#in a class about gendered oppression as the only trans person in BOTH of my programs (history and gender studies) I am. misgendered.

[doberbutts]

I also think that when I see people demanding a *unique* oppression, that they are asking for something impossible and also are very much misunderstanding intersectionality in the first place.

I don't believe any oppression is truly unique. I do think there are faces of oppression that change with the demographic, but more likely than not you as Oppressed Group X have way more in common with Oppressed Group Y than you might think.

But also, Crenshaw's original paper on intersectionality discussed a specific context: black women being skipped over for hire where black men and white women were both getting hired, making that specific context unique to the intersection of black womanhood.

People get skipped over for jobs they are more than qualified for all the time. Even within the paper itself, there is discussion about this happening to black men and white women at other companies, just that this specific company was excluding specifically black women from its pool of candidates due to their specific bias against black women.

Experiencing workplace discrimination and hiring discrimination is not at all unique to black women. The *context* was. It was not "just racism" because black men were being hired, and it was not "just misogyny" because white women were getting hired. It was the intersection of both that resulted in black women being excluded.

When a trans man states that he is being removed from, say, a reproductive rights conversation and it's happening specifically because he is a trans man, what's meant shouldn't be that no one else struggles with reproductive rights. It means that it's not happening to the cis women who are actively leading the conversation, nor is it happening to the cis men who are pitching in. It is, however, happening to anyone with a uterus who is deemed as too "gender devient" to count: trans men, trans women, intersex people, and nonbinary people. Albeit, for different reasons, and the face of which changes depending on the demographic of the person receiving it.

But the conversation around reproductive rights is also one that must include disability, must include race, must include sexuality, must include class, must include age, because these things also have a direct effect on discrimination within the medical field and whether someone truly has access to the autonomy needed to make reproductive choices of their own without others choosing for them.

Similar to how we can understand the context provided in Crenshaw's coining of intersectionality to examine how black women specifically were experiencing something that neither black men nor white women were victim to within that specific example, so too must we understand that these are contextual and circumstantial conversations that will not always be truly unique.

After all, black men and white women do both get rejected for jobs on account of race and gender. Cis women and other marginalized genders frequently must battle for their right to make their own reproductive choices.

But when someone says "this happened to me due to the combination of my race and my gender", we must understand that likely the combination, the intersection, created a unique scenario that cannot be understood by only examining a single piece of that person's identity. So, too, must we understand the same when someone says "this happened due to the combination of my transness and my gender".

So when I see a challenge to name something unique from someone also flinging around the "learn intersectionality" phrase at those who are trying to describe the things that happened to them that hurt them, all I can think is that clearly that person does not understand interaectionality. Nor have they ever actually read the words of the woman who coined it. She's still alive. Her TED talks are on YouTube. Many of her essays are online for free.

Finally, I must remind these people that Crenshaw is not the woman who coined misogynoir, and while both Crenshaw's and Bailey's theories do work in conversation with each other, being discussed by different people does mean there is not a 1-to-1 basis to compare them to. There will be disagreements and inconsistencies between the two because they are two different people.

[dykedvonte]

Can you talk about trans!Curly a little bit more? I'm curios if you have any headcanons and the like

-💀

It's just such a thing in my mind because it adds a truthful sadness and differing aspect to mouthwashing.

If Curly was trans it adds the horror of the horribly selfish thought he could have easily been in Anya's situation. It could've been him but it wasn't and he so conflicted on the pit it put in his stomach that brings and the shameful relief it wasn't. In this scenario he is friends with Jimmy for a long time still. Jimmy likely knew him pretransition. Maybe he gave Curly weird looks then, maybe they never stopped after, maybe they seemed meaner. They are guys now, bros, both of them are. He doesn't really have to worry what those looks mean anymore, Jimmy just has that face with him sometimes. It's recontextualizing a lot of things for him that he was in denial about or too ashamed to admit. How naive he was being and how he let that get another person hurt.

Specifically with Anya, it's he knows the dread and fear she's feeling. He can understand it because he had to live with it for a good portion of his life, he knows it cause he still does, just in a slightly different way. It makes him think of all the times he's been alone with Jimmy, all the times he's been way more drunk off his ass and not remember the night, Jimmy was always with him the next day. Makes him think of the comments he would laugh off both because that's what guys do but because that part of being a girl says to laugh so Jimmy doesn't do something. It's the selfish realization that he was never safe and he's uncertain now too. Mad at himself for forgeting that feeling, espcially since for a long time he would've been considered the only woman on a crew (with all that implies) for a long time.

He should've taken those blinders off, step back into that position for just a moment and it's so much more painful that Anya likely came to him because he should've gotten it. Those thoughts don't leave his mind after the crash when he's in an even more vulnerable position than she was...

[theartistichuman]

I’m so tired of having cis women tell me that because I am trans masculine I somehow don’t know how misogyny works and I somehow didn’t and don’t spend my life doing the emotional and physical labor that they are also doing while being misgendered as though I don’t also face the same medical misogyny but I’m also being misgendered at doctor’s appointments and when I try to access tools and help about disability or feminism or mental health I’m told that trans masculine people are already being centered in the work and don’t need any more space while you guessed it BEING MISGENDERED and then I get told that I could pass if I tried and therefore it doesn’t matter. what the hell

[drdemonprince]

I keep seeing the posts about male socialization and idk it makes me feel weird because I identify as transfem and I *do* believe I had male socialization. I find it easier to identify with and understand male groups and to feel involved in the while I feel less at ease understanding how women feel and think even though my personal view of myself leans more towards a feminine identity. All these posts make me doubt that I am truly "transfem" and that even if I am, that I am fundamentally transfem in a different way than most other transfems I run into. Is there any sources or writing out there that either provides a counter-perspective or at the very least points to nuance on this subject from a transfem lens? I wish I didn't feel so alone with these feelings.

Your feelings and experience do not make you any less legitimate as a transfeminine person. A lot of trans women rightfully and understandably need to counteract the notion that they're oppressive privileged males or whatever by asserting, as clearly as they can, the many ways in which their socialization was a female socialization, with all the double-standards, demanded emotional labor, sexual predation, etc that entails -- but the very need to assert these things is due to the culture's twisted misconceptions about what gender even is and how it operates.

It's not as though a young person only gets the socialization of the binary gender to which they were assigned -- they get mandatory cishet socialization, and they see what is expected of the "other" gender, and that impacts them, and the standards for that other gender also influence how they are interpreted and seen.

And so I do think, to a certain extent, that when trans people assert that we actually didn't get socialized as our assigned gender at birth, we got socialized as the correct gender, actually, we are unfortunately ceding ground to the transphobes on a couple of key points. One, we're conceeding that there is a singular binary socialization that the two genders each get, which are separate from one another and always exhibit specific features, and two, that a person's socialization as a young person is a key determinant of their gendered experience, privilege, and identity forever, no matter what happens after they are young.

And you know, both those things are totally wrong. There is no one female socialization. I've written about this before, but I wasn't raised to be feminine. I was raised the way working-class girls are raised, which is to be no-nonsense, unfrivolous, serious, sporty, and capable -- a wife and mother, but the kind that never wears a skirt or cries in front of people. And there is no singular "male" socialization either -- I cite a few trans femme people in this piece who experienced themselves as having some male privilege before they transitioned, and some more typically "male" experiences, while also quoting a number of trans women whose lives went the exact opposite way. I assert in the piece that their experiences are theirs to name, and that there's a number of different ways we might each understand and categorize them personally -- especially when we take into account how much gendered socialization is dependent upon class, race, immigration status, diasporic status, and much more.

My view is that however you think your live played out, and whoever you find community alongside, you're right. I'm about to answer a similar ask about this from a trans masc perspective, but I'm a guy who has a ton of women friends and always have. I grew up mostly with girls as my closest buddies and we did things like playing pretend and having slumber parties and doing makeovers. I could chalk this up as a "female socialization" experience I guess if I wanted to. But I also grew up with a lot of gay boys, and I am a gay man, and guess what -- a lot of us grow up with predominately female friends. I don't think I have some essential feminine quality because my friends kept insisting on putting eyeshadow on me when I was ten. The fact I was bad at sports and couldn't be the tough, no-nonsense person that my culture expected me to be was gonna affect me whether I was a boy or a girl. And my upbringing was significantly different from that of one of my very best, oldest friends, whose family owned a successful business and were able to buy her a car and a horse and shit.

You're not betraying anything or lessening your own transfemininity by resonating with some typically "male" experiences or for having close male connections. Lots of queer women do! Just like I have plenty in common with lots of women! We don't say that cis women aren't women because they grew up tomboys, or had a ton of brothers, and the same is true of you. Even if you don't think of your younger self as "a tomboy" or even as a girl. You don't have to ascribe to the narrative that you were always one gender and always moved through the world with that identity. To demand that all trans people do so is respectability politics -- we cannot and should not require that all people be trans in the same ways. I have written before that transition to me feels at once both pre-ordained AND a choice that I made. You can say that you lived as a boy for some years or were a boy if that feels right to you, or that you had certain privileges while also suffering from dysphoria and disconnection; it's your life and you know it best and what serves you.

I wish I had narratives from trans women writers to direct you to, but for the most part the trans women who I've heard express feelings like yours have been in the support and discussion groups I've been in, and in private conversation -- I think because the socialization experiences of trans femmes are so unfairly politicized. I hope if any trans femme people see this have anything to share or any words to say that they will!

[jellyfemmedyke]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but can you explain why radical feminism is harmful?/gen

I'm probably not great at explaining this but I'll do my best. Radical feminism, the theory came from second wave feminism, it basically states the the root of all oppression is misogyny.

it strips everyone of gender and states that we are oppressed on sex alone, that all males oppress and subjugate all females. It states there is an oppressor class (males) and an oppressed class (females ) always.

This ignores intersectionality- a critical concept that recognizes how individuals hold multiple identities and face unique challenges at the intersections of those identities, coined by Kimberle Crenshaw a black feminist

because they believe that misogyny is the root of all oppression, other forms of oppression end up being secondary, things like racism, fatphobia, homophobia- instead of being their own unique for of oppression that intersect with misogyny, they are born strictly out of misogyny. because they believe all males oppress all females, they believe that trans women are oppressors as well, which you start getting into trans exclusionary radical feminism, but I would argue that radical feminism itself is trans exclusionary because of how it makes everything out as a male vs female thing. It's a flawed theory that upholds white supremacy.

Then, we have things like transradical feminism, that takes this theory and says "No actually we are only oppressed for our gender" so that transmisogyny is actually the root of all oppression and that trans men oppress trans women. Both of these theories ignore the internationally of both sex and gender, along with race and all the other forms of oppression. that's pretty much the gist of it. There's probably some other stuff I'm missing but that's the rundown . Also intersectionality isn't just 1 opression plus another oppression = worse oppression the way people tend to misuse it.

It takes things like, for example, a white cis man, this man is at the intersection of white and cis man, and those things affect the way he interacts with the world. It's a fat cis white man, and how those intersections affect each other. I use those examples because people tend to ignore that intersectionality affects everyone, including cis white men. I'm also not the person to talk to about black feminism either, but Bell Hooks and Kimbrle Crenshaw are two people that you should look into if you want to read about that. Anyway, I hope this helps. also that's not a stupid question. I think it's a good one

[crimsonender]

interested in seeing you discuss how people view intersectionality/ and or just hearing you talk about intersectionality as whole! I saw your Transandrophobia reblog so i wanted to listen to your opinions. A quote i saw people reposting occasionally was about how no amount of shared marginalization between a man and a woman will make men have empathy for women. sorry if this is like too vague to go off, but i saw that same quote a few times and i agree to some extent but i feel like trans men's involvement in these discussions tend to be overlooked. should probably mention my bias but i'm an indigenous transguy but i don't want to hold resentment over online discourse and just want to hear other people's thoughts.

"no amount of shared marginalization between a man and a woman will make men have empathy for women."

This is TERF shit. And if you've seen a trans person say it, it's a trans person trying to reframe TERF shit to fit a trans person. The idea that men are biologically predisposed to dominate and oppress women is the cornerstone of radfem ideology.

Moreover it really sounds like the kind of thing that only a white person could say.

I really recommend reading The Will to Change by Bell Hooks.

Bell Hooks is really good about talking about how while men are largely responsible for their role in the patriarchy, women are complicit in it as well, and both men and women are hurt by it, even if women are moreso. She frames it in a way that doesn't feel accusatory and is very compassionate towards men, but also acknowledges that from the time they are young boys that they are trained and conditioned to be emotionless and even that to be accepted as a man that they must be violent. The titular will to change is about being willing to be cooperative with women, and for women to accept that male pain is not at its core an accusation of the failure of women as a social class. If we can all learn to accept that in our hearts then we can truly find love in our intimate and personal lives but also we can fight for a better tomorrow.

To bring it down, and make it a tad more personal to me, I was. Not a boy. I didn't really feel the onset of dysphoria until I began to fill the social role of a woman, and began puberty. My dissonance with my gender began around nine or ten and I knew in my heart I was transgender when I was fourteen. I came out at nineteen. For the first half of my life, I lived and filled the social role of a girl. I then grew up and became a man. Not all trans people like to conceptualize their transness like this, but there is no right or wrong way to be transgender. This is what feels right to me. There is a distinct who I was before and who I was after. (Though I do prefer other people to refer to my younger self as male and with my chosen name. Not the place to talk about why though.)

My biggest allies have always been women. My sister, my best friend, and my Moms have been supportive of me from day one when I came out to them, and the gratitude I feel... it cannot be put to words. Whereas I don't talk to... Any of the men in my life I knew pre-transition. Not my brother, my father, any of my male friends, my two male cousins whomst I was close with growing up, I don't see outside of very occasional family occasions where everyone is there. My family is not particularly progressive outside of my Moms being lesbians. Feminism is not exactly something any of them care about across the gender spectrum. So this doesn't really surprise me. I also do occasionally run into empathy problems with the women in my life, but all of us have that titular will to change.

Taking it back to intersectionality, in many black feminist writings such as those by Hooks as well as the coiner of the term, Kimberlé Crenshaw, it very specifically talks about how you don't really stack identities into a list. As a hypothetical example, you wouldn't say:

I'm a person of colour

I'm a woman

I'm trans

I'm working class

I'm disabled.

These identities coexist and interact with each other in ways that are unique.

"I'm a disabled working class trans woman of colour."

This lines up with Crenshaw's idea of intersectionality. There are experiences that this person will have that no one other person with part of her identity will, even if you only changed one small part of it. But it's also important to realize there are common experiences that we do have, when sharing parts of our identity. Having empathy for one another and coming to the table with kindness and understanding in our hearts first and foremost is how we coexist and find that acceptance that all of us want.

I think at the end of the day that being a human being is messy and almost always painful. But I think the pain is worth it. I think the best thing we can do is show one another compassion and grace.

[radfemnotfemme]

been learning about radical feminism in the past year and i have completely reevaluated my beliefs about gender ideology. now im just so stuck on the idea of, how can identifying as another gender not be fundamentally regressive, sexist, and upholding gender norms? how can men just identify out of oppression? but now idk what to do holding these beliefs because truly all my friends would have serious issues with me if i were ever to voice this. in fact, i have close friends who are trans, and there are many trans people in my wider social circle (one of whom specifically made me so uncomfortable in a "female" space that it contributed to me unlearning my previous beliefs abt gender ideology). i attend a super liberal university where in a recent english class my professor even made a comment about jk rowling being an evil terf now.

i feel like i'm walking around with a dirty secret. i feel like i can't discuss these ideas with anyone irl, not even my girlfriend. it would fundamentally change her view of me as she as an incredibly vocal trans ally. i could see her breaking up with me for these beliefs; i could see many friends distancing themselves from me. i'm just wondering how you navigate a social world like this with radfem beliefs ahhhh

i feel you on the “dirty secret” aspect! i can try to give some advice since i’m in a very similar situation (minus the fact i live in a conservative area.)

due to my appearance (i’m visibly gay) i usually only attract TRA & ‘queer’ types to me. my friends are all TRA or some variant of “genderqueer.” i only have one friend ive been able to confide my beliefs to, and she’s more a closet conservative type so we really only agree on trans issues. I will say, if you can find even one person that you can speak freely with it’ll be a huge weight off your chest. Whenever I see this one friend we both just ramble because we can finally talk about shit that we can’t comfortably talk about with anyone else.

the way i’ve gone about managing my friendships with TRAs is to simply never bring up trans (or controversial radfem) topics. i avoid it like the plague, will change topic, and if directly questioned on something i will play the dumb and innocent role, aka just pretending to not understand but intend as coming from a good place. you should evaluate which of your friendships putting up this facade will be worth it, because it gets exhausting fast. i have some trans friends, but they’re all the “genderfluid/nonbinary AFAB who goes by any pronouns” type who present extremely feminine at all times, never even push the boundaries of gender expression honestly which is funny. (literally theyfabs lol) They dont care that i always use she/her and they honestly never bring up gender stuff with me. these type of girls aren’t too bad to be around as i feel they’re not as far gone as some TIPs are who actually take the steps to transition, etc. Being around a hardcore TIF or TIM might be a more difficult friendship to maintain.

Regarding your significant other, you should consider if this is a breaking point in your relationship. For me it’s not since my gf was generally uninformed about trans issues like the dangers of males in womens prisons, unfairness in sports, why oppressed is sex based and not gender based, etc. We’ve had discussions about this, where i explained my reasoning for being against these issues & she actually ended up agreeing after I showed her the facts. She’s still ‘pro-trans’ but is much more reasonable about it & thinks majority trans people just wanna live their life (which who can argue with that!) If this type of open conversation isn’t something you think could be achievable with your gf, you guys might just not be compatible.

It sounds like you live in a very liberal area & so my advice to you would be to see if there’s any radical feminist organizations near you. I think finding other people who think the same as you will help you feel less guilty. It’ll probably be hard since most radfems are secretive about their beliefs (for obvious reasons lol) but i’m sure you’ll find someone eventually.

[butch-bakugo]

Oh my God a fucking " anti-transandrophobia truther" perisex fuck wrote word for word, in a massive fucking post " I wonder if intersex people know being Intersex affects your gender" (NO SHIT???)

And!

" I'm pretty sure all the afab/cafab (coercive meaning ya know ... GENITAL MUTILATION OF INTERSEX BABIES FORCING THEM INTO THE AFAB IDENTITY. The whole camab/cafab thing was stolen from the intersex community.) intersex people who claim the transfem title don't actually have transfem experiences"(regardless of the kind of the type of intersexuality they are?? You are just outting yourself as someone totally fucking blind to actual intersex experiences.)and! " They need their own term because they don't 'fit'". They tried to dress up the offensive bigoted nonsense they just spewed by trying to make it sound like they had our best interests at heart and "shouldn't be forced into using perisex language".... You are litterally trying to push intersex people you don't like out of our terminology to other them .... This literally reeks of literal terf rhetoric " most intersex lean one way and therefore shove them under that label" like...

Ur both intersexist freaks and bigots just in different ways. Imagine trying to claim you care about intersex people then try to determine our labels for us and push us in the way you think we should go regardless of our actual fucking lived experiences because you don't like sharing the transfem community with people who've experienced both transmysogny and transmascphobia. Not to even mention the fact the last time people tried to make a term to talk about their experiences, you've not shut up about it in years and called it a mens rights movement to try and silence an entire fucking portion of the trans community so you don't have to care about them. You literally fucking said " trans men experience both transphobia and mysogny but not at the same time (we do????) but trans women do" ok and ur blind to Transmasc issues because you think that nonsense and we are the same as cis men. Ur blind to our issues in the way you accuse us of being blind to your issues but only expect us to shut up and listen.

Anyway, denying that trans men can't face their own issues while also ignoring any trans man who disagrees with you and then attempting to delegitimize all intersex people who look you dead in the face in the transfem and Transmasc playing fields and tell you ur wrong...

Bro just say you hate Transmascs and anyone who might be slightly aligned with them and go home you intersexist piece of shit.

Also the whole " stop calling anti-transandrophobia truthers baddels! That's something specific"

My brother in CHRIST, THEY ARE LITTERALLY UNIRONICALLY IN THE USERNAMES OF THE PEOPLE YOU REBLOG FROM. BULLSHIT.

Anyway the fact y'all are all fucking white trans women and CONSTANTLY bring up black and indigenous people's experiences with gender while also being unironic baddels aka a horrifically abusive to trans men (including rape) and racist ASF movement within your community tells me everything i need to know as a native american two spirit intersex person with no "lean" whose experienced transmysogny and transandrophobia.

This is why they don't trust you motherfuckers, you got no class, just entitlement and weak ass attempts at silencing people you already hate and a weird trauma fetish for black and indigenous people. There is over lap between the transfem experiences and bipoc experiences but there is also an overlap between Transmasc and bipoc experiences, nonbinary and bipoc, like almost everyone can relate to our shit, ur not special 😭 leave us alone and don't use our oppression to try and legitimize your fundamentally transphobic views.

[olderthannetfic]

26514299393196032/ I dunno, I think we have a lot more of a nuanced view of gender norms now rather than the radfem idea of male privilege. Like, a lot of trans people have talked about their experiences and I think that has supplanted the "women as oppressed class" in a lot of people's minds - That is, both gender roles have a set of societal expectations, and viewing it exclusively as Privilege Men vs Oppressed Women discounts the various issues that men face and the benefits of womanhood. As a trans-or-GNC person myself (...It's complicated,) I have absolutely felt trapped in a male role before my transition - the prospect of endless drudgery in work as my only out, the limitations of self-expression, the way men are viewed as someone who can be killed and it is less of a deal. And I know of the homelessness gap and how men face much harsher jail sentences and other such institutional inequalities. On the flipside, once I began presenting as a woman people became more concerned for my well-being passively, and were willing to go out of their way to assist me. I was also no longer trapped by the societal expectation that my role was to earn money. This is not to discount the very real issues which effect women, but I think the inequalities between genders is much more nuanced and complex and I think more people are realizing this. Certainly, a rich and powerful man has vast and considerable power far beyond most - But I think the average man is as confined by the circumstances of their birth as the average women, and has advantages and disadvantages in specific situations. It is also worth noting that the traditional definition of Radical Feminism IS the belief in patriarchy theory - That is, the belief that society has been historically set up for the benefit of men at the expense of women. Other schools of feminism which emerged earlier tended to focus on feminism as being about women's individual choice, women's rights, or equality rather than the belief in a patriarchy which must be dismantled. By definition, Patriarchy Theory is a Radical Feminist concept

--

[loki-zen]

Personally I deliberately conflate those two groups as a rhetorical tactic because I am an antifeminist, I believe that feminism itself is the root problem (with what we think of as "radical feminism" being a vaguely delineated subgroup that pursues roughly the same goals but with more aggression and less effectiveness), and I am eager to jump on a growing split between feminism (or "radical feminism", as people are generally more comfortable calling it as a compromise) and the broader left. To be clear, I do not mean by this that I am a misogynist, but rather that I think feminism, taken as a whole memeplex, is blatantly misandrist and lying about it.

right - well, you are wrong, in that feminism is not a whole memeplex. It is a word given to a bunch of different ones that have in common only the notion that they stand for women in a world where women are and historically have been an oppressed group, excluded from equal participation in society and/or subject to specific harms on the basis of being women.

Some of these groups and some people within them have fallen into the trap of hating the group that they see as relatively more privileged, and many more don’t seriously feel that way but use rhetoric that conveys that if taken literally. This is something feminism has in common with anti-racism, anti-colonialism, the trans rights movement, and indeed economic leftism!

(try counting how often you notice leftists state or imply that people deserve death and objective-suffering for being born in the wrong economic class! [when in fact all they deserve, in my view, is to be forced to share in a way that results in their standard of living not being vastly better than anyone else’s, and if they perceive that as suffering then that’s ok tbh.] a lot of the time the real purpose of this rhetoric is to signal pro revolution fervour. The belief that violent revolution is necessary to bring about change for the greater good isn’t the same as hating people and wanting them to die or suffer as an end in itself, but it is often expressed as such.)

if we’re talking about TERFs, we could also talk about some highly socially conservative movements branded as and coming out of socialist think spaces, or fighting against colonialism.

so unless you are willing to label yourself anti all of these rights-and-progress movements, it does look like you are treating feminism differently.

Do you think women don’t have any problems in this world? no particular concerns that need to be fought for? (it’s unclear whether your position on feminism extends into the past - do you think Votes For Women was fundamentally misandrist and worthy of being thrown out for that reason?) because if so, I disagree.

Do you recognise that they do, and what is happening to them in the world right now, and think nevertheless that they shouldn’t have a movement that talks about and fights these wrongs, because misandrists are a thing? If so, and if you don’t apply this equally to other causes, I find it hard to see how you aren’t a misogynist, at least in effect.

Or do you somehow think you can burn the existing edifice and organising ties and lexicon and movements both material and ideological to the ground and replace them with something, without that having too devastating an effect on the fight against these wrongs? Because as much as I wish it magically was and had been ‘fuck-gender-roles-equalism’ all along , I think the price (measured in, let’s say, 12 year olds forced to give birth) is likely too high and this may not be the sort of thing humans are capable of anyway.

one thing i’ve learned is that the word feminism means very different things to people. a lot of people are simply not going to be able to hear you say you’re an anti feminist without taking from that that you are a misogynist, that you want to undo the things feminism has fought for (which need i remind you, includes the fucking vote).

[doberbutts]

Tbh I think the comparison to white people might be some simple us vs them thinking (maybe not all the time, though). White people complaining about oppression = nonsense/overeaggeration (if you're myopic), therefore comparing transmascs to white people is a way to call what they say nonsense. Or, if you're under the impression oppression=good person points, then white = bad/wrong, therefore transmascs are bad/wrong. Idk. Lots of these folks have some black/white thinking.

I think the answer is much easier than that.

The majority of people I see using the race analogy to draw a parallel of white vs black racism and trans man vs woman oppression are white themselves. Not everyone, but I would say my casual scroll of Bad Take Havers usually reveals whiteness here.

It does not surprise me at all that the very same white people doing this do not have the nuanced racial understanding to be able to reflect how, for instance, both black communities and latine communities experience racism in different yet similar ways, and how there is both bad blood and also shared history and solidarity between both communities, with many people who exist somewhere in between (afrolatinos) and people who exist completely outside of this equation (other marginalized races of color) or on the fringes (other mixed people of color but with only one of the involved races in this venn diagram) that also may experience their own oppression.

And so, they don't even think to use the comparison of black and Latino understanding, instead choosing to reach for white vs black racial dynamics. They don't have the understanding necessary to get why that's neither a good comparison nor is it a fair one to use especially when this particular conversation was started by trans mascs of color and how prior conversations regarding trans men and mascs occupying a marginalized gender were started by both (cis *and* trans) women of color and trans men and mascs of color.

It also does not escape my attention that those insisting that not only do trans men and mascs have privilege (something I do not completely disagree with, although I think as always it is more nuanced than "have" vs "have not") but also that trans men and mascs are specifically an *oppressor class* are also largely white, and show an inability to understand that "privilege" does not always equally translate to "oppressor". This comes to a head when discussing trans men in powerful positions- teachers, doctors, politicians, business owners, religious leaders, even celebrities- and whether they are pushing harmful rhetoric or if they are holding the line and refusing to budge.

And, while not true in all cases and certainly no one is perfect, because people are people and thus imperfect at the best of times, the majority of all trans people in power hold the line and refuse to budge regarding harm to our community. We can all think of examples- usually celebrities- of otherwise, but those pushing for laws and change are generally hand-in-hand with each other keeping step and refusing to leave their fellow siblings behind.

This does not mean that we cannot *contribute to* or even *lean on* transmisogyny- remember, there were cis women on the Supreme Court gleefully voting away abortion rights even though it directly affects them. There is no identity that makes you immune to bigoted bias, and no identity that protects you from doing harm to others. That is on each of us to do better, to each out in fellowship and solidarity to our fellow humans, and to lift each other out of the pit.

Much like how a Latino friend of mine may experience privilege in that he does not experience the antiblackness I do, and much how I may have privilege that I speak English as my mother tongue and he doesn't in this largely English-language-dominated country, neither of us are inherently each other's oppressors unless we are acting on oppressive bias. Intentionally or otherwise.

Oppression is action, not existence.

But again, I am not surprised a group of largely white people do not understand nearly enough of this nuance as it applies to race to then be able to apply it to gender.

[thorne1435]

and you're wrong, the patriarchy doesnt oppress men, only women. the reason it exists tho *is* to facilitate men not gaining consciousness of their *class oppression* which is the underlying point of all other oppression. not that they haven't turned into monsters of their own but most modern forms of oppression we now deal with were originally invented to protect class interests. class isn't the only vector of oppression but it is the original one.

like i agree that the patriarchy is bad for men because privilege is actually bad for you in a lot of subtle ways! spiritually, socially, mentally. but the drawbacks of relying on privilege are not the same as being oppressed. nor are the strings attached. and those strings suck! theyre really bad strings and we can talk about them. but misandry theory is about blaming women for something men do to each other. its a classic example of conservative forces co opting basic progressive terminology to seem like theyre the progressive ones, see also white power ripping off black power, same thing with the term identitarian, and literally anything a nazbol has ever said

Sorry, wait, hang on.

Who's blaming women?

Women are not to blame for misandry. I didn't mean to imply that, and I don't know where it happened, if I did.

Patriarchy is to blame for misandry. Full stop.

I would agree that the Patriarchy in its modern form is being used to prevent men from realizing their class oppression, but I also think it's doing that to women. Society is full of fake labels that only exist to oppress an arbitrary out-group, and all of them are just there to distract us from the rich-poor struggle.

Now, here's my more controversial take:

I think that Patriarchy is unique in that it ended up doing a lot of long-lasting damage to the in-group as well. I don't doubt that the intent is solely to harm women, but I don't think that's what it's done. It's obvious that it's harmed men in as many ways as it's helped them. It's limited the possibilities of a man's life in just as many ways as it's limited the possibilities of a woman's, though again, often to different extents.

In contrast, consider race.

Race is about as fake as gender. There are some loose groups of physical traits associated with each designation but in actuality if you don't approach humanity with the preconception that there is such a thing as "race" you pretty quickly see how it's just bullshit.

White people, however, are at an advantage, and it's one that doesn't harm them whatsoever. So, a white person advocating for racial equality has nothing to gain but their humanity. They fundamentally must be doing it as a virtue signal or out of a genuine humanitarian belief. A person of color advocating for racial equality, on the other hand, stands to gain a lot from that equality because they are the oppressed.

Now, with gender, women stand to gain a lot from feminism, but "men" as a category aren't quite like "white people" as a category. Men will also benefit from the dissolution of the Patriarchy beyond just becoming more human. As I covered in the last ask, (or rather the reblog of it), men aren't allowed to do anything considered feminine whereas women are allowed to do certain things considered masculine. This is because women have managed to make so much progress where men almost don't seem to have been trying.

I obviously don't understand race quite as well as gender, and maybe since I'm trans you could discount my perspective on "manhood" but I know that being white never hurt me as much as being a man. And both of those groups are supposed to be at the top of these hierarchies, right?

So why is it that being the "wrong kind of man" can make you a pariah, but there's no wrong way to be white?

Because gender roles just don't work the same way as your typical social hierarchy.

Because men are oppressed too.

[goblincow]

Deeply relatable to me. I get incredibly exhausted any time I see someone proudly claim that they don't give a shit or even believe men are oppressed by the gender binary. Because obviously men do get a massive upper hand and benefit from the power imbalance but it's not like I was given a choice? I don't want it? It's restrictive and actively harmful to me too?

Like it's crazy to me that there are conservative feminists (like I get where they come from but those ideologies are so wildly contradictory, conservative feminism can never be meaningfully feminist) and they would tell you a guy like me or nick offernan has no right to speak on it. But you can't challenge the patriarchy and refuse to understand that it's bad for men too & you cant want it to change and stay the same. Like that's literally just perpetuating the patriarchy.

This should be no surprise to literally any trans person and I should hope it would be obvious to all queer people too – hell I want to live in the world where cishet people understand this as well because then gender dissolves and we're all free woohoo happily ever after (not a joke).

But yeah gender as its widely imagined is clearly a social construct & tool of patriarchal power and it sucks for EVERYONE except those who are in positions of power, who embrace it for obvious reasons. Obviously this applies to all men to some extent regardless of any attempt to reject it but like, only because it's forced on us in the first place? I want actual equality please, I don't want anyone to have more power than anyone else? And that can't happen as long as the gender binary is so rigidly enforced. Like honestly while you could argue that binary broadly fits *most* people (and honestly I'm really not sure I believe that) it necessarily restricts all of those people too.

I'm a radical feminist (NOT the genocidal fake kind, you know the evil fuckers I'm talking about) partly because it's in my own personal interest to be – and a prerequisite of that is understanding that gender oppression affects all people because literally every single human being to ever exist has had their own unique genders & pretending otherwise must either be naive or malicious, and obviously both of those (intentions aside) have the same result: the worst people on the planet continue to hoard power and control the rest of us by denying us the very ability to conceive of our identities and shape who we are. Hmm where have I seen that before? 👀

They get to decide who we get to be on our behalf (and obviously their interests and ours do not align) and a major tool for doing that is this perpetuation of what's essentially a myth about what human beings inherently are and are capable of being. All working class people suffer from the binary gender lie, and frankly I dont give a shit if the ruling class suffers from it too because the same rules and laws don't apply to them and for any of us to be free from this they need to cease to exist. Failing to understand the obvious class implications there is antithetical to any effort to collectively do anything about it. While women are "more oppressed" as a social class than men (a loaded term for sure, and there's certainly nuance there that theorists I haven't read have dug into, but for all intents and purposes here I think it's a pretty uncontroversial statement), ultimately we're all insignificant peasants and second class citizens and the differences between us are meaningless at that scale – it's just a matter of how efficiently we can all be exploited.

We're all the working class regardless of our genders and the people who benefit most from the gender binary are the ruling classes. They reap the vast majority of the rewards for it and we are so far beneath them that whatever differences there are in the material experience of living as a working class man or woman are so small that I'd honestly be surprised if they even registered at the scale required to see the big picture – I should be clear here that I am NOT saying there is no material difference and it IS obviously fucking huge at any scale that we mere peasants will ever get to experience: I am instead saying that we can't ever address it without understanding that we're all crushed to an indistinguishable pulp at the bottom of the hierarchy.

But yeah doesnt this all sound really familiar? Can't you apply this framework to all forms of oppression and develop greater class consciousness because of it? Doesnt that help you understand how crucial intersectionalism is? It's divide & rule folks, do you think it's an accident that women's opression is deeply tied to the home & childcare and yet this work is not compensated and free childcare does not exist? Do you think it's an accident that disabled women of colour experience even more of it? The ruling class NEEDS us not to understand this shit. They NEED it to control us and acknowledging the reality is the only way we can collectively do fuck all about it.

Class dismissed! 🫡

Yo why did I put this in the tags. At least I got to give it a second draft.

I want to be free too & none of us can be until we all are. We've got to understand the functions of all oppression under capitalism if we hope to achieve it and that means understanding that opression for any of us means oppression for all. You get me.

I want to be free too.

Have I mentioned how much I love Nick Offerman?

[genderkoolaid]

Do requests form landlords and bosses to list all previous names for background checks not apply to people with gender-related name changes? I’ve have to answer that question for every job and apartment I’ve ever had. That combined with family, intimate partners, and healthcare professionals means that it’s impossible to stay stealth with the most powerful people in a person’s life. Such a minority of oppression actually comes from random strangers, but if you’re an incredibly privileged trans person, who doesn’t have a boss or a landlord and can leave family, partners, and choose new doctors with little economic stress, obviously interactions with strangers would dominate your understanding of transphobia, and “passing” would hold incredible weight politically, when that isn’t nearly as true for most trans people.

Sorry, that was rambly. One of my coworkers is a trans man who passes 100%, but due to a day one paperwork screw up his legal name was EVERYWHERE. On paperwork, folders, his work laptop, being called out. Even though no one was explicitly transphobic, he lost his choice to be stealth so easily. I’ve kind of just not believed in passing as politically important in discussions of transphobia since then.

This is all very true. I think the question of "does [x] have privilege?" is pretty useless in terms of whether or not someone benefits from the patriarchy. I remember people debating whether or not butches, even cis butches, had male privilege, and it's like... maybe! Maybe they get perceived as a guy on the street! Maybe their name is masculine so people assume they are a man! Maybe they can go stealth and work as men if needed!

None of that erases their actual lives, in which they are constantly being punished by society for being butches. The same goes with all trans people and honestly all queer people, and even beyond that. Male privilege isn't the be-all end-all of Societal Benefit, that line of thinking is straight from middle-class white feminists who think that misogyny is the only form of oppression worth talking about. Like you said, structural transphobia exists beyond interactions with people who barely know us. There is structural transphobia that is completely beyond our control and decides for us whether or not people know we are trans. Trans men do not have this hyperagency that allows us to control every aspect of how we exist in society to make sure we benefit from male privilege.

I think there's some merit to discussing passing privilege on an intracommunity level, in the same way there is benefit to discussing male privilege on an intracommunity level in other marginalized communities where cis men receive some benefit that non cis men who share their marginalization don't. But in both those circumstances, the privilege comes from the ability to be perceived in a way society (kyriarchy) prefers. That is not the same as truly benefiting from it, and when we move from things like "trans people who pass are often preferred by cis people and often receive more attention and respectability than non-passing trans people, and this privilege should be acknowledged" to "because some trans people can pass they have societal privilege over other trans people & can actually benefit from their societal oppression." Intracommunity privilege =/= societal privilege.

Being viewed as the most preferable fuckup doesn't stop people from viewing you as a fuckup unworthy of real respect. It's conditional, based entirely on how much you are willing to play by the rules.

[writingwithcolor]

Gingerbread man as golem

@yaronata asked:

I would like to write a character who is Jewish and uses a Golem. She's based on the D&D class of the artificer which looks magic but isn't, because they produce all their effects with inventions, like the "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" quote. Her story is that her very Jewish town was under attack from a terrible monster when she was little. Her Rabbis made a Golem to protect the town, and it succeeded but was torn to pieces in the process. She was fascinated by the Golem and as a kid didn't see a big difference between it's sentience and person's so was really thankful for its sacrifice like you would a person's sacrificing their life for you. They thought all the pieces had been devoured by the monster before it died, but she went looking and found the piece used to animate the Golem, which she, kinda misunderstanding called its "heart". She kept the piece and grew up to be an incredibly skilled cook, specialising as a baker in the town. I imagine she would make a lot of really good food for the Jewish holidays, or to break fasts on ones like Yom Kippur or Tish'abav. But she also made a town specific holiday to honour the Golem's sacrifice and the town still being alive, because I feel "we are not dead woo" is a big theme for Jewish holidays from my research, so it could fit, for which she invented ginger bread men to be the golem, and gave them little "hearts" of fruit or honey, and you're meant to eat them limb by limb like the beast did before eating the heart. This would be the inspiration for using the "heart" piece later to make her own giant gingerbread Golem to help her save the world.

These are my questions 1) would it be considered bad or disrespectful for someone who isn't a Rabbi to make a Golem, or is this method of taking an animating piece someone else made disrespectful? 2) Her journey will take her far from her town and her Jewish family and friends and she will likely travel with gentiles. Would it be disrespectful for a Golem to be used to protect a lot of gentiles and one Jew in the course of saving the world? I don't want to fall into the stereotype of someone putting all their effort into valuing and protecting very specifically the group that in real life is oppressive to them. 3) While she is not using magic and is actually mimicking its effects with technology she invents, is this drawing too close to the line of "magical Jew"? 4) I like to "play test" my characters in ttrpgs to really get a feel for them before I write. Would it be disrespectful to play a Jewish character when I am a gentile, and would it be disrespectful to play a Jewish character in a setting where there are demonstrably real gods other than the one of Judaism?

I really like this character idea and I think it's cute and fun and rooted in Jewish culture but I really want to make sure it's respectful and as good as I, a gentile researching on the internet, thinks it is. Thanks so much! Have a nice day!

My answer to this is very complicated because there are things I both like and do not like about this premise. First of all, I love the idea of a cookie golem, and I'm even imagining the magic word that brings him to life (EMET/truth) would be written in icing. And I'm okay with the part about how she found a piece of the old golem and used it to build a new golem, because that makes sense for a golem made from a baked good when you think about how people use sourdough starter to make a new batch of sourdough.

However, here are the thing that make me cock my head to the side like my little sister's German shepherd:

1. re: "magical Jew" - that's not a trope I've ever heard of. Remember, marginalized groups don't receive identical disrespect across the board. It is indeed a trope to use Black people or disabled people as supernatural plot devices who exist only to further the stories of white main characters or able-bodied main characters. But I can't say as I've ever seen anyone using Jewishness that way. Usually if we are someone's one-dimensional plot device it's as someone's lawyer, fixer, "money guy", etc, not a supernatural force. So this isn't something you have to worry about.

2. I have a certain level of discomfort with you playing as a Jewish character just because playacting as a marginalized culture you're not part of strikes me as off, but I understand that that's how you gain insight into a character you're about to write so it's more of a writing exercise than anything else. (I wonder if D&D regulars from marginalized groups have written about this -- I've only played a few times casually with family so if I did run into this type of discussion in my social justice reading I wouldn't have absorbed it. If anyone is curious I played first as Captain Werewolf, and then switched to playing as Cinnamon Blade because lawful good was too hard. :P )

3. I would prefer you omit the detail about eating the cookies piece by piece symbolically, for two reasons: a. it unintentionally evokes Communion by having appreciative people consume a baked good symbolic of an entity who sacrificed his life for theirs, and b. focusing on the details of flesh consumption reminds me too much of Blood Libel (yes, a gingerbread man is in the shape of a person but how many of us actually think about it literally, the way this act would cause?)

As to your first question: I'm fine with her making a golem even though she's just a rando. Second question: I see what you're saying and maybe it could be more okay if it's really clear how well these gentile folks are treating her? And questions three and four are answered above.

I really do love the idea of a giant gingerbread man golem. Cookie golem T_T <3

--Shira

I would like to second Shira’s point about not ripping apart the gingerbread cookies. I honestly would prefer they were used as decoration, and other cookies eaten instead, since that part just feels so not-Jewish to me, but I don’t have golem-specific issues other than that. It seems like you have already been doing a lot of research, which is appreciated.

As far as the ttrpg/DnD aspect… I bounce back and forth on the topic of playing characters that are so very different from our experiences, other than in fantasy-related ways. However, I am aware that a lot of people will play with, and experiment with gender in game, and learn something about themselves in the process (the number of trans players of ttrpgs who tried out their gender in game before they were out is high). It’s different with Judaism, and even more significantly different when it comes to things you can’t convert into, like various actual, real-world races. But because people do sometimes experience growth from experiences like this, I’m hesitant to dissuade players completely. I do urge you to, at a minimum, bring the same care, research, and willingness to learn, that you brought to this question.

--Dierdra

This sounds like a creative storyline that you could have lots of fun with 😊

At first I was confused by this part:

She also made a town specific holiday to honour the Golem's sacrifice

But then you really got me thinking about different types of Jewish holidays and how they come about, so thank you for that!

Because it’s often the little details that either make a story super powerful or kind of nonsensical, I think it would be a good idea to decide what type of holiday is being created here:

A full-blown chag with restrictions on labour and halachic obligations? These are commanded in Torah and new ones can’t be added.

A minor yom tov with halachic obligations but no restrictions? These were instituted by the rabbis prior to the destruction of the Temple, so again new ones can’t be added.

A public holiday or equivalent? This would usually be declared by the Knesset in Israel, and filter to the rest of the Jewish world from there.

A community-based yom tov with specific customs only for people in the know, such as certain Chasidic groups celebrating the birthdays of their deceased leaders? I asked around, but no one can really tell me how these holidays get started, which is probably a good indication that they arise quite organically from a group of people who all just feel that it should be celebrated. Probably not created by a single person, as such.

Something she runs from her bakery, not religion-based, but more like a day of doing special products and deals the way many small businesses do on their anniversary?

Now, if the people of a modern-day town were actually saved by a real live Golem, that would arguably be the most overt miracle for many generations, so there would be a decent chance of options 3 and/or 4 happening. It’s entirely plausible that there could be special foods for this day that become a tradition, including Golem cookies. People who directly benefited might also return to the site where the Golem fought the monster and recite the prayer, ‘Blessed is Hashem, Master of the Universe, Who performed a miracle for me in this place.’

Alternatively, if it’s important that your MC created the holiday, something like option 5 might be the best. Hopefully this will still fulfil what you need: you describe her as incredibly skilled, so I can imagine the day when she goes all out on the Golem cookies being one of the most exciting events of the year for the townspeople, just because her baking is that good. Plus, they already have a personal stake in the Golem’s sacrifice, so I definitely think it could be a thing without being an official holiday. Also, if she is outside of an all-Jewish environment, don’t forget that she would have to decide whether to commemorate the anniversary in the Hebrew calendar or the local one.

Coming back to the cookies, sorry if we’re getting a little repetitive on this point! But I don’t see the cookies being torn limb from limb as part of a celebration. First of all, this doesn’t sound like a very celebratory thing to do, to say the least. Can you imagine explaining that to a three-year-old on their first Yom HaGolem? They would be terrified! (I don’t read this suggestion as accidental anti-Semitism so much as getting carried away with a metaphor, which I’m sure as writers we have all done!)

But also, it’s worth pointing out that our commemorative foods aren’t usually that literal. If you think about hamantaschen, maror, or apple in honey, they’re all symbols. That’s not to say that having Golem-shaped cookies is a problem, as this sounds like just a bit of fun that the MC is having and not something that is directly at odds with Judaism or Jewish culture. But it’s worth bearing in mind that the more literal you go from there in terms of tying the cookies to the event they commemorate, the less culturally aligned your holiday food becomes.

Finally, about the Golem protecting non-Jewish people: I like this idea! There’s a stereotype that we only use whatever is at our disposal to help ourselves and other Jewish people, so a Golem being created by Jews but helping others as well is a big plus for me. Of course, as has already been pointed out, this would be an odd choice if her Saving The World team were anti-Semitic or otherwise disrespectful to her/her community, but I don’t think you were headed that way!

-Shoshi

I have to come back in here just to squee over the phrase “Yom HaGolem.” Well done :D

--Shira

[girlcalledwhatsername]

Okay so I'm seeing a lot of people lately (and some older theorists of course) talk about how cis men as such are Not an oppressor class, and that misogyny is the fault of patriarchy not of cis men and therefore they should not be considered the oppressor class in terms of gendered oppression. I respectfully disagree with this on a political level.

Let me preface by saying I am a brown disabled genderfluid person from a "third world country", so this is informed by the many intersections I have experienced and the political understanding I have built thereof.

1) The oppressive system of "patriarchy" is responsible for gender oppression and not an oppressor class - this can be said of any kind of oppression if one wants. I have heard people talk about how it's racism that is the problem and not white people, and that is true, but that doesn't change the fact that white people are the ones (in Western countries particularly) who have created laws and enacted behaviours and benefitted from and upheld social structures that oppress people of colour. It is white people who colonised my country and spread racist rhetorics which they still continue with and benefit from, and therefore even though all white people aren't gonna be racist, they very much are the oppressor class because they hold that power over coloured people. And much like with the patriarchy, our freedom struggle has stories of white people who supported poc and were punished for it by their own kind, the way men who don't adhere to ideas of patriarchy are punished by the setup. Likewise the way that women often also uphold patriarchy: there is plenty talk in freedom struggles and outside that too of brown people (and I'm sure other poc but i can only speak for brown people) who upheld racist setups because they got some small benefit from it. Or like rich queer people siding with Republicans (this one's for the Americans mwuah). That does not change the fact that men have historically made laws keeping women oppressed and continue to uphold systems that oppress us.

2) Coming to the other intersection real quick, people argue that men aren't the oppressor class because women often hold positions of privilege over men: this is also true of other intersections. The rich gay man holds position of power and privilege over all his working class employees, including the straight ones. The white queer person possibly holds power over the brown cishet guy. A rich brown man also holds power over his working class white employees btw, still doesn't mean white people are suddenly not an oppressor class. It seems to me that these situations are a lot easier to understand when race plays in so I bring it up because not once ever have I had a progressive person tell me it's Not All White People when I make a general statement about the power white people hold and exploit.

3) The matter of the Cis woman. I will bring up again here the fact this is my political opinion and my political framework for understanding intersectionality, and I understand that a lot of people think there is gonna be One True Politics to stick to but I don't believe i have to agree with all leftist political ideas in order to have the "right opinion". So here is mine: cis people have long oppressed and continue to oppress trans people in the exact same way that cis men oppress women. Cis and perisex people in general are also an oppressor class holding privilege over trans and intersex people, cis and perisex people have made laws and upheld systems that oppress trans and intersex people. The fact that cis people hold power over trans people does not erase the fact that cis men still hold power over cis women and other oppressed gender and sex classes. Both can be true at the same time. Men being oppressors doesn't suddenly mean that a trans man is the oppressor class for women too because 1) cis women hold power not by virtue of being women but by virtue of being cis and 2) trans men are not oppressing other queer people, lateral aggression aside we aren't oppressor classes for each other we are in the same fucking boat.

4) It absolutely is not bioessentialism to say this the same way it isn't bioessentialism to say that white people have been oppressive. White genes didn't make em do it, it was a choice, the issue is that they continue to make that choice because it's easier for them. Same with cis men. Masculinity doesn't make them do this. Masculinity isn't inherently anything and I appreciate both masculinity and feminity as a genderfluid person myself. It's about the inherent power that men hold over women in any society but also particularly the one I've grown up in which a lot of Westerners will easily ignore.

TL;DR: When I say "men are an oppressor class" I do Not mean that cis men will never ever be in a position where they are oppressed because that's the point of intersectionality. I do not mean that trans men are also an oppressor class - because they are also oppressed by cis people (including cis men) and in terms of gendered oppression cis men are still upholding systems of oppression that directly benefit them and oppress women.

Note: if you have are gonna argue with me the least you can do is read the whole thing first though, I can't fit nuance in the tldr