#i had memoryholed this book and for good reason

[foenixed]

Oh my god I just realised I forgot to talk about The Twelve in my Marvel aro/ace essay oh my goddd that was such a massive oversight but if I wanted to do it justice I'd have to reread The Twelve which I absolutely do not want to do.

[caffeineandsociety]

The thing that gets me about the way trans men are treated on an intracommunity basis is "well, WE (non-transmascs, mostly cis people, I specify because I will NOT have you pinning this primarily on trans women) keep coming up with theories that include you but you just keep saying they're not good enough! How long until You People are satisfied!?"

And like...think about it. In the spaces that tend to do this the most-

We don't declare that the only theory about lesbians that could ever be valid is written by gay men.

We don't declare that Asian trans women have the final say about transmisogynoir.

We, thankfully, acknowledge that queer cis women had more of a role in the AIDS crisis, and were impacted by it more directly, than history books that want to memoryhole the whole thing will admit, but we don't pretend that they are THE authority on what it was like to be a gay man in the 80s.

We don't say that trans women have the most knowledgeable authority on abortion rights.

We don't say that butch lesbians are the ultimate authority on the bear community's history and values.

We don't declare damned near ANY other group to need to have theory about their own lived experience signed off on by someone else, let alone written from scratch without consulting them.

Yes, of course, there are...a handful of people who take these attitudes - and far more for that first one outside of the circles I'm talking about, let me not sound like I'm trying to deny that - but here in the specific queer circles I'm talking about, the Deep Theory Center, the deconstruction crew, the ones who broadly align with queer intersectional feminism - tend to agree that no theory about any queer subgroup is complete without first and foremost centering the lived experience of that group.

But...not trans men. We need to just sit down and shut up and let people TELL us what our lives are like, because we CLEARLY can't be trusted to know.

Which, hmm, feels really familiar to me for some reason....

Like, if I were allowed to say, I'd say it feels really similar to what I experienced growing up being expected to be a girl - sit down, be quiet, be a good girl, the grown-ups are talking, we're talking about REAL issues right now.

But that can't be right! That's not what non-transmascs' theory says! Right?

Surely, I'm imagining things. I'm overreacting to nothing. I'm crazy like your ex-girlfriend. I'm just being, you might say, hysterical.

But it just feels so familiar for SOME reason....

Well, golly gee, I sure do hope some big strong SMART person comes along and tells me what it is, because I clearly can't be trusted to be accurate about ANYTHING I say about my own life, now can I? 🥺 Surely, you shouldn't trust me to have a bank account or vote or drive either, I am too naive to the ways of the world and it's just incurable 🥺 I'm sure I've never heard those claims before for other reasons, I'm sure I'm just imagining things...🥺