis men are Different(tm) from trans men because they occupy different social niches, and trans men are more manly than cis men, because cis men don't fit into our/the Paradigmatic Image of What A Man Is(tm) and we only begrudgingly acknowledge cis men as probably ‘men’ in some way because of their self-identification but that won’t alter how we fundamentally categorize ‘men’ and we couldn’t possibly put forth a cis man as Paradigmatic, Archetypal, or Representative because smh he’s cis not trans, we couldn’t do that, that doesn’t intuitively make sense, a Man(tm) is a trans man unless otherwise specified?” (or likewise for women). Which makes it clear that this is about a power imbalance, a hierarchy placing cis people above trans people of the same gender and prioritizing cis people, which pushes out trans people from equal recognition and epistemic authority. (And no, the “unless otherwise specified” is not good enough, it’s still implicit misgendering; it’s just a half-assed attempt to cover the problems with your ideology; we want more.)

There is a (very obvious) reason why, despite having very different contexts at times, all patriarchies share certain common characteristics (patrilineage; intergenerational private property/power transfer of some sort; socially-mandated, enforced, or disproportionately incentivized binary heterosexual marriage/the couple-form; child-ownership by the patriarch; rigid definitions of “woman” as childbearer and mother and “man” as the one who possesses/owns the children (and ��girls” and “boys,” respectively, as future “women” and “men,” requiring coercive socialization/indoctrination); condemnation of autonomous deviation from the prescriptive binary definitions of gender (in desire, in self-regard, in private or public identification/claiming, in differences or alterations in aesthetics/appearance/biological sex characteristics or role performance); etc.). Of course it’s not just arbitrarily landing on that every single time. These are social structures which arose from a historical process during which children, women, and queers were domesticated or forcibly excluded (as colonialism is imposed through an initial conquest and then ongoing counterinsurgency), relatively stabilizing after the patriarchs won the battle.

There is no reason why “man” or “woman” (or male, female, wife, husband, mother, father, boy, girl, masculine, feminine, gender, sex, “two genders,” “third gender”) would be terms any more transhistorically relevant, self-evident, coherent, or applicable than “transgender,” “nonbinary,” “trans woman/man/girl/boy/female/male,” etc. (And for that matter, “transmasc(uline)” (and “transfem(inine)”) shouldn’t be treated as “safer” terms to slide in third-gendering of binary trans people to avoid using the words “trans man” or “trans woman”; there’s no reason why they would automatically be more accurate either.) The people who would be called “trans” here today have existed and will exist in every society, and there will always be trans people under any patriarchy, and some language that would apply (whether a word or set of words or phrase or set of phrases or way of describing) to denote people rejecting or not aligning with their birth-assigned gender, so long as gender is assigned at birth. There will always be resistance, at least somewhere, sometime, when there is oppression. You will never have 100% internalized acceptance of cissexism. It’s time that relativists recognized this.

[cyberatioum]

you cant just call literally anything baeddelsim. that theory of antitransmasculinty you were discussing is the one used by the people who coined the term antitransmasculinty, who have no connection to the baeddels whatsoever. youre literally just using baeddels as a boogeyman

I don't call it baeddelism without reason. I rightly labeled it as such because this theory of anti-transmasculinity is based on a central idea of baeddel ideology.

The coiners of antitransmasculinity may not have participated in the original baeddel movement present on tumblr in 2013-2014, but they nevertheless rehabilitate one of its fundamental ideas, which makes them baeddels whether or not they identify as such.

The belief that transmisogyny is the fulcrum of patriarchy is baeddelism 101:

Source

[librarycards]

i think a highly underdiscussed aspect of t.rf fascism is the fixation on energy and this whole constellation of beliefs within and adjacent to new age/occult-type stuff (moon witchcraft and period blood rituals and all of that stereotypical stuff come to mind, but also more subtle manifestations like that referenced in the feinberg).

i am not an expert on fascism, but we're all aware of this n.zi fixation on the occult, on astrology, we see the regan administration consulting astrologers for everyday decisions, we see the satanic panic being fueled by christian belief in magic, witchcraft, the like; antisemitism broadly fueled by similar wild assumptions. i think a particular genre of trfism, particularly the essentialization of "femaleness" as a kind of energy or immutable spiritual (re)source, is integral to anti-trans rhetoric and action - to banish trans people, particularly trans women, is to banish this idea of "bad energy" or "dark magic", with "dark" containing all of the usual white supremacist connotations around impurity, the unknown, etcetc.

[ace-bard]

[ID: the Scroll of Truth meme. In the first panel a green person is looking in a chest and says "I've Finally Found It... After 15 Years." They lift the scroll triumphantly and say "The Scroll Of truth!" They open the scroll and it's captioned "afab/amab does not tell you anything about how a person's body looks or functions". In the last image they angrily throw the scroll away and yell "NYEHHH." End ID]

[oneshortdamnfuse]

We are going to have an internal refugee crisis soon. It’s already happening, but it’s only going to get worse as conservative governments continue to push fascist legislation criminalizing transgender people. Right now, transgender people and their families have to make the difficult decision on whether or not they stay or flee their home states. Otherwise, they are facing genocide. This is not hyperbole. The purpose of this legislation is to eradicate the existence of transgender people.

People should not have to leave their homes. Refugees are displaced people who often do not want to uproot their lives from their home states. It is never an easy or simple decision to “just leave.” This displacement is a huge financial burden, and it is traumatic. Furthermore, this displacement “drains” the state they are leaving of people who could challenge the political corruption causing their displacement. It is why we see refugee crises around the world persist for decades.

At the same time that states are passing anti-trans bills that forcibly out transgender school children, we’re doing professional development on how to keep trans kids safe in New York schools through safety plans. States like mine have served as “sanctuary” states during refugee crises, and it would not surprise me if we receive an influx of people because of this internal displacement. While we have the means to protect people (for now), our state alone cannot stop this genocide.

The majority of my students are migrants, immigrants, and refugees. I am very familiar with how refugee crises play out, and it’s that familiarity that makes me very concerned for our future in the United States. If you’re not taking this seriously or you think that this is something that could never happen in this country, you need to start taking it seriously now and at least informing yourself on ways to slow and/or stop altogether the advancement of this genocide. Everyone thinks it won’t happen to them until it does.

There are patterns throughout history that indicate a refugee crisis could be coming. There are patterns throughout history that indicate a genocide is building. People fleeing their home states - not just moving, fleeing - in order to escape persecution is an indicator of both. It will get worse in those states the more people flee. If you live in those states, you need to come up with a plan. Now. You may not want to leave. I understand and I empathize with that, but you should have an emergency plan in place.

There have been discussions about creating networks between states that could provide transportation for people fleeing persecution, but I have not seen anything “official” in place. I know that Rainbow Railroad is an organization that helps LGBTQIA+ refugees around the world find safety. I don’t know to what extent they have assisted internally displaced people in the United States. I will share resources I come across in the future.

While it is crucial for people within these states to have an emergency plan in place, it is important to not lose focus on ways we can stop the advance of fascist state governments. We need to vote, but not only that we need to put extreme pressure on our politicians to codify protections for transgender people. Most importantly, we cannot give a platform to figures within the anti-trans movement. These people are conspiring to eradicate transgender people and we cannot give them the power to do so.

[princessefemmelesbian]

The fact that on the Wikipedia page for the author it says

In an interview with The Rumpus, Schrag stated that she was inspired to write Adam while working on the third season of The L Word. All of the writers on that season were lesbian women except one straight, cisgender man, Adam Rapp. Schrag found the situation unusual and imagined Rapp going to gay bars pretending to be a transgender man to collect material for writing on the show. She decided to write a novel based on the concept, initially picturing the character Adam as an adult male. Eventually she decided that it would be in poor taste, and revised the character as a love-struck teenager, stating she believed it was more sympathetic that way because "a teenager is clueless".[12] She also mentioned having lesbian friends who were attracted to trans men, and thought that "a teenage boy could clean up if he got in there."[12] Overall she was interested in the challenge of trying to write about a character doing inappropriate things but remaining sympathetic.[12] In an interview with Brooklyn, she stated she was "intrigued by the idea of taking a standard YA formula — awkward teen boy finds love for the first time — and subverting it with unexpected explicit and hopefully thought-provoking content about gender and sexuality."[13]

Is just beyond disgusting. And I thought Chasing Amy was bad.

Do NOT Support ‘Adam’ When The Film Comes Out

I’ve talked about this before on this blog but this is the most disgustingly transphobic and lesbophobic narrative I’ve ever come across. 

CWs: transphobia, homophobia, lesbophobia, corrective rape, voyeurism

The book Adam by Ariel Schrag is being turned into a movie which has been named as one of the most exciting LGBTQ films of the year. You should know before watching that the book is about a cis boy who pretends to be a trans man in order to persuade lesbians to sleep with him.

Yeah… you read that right.

Book plot summary: 

boy spies on his lesbian sister having sex

boy decides to pretend to be a trans man (gross)

i.e. pretends to have a vagina because he thinks lesbians will want him then (he literally wants to fuck lesbians because he watched his lesbian sister have sex wtf)

he does get a lesbian to sleep with him, he straps his penis down using ace bandages and uses a strap on.

all the actual trans dudes we meet identify as lesbians this basically implies that trans men are not real men (lesbians i.e. women)  

another time they have sex again only he uses his actual penis but tells her its a strap on. that’s literally rape, she didn’t consent to an actual penis.

he confesses that he’s been lying to her this whole time but she doesn’t break up with him. she even says its okay cause she fantasised about him being “a real boy"

that’s a direct quote. massive transphobia. huge. not to mention this is now the “lesbian is cured by dick trope” which is disgusting and that trope leads to real lesbians and bi women being raped to “fix” them. 

he leaves new york, they’re long distance. they get in an argument and he calls her a slut and a whore among other things and then she dumps him

eventually they get back in touch and she has a new cis boyfriend so yep, she’s been “cured” woo she’s actually straight and he helped her realise that yay (massive sarcasm)

It is deeply deeply transphobic. To imply that our identities are just costumes for other people to put on erases who we are as people. More than that, to imply it is done to trick people into sex is a dangerous lie that literally gets us killed.

It is also deeply lesbophobic. To fuel this narrative that lesbians can be “fixed” by having sex with a man leads to real corrective rapes happening. 

Here is a review of the book by a trans man. I have yet to find one by a lesbian but will edit this if I do.

This book gives out incredibly harmful notions about trans men and lesbians that are used to hurt them in real life. It’s so entrenched in the narrative that I don’t see how the film can possibly be any better.

I do not say any of this lightly. it’s very very rare for me to call out a piece of fiction or for me to decide that a story is unfixable. But this… there’s no excuse for the bigotry in this. 

I’d like to tell people to boycott it but I can’t tell you what to do. So instead I’m going to ask that you share this because it being named as an exciting new LGBTQ film is going to make LGBTQ teens want to see it. And they should know beforehand how hurtful it could be. They should be able to arm themselves with that knowledge.

Don’t make queer kids see this film believing it will represent them only to be exposed to this hatred of their identities. 

Please reblog.

[genderkoolaid]

it's crazy that we aren't allowed to use transmisogyny to talk about anti-transmasculinity because like. sometimes there literally is no better word to explain a function of transmasc oppression. it's the most obvious and straightforward term to describe a situation. it's literally just because of cissexism that we have become accustomed to the idea that oppression by misogyny is about personal identity instead material circumstances

WHICH trans women experience!!!! like the reason it's wrong to say that trans women aren't oppressed by misogyny is because it's blatantly provably false. we do not need to appeal to gender essentialism in order to accept that trans women are oppressed by misogyny. and we do not need sex essentialism to accept that trans men are either!!!!!

this is why trans people's allegiance to cissexist feminism is so frustrating. trans theorizing fails whenever it's aim is to justify to cis women why we deserve to be included by THEIR standards. why are we fighting each other for scraps of cis feminist approval.

[drdemonprince]

ok fine cis men aren't the bad gender it's all men and we're all exactly like that anon who admitted to having abused women even if we don't know it. are you fucking happy now? is this the solidarity you want us to feel with cis men, that we're all just as mich rapists and murderers of women as they are? you have some fucking nerve to be throwing vague jabs while calling an admitted abuser "brave"

Normally I don't platform asks like these, but I'm moved by the genuineness of your emotional reaction here. I think you're hurting, and you've been hurt, and that the belief that abuse and violence are located within one gendered group (to which you don't belong) has felt like a way of organizing your world that has helped you make sense of things, and given you guidelines for how to act and whom to trust that have helped keep you safe. I think a lot of assault survivors feel that way when they're not cis men and their attackers were cis men.

As someone who has experienced a ton of sexual predation at the hands of cis women, cis men, and even other trans people, I don't feel the same way. There is no "bad gender" I can chalk up my abuse to. I find there are no easy means of categorizing entire people as abuser or as victim either -- I have known so, so many people who have occupied both roles depending upon the power they wielded and the social context of the moment. Hell, one cis lesbian that I knew who was infamous in her community for raping trans men would always tell her victims that her acts were those of "trauma recovery," of her "reclaiming" her power after men had stolen it away.

Even she, I don't think, is irredeemable or ontologically evil.

I'm an abolitionist. That's a core value through which a lot of my political action and beliefs flow. If you're not on board with the project of abolitionism, you'll find much to object to here, and most of your objections are things I will refuse to entertain, because I do not believe human beings are disposable no matter what they do, and I don't believe that anyone should have the authority to deem another human being as disposable.

An abolitionist politics is incompatible with the idea that some people or some groups are inherently bad. It's incompatible with the belief that abuse and violence comes from evil. It's a worldview that holds that people do harm because of social structures and networks of power that must be destroyed -- systems like the patriarchy, cissexism, anti-Blackness, ableism, capitalism, and more. And I think one of the ways that we conquer such oppressive systems is by raising the consciousness of all the people trapped under it -- so that we can topple it together. I want trans men and cis men alike to realize they have some skin in the game.

You don't have to associate with the men you don't want to associate with. If, because of repeated abuses at the hands of men, you can't ever trust them, well, those are your feelings, that's your life, that is your business. But when your personal feelings of safety are used as a justification for developing and promoting a worldview with transphobic, transmisogynistic implications, I'm gonna talk shit about that on my stupid little blog. And I'm gonna continue conducting my life in the way I feel I should.

And for me, that means forging common ground between trans men and cis men, and pushing both groups to take women's concerns seriously (especially trans women's concerns) and to stop centering themselves in feminist dialogue. There's a place for both trans men and cis men in the gender revolution, but we gotta do a lot of work on ourselves to stop getting in the way. It's work I'm emotionally equipped to do and find rewarding, and it's fine if you don't. There are lots of other people who need support that you can focus your energies on -- other survivors of abuse and assault that you perhaps find it easier to relate to. That's important work too, and I wish you well in doing it. Just make sure you're not excluding trans women in that work or I'll continue to be annoying about it on my stupid little blog.

[mascflowers]

I just saw the take that transmasculine lesbians are more accepted than transfeminine lesbians and I want to gouge my eyes out.

Have you actually talked to all these transmasculines in lesbian spaces and how much casual cissexism we have to face on a daily basis? Or do you not consider someone saying "Men are the SCUM of the Earth," to a transmasc's face as anti-trans?

Do you know how frequently we're told we're not really men/mascs, called girls, "womyn-born-womyn," or tried to be socially detransitioned?

Do you even know how bad butchphobia is? Because the anti-transmasculinity a lot of us face is VERY similar, and if you can't even listen to the issues that butches have within the community you're not ready for this convo.

Just because we're in these spaces doesn't mean we're actually not facing hatred within them. Especially these days, where "nonmen loving nonmen"ism has roots in radical feminist lesbianism and primarily affects transmasculine and bisexual lesbians. And a LOT of bisexual lesbians are transfem so, surprise surprise, we both have it bad!!!

I'm sorry you don't feel safe in lesbian spaces. Trust me, we both have our own issues. Don't take transmasculine existence and prevalence in lesbian spaces as us being safe.

[gatheringbones]

[“At the time of our interview, Chris was involved in a program to prevent him from future re-arrest, as well as to help him find shelter, food, and the like. Chris had shelter, but he did not have a job and did not have any income. He spent a lot of time on the streets of downtown Atlanta, and in spending much time on the streets, interacted with others in the area who were also in similar situations. As some cis-het women came to find out he was attracted to trans women, he was harassed and made fun of. Cisgender men are not alone in policing hierarchies of masculinities. In an editorial follow-up to her work on homophobia, misogyny, and masculinities among young boys in high school, Pascoe writes of a conversation she had with a student who feared that his future son may want to play with dolls. He explained why he held this fear:

When I was little, I loved playing with Barbies. My sister, she always told me to put ‘em away. One day, she got so fed up; she dragged me outside, and shoved Barbies in all my pockets, and made me stand there while my friends laughed at me.

While scholarship on masculinities has tended to focus on how cis men police one another’s masculinities, it is important to recognize the role cis-het women play in maintaining patriarchy and hegemonic masculinities/ femininities. Cisgender women do not benefit from the perpetuation of patriarchy, misogyny, and hegemonic masculinities; however, they too are socialized within a society that encourages young people to internalize gendered ideals. Schippers highlights that it is through social practice that masculinities and femininities are enacted and become hegemonic. While she argues against conceptualizing non-hegemonic femininities as subordinate femininities because all femininities are subordinate to masculinity, there is a need for greater discussion of the ways in which cis women do subordinate and oppress trans femininities. Trans femininities, as pariah femininities, contaminate and infect the relations between masculinities and femininities. This results in some cis women mocking, degrading, and policing cis-het men’s attractions to trans women. However, the policing of cis-het men’s attractions to trans women is not meant to merely degrade the men but also to mock and denigrate trans women as the “improper” object of cis-het men’s attractions.

While Chris was the only man I interviewed who intentionally dated trans women, two other cis-het men were open to dating trans women. However, they had not had long-term relationships with trans women that could lead others to become aware of their openness to trans women. A 2019 Vice article details the experience of one cis-het man whose girlfriend found out he was attracted to cis women and trans women. The article explains:

At first, she cried and interrogated him: Was he gay? Was she just a prop for him to look straight? Why did he hide this from her? Then, she got mean. Over the course of a month, Owen said she used his sexuality as a weapon against him. According to Owen, she pitilessly mocked him, remarking on how disappointed he must be that she doesn’t have a dick. He obviously “wanted to be a bottom,” he recalled her saying; to “get a good fucking.” Sometimes, when they were intimate, Owen said that she would climb on top of him and mockingly simulate fucking him in the ass.

Much like Chris, the man involved in this situation was mocked, chided, and derided for being attracted to trans women in addition to cis women. He was assumed to be on the down low and to be using her as a beard, as she viewed trans women as men dressed in women’s clothing. Monosexism and cissexism intersect in this instance, with cis-het women assuming that a cis man can only like men or women, and if he likes women, it is assumed that “woman” only includes cisgender women.”]

alithia zamantakis, from thinking cis: cisgender heterosexual men, and queer women’s roles in anti-trans violence, 2023

[transinclusionary]

Ok but for someone who says they don’t care or are suppose ally’s to women you get really upset at women/ terfs I’m saying this as a gay trans masc you need to chill bc this just gives them receipts that all trans women are men who are misgonistic and violent seriously stop replying to them if it really doesn’t bother you

Lord have mercy, I'm going to summon the patience to respond, and give you the response this deserves. I'm going to level with you

I have never clarified what my gender identity is beyond "they/them" because I didn't believe my identity mattered beyond, only the content of my words. But if this needs clarification I will provide it so no one misunderstands me. I am not a trans woman. I believe this discourse shouldn't have to be done by trans women exclusively. Why must someone who opposes bigots be marginalized? Why must the marginalized fight the bigotry in their own oppression? Why can't I, a gnc cis passing queer woman be absolutely appalled and moved with rage at how awful these cosplay conservatives tarnish the very lavel activism with their existence?

It's not fucking fair how little people get in the world to help, and they get even less the more layers of intersectionality we get. And the lower you get the less society cares about you. The only thing you can turn to is fucking activism when you get so oppressed everyone has a fucking reason to hate you. So you join feminist circles to gain community, and a twisted fucking surprise, even the people who claim to care about gender liberation "feminists" dont care.

I'm allowed to find the struggles of others maddening, in the same way I would hope good white allies to find racism maddening or men to find sexism infuriating. If you're a good ally you should be MAD that someone of your same intersectionality can't just fucking treat people right.

It shouldn't be on trans women to take the brunt of this, or insist everyone ignores them. They don't ignore trans women! They go to safe spaces for women and harasses them, disseminates their photos, their information, and relentlessly bully them! Respectfully, I do not see how I am guilty for the anger I feel for the complete blatant acts of human depravity it is to bully a group of women who have a scary high suicide rate. By not talking about it and just expecting people to fight this issue with silence, I believe that we don't provide adequate community.

It is not just enough to be not a transmisogynist, you have to be anti-transmisogynists. I should not have to put my life in danger by standing up for black people in a room of trump supporters. But a white person should use what privilege they have to stand up for what's right. If I expect allies to do that for me, I need to do that for groups I'm allied with.

Thank you for reaching out. And in situations like these please, think about what you say. I believe you intended good with this post, but I also believe you could reflect on your words. I don't believe it's fair to call a black women aggressive for anger.

No minority should be responsible for the whole group of people, it's not fair to make minorities play by their bigots rules to be respected. Basic human respect shouldn't be earned through respectability politics.