#dude ive had that backstreet boys song stuck in my head since i saw that post like 9 hours ago i am at my limit

[unidentifiedfuckingthing]

idk i feel like the goal of intersectionalism is understanding that all systems of oppression are arbitrary and post-hoc justifications for forming a society where some groups are systemically disadvantaged and other groups give up some part of their freedom of expression (as in, that which associates them with the underclass) as an agreement to willingly keep the other people disadvantaged. right. and it seems to me like still trying to sort out whether *discrete incidences* of prejudice are actually transmisogyny* or another thing because the person being victimized isnt a trans woman*

*literally anything but this is the thing rn

is unhelpful because the system punishing people for transgressing acceptable social categories is the whole point. so firstly whether an instance of prejudice was "misdirected" or not, it serves to publicly reinforce the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable for people on both sides of the line. a cis woman getting fucked up for looking like a trans woman is straightforwardly transmisogyny; which is a separate discussion from whether she's systemically targeted by transmisogyny; which is even a separate discussion from whether she's the social and economic target of transmisogyny on a cultural scale. it's untruthful to say it wasnt transmisogyny just because its victim wasnt a trans woman, and it's also untruthful to say that experiencing transmisogyny on an incidental or interpersonal level is equivalent to being targeted by systemic transmisogyny or to being within the category of people transmisogyny is intended to subjugate, because all of those are just different things.

secondly the invocation of "intersectionalism" to mean that each axis is its own straight line and they only "intersect" at single points is materially, a bad analog of the function of oppression, and theory-wise, serves to create a lot of discussion of exactly which oppression or misdirected oppression someone faced in some incident that doesn't actually like, benefit the discussion at all. it isn't like, *either* misogyny or transphobia or intersexism or ableism when cis women with nonnormative presentations receive aggression, because those are all a coherent spectrum of the same thing. the reason you notice the same punishment of forbidden gendered embodiment as misogyny and homophobia and transphobia and intersexism in racism and ableism is because they grow from the same taproot. and honestly i would assert (and my experience is) that the fact it's consistently so difficult and contentious to pare apart different axes of oppression to analyze & discuss them individually is the proof that it's an incomplete framework and the point at which you should be asking questions about missing links that would square that circle.

so the main point im interested in making here is that tme/tma (and "straight/lgbt", and "white/nonwhite", and "abled/ablebodied/disabled", and...) are useful rules of thumb, because describing the effects of vectors of oppression that naturally operate on an impersonal, systemic, theoretical scale, on individual people and especially individual incidents is usually relevant and useful while generally not cleanly accurate. tma and tme don't literally mean "will or will not receive all possible transmisogynistic aggression" and taking such strong offense to the use of the words or the framework implies to me either:

literally genuinely thinking that the extent of transmisogyny is whether strangers have harassed you on the street. which is a shamefully common mindset and speaks to a perspective that has blissfully never once interacted with the multifaceted reality of oppression but still insists on being an important part of its discussion;

an insecurity in ones own victimization and the right to claim it when thats not actually being challenged (which, like, nobody can take that from you, but it's stupid and childish to refuse to recognize a boundary between real aggression and other people having discussions you can't look at right now);

or else, plainly being against the discussion of transmisogyny, and just conveniently finding an explanation for that Bad Vibe it gives you in the terminology being bad and bigoted. this just sucks man it's incredibly fucking frustrating to throw a fit at feeling implicated in culpability or complacency in discussions of/by a class you aren't a part of but also thinking you deserve to be seen as an ally. have a little fucking grace

the second point is if every time people argued about whether something was *really* transmisogyny or homophobia we replaced it with synthesizing the shared characteristics of different axes of oppression and how movements in one affect the other we might get somewhere more useful