#cw radfem

[coffeebean-transmasc-experience]

tw// mentions of csa, sa, radfem, f-slur

(sorry, this is v rambly but i’ve never really told anyone abt this so i’m still gathering my thoughts)

so i suppose i could share my perspective/experience with being amab transmasc; i feel a sense of connection with the label is because so much of my identity has been interlinked with masculinity and my connection and relationship to it evolving. that relationship has evolved physically, psychologically, emotionally, socially, and aesthetically

like ive spent far more time in transmasc circles, i’m often assumed to be transmasc based off of how i dress/talk/identify/etc (esp bc of stereotypes), plus i’ve been incredibly close with, befriended, dated, and loved many transmascs in my life.

like so much of this has connected to how i feel abt masculinity; when i was younger, i felt so alienated and avoidant of masculinity due to trauma from near-exclusively masculine people - to me, masculinity was dangerous, violent, sexual, and inherently harmful towards me. it took me years to feel safe around masculine people, to forgive myself for my fear, to embrace the masc parts of myself and not feel obligated to be feminine, to feel comfortable honouring masculine deities, to feel that i did not have to hate masculinity.

seeing transmascs was foundational for this, like seeing the confidence, gentleness, strength, and their love of their masculinity felt so affirming; like, i could see if as something to love and cherish - vs the radfem perspective that treated it as a monster to be hated and scorned. there is such a concentrated effort by radfems and terfs to make us hate masculinity, which only hurt me more. it taught me that men were inherently bad, inherently harmful, and could not change - that their base nature was to hurt me. and that scared me. i felt like there was no other option, so being exposed to this allowed me to feel safe, to believe that men can be better, are better, and are not inherently bad. radfem ideology felt like giving up, whereas transmasculinity gave me hope.

i never fell down the terf/radfem/tirf rabbitholes bc i knew their logic was reactionary and absurd, but it nonetheless affected me. seeing the way men were spoken about felt like it targeted people like me to weaponise our fear and trauma from masculine people to turn it into support for them.

being denied the ability to be masculine as a kid also affected my relationship with masculinity; while i never felt a strong connection with gender as a child (at least not in a binary way - i never saw things as man/women but rather as, simply, things), however, i was often forced to choose. and being the fem queer kid meant i was pushed away from masculinity. i was encouraged towards feminine hobbies, feminine presentation, feminine spaces - in art programs i was a soft, sensitive creative; in sports programs i was a weak faggot. as such, i felt like i never really had the choice of my gender. while i don’t regret any of the gender affirming stuff i’ve underwent (nor anything i intend to undergo), i felt like i had to. i felt like i had to.

while i don’t mind the fact that i’m feminine (like i’m pretty much always read as a girl by cis ppl), my experiences with being pressured to be feminine are inherently linked to trauma for me. i was extensively sexually abused as a child, with multiple abusers targeting me bc of my appearance, so it’s always felt to me like my body doesn’t belong to me; so being forced to be feminine, especially when that presentation was - in my mind - linked to trauma, felt like i was once again not being in control of my body, that i was just a doll to be used by anyone

when i came out to my mom, it was basically like “okay well then youre a binary woman now” - despite that not being what i came out as - so i then had to fulfill that role. i had to be feminine, hyperfeminine and cisnormative, to be treated as valid, as real. any deviation from that was punished, scolded, and looked down upon - i never got to define femininity for myself but instead had to fulfill an ever-narrowing role set out for me. i thought that coming out would’ve broadened my ability to express myself, but all it did was tighten the rigid frame of gender around me.

it especially created a struggle for me because i came out at such a young age; i knew i was non-binary from basically birth, so i had years of figuring out my own identity before i started coming out to people, which created this huge gap between how i felt/identified vs how people treated/identified me when i came out to them (this is MASSIVELY influenced by my autism as well)

while i don’t think i would ever, say, go on t or whatever else (bc, god, have i had enough of medical transitioning at this point), i feel the label of transmasc gives me freedom. it gives me the freedom to express my gender as i feel. like, genuinely, buying a binder was one of the most freeing choices i’ve ever made. while i don’t hate my chest, realising i could choose to bind is so incredibly freeing. like, the idea of transmasculine femininity has freed my expression of my gender to be whatever i want - to be androgynous, to be masculine, to be feminine, to be a masc person who presents fem, or whatever else i want it to be.

so that’s my experience

Wow, thank you so much for sharing your experience. That's so wonderful that the transmasc label could help you so much, and I'm glad you've learned to accept yourself. That is such a unique and bittersweet journey, and it's amazing you've come so far despite all of the difficult and terrible things that happened. That sucks that you went through all that, but I'm so glad you could accept yourself and your masculinity. Thanks again for sharing.

I don't know what to say, I'm bad at articulating what I'm thinking/feeling, but that was genuinely so moving. I appreciate it anon, thanks for sending in the ask.

(Side note: don't apologize for rambling! You can send in as many asks as you want and make them as long as you need /gen. The whole point of this blog is for someone to be here to listen.)

[pansnovidinnia]

even as a joke this is not okay and never will be. no one is superior gender, and no one alone can fix society. we either do it together or kill each other trying to prove someone's better

fucking thank you for reminding me how people hate me only because i started using another pronouns. thank you for reminding me i always will be unwanted as me myself, and the only acception i would fine is as pseudo woman ive never been but people want to see me like. thank you for wanting to erase all people who don't consider themselves women. fucking thank you. fuck fuck fuck.

[nomouthtospeakof]

okay the fucked up "based on your likes!" is no longer funny, what the fuck did i like that i got radfem shit made by someone called "killallxys" on my dash

[roszabell]

pertaining to this post of mine from april, i saw that this person @ // skyootumcrux has been called out for being a fucking garbage terf calling herself a “radfem safe hetalia blog” already a few times last year in 2022. i can’t believe she’s still around so yes to be clear she who i was talking about in my post. stay safe guys 🏳️‍⚧️⚧️🩵

this is the most tame on her blog but the fact it’s pinned is very telling

[not-poignant]

Pia! I need some advice. There's a writer on ao3 whose fics I really like (well, 'love' would probably be a better word) but I've just found out they are a TERF 😭

I had no idea because they don't post anything personal or political on their main tumblr and they don't write fics that reflect these views but I found their side blog and its full of terf and redfem stuff

Now I'm feeling guilty for enjoying their work and also sad because a part of me just wants to keep reading their works despite this because they really are a good writer and have kept their personal views out of their stories but...... UGGHHHHH TERF 😭😭😭

What should I do? Should I stop reading? Should I block them? Or should I separate the artist from the art and just enjoy the fics?

I am not cis btw so I feel really selfish for just wanting to ignore that stuff and keep reading.

Hi anon,

I'm sorry you've found yourself in this situation. There's no point feeling guilty about something that you could never have possibly known until this moment, though I understand that the guilt still happens, it's not like you can be expected to know this stuff when you're just trying to enjoy fics on the internet, y'know? The main thing is you know now. Guilt is a good feeling for getting us to stop and pay attention, and now you're doing that.

As for what happens next, I can't really answer this for you, but I can talk around a few points which might be worth considering re: continuing to read the fic/s or not.

Separating the 'artist from the art' is almost always hugely misinterpreted, and it often doesn't mean 'pretend the artist doesn't matter so I can keep enjoying their content.' Ultimately you have to decide for yourself what you will or won't accept, and that will be down to your personal ethics or values, and how you express those ethics or values.

If my favourite fanfic author was suddenly revealed to be a TERF (unlikely as they're trans, but y'know, it could happen), I personally couldn't enjoy their writing anymore. I wouldn't be able to escape into their stories or characters, knowing the person who wrote this thing I love doesn't believe in my right to exist as I am, and wants to constantly debate my human rights. I can't suspend my disbelief that much.

But then, on the other hand, I can still watch the films of Harvey Weinstein, a horrible fucking human being and scum on earth, and justify this by knowing that many of the people who made that film are not horrible fucking human beings and he is not the only person to consider. Some people would disagree with my choice. Others will understand.

That's me, but everyone is different on matters like that, and so then it comes down to how you show support. If you continue to read this author but never give them a platform, never like their fic, comment on the chapters, interact with them in any way, rec it to another person (not without 'you should also know they're a rabid transphobe'), be a 'silent consumer' etc. and consider this the way that you demonstrate that you don't support this person's beliefs/views, that's also valid. You still express your values by lending nothing to this person that they can then benefit from. This is how some trans people still consume the works of JKR - making sure she never sees a single cent or benefit under the proud flag of piracy - for example. There are going to be other trans people who disapprove of this, or don't like this, who even make good arguments against it, and tbh, I'm on the fence about it myself, I can just understand why people come to this place with it.

Some of those expressions of our values can be problematic - paying for the work of someone who is transphobic (which you're obviously not doing in the case of fic) directly benefits a transphobe who is publicly transphobic. That's just...straight up harmful. That doesn't really express your values. In fact it may express opposite values. Reccing the fics of this author for example, knowing other trans readers might find the side blog one day and feel deeply wounded and betrayed, expresses opposite values - this would be problematic.

You might be someone who sends them a message anonymously or similar, to let them know that their views are hurtful/hateful and ask how they feel knowing that trans people are reading their stories, and see if they respond to you. Maybe they've never thought about it before. But you don't owe them that kind of labour. You may also want to consider naming/shaming them, to at least do fellow folks in your community the courtesy of avoiding a transphobe. The fact that you've gone out of your way to protect their identity even in this anon, is not something you owe them.

There are going to be different ways you make peace with this situation anon, and don't be surprised if they change over time, depending on how you feel about it. People can only tell you what they would do based on their values, and you must sit down with your own values and decide which actions support your values, and which go against them. We don't all express these things in exactly the same way. As long as you're not expressing harmful or opposite values, you're generally going to be okay, and there is sometimes room in that to still enjoy the fic, if that is something you're able to do.

(Please see the tags since I address this in a bit more detail - although the tl;dr there is - have you considered that instead of continuing to be entertained by the works of a transphobe, maybe if you stopped reading them, you'd find someone you liked just as much, if not more, who will replace them? Sometimes the harm we do is simply in giving our time and energy to someone who wishes we didn't exist, and is actively protesting against our existence - when we could look for others to entertain us who don't expect horrible ethical quandaries from us just to enjoy what they're creating).

(Also, for the record re: other folks reading (I kind of wish I hadn't been forced to respond to this publicly lmao and I'm still in two minds re: whether I'll keep it up), I'm also trans, so I feel like I can talk about the grey area more in this specific issue. I am not advising or advocating for example that white people actively read and engage in the fanfiction of known racists. This is very much - I am talking about this one thing, from a trans person to a trans person, about transphobia in the community and in the works of creators we might enjoy - and I very much want to stay focused on that).

[underestimated-heroine]

Oh so you just can't conceptualize anything in terms which are not dyadic. Unsurprising but good to know.

[haystarlight]

Im sorry terfs came onto your trans lesbian flag post, they really do nothing except harrass people. Anyways here's a picture of my cat for your troubles

Have a good day!

Oh, thank you, Jackie! I know we don't really talk much but I do love being mutuals with you.

I don't really feel that bad about terfs interacting with the trans lesbian post, I get a lot more positive attention than I do negative attention. that's what matters. I'll just keep blocking them, it's whatever.

I just think it's funny when I'm too oblivious to realize it's a terf I'm talking to.

Your cat is really cute!! I love them!! I need to know their name and age like NOW, please!!!

Have a good day, too!!

[laurasinele]

I woke up to a baby terf rbing my post about Hegwords Lunacy and its "trans character" with a snarky remark on how jk doesn't hate trans people "only males in female only spaces". Later, I was looking for some other stuff in my likes page and found this. *chef kiss*

Really all it should take to convince you to support trans people is the fact that there are many, many studies that say "yeah trans people are real and we've found that the best treatment is to just let them transition" like that should really be the end of the argument

I never had to be convinced that trans people were real because I just. learned about that in school. like, it's common knowledge, and we've known it forever. so people arguing about it constantly like it's new territory is so weird to me

[homo-adaptionem]

Highkey though radfems do not own the uterus as an imaginary. You can still use the uterus in your art / activism / feminism. They cannot claim a whole organ. Or any organ.

I know, but it's frustrating that uterine imagery so prevalent within radfem circles.

Also I made this:

[i-like-gay-books]

This is for you, not for you to post. I saw your tags and here’s a the bottom line: young girls who have never experienced homophobia (but have grown up in a sexist culture) claim to be “queer men”. It’s offensive to gay men, because they have had the words “fag” and “queer” thrown at them along with stones. They are bullied from childhood. They struggle and eventually are proud to be gay. But the experience of growing up gay, of their struggle, is dismissed by younger women. When these men say “I get that you romanticize us and like us, but my history, reality, and future is different than the stories you read. Please don’t claim to be the same as me” young women who are “liberal” like to respond with hate, they call them terfs, they send death threats (no matter how much they mean it it hurts), and continue to fight for THEIR (young women) right in gay spaces. It’s homophobic because they tell gay men “your opinion doesn’t matter” and then act like their feelings are superior to a gay man’s feelings, about gay spaces. The same is true in reverse for lesbians and men who want access to those worlds and areas. If someone is identifying as “queer” they’re saying “I’m not gay but I want to included in gay spaces”. When someone says “any pronouns” they’re saying “I want to be included in the cool kids group and I don’t care that gay men and women have been judged for not adhering to stereotypes and have worked hard to reduce the stigmas of pronouns”. Young women have been hated on by the world and they’re rightfully angry and they don’t want to be the stereotype that the world says is an ideal woman. But when you befriend lesbians and gay men, they’ll show you there’s no wrong way to be a man, that there are no rules for how to be a woman. You’re a woman as you are. No nazi surgery required. No gatekeeping of spaces that aren’t yours required. So, all the young people crying about being “persecuted” for TIKTOK views and tumblr followers are not “liberal”. Their outcry has nothing to do with gay rights.

ah ok i see. so my generation is homophobic because we *checks notes* support trans people. seems logical.

[drilovskyclan]

WTF DID I LIKE TUMBLR WHY WOULD YOU SHOW ME THIS

[cacodaemonia]

From the article:

FOSTA seems to have weakened the natural resistance of fandom and internet culture at large to the US’s broader puritanical, anti-sex culture. The purity movement formally began in the ’90s within evangelical culture as a way of normalizing an abstinence-only approach to sex, especially among teens. In the modern era, the language of this movement has converged with that of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), who enact a regressive approach to sex and gender expression. “If you go into certain radfem forums, you’ll see language mirrored one-to-one,” Aburime told me, describing the way TERF rhetoric overlaps with and sometimes infiltrates fandom spaces. “It’s almost like a game — slipping some ideology secretly” into a fannish experience. “It’s misinformation under the guise of activism.” Like the US’s larger current moral panic over drag shows, LGBTQ people, and “groomers,” fandom’s culture has regressed toward sexual repression, attacks on sexual minorities, and censorship of art made by marginalized people. The shifts happening in fandom and across the internet help exacerbate this larger cultural shift.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

African Social Spiders: these spiders live in colonies that can contain up to 2,000 spiders, most of which are female; they hunt, forage, maintain their web, and raise their offspring as a group, without any dominance hierarchy or caste system

This communal behavior is extremely rare among spiders, which are normally solitary creatures. The African social spider (Stegodyphus dumicola) is one of the few species that has been identified as a true "social spider," forming colonies and living in communal nests where the spiders work together to hunt, forage, build webs, and care for their offspring.

Above: an African social spider feeding the young spiderlings of her colony by regurgitating food for them, exhibiting a level of maternal/allomaternal care that is relatively uncommon in both spiders and insects

African social spiders can be found in various parts of southwestern Africa, where they will often build a dense silk nest in the branches of a thorn tree and/or shrub. Most of the spiders in the colony are female (more than 85%, according to some studies) and the species itself also has a female-biased primary sex ratio, as researchers have found that female embryos develop in more than 80% of the eggs that the spiders produce.

Above: a group of African social spiders working together to subdue their prey, which will be taken back to the nest so that it can be shared with the rest of the colony

There is no evidence that any dominance hierarchy or caste system exists within S. dumicola colonies. The spiders all cooperate to complete a variety of tasks, such as hunting, repairing the web, foraging, defending the colony, caring for the colony's offspring, etc. While none of them are exclusively assigned to a single task, many have a primary role that they fill, often based on their physical size and condition.

Above: close-up photo of S. dumicola

This species also engages in extreme allomaternal care, meaning that many different spiders (including both mothers and "allomothers") all share the responsibility of caring for the colony's offspring; even the unmated females help out with brood care. The mothers/allomothers tend to the eggsacs, regurgitate food for the baby spiderlings, and even engage in matriphagy, which means that they will eventually be cannibalized by the babies.

From The Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior:

... some proportion of females do not reproduce – sometimes as much as 60% – but remain as helpers, contributing to foraging and brood care (allo-mothering). Both breeding females and virgin allo-mothers regurgitate food for colony offspring and eventually let the young consume their bodies. ...

Young that are raised with both mothers and allo-mothers show higher survival and growth than young raised by their mothers alone, suggesting a clear fitness benefit of cooperative breeding.

Spiders of this species generally measure about 2.5 - 3.5mm long; they can be found in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho, and Eswatini.

Sources & More Info:

Science Direct: Social Spiders

Current Biology: Quick Guide to Social Spiders (PDF)

Phys.org: Untangling the Social Lives of Spiders

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: The Age & Evolution of Sociality in Stegodyphus Spiders

Entomology Today: Social Spiders Divide Labor According to Body Size & Condition

Animal Behaviour: Extreme Allomaternal Care by Unmated Females in a Cooperatively Breeding Spider

National Geographic: Baby Spiders Eat their Mothers

University of Portsmouth: Social Spiders Have Different Ways of Hunting in Groups

Behavioral Ecology: Spider Societies Mitigate Risk by Prioritizing Caution

Behavioral Processes: Warring Arthropod Societies

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology: Does the African Social Spider Stegodyphus dumicola Control the Sex of Individual Offspring?

[bumbalina]

“And I have talked to some genuinely mistreated men, and that was, indeed, how they reacted; they come up to me and say things like, “I really get what you’re talking about, because I actually had a pretty similar experience.” So I get immediately suspicious of a man who stands up angrily, and starts growling, “Why aren’t you talking about this happening to men?? This happened to me!!” This style of guy doesn’t express any caring about what is happening to women. Nor does he express any gratitude towards the women and men who are working to assist abused women and to stop abusers. There’s no sign that he feels any sense of common ground with abused women. So I don’t buy his story. I think what he’s really mad about is that we won’t shut up about what so many men are doing to women.”

“Twenty years or so ago, we started to hear that it was important to talk more about male victims. The argument was that it would give our movement against domestic violence more appeal, because men would realize that it can happen to them too. We’d broaden our reach. It’s been a tremendous mistake.”

“The domestic violence movement has de-genderized itself. The programs are now called “domestic violence programs,” not “abused women’s programs” as they were known before. We talk about abusers and victims as “he or she,” ignoring statistics that show that it’s overwhelmingly male-on-female. When we talk about the issue, we try to make sure we aren’t hurting men’s feelings with too much truth-telling. Has this broadened and strengthened our movement? No, not a bit. The domestic violence movement is far weaker than it was twenty years ago, not stronger. Many, many of the gains that we made are now being stripped away, more every year. (Women’s rights in general are being stripped away in our times, as you have most likely noticed.)”

“Don’t be apologetic about making women your agenda. Don’t apologize for putting women’s needs and rights front and center. When someone tells you that you should be talking about male victims too, I encourage you to respond, “There are hundreds of issues in this world that need to be addressed. Are you saying that I can’t address what happens to women unless I also address every other wrong that happens in the world? Why isn’t it okay to make women my focus?””

Excerpts from: Lundy Bancroft. Men’s Angry Messages to Me Part 2. November 14, unknown.

[kiruliom]

can we stop the belief that terfs hate transfems exclusively or like more than they hate cisgender men or transmascs and pretending it's just the trans women's battle against them and you're allies for them or whatever. this literally undermines how much harm theyre doing both to the trans community as a whole and even to the people (cis women) they claim to be protecting. terfs hate trans men just as much as trans women, transmascs arent safe because terfs view them as "uwu confused girlies trying to escape oppression", that is a very narrow worldview and inherently transphobic itself (it excludes butches, transmascs who's medically transitioned, intersex people, etc. etc.) transfems arent more oppressed by terfs than any other people theyre oppressing, please understand this. Im so sick and tired of people undermining my transmasc siblings when it comes to harassment from terfs because "well you arent a target to them", why are they harassing them then????

I just geniuenly dont like how the queer community can claim to be transmasc friendly and then view transmascs the same way transphobes view them (again, uwu girlies who are tricked into ruining their feminine beauty, they dont know anything and how lucky they are). feels both andromisic and misogynistic at the same time on top of transmisic idk how the fuck you manage to fuck up that badly

tldr: stop pretending transmascs arent affected by terfs nearly as much as transfems

anyone can reblog, except terfs of course they can fuck off

transfem is used as a way to refer to "TMA"/"AMAB" trans people transmasc is used as a way to refer to "TME"/"AFAB" trans people I know the definition is a bit more fluid now so I just wanted to note that

[starryroe]

Tumblr user: I'm not sure if trans guys are oppressed

Trans guys and allies who are tired of this bullshit: Wow, what the fuck?

Transradfems: See? These people all hate you simply for voicing your opinion! Here are some texts you can read that say women are the only social class that experiences oppression ever you should read it

Tumblr user: Wow you're right, these people are the worst and I should absolutely hate all of them with all I can