#exorsexism is a hell of a drug

[genderkoolaid]

You’re not even trans (as per your header, you’re a female who identifies as a woman) and yet you claim to be part of it so you can force yourself and your “progressive homophobia” on others… look at yourself. You’re not an ally to trans people

babe. you have got to get a hobby that is not sending rambling anon hate to random blogs on tumblr dot com

and while it shouldnt matter. for the record: i do, in fact, Have Dysphoria! i have talked a decent amount on this very blog about my bottom dysphoria and my intense desire for phalloplasty. the reason i am so comfortable calling myself a woman is because i went on testosterone, enjoyed it, and felt comfortable being a woman in a clearly sex-variant body. Even then, I still often want to be read as a queer man (part of why I keep my breasts)!

I am about as much a True™ Transexual™ as you could ask of a nonbinary person. Literally no cis person I interact with IRL reads me as cis. You are grasping at straws to justify your obsession with me.

[yaoipologist]

just wrote a bunch in a google doc about exorsexism (oppression faced by nonbinary and intersex people for those unfamiliar) cause i got mad, but i think one of the worst things about it is that people don’t even think it’s real

and i don’t even mean this from conservatives, who obviously don’t think it’s real, i mean like. from self proclaimed trans activists and feminists i see this stuff!!!

like, how all nonbinary experience is assumed to be able to be subsumed neatly into existing conceptual frameworks of oppression. and when nonbinary people object to this we’re seen as liars and/or naive idiots who can’t understand the Real Issues that women, binary trans people, etc face.

or how increased visibility is seen as a danger to everyone but nonbinary people, who are fine and “collateral damage” when shit like the mass of “anti-they/them” sentiment happens.

or how nonbinary people are assumed to not want or need medical transition, and if we do then we’re assumed to be “aligned” with some sort of binary gender. and if we say we aren’t but still pursue transition, then we’re either perceived as a liar and/or naive idiot again, or we’re basically a binary trans person in denial.

idk, it’s a hell of a drug!!!!

[nothorses]

Hey this is vaguely related to the conversations you were having and I hope you’re ok with me dropping it in your asks. But when I came out as FTM I felt like I was forced to try and fit into this patriarchal idea of cis manhood by others. Like I couldn’t just be a person with a wide array of interests and desires if I wanted to be a man. Even by like, trans allies and other trans people.

I often see even other trans men using toxic masculinity but trying to be “positive” about it like “you aren’t a man unless you are comfortable in femininity or engage in politics this way” or even “do [blank] for these other marginalized communities” boiled down to “repent for being a gender traitor” IMO.

I feel like this sort of thing is tied to this like “binary vs non-binary” in a tangible way. I’m just not sure and I could be wrong and I’m curious about your thoughts. It’s been on my mind for weeks, these kinds of patterns in trans spaces and discussions and I personally have no conjunctive answer.

I think I understand what you're getting at, and I have definitely noticed this kind of thing in my own experiences and relationship to gender. I identified as nonbinary for as long as I did because I legitimately felt pressured to; I was surrounded by people who felt, and implied, and stressed, that masculinity and manhood were bad things & it was somehow morally superior to be nonbinary instead. I was afraid of being, or being seen as, aggressive and dangerous and morally reprehensible, and identifying as nonbinary felt like the Better Thing To Do.

This isn't, like, unique; Baeddels openly believed that this was the better way to go, and/or that nonbinary people were just Secret Trans Men pretending to be "non-men" in order to "avoid accountability":

Which kind of reinforces the myth that Being Nonbinary Is Morally Superior in and of itself: "trans men are just pretending to be nonbinary because it would make them Better People, but we all know that they can't really be nonbinary" is not actually challenging this assumption that being further from manhood would be morally superior. though denying the fact that nonbinary people can exist at all is still incredibly, disgustingly exorsexist.

this line of thinking didn't just come from this one specific strain of radical transfeminism. radfem ideology as a whole is, imo, more like a pink coat of paint on regular-ass cisheteropatriarchy. I think the ways in which radtransfeminism understand trans men and nonbinary people are incredibly indicative of this; trans womanhood has been sort of half-unpacked, but there are still so many deep anxieties around trans men and (some) nonbinary folks "betraying womanhood" and "infiltrating women's spaces", "mutilating" our bodies, etc.

I mean, it's internalized transphobia. my grandma wants to call me "grey" instead of "greyson" for the same reason that my trans ally lesbian peer wants to use "they/them" pronouns for me instead of "he/him": it obfuscates my connection to manhood, and in many ways, my defiance of the gender binary they're comfortable with. it makes my gender identity sort of "uncertain", and positions me a little closer to womanhood. it's more comfortable for them.

when I did identify as nonbinary and use "they/them", I was consistently misgendered as "female". again, I was being nudged back toward womanhood and the identity that was more palatable for others (including some trans people!). I was being nudged back towards the gender binary.

there is clearly also a trend here of nudging nonbinary people back into the binary in the "other" direction: again, the above example of Baeddels insisting that nonbinary people who were AFAB are "actually" trans men. Truscum often believe the same of dysphoric nonbinary people. Baeddels tended to believe that nonbinary people who were AMAB were "actually" trans women in denial, too. Exorsexism is a hell of a drug.

But yeah, I think you're right; I think the common thread between all branches of transphobia is a desire to protect the gender binary, and I think that necessarily problematizes any idea of a socio-politically "binary" trans person.

It's important to understand how exorsexism is unique beyond that, too; there are still differences between the experiences of trans people who do identify exclusively as one "binary" gender, and trans people who don't. I just think the categories are less perfect and binary (lol) than folks tend to think of them.