#i hate agab language so much

[largemandrill]

I desperately need people to stop saying afab when they just mean cis women. I also (for separate reasons) need them to stop saying “afab trans people” when they just mean trans men they don’t agree with.

[this-is-exorsexism]

I just saw a post about how transmasc and transfem aren't labels you can "opt out of," how if you transition like this then you ARE transmasc and if you transition like that then you ARE transfem, whether you like it or not. Because it's just a "fact" about your transition, not an identity.

And it just made me so sad. I'm transneutral. Sure, my transition might look binary to an outside observer. Yeah, people might look at me now and see me as far more masculine than I was before I transitioned. But that's other people. Not me.

Does this count as exorsexism? I feel like it does but I'm also worried that they're right, and maybe my identity is offensive and maybe I AM lying for not calling myself transmasc. I don't know. I just feel really bad and insecure right now.

this is exorsexism.

through and through.

i'm assuming this post was by a trans person, because cis people tend to be less educated about trans terminology in the first place, and will often just parrot whatever is popular but not think of it any further.

a lot of trans people, even some nonbinary people, seem to be really invested in upholding the gender binary in its various forms. "these are the two options you have, and you cannot be neither" is just gender binary 2.0.

people want to group especially nonbinary people by our AGAB, because a lot of people can't handle the fact that us simply saying "i'm nonbinary" doesn't give them any information about our AGAB, about "where we came from" the way that "trans woman" or "trans man" does. never mind the fact that some intersex people who were (c)afab are trans women and some intersex people who were (c)amab are trans men, but these people usually aren't just exorsexist, they're intersexist too. if the term "trans woman" doesn't necessarily tell you what gender someone was assigned at birth anymore, apparently the term loses all its meaning, since everything hinges on AGAB... somehow. but i digress.

and people have definitely started using transmasculine and transfeminine as "acceptable" shorthands for AGAB language, whether they admit it or not. if you were afab, your only options are cis woman, trans man or transmasculine nonbinary, and if you're transmasculine nonbinary we treat you like a man anyway, and vice versa for amab folk.

bonus points if it all hinges on transition steps, i.e. if you were amab and take oestrogen, you're automatically transfem regardless of how you identify (and if you don't take enough transition steps you're basically cis anyway - their line of thinking, not mine).

because we're definitely dismantling cissexism by still acting as if hormones are inherently masculine or feminine. we're definitely deconstructing the gender binary by just changing the words from male and female to transmasc and transfem. (heavy sarcasm)

so much of it goes back to people really just upholding cissexism and the binary, probably without even realising it. by saying it's about "what we were born as" or about how we transition, people are just using the same violence on nonbinary people as cis people use on all trans people. just because cis people assume you're masculine, trans people somehow think it's what you want and do it as well.

transmasc and transfem nonbinary people obviously exist. it's part of many people's identity. others actually do just use the term as a shorthand to what they're transitioning from, where they're transitioning to, how they're transitioning, certain experiences of transmisia, etc. and that's fine - if you use it like that for yourself and don't force it onto others.

and people also love framing words that have a heavy nonbinary association as somehow offensive, dirty or otherwise bad. people will go so far to avoid saying the word "nonbinary", they hate the word "enby", in fact, they hate when we have any term that is more specific than nonbinary, and they also hate our trans- terms, be it transneutral, transandrogynous or the many others. they really hate when we're actually somewhat equal.

[evilwickedme]

When I was in twelvth grade my school brought in a trans man to talk about his experience and I wanted him to know so bad that I had changed my name and that I accepted him and I was weirdly jealous in a way I did not understand bc I was perfectly happy being a teenage girl, right? In eleventh grade I decided I wouldn't shave my legs for a year because I was sick of beauty standards and then my dad time me I was hairier than him so obviously there was something wrong and when I got diagnosed with pcos my parents dragged me to laser hair removal, and then reminded me I needed to keep going every few months. I kept going, even though I hated it. I miss my leg hair. When I was 15 I changed my name. When I was 18 I shaved my all the hair on my head off even though I'd always loved my curls because they were too damaged to deal with anymore, and when a haredi man approached me to ask me if I wanted to put on tefillin, mistaking me for a boy, I spent the rest of the week strangely giddy and entirely unable to take it out of my mind, even though he'd immediately taken it back. I used to say before I came out as bi that I was an ally and didn't want to speak over queer voices, and I said the same thing about trans people, but I kept feeling like I had some much to say, like this mattered in ways I couldn't put into words. I've wanted a hysterectomy for years, and was devastated to learn it's incredibly unlikely that a doctor would agree to perform the procedure, since I was a young woman.

I thought, again and again, about that man. He thought he was a lesbian for the longest time. He used to avoid gendering himself, even in an incredibly gendered language, had gotten so used to it it came naturally. His partner considered herself a lesbian, except for him. I didn't know how to feel about that. What does it mean to keep your identity static when the people you love change around you. Is it easy to accept?

I changed my pronouns to she/they, then they/them, then in Hebrew I said please pick either she/her or he/him but stick to one or the other, then I said stick with he/him in Hebrew, then I switched to they/he. I said I was a demigirl, then I said I was nonbinary but didn't feel comfortable being called trans, then I started applying the trans umbrella to myself, then I said was transmasc. Around me so many of my friends were transitioning, mtf, ftm, exploring using gender neutral pronouns before settling back on their agab, exploring gender neutral pronouns and stopping there. A friend of mine told me that they were jealous of me because I was so sure of my identity as a person in their early twenties, while they were thirty and only just discovering themself. Did I know my identity? I wasn't sure. Another friend told me, they're currently nonbinary but they could see a future where they detransition. I cannot understand why my mtf friend was so sure she's a girl, when I didn't know, I had no clue, I didn't know where to go from here.

I thought of that man again.

I wanted to take my tits off and put them back on again and take them off again, just to see how it felt. I bought a binder, I told my parents it's just to fit into my button up shirts. I hadn't worn a dress or a skirt since the year after I graduated high school. I stopped wearing bras. I wore a button up shirt and a blazer whenever I could. I tried to find myself in the performance of gender.

I changed my named when I was just about to turn to fifteen, and a teacher followed me from middle school to high school, and she asked me if I was still going by that, cause she wasn't sure if I'd meant it, if it would've stuck. It stuck for ten years, even as I asked myself, is this really what I want? Is this my name? Would it be okay if I changed my name again, is it allowed? I told everyone who'd listen it's okay to changed your name for any reason, at any time.

I don't remember that man's name. I don't remember most of his story. I remember picturing him walking around, remember wishing I could pretend I wasn't a girl just for an evening. I wanted...

Well.

[transgenderpolls]

I also want to say this as a transmasculine nonbinary person that I’ve seen a LOT of trans men be uncomfortable with the term being universalised to include them. Transmasculine started out as a nonbinary label (I think, I could be mixed up) that described enben who were transitioning to a more masculine point instead of a neutral one. Obviously trans men can use transmasculine if they feel like it fits, but still I think it’s best to not just lump us together with the label because there are so many trans men who aren’t comfortable with it (I’ve actually seen a lot of people saying that it straight up makes them dysphoric because they take it as being seen as less of a man)

Same goes for non-transmasculine afab nonbinary people— there’s actually a lot of people calling to just get rid of the terms because they see it as just an indicator of agab. I’ve actually encountered more transneutral afab enben who hate being called transmasculine than I have trans men who hate it. It makes sense, the entire point for transneutral enben is transitioning to some sort of complete middle, or outside of gender alltogether, and aligning them with a specific gender is not only just incorrect but also very uncomfortable and dysphoria inducing for a lot of them. A lot of people also really don’t like the idea of t being ‘transmasculine transition’, which I totally get because I feel the same way when someone says that t is inherently ‘male transition’

(btw this is all stuff I’ve heard from these groups, I’m not just saying what I think goes through their heads or anything)

On a personal note, I also don’t like the universalisation of it because it feels like aligned enben can’t really have a term to describe ourselves— like, being a transmasc or transfem nonbinary person is a very complicated experience, most of us really struggle with this sort of balancing act of androgyny and maleness/femaleness, we’re like an in-beteeen of an in-between and it’s really fucking hard to deal with. It would just be nice if we could have our own label and space to discuss it and help each other with it. But I also get that now a lot of trans men resonate with the term and it would very much be a dick move to just say ‘nope, you can’t use this anymore, fuck you lol’, like, no

idk, I think about this a lot and the topic comes up quite frequently so I have a lot to say on it, but I can’t exactly articulate it, so I hope this made sense sorry

if anyone has sources to show otherwise i'd be happy to see them but i've always been under the impression that "transmasc(uline)" and "transfem(inine)" were umbrella terms first and foremost, with origins in the world of medical transitioning, particularly HRT, that sought specifically to include non-binary people and therefore not imply that everyone going through [medical] masculinization or feminization necessarily identifies as a man or a woman. whether the end goal is conceptualized by the individual as a masc/fem role, it's just a matter of having useful, succinct language to describe shared experience. i really don't see it as denoting agab any more than the term "trans man/woman" does. like if you really are not comfortable denoting your agab at all, it sounds like you're not comfortable talking about being trans period.

as for the binary trans men who hate it i'm gonna be real, i cannot comprehend being mad about someone using an umbrella term simply to address you and others who have significant things in common with you in one breath. i'm a binary trans man and i won't lie, i have had my phase of whining about being "lumped in with non binary people," but like... that's what it was. it was a phase that i'm over because i've grown up and now realize that it doesn't actually dilute my identity to simply have things in common with other people. it would be like a square being mad about being called a rectangle because "you're erasing the fact that i am SPECIFICALLY a square!" literally no, no one is erasing anything. especially not in the context of a poll that's just trying to not draw really arbitrary lines, and which you also literally don't have to answer.

i think it's completely valid to be made dysphoric or uncomfortable by any terminology, but there's a point at which you kind of have to accept that that is a you thing? if a term's literal function is to be inclusive and you feel excluded somehow bc you don't like that you're not being acknowledged as fundamentally different than the others who that term applies to... like i'm sorry, that's kind of ridiculous. you have to accept that it's ridiculous and not anyone else's problem.

also i truly think that if it's coming to contentions such as "just because i'm a man doesn't mean i'm masculine" or ppl otherwise trying to draw hard lines between masc and man/male as definitions... i truly think you are just trying to make this more complicated than it is. like we do need words to describe things, lol.

in any case my thing - at least on this blog - is always gonna be in the context of making polls. firstly i'm working with a character and option limit. secondly, the questions being asked make it sometimes relevant to use some terms that lump groups together, denote agab, etc. the more i think about it, i don't think there's going to be a solution that satisfies everyone, and i also don't think that there's a huge problem with that.

(btw none of this is directed at anon, you articulated yourself fine, i'm just jumping off of your talking points)

edit: irt anon not liking the universalization of "transmasc" - it just occurred to me, would "transmasc nonbinary" not simply work? like it seems to me that you just need to add the word nonbinary and now you're gucci

[polyamorouspunk]

Fully agree with you on the trans thing. It’s something I struggled with for a LONG time that I didnt *want* to be fully 100% trans. Like I fit in with trans people, I was transmasc, but I never felt *trans*. If that makes any sense??

People used to tell me all the time that I had to be trans if I checked xyz boxes. And I hated it. Now, years later, I’ve made it to a point that I just *am*. And it took me SO LONG to realize that was even an option. To just be myself without putting a label on it. I dont need to be fully cis or fully trans. Im just a little bit of everything and fully me.

It still confuses my queer friends. That I just *do not* care and dont put any importance on it. So its nice to see someone else with that opinion. Thank you

Yes!

Listen like I do not care if people reblog my posts and disagree with me. Like that’s you’re right as an individual. But what I don’t like is when I make a post talking about my identity and someone “corrects” me on it.

The problem with the push to be super inclusive, sometimes, is that people stop making it about who *wants* to be a part and who doesn’t.

I know people who are gay men who have 0 interest in being part of the LGBTQ+ community. Gay men who are like I’m not queer I’m not part of the community I’m just gay but I’m not identifying with the community in any way.

I know people who have described their “gender” to me almost verbatim the way that trans people have described to me their gender and have told me they do not consider themselves trans in any way, and it kind of sucks because I’m like… I know that if I were someone else they might put that label on that person even if that person doesn’t want it?

I’ve had people ON THIS BLOG send me asks telling me I am not trans and other people send me asks saying I’m not cis. Like lmao it’s so fucking funny pick one you guys. I gotta be one or the other- SIKE no I don’t. I’ve had people dump me over saying “I’m both cis and trans” which in hindsight seems kinda ableist because that was actually when I started IDing as plural so like. The idea you can’t be both is like. You know there are people with different experiences than you right. Like some common enough to be in textbooks. Not like some “out there” concepts like if you can grasp the concept of DID you can understand how perhaps to some degree a person can be different than their literal AGAB without being trans. Just for one example.

Sometimes I also fail to realize this but. When you reblog someone’s post, or comment on it, or send them an ask, etc… you are coming into THEIR space. I mean it very much went through my mind to be like “just ignore it” but I was like someone is coming onto MY post where I try and validate MY gender experiences and telling me people like ME are quite literally exactly what I’m talking about where I’m like actually I’m valid if I’m a little trans and outright saying “YOU AREN’T A LITTLE TRANS UWU” like. Hi it’s you you’re the problem you’re the people I’m validating myself to. Like I don’t care how politely and nicely you try and dress it up with inclusive language do not put me into a box I do not want to be put in because you think “that I have to be trans because I check xyz boxes” yeah literally. I know fully cis people who check “xyz boxes” and I ain’t out here telling them that actually they’re trans and valid for it. Like bro if you tell me you’re cis who am I to disagree.

In the near future you’ll never hear the words “I’m transgender” come out of my mouth directly. I might post it on here or say irl that I “dabble in transgenderism” but I do not outright say irl in person that I am transgender not because I’m “dealing with internalized transphobia” and “not ready to fully accept myself to be transgender in the real world instead of just offline” like no I just don’t ID as “transgender” period. Or you know what maybe I am but also who are you to say that’s what I am? How are you helping exactly? How is acting like I can’t “really accept myself for who I truly am” helping me any? Idk. Just because you have good intentions doesn’t make it better than the people who have bad intentions. Both are issues. Both are problematic.

Learn to go “actually it’s not my fucking business if someone is trans or cis or neither” and “they can call themselves whatever they want” and that includes NOT wanting to be included.

[anti-transphobia]

I do feel bad having a lot of reblogs centering around transmasc issues specifically and not more posts about transfem and nonbinary people, but unfortunately, repulsive lateral violence is the current discourse, which means that a lot of posts made about those issues are said BECAUSE "who is actually the most oppressed" is the current topic of discussion. So even posts that seem normal or even agreeable have language you have to look suspiciously at and when you check op you do in fact find that those posts about transmisogyny are because they got mad trans men are speaking up about the violence they face.

It's very similar to how ace discourse was. Completely normal seeming posts, in the context of a really bad couple of years where saying you're ace/aro publicly even once led to getting anon hate, were actually criticisms of the idea that other people face hardships. Hell, though people scoffed at it when I said it, even completely unrelated FANDOM posts could be clocked as being made by someone whose current fixation is hating on aspec people by the way they keysmashed. Because it wasn't just a discourse, but like a fandom, and fandoms follow quirks and trends and I could read it in a keysmash easily, check their blogs, confirm I was right, and block.

Anyway my point being that the issues, general and more specific, faced by non-transmasc trans people INCLUDING those issues caused by other trans ppl is EXTREMELY important to me, however I just unfortunately don't see a lot of people talking about it in good faith. And hell, me talking about my experiences about how afab trans people have harassed, sexually assaulted, misgendered, body shamed me, and leveraged their agab specifically to harm and exclude me for not being like them is something that I can't talk about without worry of it coming off as "trans men are evil". That's just the current culture. A reasonable worry of a post sounding like thinly veiled transphobia is silencing victims of the thing these transmasc oppression deniers claim to hate.

Anyway I definitely do reblog good posts like that when I see em but I'm really not on Tumblr much anymore

[ghostcrows]

i know ive made like seventy goddam posts about it...but i have still been ruminating like a mother fucker about like...trans gender issues

as you do

i want to listen to trans women right i dont want to be transmisogynistic and i keep on seeing that there are trans guys who are out of their minds high on terf fumes (whether they realize it or not), although ive known that already bc theres always been trans guys who want...whatever they think they get out of clinging to gender essentialism and the remnants of their claims to womanhood. radfem pussy from a female born womyn that hates you i guess

i also do want people to not brush aside transmasc issues as like, not real, or saying well you're a man arent you, so like, shut up and go get that privilege, that conditional privilege, that highly situational privilege, that goes away in dire straits situations such as um, medical environments....or to like treat us with disdain, or as a joke, which is what i see much more often than pure vitriol (its just like, funny to people to be a trans guy. a little too funny too often)

but we also have to recognize that many of the things we go through closely mirror transfem experiences - even if not all of them do, a lot of them do, and we aren't the sole understanders of trans oppression or misogynistic oppression, thats kind of like, the point right. it is not an inherently ~afab~ burden

i think its fair to want a word that doesnt step on anybodys toes that accurately describes our unique experiences with being treated poorly instead of vaguely gesturing to transphobia in a broad sense- we have consistently failed to find this ... theres a point i keep seeing that i agree with that we shouldnt scrutinize transfems who dont use absolutely perfect language to describe their experiences, i think that should probably also be true for transmascs, but we also do keep choosing like absolutely dogshit terms so...idk? the only one ive seen thats any good is "anti transmasculinity" ive also seen transandrosmia(sp?) but i dont know what that means and it seems to be just trying to replace the root words in transandrophobia/transmisandry. which to be fair was the main hangup because of the implications, to my understanding, but ...im not sure about it

i also see a lot of accusations towards either group that we "just see each other as our agab" which is like, in my opinion, true in the sense that everyone has ingrained transphobic beliefs from living in a deeply transphobic world, and you have to unlearn both the internalized forms and the externalized forms...you have to choose every day to continue to unlearn that stuff, catch yourself. even if you think youve done all the work i mean, no one ever truly has - but also like. so much of this stems from pure insecurity. not only "no one sees me as i am" but also "the 'other' gender has it better in some way" being very mch a thing trans people are inclined to feeling, even after they transition i dont think that always goes away, thats why you see like, someone saying "i hate my agab body" and someone else goes "ugh i WISH i had your body id be so lucky to have your body". absolute last thing that person probably wants to hear but you sometimes feel it anyway

and then like, at the end of the day, i dont feel like any of the ppl leading this current "crusade" are actually people who have a full picture...and i dont think i do either, like, so much of this is online for me, i have to wonder what other people are going through. i overall wish i knew more trans people in real life, i definitely wish i had more transfem friends irl, i know a handful of transmascs irl and that was a freak accident bc we all went to school together. if not for that i'd know basically no one trans near me. tho i have seen more people in public more often but i never say anything cuz im scared -_-

yeah....dk how to end this post. well bye

[aromantisk-fagforening]

based take:

afab/amab language for bodily features is explicitly exclusionary [not my original]

I know I've already hated on the terms before, but they can never be hated too much tbh.

But yeah, this was a reply with context so yeah basically it's about how gender affirming care and intersex variations exist. Like people use "afab"/"amab" to mean:

"person who was assigned [insert sex] at birth, lived as a [insert gender associated with that sex] (was treated completely as one, no one figured out they were trans if applicable, experienced [gendered] Socialization ™), experienced a traditional [insert sex] puberty, has not medically transitioned, may or may not be trans (incl nonbinary)".

(this is my definition, based on observations from conversations. Feel free to dispute or add to it)

And half of those things may not apply to the people you're actually referring to when saying "amabs" or "afabs" or "amab nonbinary people" or "trans afab people in the us" etc. experience / experienced / know how much [effect of puberty] sucks / are affected by this law / etc

[small disclaimer at the end that this mostly applies to universal claims (not "many", but "all", and "the", not "some"). And it doesn't apply at all for personal identification. But in general I urge you to use specific terms, or in by another method avoid such binaries. Or just not specify who it applies to. ]

another addition: don't refer to people you don't know if are comfortable with it as "agab".

[blinkbats]

Ok so your tags got me thinking. I have said “i am a woman” and i also hate how women are perceived, and being perceived as a woman. Does hating being perceived as a woman make me less a woman or more a man or not a woman entirely? That on the face of it seems false but it also looks like what I would be saying if I said I was genderqueer for this feeling. Would that make woman the status of being down with being perceived “like how woman are perceived”…? Despite that being a recursive statement. If so is sexism “caused by” people identifying as women in part? Like if we didn’t identify as women that would constitute not perpetuating the sexist cycle with our own self belief (about womanly roles) and so to identify with woman or man itself is sexist(??) regardless of agab. Gah it’s all so mystifying in the worst emptiest way. I think I might just check out and focus on math. Where shit makes sense and is useful to me.

Thats the thing is I don't think gender is like math at all I think it's a very vague thin silly thing like we made it up. It's the same as language you can make up new rules if you want or drop them entirely it's up to you to figure out the way you wanna move through the world. I don't know about the sexism part of it tho unfortunately I haven't spent nearly as much time thinking abt that over the years but I do think both men and women would benefit from freeing themselves AND each other from the strict concepts of man or woman and perception thereof. I can't do math at all btw I checked out in like 5th grade but have fun with um. What's a math word. Graphs and polynomials or whatever.

[commodorknotanymorrington]

I hate agab language so much watch me just start saying I'm amab when I get bottom surgery this summer to fuck with ppl who use that shit in situations it doesn't need to be used in

[icaruskey]

My sleep meds haven't kicked in yet and I want to take a crack at this.

You're never gonna understand transphobia until you realize that the vast majority of it is abou trans women.

Incredibly narrow viewpoint, completely ignores how C/AFAB folks are almost always discussed as the lost lesbian trope, thus making it very easy for almost everyone to miss that we're being talked about at all. Meanwhile C/AMAB folks who are not trans women get lumped in with trans women if they're considered sufficiently femme presenting enough. Or don't exist at all. Which is worse.

So, in a word, this is factually incorrect when you actually look at what TERFs say. JKR is a prime example. Literally half of her manifesto is about trans men. Her mask off moment was about gender neutral language around menstruation. Unless I massively missed something, she didn't bring up trans women in the latter topic specifically until it came to defining womenhood.

In almost all the rhetoric, trans women are the targets, trans men and non-binary folk are the collateral damage.

Provably wrong. But cite your sources and I can go through them.

I'm not saying either experience is better or worse. They both suck in unique ways.

The "but" is implied. But yes, hypervisibility and hyperinvisibility are both terrible. Especially when the latter means you can't even get proper statistics about hate crimes about your own demographic because they get reported as violence against your AGAB instead.

You won't ever see trans men accused of transitioning to indulge in some "sick fetish."

Every trans man unironically called a fujoshi would like a word with you. Just because there's not a fancy sounding pseudo-intellectual word for it doesn't mean that this doesn't exist.

And just because you immediately dropped nonbinary people: AMAB nonbinary people.

Trans men don't get accused of transitioning to access male spaces (even though that's where all the power is).

Not only is this funny because it's so clearly wrong (the whole GC thing being trans men wanting to become men to access power and escape womanhood which she later addresses in her own way later) but also lately there's been this weird idea of "AFAB privilege" going around on tumblr. Because pointing out that being a non-passing trans man or growing up as a woman means you're familiar with female oppression and can still be attacked for "being" a woman is... a privilege I guess.

Conversely, trans men get a patronizing empathy that trans women never receive.

I want to point out how OOP is framing this as a positive. It's a positive that we're getting patronized.

But guys, mansplaining is bad because it's patronizing, remember?

If TERFs treated me like a trans man, they'd tell me how sad it is that I found manhood so restrictive that I couldn't live within it. They'd pity me for falling prey to "gender ideology."

And if they can't convince you back into the closet, they'll demonize you, call you a gender traitor, set people on you, isolate their children away from you, and wish death upon you.

If TERFs treated me like a trans man, they'd see me as a victim, not a threat.

Until they decided their precious baby girl experimenting with her gender identity is a result of ROGD from being exposed to you, and then you're the villain and deserve to go to hell.

Transphobes mourn infertile wombs and removed breasts, but they mock neo vaginas and breast augmentation.

I can promise you that male transphobes have extremely visceral reactions to the thoughts of a trans woman removing her penis.

And at least there's a wealth of knowledge about transitioning MtF. I didn't even know that T wouldn't make me properly infertile and isn't a good means of bc if I was interested in sex.

Also you realize that the "mourning" is just as much a mockery and just as cruel as what you experience? You said these are equally bad but the way you're framing your argument, trans men get off light.

And I have to repeat, you mentioned nonbinary folks and immediately dropped them. And there's even more complexity when we talk about intersex and coercive gender assignment and modification...

Trans men ask to be included in these conversations, and then trans women get accused of erasing women. We have no personal stake in abortions, no prominent voice. Still, we get demonized, whilst trans men still get ignored.

Then how about instead of whining, you use your voice and platform to uplift the voices that matter in said conversations?

Trans women are still the target, defying all logic.

So are other trans people, but TERFs and transphobes can't call trans men men because that implies we have power and autonomy.

Sorta like how when there's intra-community fighting, we're labelled as men and it's forgotten that we are trans too (and not all of us are actually men).

Meds are kicking in. Night

What the hell is this thread that I came across

A classic sentiment ofc but the replies really show how much the community is blind to/ignores VERY COMMON acts of transphobia to transmascs.

“You won’t ever see trans men accused of transitioning to indulge some “sick fetish””

Gay trans men face literally face that all the damn time.

“Trans men don’t get accused of transitioning to access male spaces”

This is a joke right?

This part of the thread is op having no clue of the extremity of infantilization. Terms believing transmascs shouldn’t have their own bodily autonomy is not “empathy”, it’s viewing transmascs as less than and thus incapable of making their own decisions.

“They mourn infertile wombs and removed breast”

yeah whilst ridiculing phalloplasty and top surgery. And even if it was just mourning and no mocking, that is still just as bad. They’re mourning our infertile wombs because to them, we’re not accessible baby factories anymore, and with no breast, we’re not sexually appealing anymore. Again downplaying ensues.

Yea trans women are accused of erasing women, but here’s a shocker, SO ARE TRANS MEN, CONSTANTLY. Every time we ask to be included, we’re told to shut up. To me op is just living in their own world and refuses to step out of their echo chamber or something because this is one of the most ridiculous threads I’ve come of cross.

Viewing the oppression of trans men and trans women in this binary mindset is ridiculous. “Trans men ONLY get infantilized and trans women ONLY get demonized”

“Trans men ONLY get “empathy”, and trans women ONLY get mocked”.

The lack of nuance kills me

[doriana-gray-games]

If it`s a strange question, feel free to ignore it. Heads up, English is not my first language. You said that Sherlock`s gender will affect the gameplay, right? I have a thought or two about fem mc, but nothing on nb one. Will we be able to experience "misgendering" of some sorts? Yes, we were referred as "Ser" so far, but considering the time period we are bound to have some...episodes: Sir/Madam may appear (or Sherlock`s agab may pop up in general), some prejudice towards such people,etc.

Not a strange question at all! ☺️

This is similar to the topic I discussed the other day, in that, I still have decisions to make about it and nothing is completely decided yet. As the game is written right now, which I only did because that’s how I saw most games I played handle it, is that nb characters are treated very “unrealistically” for 1800s London. Meaning that, they are always referred to correctly or vaguely by NPCs. Which is probably not how Victorians would act. Most content right now is the same as either the man/woman Sherlock versions, with some light variations sometimes. So far the story doesn’t have as much unique nonbinary Sherlock content as I might like.

I would say I’m leaning towards changing that. Making the nb experience more “realistic”, include more unique content / references, but the problem with that is it comes with some negatives.

My idea was that I could add an option that was something like: you were born male/female? But you are neither (or something else—still working on it). And so some NPCs might misgender you, or ask for your preference, or be unsure what to say at all. If I did that I think it could make internal story logical sense to add more unique content around the player being nonbinary, as it would already be a topic that NPCs would bring up. But also, some players very much dislike, or feel really bad, when misgendered in a game. So it’s… hard, to decide. No matter what I do, quite a few people will hate it :(

One fix to it all would be to include everything, and to separate pronouns from nonbinary expression, and ask if the player wants to always be correctly gendered. I know that is what would be best. And I would like to make everyone happy. But I just, I think I would get owerwhelmed, to be completely honest. The games is complex as it is, especially juggling how NPCs treats the player in such instances, and I think I would be in danger of putting too much on my shoulders should I attempt it all.

As an aside, If i decide to add the more complex/”realistic” nonbinary game variant I would like to add the option for Watson to be nonbinary too. It’s something I’ve thought quite a bit about. But it would also be something that will be implemented later rather than sooner, and I can’t make any promises.

So, again, your opinions are always important to me. If you feel you are an affected player in this, know that commenting or sending me a message (anonymous or not) definitely sways my decisions. (Especially if cordial).

(Also: When I used ser I meant it to be non-gendered, I googled quite a bit to find some good non-gendered titles, but perhaps I was mistaken)

[westcoastbroadway]

starship is a trans allegory: a masterpost

this will be long as shit and i'll probably condense and clean up my thoughts later but for now

lets get cracking

right off the bat, bug discovers a different way of life complete with language that his world doesn't understand, especially through the internet

as all the bugs talk about their jobs and future, they all talk about what they want to DO, but bug talks about what he wants to BE. they want to do various things but his dream is to be someone else fundamentally

tell me you don't see the parallels between the way farm planet lets you name yourself after things you like and how trans/nonbinary people usually pick new names for themselves

you could parallel being trans with wanting to be a starship ranger pretty easily but then bug literally says "there's no choice involved in what you are given/one mind, one voice, one body to live in"

homeslice literally wants a new body what more do you need

just kidding we're going to keep going

"who are they to say what I am?"

"my name's bug" "like a bUG?" "...no." vehemently denying that your name is a "AGAB" name

also just the general plot line "february has never seen bug's body and thus thinks he's a human" and he doesn't know how to tell her that that's not his "natural state" or however you wanna put it

"oh bug, you're a real man" "...I sure am"

"you sure are a beautiful woman" "incorrect statement" "you don't think you're beautiful? :(" "I am not a woman" nonbinary megagirl rights

"sometimes I don't feel very much like a man..." also nonbinary tootsie noodles rights

this is the biggest reason: to achieve his goal, bug has to physically alter his body. he can't become a starship ranger without transitioning

again, repeating "there's no choice involved in what you are given/one mind, one voice, one body to live in"

and the repetition emphasizes that being a starship ranger = being a human/transitioning because the "you wanna be a starship ranger" motif comes in immediately afterwards

i mean like all of status quo

but also specifically "to always be a starship ranger/it's everything, it's everything i am"

again, the other people view their jobs as just that, jobs. but bug sees it as his core identity

okay so bug becomes a starship ranger and by all accounts he should be totally happy and vibing but no because he feels like he's lying to february since he wasn't always a human

the conflict once again doesn't stem solely from bug wanting to be a ranger, it also stems from his physical transition to get there

and how many trans ppl can relate to the "i know they love me now but they hate trans ppl so if I came out it'd ruin our relationship"? bc replace trans w bug and that's exactly what's happening

like "you're perfect and wonderful how I hoped you'd be/but it's really enough for you to be just a human being/and I know you'll agree that's all we need/to make all our dreams come true"

also, i loVE that they directly parallel commander up who has explicitly undergone changes to his body (not even considering that he's lost parts of his body that are often directly conflated with gender identity) to bug here

"what if someone likes you, a lot, but they only like you because everything they know about you is a lie?" "so this is about me...and how i've been lying to you",,, could it be more explicit

like of all the injuries Up could have gotten, he literally lost the one thing that transphobes and much of cis society says is what makes you a man

and then Up saying that if bug can accept him, february can accept bug aww

+ february "irreconcilably" hating bugs

tootsie changing his last name to megagirl :')

bug's confession that pincer helped him switch bodies and thus he is not a starship ranger bc being a ranger is inextricably bound to physical form in his eyes

+ everyone turning on him just like he feared they would

"i used to think that i was the proof you didn't need the balls to be tough, but now I know...you, you are the proof"

"why did you lie to me bug?" "...when pincer here gave me the chance not just to be with you but to be one of you? I took it. but i didn't think, because being a starship ranger has been the only thing i've wanted more than anything my whole life"

"So i lied"

"I know the truth now, everybody. I'm not a starship ranger. I'm a bug"

"bug, you may be a damn bug, but you are the finest starship ranger I have ever seen" and finally bug can see that no matter what he is he can still be a ranger

and then at the end he gets a modified job that he can still do as a bug

"well I thought I hated bugs, but there's one that makes me feel like I'm more than I ever thought I could be" "it's that bastard pincer isn't it?"

cause this is where starship differs from the little mermaid which it's loosely based on. ariel gets to keep her legs, but bug has to stay a bug. yet february and his friends love him anyway.

eep op ork this show i stg

[lizardsfromspace]

For a great example of how this kind of cultic thinking crumbles when challenged by the slightest bit of reality, look no further than this (sorry this is a deep dive)

A claim is made within the circle: trans men love being called AFABs actually, because it furthers their devious plot to make people think trans women are more privileged.

So when this crosses outside of the circle...

I mean...yeah. What the fuck are they talking about? There aren't any transmasc people who loveeeeeee to be misgendered because it'll own transfemme people, somehow.

How do they respond to this?

Insisting they've totally seen it and you're deflecting if you deny "afab-solidarity" (a term that goes undefined)

Btw, in a sublime piece of projection, this group simultaneously accuses their opponents of being obsessed with assigned gender at birth, and brings up AGAB constantly. Because, well, it's a way to stealth misgender people. But it is weird to have people venting about being called AMAB and AFAB while constantly calling other people AMAB and AFAB. They accuse their enemies of dividing the community with "discourse", while they're responsible for turning everything into discourse

And by pleas about how hard spaces can be for trans women. Which...has nothing to do with whether transmasc people love being misgendered. That claim is never addressed beyond "I totally saw it bro" - but even then, one person doesn't prove all the transmascs in the world, again, love to be misgendered to spite trans women for no reason

Here's where I mention that the controversy that prompted this....has NO TRANSMASC PEOPLE INVOLVED. It springs from two tweets about "AFAB-only" housing, one from someone who doesn't use masculine pronouns, and one from a straight-up TERF whose pinned tweet is about how she wants to ban pornography. Trans men are not involved at any stage of this, but they're so obsessed with them and so committed to them as the boogeyman du jour that they're...linking the tweets not by transmasc people, and maintaining it represents transmasc people, somehow? So many tweets and threads and new additions to the mythology, so much anger and harassment, and the group they're attacking had nothing to do with what they're angry about

This is almost all of their lore and almost all of their outrages, by the way; you'll see them in a frenzy of tweet after tweet after tweet about how pervasive and evil something is, and if you try to follow it back to the source, it's usually some random tweet with four likes. Most of them aren't even reacting to the original message, though, just other people's overwrought anger at it.

The plea to "ask some transfems about it" gets at how cultic this is, bc they mean to imply all transfems agree with this. The voice of this weird anti-transmasc backlash is the voice of all trans women in their eyes

Anyway, speaking in my official capacity as a trans woman, people like this are a stupid, divisive cult, who are trapped in an endless outrage loop that convinces them fellow trans people are their enemies and it's righteous to hate them. They are the most useful idiots imaginable to actual transphobes.

(though, presumably, any trans women who don't agree are either lying, or tragically silenced victims who secretly agree but are too afraid to say so)

Their language is insular. Consider this tweet, by one of the most prolific quotemakers of the movement

What does this mean? "Transfeminized debt" is a term unfamiliar to me. Let's google it and...

All of the results are either tweets by her, or citing tweets by her. The meaning seems to be amorphous, an idea that transfemmes have to "pay back" their debt for having it so good, or are punished for having a backbone, or it's a synonym for transphobic exclusion, or...I...have no idea what it means. It seems to mean whatever it needs to mean. Sometimes it's a rather useless word for things we already have words for; sometimes it's maybe touching on a real phenomenon; but mostly, it's just another word to throw at people when they criticize you online.

55 retweets, one reply. Guess what it says

Apparently, it's "a great example of most transfems become societal and existential deconstructivists due to being subject of so many oppression catch-22s". Which really just underlines the point that this is gibberish, a mix of misused words from theory & inscrutable in-group words of no real fixed meaning, attached to a thread of generic notes on oppression as a concept. "Pretentious" is a largely meaningless word, but this really is pretentious - it uses a lot of words to disguise that it's not really saying anything at all, words said by people who have replaced actual ideas and knowledge of the world with wisdom gleaned from angry tweets by other people who have replaced their thoughts with angry tweets

But their word-coinings don't stop there! Their most famous piece of verbiage is "theyfab", whose utility is twofold:

It's a filtering effect; it makes sure anybody who doesn't know what that means, or is put off by it, or is insufficiently Online moves along. In almost every thread on this topic, I found more than one person asking "what are you talking about?"; a ratio of many retweets, but largely confused replies is common

It's bait: it's a insult for non-binary and transmasc people the user doesn't like, but for some reason instead of owning that fact they mock people mercilessly when they process the intended meaning as the meaning. Everyone upset by the word they designed to upset them is just another entry in their endless list of Things Our Enemies Have Said You Must Hate. They can claim it has a secret consistent meaning, but, well, it seems to have an inconsistent secret consistent meaning

I don't know if there's a term for this sort of thing and tbf they're such a minor phenomenon at this point. Their frenzied mythmaking about their mostly imaginary foe, ever-denser slang, and hostility to the uninitiated will only drive them further from normal, reality-dwelling people over time. But as origins for odd social media groups go, people inventing a conspiracy theory from a few tweets they don't like by transmasc people is certainly one of them

Anyway I guess over on Twitter everything's currently dominated by that weird cultish group of trans women who obsessively document how trans men are "oppressing" them or whatever. I don't know what they're angry about but I'm assuming it's one weirdo they've declared represents all trans men since that's literally all their outrages ever. Mocking fellow trans people for interpreting the slur you made up to use on them as a slur sure seems like a waste of time to me, something you'd have to be a discourse-obsessed loser to think was useful in 2023, but they also tell young trans people to see other trans people as potential enemies and trust only them to be The Voice of All Trans Women, so uhhhh they suck?

[not-a-space-alien]

It's bizarre listening to cishet feminists complain about how newfangled gender-neutral terms and the word "cisgender" have been invented and pushed onto women exclusively as a form of misogyny and stripping away their identity. I even heard someone on Reddit say that cisgender was a slur men invented for women along with bitch and whore. Like what? If you spend any time at all in trans-dominated spaces you will hear those terms all the time applied to anyone and everyone regardless of agab and gender identity.

"no one is saying 'people with penises,' they're just pathologizing being female" this might be a shock but actually yes people are saying that!

I don't think the psychological effects of trans-inclusive language on cisgender people should necessarily just be ignored, because sex-based oppression is still very much alive and well especially in the medical system, and it seems unfair to me to expect anyone to just "get over it." (Not only that but sex ed is so poor I wouldn't expect every cis woman to know they were included in phrases like "people with cervixes," that's a huge logistical and communications problem.)

But wow is it shocking to see the vitriol generated by cis women from something as innocuous as being referred to as a "pregnant person" instead of "pregnant woman." Someone even had to suffer the indignity of--gasp, horror!--being asked for pronouns at the gynecologist office!

If these things make you feel strange and disconnected from your identity as a cis person, consider that that's sort of how trans people feel all the time. You can argue that "we shouldn't change language about 99.99999% of people for a very very small minority" but maybe this glimpse into someone else's feelings could give you even a shred of empathy to understand why people might put in small efforts to not purposefully exclude transgender people. Also, you definitely underestimate how many trans people there are.

And not only that but it's bizarre to see pages and pages of seething anger about how these changes are offensive, and that it's stupid to make them to avoid offending people who are crybabies and so sensitive and easily offended and delusional. It's like how everyone makes fun of vegans for being preachy and offended by meat, because that stereotype exists somehow when I've seen more meat-eating people offended by the existence of vegans than I have actual preachy vegans. If you hate people who are offended so easily by minor things that don't affect other people, maybe look in a mirror

[doctordragon]

Your comment on that post about transmisogyny: trans men can be transmisogynistic too dipshit, the main point of the post is to check your biases against trans women -- being a trans man still applies. And while it's true that "afab people" shouldn't equate to 'women' you're coming on to a post about trans women's struggles and redirecting the conversation to trans men which is frankly a rancid thing to do.

Derailing posts about trans women is in incredible poor taste. It screams of "what about me???" if a topic bothers you so much then make your own post.

Alright, this kind of language is the exact kind of problem I have with the way Tumblr talks about trans issues. I'm going to be nice anon because I don't think you're coming at me with bad intent.

First, to address the post, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of this website. This is my house, and I wanted the message of the post, but didn't feel comfortable with the language used, as it was discriminatory against trans men and nonbinary people. So, I reblogged the post and added my own comment. To comment is inherently to derail and have conversations. That's the point of the internet.

Now, to the main problem at hand. I hate the way Tumblr divides "trans women's issues" and "trans men's issues" into neat little boxes that don't overlap at all. Sure, trans men can be transmisogynistic. ANYONE can be transmisogynistic because transmisogyny and transphobia are written into the codes of our society.

The main system that oppress trans men and trans women is the gender binary. Every trans person has a unique and different experience with gender, and narrowing people's relationship with gender down to their agab erases the vast amount of similarities between trans narratives. We have a lot more in common than we do with cis people. I think we need to stop so strictly categorizing discussions of gender and transphobia into affecting "transmasc or transfem" people. We're all suffering under the same system and dismissing any discussion from different perspectives as "derailment" will only lead to infighting and will get us nowhere.