#can i be honest it's also made worse bc i'm trans now. which i can't really gauge how Cool my family is with that

[biracy]

Actually crazy what spending the formative years of your life as a very anxious and also very gay child online whose parents monitored or threatened to monitor you will do to you bc I Still have the fear of being in some way Found Out. I'm 19 years old and still have to tell my partners and friends that I won't call them unless my ma's out of the house bc I'm so afraid of being Found Out, even though I know I can't Really have anything taken away from me anymore. Hopefully this will ease off as I move out but like anyone else out there still feeling like they're going to be Found Out one of these days

[radicchia]

I just stumbled on your blog and reading through the posts it made me confront some uncomfortable truths. Im very gender dysphoric and was confused about my gender identity, but the real issue isnt that im trans/nb, its that I would WANT to be, bc deep down I want to be a PERSON and not a “just a female”. Its gonna take some time for me to knock the internalized misogyny outta me but its a start. I might not agree with some of the hatefulness toward trans women but still.. thank you. Today I learned “terfs” arent the hitlers theyre painted to be.

Hey, thank you for your message! And sorry for taking so long to reply.

I know you didn't ask for advice, so I hope this is ok. Please take the time to learn about awesome women, connect with other women online and offline, and go out into the physical world and do something with other women! Whether that's in a political group or in a gardening club doesn't matter (although women can't really afford to withdraw from the political, public sphere, but that's another issue). I know all that can be exhausting, but that's in the short term. I was never dysphoric, but I had/have my fair share of problems and getting organised with people helped me so much! It also automatically means finding women you can look up to (if you join the right groups at least, lol). That is an amazing feeling!

As for the hatefulness towards trans women/trans-identified males:

- I agree that sometimes it, let's say, focusses on the wrong aspects and can become quite unhelpful and unfair

- Generally, in radical feminism, you look at men without censoring your analysis for their benefit. That can result in pretty drastic positions (because generally speaking, men aren't great). Now with TiMs, we're already critical of them because they are men and have been socialised that way. But then add to that that their policy focusses a lot on taking away women-only spaces, for which women have fought long and hard. So they are a threat to women's rights in that way. Also, women's health care is worse than men's health care, so dissolving the meaning of the word woman into nothing also does additional harm in that area.

- Another problem with TIMs is that, to be honest, they are men with specific problems. It used to be that most transsexuals were gay men who had experienced a lot of homophobia and as a result took on that female identity - but without claiming they were actually women. Nowadays, you've got a completely different group of men who call themselves trans. A lot of them are heterosexual men with fetishes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is true for all TiMs. I know several TiMs relatively well irl and I know that a lot of factors play into their identification as trans. But you can see a large online scene of TiMs who clearly get off on the objectification of what they perceive as womanhood. They get boners when they wear women's clothing, they want to be sexually molested and degraded. That is a) a problem and b) not an empowering view of what a woman is and what makes her a woman. Add to that other fetishes that you can often find in online TiM communities, such as furry and diaper fetishes, and you can probably tell that it isn't particularly healthy for anyone involved.

- Then there is also the problem of grooming that happens online a lot, where it's often older TiMs who talk girls (and also other men) into thinking they are trans, and ultimately into harming their psychological well-being as well as their social and familial lives and their bodies. I don't find it funny at all, I don't find it merely mean, I think it is dangerous and despicable. My friends and relatives are doing themselves extreme bodily harm because of online spaces like this.