#intersectional transfeminism

[femme-ressentiment]

he thinks the working class patriarch is a “hyper specific example” even though the vast majority of people on this fucking planet are working class 💀💀💀 and half of them are MEN

[rjalker]

Edwin Abbott Abbott: this is the world's most blatant propaganda. This is the world's fakest fake story ever faked. This is absurd. Don't you agree it's absurd. You and I both know this couldn't ever actually happen because it's just flat out not how the world works, and it's especially ironic if you look at everything the narrator says as perfect truth, right?

You see how he's repeating a story that completely contradicts everything he's already told you is true? Without realizing that these two things are completely incompatible and both can't exist at the same time?

You see how perfectly convenient this story is for the ruling class?

You see how the narrator Literally Flat Out Told You that the ruling class frequently invent stories like this because they're so effective at swaying the sympathies of the masses?

Yeah. This story is fake. It's as blatantly fake as I can make it without having the narrator realize it's fake and literally explicitly tell you it's fake.

This did not happen. It was literally made up by the ruling class as propaganda to fracture the revolution.

Do you not see how convenient all of the timing is? How completely convenient it is that the victim in the story killed herself on the spot without telling anyone else, but somehow everyone else learned the truth anyways, and the perpetrator is nowhere to be found, wasn't notably killed or arrested or even somehow escaped out into the wilderness, and neither are any of the family members of the victim available for questioning in any way or even said to have refused interviews because of their grief?

You notice that, right?

Yeah.

It's because none of these people ever existed because it's a completely made up story created by the Circles to stop the revolution from passing the Universal Color Bill that would make everyone equals in the eye of the law.

This whole thing is a lesson about propaganda and a warning against reactionary women in particular and oppressed people in general who will turn against other oppressed people in order to maintain their position in society even when that position also oppresses them.

If you hate the idea of other oppressed people becoming your equal even more than you want to be the social equal of the people oppressing you all, then you will never be free.

TERFs: Holy shit this fake story within a fictional story is exact proof that all men are evil and women shouldn't trust them because the left wants women to be sexually assaulted by men who pretend to be part of different social classes than they really are!!!!!!!!

[jimberoschwezer]

Nobody is saying that our experiences are identical. We even recognize that the various AMAB transfeminities can differ enourmously from each other, so that’s clearly not our point.

What is actually being argued is that you cannot deny the existence of a whole transfem group just because its experiences tend to deviate from transfeminine stereotypes. Transfemininity is shaped by all sorts of social divisions—race, class, sexuality, ability, etc, that doesn’t make these various intersectional transfemininities any less transfem. Disabled black transfemininity has its own unique intersectional vulnerabilities too, but does that mean it isn’t transfemininity ? No, of course not, the same goes for afab transfemininity!

Debatable as there isn’t an universal AMAB or AFAB transfeminine experience. But even if that were the case, so what? What I’ve previously stated still applies: the fact that one type of transfemininity is markedly different from another (eg AFAB transfemininity and AMAB transfemininity) doesn't make it any less valid as transfemininity. Once you understand this, the inclusion of AFAB transfeminality as a type of transfeminality might not seem so unreasonable to your transmisogynist mind.

I won’t engage with the rest of the post as I’ve addressed it countless times here, and because it's based on a misunderstanding of transmisogyny aimed at amab transfems (they are seen as both failed women and failed men when it suits a transphobic society, not just the latter). The post still operates under the transphobic assumption that AMAB (white, able-bodied, etc.) transfemininity is the default reference from which we should evaluate and validate other types of transfemininities. A little tiring.

Anyway, it's the same story: straw men, ignorance, unexamined beliefs, pretends to be intersectional while having an anti-intersectional/universalist approach to transfemininity.

[describe-things]

The original post was deleted so I'm just gonna remake it and have it just be regular text the whole time instead of screenshots. because that's a thing.

spockgirl said, at some point on or before June 6th, 2022:

A lot of people took the phrase "women's rights are human rights" to mean "the issue you think of as women's rights also affect other more important stuf"' rather than "women are human".

The post had 1,037 notes total.

[redacted] said on June 6th 2022:

I saw about a 50:50 split of queers and terfs reblogging this and y'all????? this is exactly what people are talking about when they say Radfem Lite. I'm just gonna drop these here cause my friends summed it up better than I could.

This was followed by two screenshots of text that read, with punctuation added for readability:

The thing being that we need those things said, because the words used in laws etc matter, and if it exclusively says "women", then people who can get pregnant but aren't women can and will get refused help on the basis that they are not women.

It's weird because intersectionality is a staple of actually productive feminism. And all activism. You have to be cognizant of how things you would classify as "women's issues" will affect certain other identities and subsets of identities in order to make any headway on addressing them. Bringing up how an issue affects trans men as well as cis women or bringing up how the Roe overturning will affect Black women systematically more than white women, because they traditionally receive more poor care in regards to pregnancy and have a ridiculously high birth mortality rate, is not shifting the focus off of "women are people". It's. Just being accurate and encompassing the full scope of an issue.

[redacted] then commented:

Use your brains please. Don't drink the koolaid.

[trans-androgyne]

I want there to be fewer MRAs. Do you want that too? Do you want to know what helps us get there, from a feminist perspective?

You may not like my answer: acknowledge that sexism can affect men. Recognize that, although the patriarchy generally privileges men, they are also subject to restrictive gender roles that are harmful to them (shunning all things “feminine,” not showing emotions, being protectors/strong, never admitting being victims of SA/IPV, having to “earn” their manhood, etc.).

Give young men a place other than the right-wing manosphere to be heard about the issues they experience. If these grifters are telling them “only we understand how hard it is to be a man, the left hates you for your gender” and they look to the left and see “men claiming they have ‘problems’ are losers who just hate women, all men are trash,” do you think they’re going to be drawn towards or away from feminism?

Before you leave an angry response: no, this does not mean to center men instead of women in feminism, it just means including them at all. No, it is not “coddling” men to treat them with human dignity, you can and should continue to hold them (and every other gender) responsible for unpacking sexist beliefs. No, this does not mean it is every individual woman’s and feminist’s responsibility to prioritize men’s issues, it just means at the least not shutting them down when they do speak up about sexism. No, it is not “not all men-ing” to point out that “men are trash” sentiments hurt the feminist movement rather than helping it. Ask questions before you make accusations on this post, please. I have been abused by men too, I get it, this isn’t easy to hear.

[intersexfairy]

can't help but think about the trans palestinians who are excluded by the constant use of phrases like "men and women" and "boys and girls." so here's to remembering them. to every palestinian with neglected gynecological issues who isn't a woman or girl. to every nonbinary person who's fallen. to everyone who's lost access to their hormones, who wasn't able to get their gender affirming surgeries - intersex palestinians, too. to every unidentified trans person and every trans person who never got to be their true selves. to all of them, the martyred, and those still struggling just to survive. free palestine - trans and intersex palestinians included.

[agendercryptidlev]

[ID: Meme that reads "I bring a sort of "The Patriarchy was defined by Cis Feminists and the Definition Should be Updated To Better Represent the Lived Experiences of Trans and Intersex People" Vibe to Transfeminist Theory that Radfems don't really like" the background is a photo of a man with a backwards baseball cap looking into the distance while standing outside /end ID]

[jingerpi]

i think the main character that differs transmisogyny from transphobia + misogyny, is the goal.

trans masculine individuals experience what we'll call "corrective misogyny", where they experience a derision of their chosen gender in an attempt to push them back into the class of [cis]woman this is transphobia + misogyny.

People I think confuse this with transmisogyny because it involves transphobia and misogyny, but transmisogyny is not "corrective". The point of transmisogyny is to push trans feminine individuals out of both the class of man and woman, into a gender underclass, a subaltern as some have called it. There is no premise of "rescuing" trans women. trans men are abused in attempt to bring them back into the protected underclass of women, while trans women are abused in an attempt at the opposite, the intent is explicitly to push us out of all protected classes.

[taliabhattwrites]

"Racism is inherent to transmisogyny"

So, are white trans women affected by racism?

This is not a gotcha. I've seen a lot of people on here attempt to discuss racism and (trans)misogyny as co-constitutive, but people never show their work. If racism is in fact inseparable from transmisogyny, is everyone who suffers transmisogyny a victim of racism?

If cis women of color are subject to transmisogyny, is there no distinction between cis and trans women of color, either within or outside the West?

How does the inseparability of racism and transmisogyny operate in global south cultures where imperialism has shaped their history and economy, yes, but the extant regime is not one where white people are a present or meaningful demographic?

I know people mean well, but if you're going to make broad, sweeping statements about these topics, you need to be able to think through your arguments, realize what conclusions you are implicitly promulgating, and reason out whether what you're saying makes sense and matches up with history and empirical reality.

Because I've had experience both with Western and non-Western patriarchies, and I'm fairly sure in that regard, I am a minority on this site.

[gayhenrycreel]

something we need to keep in mind is that men are not hated by patriarchy for being men, we are hated for being men WRONG. women are hated no matter what, but men are promised that if we obey patriarchy we might get a reward.

anti masculinity targets men who fail at masculinity. western masculinity is inherently white, cishet, and abled. MOC can be masculine, but they fail at whiteness so being men is weaponized against them. gay men can be masculine but we automatically fail at masculinity so we get treated as predators. masculinity is treated as controlling and powerful, so when men fail at masculinity, it gets used against us.

men can fail masculinity by rejecting manhood, and women can fail at masculinity by the way they were born (anyone perceived as a woman who is masculine will be treated as predatory purely because thats how masculinity is most easily weaponized. this is why butches are feared and trans men are treated as men only when it can be used to harm them).

anyone who is masculine in a deviant way is punished, as are those who are expected to be masculine but are not.

[knightsbestowedbeauty]

On the Topic of Infantilisation

One aspect as to why the prevalence of anti-transmasculinity is easily dismissed in transgender and ally spaces is the way infantilisation is not properly understood as a direct product of misogyny, a tool intended to impose control, not "offer leniency".

Being treated as "deluded women" entails being violently stripped of all agency, not only when it concerns reproduction & anatomy and transitioning, but life, as well. It bleeds into the treatment of "hysterical women", where transmasculine people, as all marginalised people experience, are considered both pathetically weak and repulsively dangerous. Even if transmasculine people are not primarily seen as "predatory" by certain transphobes, they are still upheld as a direct threat, both to womanhood and manhood.

There is no "concern" or "support" behind viewing transmasculine people as "male-impersonating women poisoned by testosterone" or "self-hating girls being lead" to such a path, because there is an explicit element of oppression that subjects them as beneath cisgender people, including cisgender women. Forcibly detransitioning people & all its attempts and the arrays of mistreatment it encompasses will never been anything but transphobia manifested in a psychological & physically and often sexually abusive form.

Do you know how insane it sounds to say, "being oppressed explicitly because you are perceived as a failed woman needing to be retaught her place and punished for her misconduct is NOT AS bad as being perceived as a rapist, pedophile, etc. because some mask it by saying they are merely fighting for women's rights! That's support, as you are still extended full feminist activism!"?

No, transphobic acclaimed-feminists do not care about transmasculine people; they never have. In fact, some openly approve of anti-transmasculinity as a means to suppress & eradicate transgender manhood and subject cisgender womanhood, even if it involves corrective rape and forced impregnation.

Edit: If you think anti-transmasculinity is "not as bad" as transmisogyny, or vice versa, this is not the place for you. Specialised forms of transphobia are neither better nor worse than counterparts. I do not promote this childish behaviour in any way.

[rjalker]

or, a shorter version of the post:

Edwin Abbot Abbot: so yeah here's a really really really fake story that the ruling class made up about a wealthy heiress being tricked into marrying a lower class man without realizing it and then killing herself on her wedding night, and this story was very blatantly made up out of thin air by the ruling class to fracture the revolution that had almost succeeded in reshaping society to make everyone equals. I'm literally going to even have the narrator tell you that these kinds of stories are created all the time as propaganda to make it even more clear that it's fake propaganda, even if you ignore all the inherent flaws in the story itself.

TERFs: omg this is such proof that we can't let oppressed men have equal rights otherwise they'll threaten Wealthy White Women!!!!!!

[ratbastarddotfuck]

it blows my mind when I see self proclaimed transfeminists saying that movement towards masculinity is never punished, and movement towards femininity is always punished. because I'm sorry, but that's simply not fucking true. it may be true for trans women/transfems, or queer/gnc men, or cis women under certain specific conditions, but movement towards masculinity is absolutely punished in most people presumed to be women by society (this can include butch transfems!!!! "why are you transitioning just to act like a man" sort of shit). I didn't spend my entire life being abused physically and emotionally by family, teachers/employers, and peers for being a tomboy, then a butch, then a transmasc for other trans people to come up and say that AFAB people aren't punished for being masculine. when I was 15 years old my father told me I was "lucky" I didn't cut my hair shorter than my shoulders, else I'd "look like a dirty butch dyke". so many adults - father, stepmother, many of their friends, my grandparents, teachers, STRANGERS - made it their life's mission to forcibly feminise me, and I mean that seriously. I was forced to wax my face and body from the age of 12 until I moved out at 17, because I looked too "mannish" and it was an embarrassment for my family to be seen with me. I have been routinely punished, abused, bullied and manipulated for being a "masculine girl". this is not an uncommon experience.

like, seriously, go talk to a butch. go read stone butch blues. it's free. and stop assuming shit about experiences you have never had. ALL deviation from the societal norm is punished. that's the fucking point.

[intersexcat-tboy]

Benevolent sexism is still sexism.

If you think placing women on pedestals is feminism or suggesting all women are victims who need protection from men, that's benevolent sexism, not feminism.

If you think abuse is inherently less abusive, less harmful, painful, serious, anything of that sort because a woman is perpetrating it, you've fallen for benevolent sexism.

[trans-androgyne]

There seems to be a lack of understanding around here of the way sexism can affect men. Of course men are the privileged gender under patriarchy, but you only reap all the benefits of hegemonic manhood if you’re seen as doing it the Right Way (being a masculine cishetallo perisex White etc. man). Feminine men experience sexist treatment. Black men demonized for being moc experience sexist treatment. Pregnant trans men painted as objects of disgust experience sexist treatment. Any time manhood is used to say men’s bodies must always look a certain way or that men are inherently more violent, aggressive, predatory, emotionally stunted, hypersexual, and dangerous than other genders, that is sexism and gender essentialism. To dismantle patriarchy, we need an accurate understanding of how it functions. Intersectional feminism includes men.

[boreal-sea]

I think we just need to put away the idea that gender is an identity that can exist separate from other identities. Now, some feminists have already grasped this concept. Intersectionality is a whole thing, right?

But here’s the kicker: it applies to the gender of “man”, too.

There is no such thing as a human whose only sole important identity is “man”. Man is not default. Man is not empty or devoid of connotation. Man does not superseded or erase other identities a person may have. Manhood can and does interact with other identities, sometimes constructively (adding to privilege) and sometimes negatively (contributing to oppression).

So for any branch of feminism to treat “man” like an identity that receives unconditional privilege due to an inability to intersect with other identities is nonsense. And I’m looking at multiple different branches of feminism here.