#especially in light of tumblrs transmisogyny

[vampire-eros]

i had a discussion with my partner the other night and like

a while ago, i'd say early 2022 i was kind of enlightened to exactly how bad the transmisogyny problem is I did something that some TMEs felt was offensive and… what happened? well. i received 1 ask reprimanding me for it. an UNRELATED TRANS WOMAN who DID NOT DO WHAT I DID, got the backlash for it and would experience regular, pointless, harassment about it.

and i received 1 singular ask about it and kind of sloppily apologized for it and never heard anything about it again in my askbox. while i would watch my mutual become bogged down and dogpiled about it… something I DID.

and i realized. oh. i really get it now. it's so bad that people would rather target a popular trans woman than a (currently) TME nonbinary person over something that the trans woman did not even do. people will literally make up stories to attack trans women. i understand what TME/TMA means, it's not a repackaged discussion of what's in your pants, it's a discussion about how you're treated in society.

and i think some TME people see that trans women/TMAs are rightfully upset and angry about what they've been put through, that trans women will try to clarify that their situation is BAD. it is TRAUMATIZING. it is ACTIVELY DEADLY. it is PSYCHOLOGICALLY DAMAGING.

and they will see that and think "well hey!! what about me? i'm not a trans woman, but i'm affected by this too!!" and feel like THEIR problems are being dismissed, as if they don't go through transphobia, misogyny, toxic masculinity, and even death. but the thing is, i feel like a lot of them just don't see behind the scenes and see how hot the flames are for the circumstances trans women are being put in, even some of the struggles that people affected by transmisogyny hold in to try to create an environment that isn't festering with hate and sorrow.

imagine this situation is basically you are in an emergency room. and the order that patients are served are, most urgent patients come first. and yes, the transphobia, misogyny, white patriarchy, toxic cultish masculinity practices come down in one sweep. if you are trans, you are probably going to be affected by transphobia unless you are incredibly lucky, and we are all hurting. but some trans issues are much more urgent, more of an emergency and these people in our community are vulnerable and desperately need our support.

we need to stand up for our trans women and TMA nonbinary people (especially our black trans women and black nonbinary folk because they are in a doubly vulnerable position) and everyone else affected by transmisogyny because the way they are affected by this may be way more crazy and out of proportion than you think. easily, this issue currently going on with the tumblr CEO is shedding a sickening light on this problem.

[mitigatedchaos]

[ tumblr user ]

"Afab trans woman" why do you view trans womanhood as a Vibe you wanna adopt and not a collection of a wide range of experiences based on the material circumstance of being assigned male at birth and transitioning to become a woman. We've always had afab people who call themselves trans women (it's why so many of us are so militant about tme vs tma, because these people would try to pass themselves off as us and speak over us) and it's cause people want the culture and coolness that we have cultivated for ourselves without having our struggle. They want the cultural view of being the epitome of queerness that's thrust upon us without having to deal with the transmisogyny that that same culture throws at us

We've gotten a few isolated and largely unconfirmed reports of AFAB people identifying as MtF trans.

It's difficult to tell if this is a real thing, or if it's a one-in-a-million thing that's just being noticed and amplified by the internet, or if it's some people making these stories up for internet clout or for other reasons.

I've been considering the increase in identification as "non-binary" compared to 2008 levels, and I have a theory.

Back in the 2000-2008 era, the Internet was still a separate place you would go. You would physically sit down at your computer, log on, and then go on websites or use messenger services, etc. Corporate and government use of the Internet was more limited. There was more socially acceptable use of alternate channels such as phones, physical meetups, etc.

Cyberspace was real, but it wasn't ubiquitous. It didn't follow you around when you logged off.

Now, thanks to smartphones and increasing dependence on the internet, cyberspace is almost everywhere. Data is light, it doesn't weigh much, and it can smoothly glide at a moment's touch. Privacy in physical space can disappear with only a few seconds of notice.

The cyberspace layer is a new layer on the stack of what has to be considered in social interactions.

The social contagion theory is about the idea of male-identifying gender non-conformity spreading to girls and young women from outside as a meme (in terms of a self-replicating idea) resulting in local social pressure. However, we can invert it:

What if it's a hiding place?

Our current system of ordinary laws is not designed for constant, thorough enforcement. If we were constantly monitored by AI to enforce our current laws, it would be intolerable.

The ubiquity of smartphones and social media may have lead to a radical increase in internally felt social pressure for gender conformity, and a narrowing of what's considered acceptable gender behavior.

While from the outside, most of us would say, "Yeah, there can be masculine women, so what?" for people who have a high internalization of social pressure, that might not be good enough.

Identifying as "non-binary" provides social permission (including internal social permission) not to be layered with 3mm of makeup, even though the influencers are presumably off presenting their unrealistically flashy lives on internet video platforms doing just that.

As for MtF specifically, in terms of what's visible it tends to be a pretty intense band of humanity, culturally, and especially online.

There are a number of reasons for this, but to emphasize one of them, if you have people that are uncomfortable in real life, they may spend a lot of time online, and if they're not mindlessly devoting that to social warfare, they may devote that to cultural development. As more culture development shifts online, they'll have a disproportionate influence. The current cohort of MtFs also hit a bit earlier, so they're a bit further along, career-wise, and a bit more knowledgeable.

So it wouldn't be surprising for a number of young AFAB people, who are evaluating 'who they want to be', to look out there, and decide to try on 'trans woman' as a label and see how it fits, see if it changes them, or helps them fit in.

But is that actually happening? I dunno.

[cl0ckworkqueerness]

trans people, by our very nature, are "sexual".

there is nothing we do that is not claimed to be for sexual gratification. we cannot seek pleasure, or happiness, or relief, even of a sexual variety, without being claimed as a predator, or perverted.

we cannot exist without being accused of existing for a fetish. and that fetish is being ourselves.

trans people, by our very nature, are "violent".

we are sick, cruel people, and we are always doing and saying terrible things to the poor cis people who accidentally happened to wander into the wrong conversation topic, or who were just trying to defend themselves.

we are always the persecutors. we are always the executioners. every word we say could be spun as a threat, and even when they can't, our poor little victims can still blindfold themselves and pretend like we're acting out in violence, in a case completely uniquely horrible to them.

these are the areas in which transmisogyny thrives.

it's not exclusive to transmisogyny, of course, but that is what it feeds the most. transmisogyny is fear. fear of danger that isn't really there. fear and disgust.

to my fellow fighters for trans men, with whom i always stand, i ask you please to stand by the trans women on this site as well, especially now but always. transphobia is always present, and is especially present in tumblr staff, and what's going on right now is undeniably transmisogynistic.

i have also seen posts about how "transandrophobia truthers" are adding to this sitewide transmisogyny. this is not true, at least not in a broad, all-encompassing sense. anyone who truly cares about all trans people, as i do in my fight to bring transandrophobia to light, should care about this right now. if they don't, they never cared about us to begin with, either.

focus on the sick fucks who decided it was okay to hide deep transmisogyny behind both a corporate veil and a thin mask of innocent victimhood.

tell everyone affected that you're there for them. do not let tumblr staff get away with sweeping this under the rug, as they'll eventually try to do. be angry. to all the trans women, trans men, all trans people, all cis people, all people who care about the liberation from gendered discrimination, sex discrimination, gender roles, and anti-trans hostility of all kinds: we need to fight this, now. together.

how can we explicitly fight it? i don't know. but at the very least, if nothing else, then please offer your hand in solidarity, in support. being targeted by a site's staff can make one feel very alone, very isolated; if that's what the perpetrators want, we can't let them have it.

[azuremist]

A long while ago, I saw a post by a transfem blogger criticizing those who post openly about how they hate “(animal)girl(body part)” tumblr URLs, saying that, “It starts off as jokes and light commentary. But eventually, it’ll spiral into transmisogyny, all because of transfems doing something harmless that makes them happy, even if it’s slightly annoying to you.”

I remember seeing that post and thinking, “Well, that’s a bit overdramatic, isn’t it? It’s just a few people saying they don’t like this thing that transfems do sometimes. That doesn’t have to evolve into bigotry.”

But over Twitter the past few days, people have started REALLY ragging on transfem humor.

It started with a piece of art made by a transfem, which made that “having sex with a pumpkin” joke popular with transfems (especially on places like Reddit). That post got blasted with people saying that they found this joke annoying and overly-sexual. Which, like, okay, I guess.

But then, cis people began to promote their art in the replies, saying stuff like, “I make art that isn’t hypersexual / perverted!”

But then, people began to harass transfems in r/egg_irl (a huge gathering place for transfems to share their memes).

But then… God, the Twitter activists came on the scene, and it was over. Justifying everything happening, sparked by transfem in-jokes, by saying that actually, it’s problematic. Do you know how many Tweets there are saying that r/egg_irl (a community of transfems who are sort of unfunny sometimes) is the fucking AUTISM SPEAKS of trans activism? You know, the place that advocates for autistic eugenics!

Yeah, transfems making a few little jokey-jokes on Reddit is DEFINITELY comparable to literal eugenics, dude.

And eventually, another piece of art with a popular transfem in-joke got dogpiled. Except this time, it was a harmless piece of fanart of a transfem character baking, with the saying, “You need to crack a few eggs to make an omelette!” And people (including queer people!!!), who had gotten so used to attacking transfem humor at this point, began to blindly say that this was a “violent” turn of phrase. That the art “promoted forcing someone to admit that they’re trans”, and that ACTUALLY, “egg” (a term BY trans people, FOR trans people, used mostly by transfems, meant to describe an unrealized trans person) was a TRANSPHOBIC TERM.

So, after witnessing all of this go down in real time, you know what?

No. I was wrong.

It really IS that easy for a simple “I don’t like this mildly annoying, but harmless, thing that transfems do” to evolve into insane levels of unchecked transmisogyny.

So, yeah. If you see a trans woman being sort of “cringe”, or unfunny, or something… If they’re not harming anyone, then consider minding your damn business. Everything that transfems do is put under a microscope and criticized. Don’t be one of the people who adds onto that.

Just let them be.

[disregardcanon]

read an impactful satire today called The Abuser's Guide to Transmisogyny aka How to Cancel a Trans Girl and i think it was... enlightening on the kind of tactics bad actors use against trans women on the internet, especially in light of what's been happening here on tumblr recently. solidarity with our trans sisters, y'all.

[purple-sage]

in light of staff basically telling everyone who has a problem with staff transmisogyny to "just leave lmao" I'm toying with the idea of taking them up on that. I'm not leaving just yet, but I'm not going to let tumblr monopolize my social media experience anymore. I'll be making new accounts on other platforms, and if you're reading this, maybe consider doing the same?

I'm going to try to keep this post up to date with my accounts on whatever other platforms I'm using. let me know any good alternatives you know of, if they're not on here! and if you want to stay in contact off of tumblr, feel free to dm me, especially if we're mutuals. ✌️

Here's my:

Cohost

[cayde6feetunderr]

People will call me stupid and illiterate for this and accuse me of defending Rocky Horror cos this is Tumblr and if you’re not 100% entirely against something you’re The Enemy but when it comes to discussing characters like Frank-n-Furter and their relationship to transmisogyny and transmisogynistic stereotypes and depictions I feel some people don’t read their character in different lights first.

You can read Frank-n-Furter as a trans man embracing more stereotypically feminine traits. You can read Frank-n-Furter as nonbinary. You can even read Frank-n-Furter as a gay man, you can read Frank-n-Furter as genderqueer or genderfluid or simply gender non conforming. You can even read Frank-n-Furter as a trans woman, especially considering in some stageplays of Rocky Horror they are played by trans women, or you can read Frank-n-Furter as some other nebulous form of queer.

And none of these readings make Frank-n-Furter’s more harmful things they embody any better. From the predatory, sexually deviant queer stereotype to the flamboyant gay man stereotype to the “effeminate man” joke to every single other possible harmful thing that can rise from analyzing Frank-n-Furter through a critical eye that seeks negative qualities for the sake of critique.

But there are also queers, yes including trans women, who find Frank-n-Furter as a character and as a depiction empowering despite whatever deliberate malice or accidental harm out of ignorance is present. And I think some people on this website (again, Tumblr doesn’t like when you don’t blindly agree) don’t like that either, I’ve seen one of my trans friends get harassed by people insisting she couldn’t possibly (see: isn’t allowed to) like Rocky Horror or Frank-n-Furter cos she’s a trans woman.

Unfortunately Rocky Horror is very much a product of its time. It literally only came out in 1975, not even 10 years after Stonewall. “Transgender” wasn’t in popular use yet and words like “transsexual” and “transvestite” were significantly more popular and are used as identifiers by elder queers and elder allies to this day. What was considered the norm for queerness and queer depictions back then was significantly different from now. I guarantee you in 50 years we’ll balk at current queer rep in the same way we do Rocky Horror now. That is, if the community and society actually takes steps forward and not a million mad dashes backwards and everything to do with queerness is controversial again.

[a-polite-melody]

Is it possible to ever make a post about queer identities other than trans women without some joker claiming transmisogyny. Like do we have to preface every post about different types of oppression with "of course trans women have it worse but-" so we don't get harassed for talking about our own experiences. Like is this where we are now.

This is exactly what I was afraid of when I saw those posts floating around last night. This is exactly what the “danger” flashing lights in my head were going off about.

THAT IS A TERF RECRUITMENT POINT

I’ve sat on this ask all day because there is a lot of pressure on me in how I answer this because it’s a TERF recruitment point. I don’t know if the person who sent this ask is aware of that, but it is.

Because, at face value, I agree. No one should have to preface talking about their own experiences by acknowledging another group first.

BUT

This - people being shut down because they didn’t say "of course trans women have it worse but-” - is not a widespread issue. This happens occasionally. There are individual instances of it happening, like last night. But agreeing, at face value with the original statement is like agreeing with the statement “aces shouldn’t go around LGBT+/queer spaces bragging about how pure they are for not having sex”. Sure. And there are probably instances of tumblr posts you could pull of individuals doing this, but it isn’t the enormously widespread problem aphobes make it out to be.

Agreeing at face value with the first statement has their foot in the door, and that’s all it takes to go from “aces shouldn’t brag about their purity” to “maybe we shouldn’t include aces at all to protect our community” to “who else is invading our communities?” And there starts the radicalization. This is an example of how they target people within the LGBT+ community to gradually radicalize them.

AND

I have a (maybe not the healthiest, but it’s useful, so whatever) of trawling radfem tags to preemptively block any that I find before they can find me, because curate your own online experience and all that. Anyway, because of that, I see the trends in radfem talking points.

Right now? There’s a huge amount of “trans women are so mean to TMEs, they obviously don’t support you and we would support you more!” from radfems aimed at transmascs and other AFAB nonbinary people - people who don’t experience transmisogyny. And to get their targets to a point where they can believe that, they need to start somewhere.

And here is where that is. Find an instance of a transmasc being targeted by, in this case, an aphobe [x], but it could be by any of their indoctrination offshoots, by way of pulling out a false transmisogyny accusation that, in this case, was fabricated based on people putting words in other peoples’ mouths, and then other people coming in without the full context and so misinterpreting the situation [x], and then start worming in these more broad statements like this ask, which imply a much larger problem than there is, and there’s your starting point of radicalization.

BE CAREFUL, CHECK YOUR TARGETS

We should not be trying to talk to each other about issues between different communities within the LGBT+ community while framing it as though we are or should be hostile toward each other. We especially shouldn’t be talking about the issues between AMAB and AFAB trans people, or any different groups trans people can be separated out into, in that way. Ask yourself who you’re being prompted to be angry at and why. Ask yourself if they’re actually your enemy.

[wilderun]

People telling you that you’re reblogging from a known bigot isn’t a personal attack mate. Cock-dealer has a history of being involved with ppl who are transmisogynistic and have harassed both black transfems and transmascs, and he has defended a user called dead-dyke/saint-speaks/saint-dionysus after it came to light that he was violently lesbophobic and had a fetish surrounding “corrective rape” toward lesbians. these aren’t people you want to be defending and it’s all widely available info.

You need to realize that going through a persons' notes to send anons to anyone who reblogs something from them is *not* the way to go about trying to spread awareness of something they did if you want people to do anything other than brush you off. To any reasonable person who's been on the internet a while, let alone one who has experienced online harassment themselves, that behavior comes off as obsessive and stalkerish and untrustworthy and triggers the 'danger, do not engage' reaction (*especially* when considering it's coming from a handful of anons rather than a personal message with accountability behind what is being said). Additionally.... Telling you that I don't have the time to spend on a scavenger hunt to find and parse through callout posts on a bunch of tumblr blogs when I don't have any actual connection to the person involved is not defending them or their actions in any way whatsoever. Claiming that I somehow am siding with them because I said it was creepy to go through notes to send anons like that to people only serves to contribute to my feeling of 'this sounds like it might be a situation where a tumblr blog has sent their followers out to harass someone and anyone they think might have even the vaguest of connections to'. I don't agree with transphobia. I am literally trans myself. I don't agree with lesbophobia or transmisogyny or racism either. If these things are true about the person I reblogged from, that's gross and not okay. But, what I'm saying is, I don't take anonymous claims seriously in this context, and I don't spend my time looking for callouts on people, either. You can either send me a message and we can talk like normal human beings about it and you can provide direct proof, or continue hiding behind one-sided anonymity that I won't respond further to.

[jeannie-youre-a-tragedy]

the post was, in fact, not made in reply to the anonymous asks, but on january fifteenth, and the reply made the day before the asks were sent. crazy, how this conversation has in fact been going on for far longer than this! and yet is still relevant in conversation with a more recent event.

that post was made about other posts, repeatedly made by "transandrophobia truthers" (self described, for the record) when the subject of transmisogyny's existence is even brought up, not as "monopolization of oppression", a non-existant term for a thing, but as a solid theory of intersectional oppression, with a clear and solid definition. those were, of course, made with the exact point of minimizing the concerns of trans women about lived experiences within and beyond the community, under a thinly-veiled "unity" lie, as to avoid having to reconcile with those critiques put forward. even if the phrase was "those transfems need to stop their infighting and just hang out together", devoid of the sexual dimension of it, it is still an attempt to circumvent actual points of discussion to appeal to "peaceful" [read: compliant] rhetoric!

but it isn't just that, not really. the sexual aspect beyond it has a clear, political perspective, too. the issues talking about and resolving, because they make those not directly in the crossfire of transmisogyny sad and uncomfortable! to chalk up the sexualization to being "goofy" and "tumblr-y" completely ignores the fact that it is phrased that way for a reason! the same standards and internally held beliefs why others will go out and send those types of asks! there's a direct correlation that can't be waved off, in why someone would see it fit to send such asks, and why someone would see fit to write such posts!

now personally, i'm not sure i'd say a "perfect response" to OPs point involves ignoring context that was actually there about how to address her feelings with phrases like "casual disdain for trans siblings", which was never a focus on the post, not even implicitly since it was written in reply to an action and a statement, not a person or a group of people, or "quit baring fang and be normal," or actively claiming op as a bad-faith actor by saying "i struggle to believe you even believe that".

love the comparison to the "LGB movement" and an unspecified group (which you're just short of calling "baeddels", really) of transfems talking about their issues, really shows how you seem to think we hold power over transmascs like how cis people do us.

the "martyrization of transfems" is something you can really only talk about if you're completely disconnected from any sort of grander point about this behavior. the problems you posit as "monoply of oppression" are not, in fact, impulsed by a quality of transfems to be "the most oppressed group" but rather simple racism and american chauvinism, political problems that have absolutely nothing to do with this point.

and... it's not, though. i've refrained using the terms "tme/tma" because of your clear bias against the terms, it's clear to me you completely miss their point and use, especially in how supposedly their "main use" is to "misgender trans men", ignoring the fact that cis men are also tme, as not the direct target of transmisogynist ideas. claiming otherwise is complete nonsense, since transmisogyny is a thing with a definition and meaning. it's like saying women aren't real because everyone suffers from misogyny.

anyway, i figure you won't reply to this, given you've said your peace clearly, but i hope i shed some light on the subject.

Why do you feel the need to defend those who are sexually harassing trans women? Why do you think essentially telling other trans women they're being hysterical will help anyone? Why do you feel the need to defend the sanctity of sexually harassing trans women?

hiya!! so. quick thing.

op of that post was right but also a doofus

on the one hand, i have now been made aware of that flurry of asks it was apparently made in response to. those asks are textbook sexual harassment, sole to scalp, and also yes 100% misogyny.

on the other, why the FUCK did that op say "the posts about how transfems and transmascs should just be sucking and fucking" instead of. YKNOW. WHAT WAS HAPPENING?

"post" instead of "ask" makes it seem like something people are just saying on their own blogs, not spamming in ask boxes, and "about how transfems and transmascs should just be sucking and fucking" gets to absolutely 0% of the issue with the asks themselves, and in fact touches on a Separate trend i saw a couple times ages ago, which yes, i still think is just a goofy way of phrasing "be normal and hang out and stop fighting"

And this is an apology, yes, but its not a retraction, so dont take it as one.

i responded absolutely Perfectly to ops words. i was lacking context, but it was context their phrasing Obfuscated the existence of, and as such i feel i acted 100% justifiably. on top of this, one or five assholes spamming shitty asks does not a difference in class interests make. tma/tme is still a useless dichotomy invented by an outsider to drive a wedge in the trans community, our internal equivalent of "lgb drop the t". there is still a trend of transfems (of which i am one, and also i am not innocent of this behavior) insisting on a monopoly of oppression, or being reductive in order to martyrize transfems as a group (ive seen plenty of my sisters say they dont care about the genocide in gaza because "im busy trying to figure out where it's safe to piss" and also many who cross their eyes in order apply the murder rates against trans women of color to instead apply to all trans women, which i feel is pretty flatly racist, or at least reductive) and while im sure SOME people who believe in the value of that dichotomy are normal about it, in fact one was in my dms to Give me the context about the asks which i appreciate deeply i love u bestie, youd have to be a concussed coyote on quaaludes to pretend its not primarily used for transphobia against trans men. its used as a way to misgender and it has no basis in reality.

yall still wanna call me a sex pest pickme who should kill myself after this, be my guest. thats my stance, babe. i wont be responding to anythin else on this matter.

[princessnijireiki]

the internet is crazy bc on the one hand, I can go from a conversation abt rice cookers on reddit to someone being like "all these people saying mother teresa was a fucking asshole sound like gossip. source???"

and while that sounds like it was in bad faith, they were just... young? like too young to remember how her being a bitch was all over the place in the early '00s bc the catholic church fast tracked her beatification partly to try & squeeze in more good press before john paul ii died, and MAJORLY as a smokescreen for the vast numbers of clergy sex abuse coverups coming to light. and when I provided a link they thanked me & we went on with our evenings!

but then I come on here and there's some little popular post about an ep of xena that had an hiv+ trans woman guest star, and yeah, the usual babygay revisionism of how progressive it was when in the 90s it was still a "man in a dress" concept, xena kissing this woman would specifically not have been seen as scandalous as a "real" lesbian kiss at the time bc this actress would have been seen as a man— we are talking about an episode contemporary with the seinfeld "crying game" episode, the xena ep probably wasn't as mean spirited, but let's be real— but what got ME was a reblog adding, "oh, and she was hiv+, back in the 90s when aids had a much greater social stigma."

and THAT was my "I'm too old for this shit" moment bc yeah, youthful ignorance, but "much greater social stigma" is such a bizarre understatement that I cannot be civil lmao...

"MUCH GREATER SOCIAL STIGMA" like it technically isn't WRONG but it's so NOT RIGHT I'd rather see young people genuinely mistaken & misled by conservative propaganda get enlightened than watch faux educated youths manage to sidestep the crushing physical realities of the aids crisis for anachronistic historically revisionist woke points that xena warrior princess doesn't need over "representation" that was horny bait & shock factor primetime bait & gag fodder at the same time, and which even with this specific newfound social media hype & tumblr spin STILL doesn't even pass a modern transmisogyny sniff test.

anyway. old man yelling at clouds or whatever. but goddamn this is how I know any fool on this website talking about gay elders or claiming to be one is full of horseshit, because some of y'all would rather be as loud and wrong as possible in defense of literal will & grace level COMEDY (which, yeah, edgy for the time! and has not aged well!), a gag with as much subtlety as a looney toons bugs bunny sketch, than to possibly acknowledge progress means we all have nostalgia for & cut our teeth on some gnarly retrograde shit, and that laughing at it or treating it fondly means you DO have more growing & learning to do, especially if you're ALSO gonna pull an inverse "that was fighting for gay rights and people were killed" stonewall comment on THE AIDS CRISIS like you're a fucking infant whose only familiarity with the era isn't even rent or angels in america or philadelphia, but literally ONLY ryan murphy media, and MAYBE alan ball & jk rowling's serophobic vampire/werewolf std allegories in fiction on top.

[gardenstateofmind]

like honestly i used to be such an asshole, especially when i was an #edgy middle schooler, and when i first got on tumblr and saw some fuckshit i was drawn to the anti sjw crowd

and like it was mostly bc back then it was just angry adults shouting at kids, blog titles that literally said “leave your privilege at the door” (that wasn’t an ironic joke yet lmfao), oh my god Die Cis Scum was so popular back then too. like it was just Messy. but bc i got offended by the way they were presenting the information, i made the mistake of shutting out their actual words. i just reacted angrily instead of taking the time to really look at what was being said

dont get me wrong, ive always cared about equal rights and social justice and shit like that, i mean like,, growing up a brown kid whose family was illegal immigrants is not that easy,, but i was def the kind of person who didnt give a shit about microaggressions and was like what the fuck does it matter if people say the n word (when Not using it as a pejorative) when an innocent black child was murdered in cold blood, look at ur priorities?? (this was the time period when trayvon martin was killed, may he rest in peace) like back then i didnt understand some of the basics u feel me?

and even tho im literally trans nonbinary and ive been loudly pro trans rights since i was 9 (bc i saw a fucking lifetime movie abt a trans girl lmao, but it genuinely taught me well), it took me a while to adjust my way of speaking to be inclusive and respectful of gender and sex stuff, and id get like annoyed when people were always correcting shit like “*uterus havers, not women” bc it felt kind of extra to me, like i didnt disagree, so much as i didn’t see the point of focusing on minor details like that constantly. and i definitely had to deal with internalized transphobia bc i was just plain uneducated about a lot of stuff. i didn’t have the language to truly understand some of my Own experiences so i just shoved them into cisnormative labels

and even in more recent years, like i wasnt against some stuff but didn’t really understand it? like when i saw people singling out transmisogyny and misogynoir i was like confused as to why they needed special labels and it was coming off like oppression olympics bullshit to me. but thankfully by that time i was a lot more willing to learn AND had found far better sources of information. and like ofc now i understand the very necessary importance of focusing on and protecting like black trans women for example, and as a nonblack+light skinned trans masc person acknowledging the position of privilege i have in the community we share as qtpoc.

and i mean just yesterday i was trying to learn more about ableism against developmentally disabled people and found out some information that was totally new to me, like the roots of words like dumb/imbecile/idiot/etc. (it was part of a discussion on whether or not these words are slurs in modern days and on who can use them) so this shit is a lifelong process. and that’s a Good thing, because it means we can always become better people. im by no means perfect obviously, no one is, but i feel a lot more secure and comforted with the knowledge that i know im gonna fuck up and i know that afterwards im gonna learn an important lesson. like im not trying to win a competition on who can be the most ~woke~ i just wanna make the world a better place, and having good intentions goes a long way imo

[sapphia]

Adding onto this, in light of the article above: Knowing that Margaret Atwood has expressed support for trans people, to the point that she is labelled green on Shinigami eyes, her expressing this opinion feels more like a symptom than a cause. Which is to say, it's not that she's a transphobic person, it's that terfs are getting very good at using transphobic dog whistles to prey upon the relationship that feminists have with the concept of gender.

Atwood is a renowned feminist. She has a lot to say on the concept of womanhood, and how women as a gender are treated in society. If you go into her tumblr tag, it's full of quotes from her books about what it's like to be a woman. If you go on her twitter, she's reblogging the latest articles about gender and sexism. This is why it was so powerful she spoke out against transphobia, and in support of transwomen.

She's a feminist of the 70s and 80s, but her view on gender and sexism isn't fixed rigidly in the past, or so it's seemed up until now. But I will say this: if you look at her writing, her activism, the things she's tweeting about, a lot of it is about what it means to be a woman, about how things affect women, about how sexism and societal pressure and the concept of gender shapes the gendered bodies who are governed by it, especially women, who are affected by sexism and patriarchal bullshit.

Having the sort of background she has, and I think this is not uncommon in wider feminist circles, this worldview encourages feminists to get "attached" to their own womanhood, as it were. It's the old, "feminism taught me not to be ashamed that I'm a woman/to celebrate my gender/find solidarity with my fellow women/etc etc". Some people see it as reclaiming. Some people see it as liberation. Some people see it as just finally growing comfortable with their gender, after what might have been quite a turbulent relationship. But whatever it is, it leaves a lot of feminists identifying more strongly as a woman, and with womanhood, than before they discovered feminism.

When it comes to transmisogyny, it seems Atwood is quite happy to widen the circle, to bring in women who have different experiences of womanhood than herself. This is a pretty obvious take for most feminists (though not to all people, unfortunately); feminity and womanhood is affected by experience, and all woman experience womanhood differently. A disabled woman experiences womanhood differently to a non-disabled woman. A WoC experiences it differently to a white woman. A rich woman to a poor woman. Etc. Even an attractive woman would experience womanhood differently to an unattractive one, and never mind actual discrete life experiences that can't be watered down to identity buzzwords.

Feminists are quite happy to open their arms to transwomen, to "let them in" to the circle (quite literally, given cis women are currently in the position of acting as gatekeeper to women's spaces, regardless of whether that gatekeeping is trans-positive or transphobic). However, here TERF talking points are praying on something else - the feeling of taking something away.

This is seen in other terf arguments, and it's the arguments that have very much stuck - the "taking away" of safe spaces for women has now turned into the "taking away" of one's own connection to their gender.

I'll admit, as an afab nb person, I do not like being referred to as a person with a vagina, or a person with a uterus. I especially don't like being referred to it due to my own personal and family history with reproductive health, which I won't go into but has basically been a slew of misdiagnosis and doctors refusing to take proper action in the name of protecting a woman's ability to reproduce, and preventing the removal of the aforementioned reproductive organs. I grit my teeth and bear the label "owners of uteruses" and other such terms, because it's usually a collective term. But I would rather be referred to as a woman, whether or not I feel that I am one, than as a person with a uterus (that I may or may not actually have in future).

Add to that: feminists from the 70s and 80s are keenly aware of the history of dehumanisation that comes from referring to women by their genitals/organs. The woman did write an entire book about a society in which women were reduced to their ability to reproduce. The term "vagina owner" was bound to strike a little close to home.

So yeah, tldr I'd say Atwood has fallen prey to some very compelling terf misinformation, and doesn't even realise she has. (She asserts that the woman who wrote the article above isn't a terf, which... given the defence of JKR, I doubt. This is important. This shows that TERFS have got their points to go mainstream, without being connected to them). Atwood does believe trans women are women and trans men are men, and that nb people (and people in general) have the right to identify however they choose - but she baulks at the idea that she and other women should lose their own connection to womanhood, which especially to someone like her, feels particularly hard-won. In fact, it's a cause she's still fighting for.

so TLDR; terfs are very good at making trans rights, including inclusionary language, seem like an attack on feminism. and if they don't get you one way, they'll get you another way. Which is all the more reason to be well-versed in gender theory, feminist theory, and to actually debate and debunk this shit when you see it, rather than just say "oh, they're a terf, ignore them". because you might be ignoring them, but someone else is probably still listening, and they're only getting one side of the story.

girl help another old white woman spec fic author with decaying relevance is doing the TERF op-eds