#listen. androphobia is not a thing

[whatdoicallmyblog]

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[coremilk]

COMBAT TRANSMISOGYNY

What's your reasoning for finding it to be a problem that tansfems use TME to mean non-transfem people because it "implies" that nobody but transfems can be affected by transmisogyny but not finding it a problem for "transandrophobia" to imply the existence of general androphobia as a structural oppression in analogy to the construction of other intersectional terms? Why must only transfems be held to a standard of literalism? Why is it impermissible for transfems to reject the terms that other trans people use to describe their oppression but not for non-transfems to reject the terms transfems use? Why must transfems eternally be subjected to this kind of sadistic sophistry that reduces the space for analysis that we are allowed to occupy to less than nothing? Why is every attempt at communicating our own experiences and understanding thereof seen as an invitation for smarmy rhetorical reversals?

I feel genuine despair about how non-transfems talk about and to us on this website. I endlessly have to listen to people engaging in idealist amateur psychoanalysis that absurdly focuses on the mental state of my oppressors telling me "but transphobes perceive you as a failed man" as if transmisogyny was a mental defect that some people carry instead of a structural force that manifests (among other things) in a variety of mutually contradictory ideological claims.

Why must I ceaselessly suffer the incorrect and """indirectly""" misgendering claim that I, a transfem, am treated like a (failed, gender non-conforming, etc.) man (a purposefully selective view that strictly implies that either transfems cannot be identified as a distinct group and the specifics of being transfem have no bearing on how we are treated, or that trans women genuinely are men - as the only people who are actually treated precisely like transfems are transfems)? The ends to which this is done are totally transparent: so that men can claim the oppression suffered by trans women as data points of their own oppression with a gesture like "because you were perceived as a man, the way you were treated is actually indicative of how men are treated" (which neither logically follows nor is it actually true). When a trans woman is "treated as a man" that's transmisogyny. I completeley reject a framework that centers the psychological state of my oppressor. The ideological claim that trans women are men is no different from the ideological claim that trans women are raping the bodies of women by reducing the female form to an artefact or that they are colonizing womanhood or are grooming children into transitioning: It is a fundamentally incorrect idea on the basis of which no correct analysis can be formed, you cannot grant these things even for the sake of argument. When trans women are mistreated for being "seen as men" that's transmisogyny in the exact same way that these other claims are transmisogyny. To claim that it is transandrophobia (which is constantly claimed by users of that term, usually as an illustration of the idea that "all trans people are affected by transandrophobia") is an illegitimate appropriation of transfem experiences and it's absurd. It's like saying that when disabled people are perceived as faking their disabilities they actually suffer a sentiment directed at non-disabled people rather than ableism because they're "seen as non-disabled". If trans women are "seen as men" then that's the problem that needs to be addressed, not how men are treated. If trans women are "seen as predators" then that's the problem that needs to be addressed, not how predators are treated. If trans women are "seen as objects" then that's the problem that needs to be addressed, not how objectes are treated.

According to most transphobes we are not trans because there's no such thing as trans people. Should we take that to mean that trans people suffer from cisphobia? That the way trans people are treated is really indicative of how cis people are treated and not trans people? No! We cannot rely on transphobes to provide us a coherent framework for understanding their transphobia. They don't have to "see" us as trans to recognize us as trans. In the same way they don't have to "see" us as women to recognize us as trans women. It is their transmisogyny that leads the way from recognizing us as trans women to conceptualizing us as cis men.

I barely even want to explain myself anymore. I'll just get called a baeddel by people who are fully aware that it's an intersexist and transmisogynistic slur. I'll be subjected to hypocritical double standards where if my analysis has any remote implications about non-transfems I'll be told in so many words to stay in my lane, as the experiences of others are unknowable to me, but non-transfems can give direct explicit wide-reaching transmisogynistic accounts of our experiences (e.g. that we suffer from androphobia of some sort) and I ought to accept this as some kind of perverse eu-misgendering "inclusion". I'll be infantilized by complete misogynists who pretend that my grounds for rejecting their ideas (e.g. "trans women are treated as men by transphobes") aren't genuine ideological disagreements and I am instead just too weak-willed to face reality (which they think their own antifeminist analysis amounts to). I'll be hounded for sources and proof when I discuss my own lived experiences and I am told incorrect categorical statements about what I do and don't experience and why. I'll have transfeminism dismissed as an irrelevant niche ideology by people who follow a significantly more niche ideology themselves. And most despair inducing of all is having the opinions of transfems who disagree with me presented to me as if they override my analysis simply be existing - as if everything (e.g. misgendering by reference to a rhetorical observer or calling trans women "baeddels") had to be agreed to by all transfems everywhere to be transmisogynistic for non-transfems to even consider stopping.

It is grueling to constantly hear people espouse universal mores about how trans people ought to treat one another only for those exact same people to make no attempt whatsoever to actually apply those mores to how they treat transfems. I want you to feel how hollow appeals like this sound to me, especially when they command me to abandon my objectively correct materialist analysis of my own experiences and adopt views that are actively transmisogynistic (and not just a little). It's painful when people think materialism means "when stuff is made out of physical matter" as opposed to society being shaped by material (economic) factors and then justify equating people who were AMAB with cis men with appeals to this kind of vulgar "materialism". "Trans women are murdered so much because they are seen as men and people are more ok with killing men" I am forced to read with my own eyes with barely a thought given to the extreme structural (economic) marginalization of trans women of color that pushes them not just into sex work but also any number of other positions of extreme precarity (abusive relationships, addiction, homelessness, incarceration etc.)

To bring it back to TME/TMA: These terms are not their own definitions. TMA doesn't mean everyone who is ever affected by transmisogyny in any way and TME doesn't mean it's impossible to be affected by transmisogyny. The demand for literalism here is a mean spirited rhetorical game and there is no winning. If I hit you with the classic intersexist argument that since the "inter" part of intersex just literally means "between", it either ought to apply to perisex trans people whose sex characteristics are altered through hormones and surgery or be abolished in favor of a more precise term as the components of the term itself don't describe its precise meaning fully by themselves - you'd know that that's an absurd demand to make of terminology and you'd know that I was being not just a dumbass but also intersexist. Terms don't need to encapsulate the entirety of their meaning. They are allowed to have definitions and usages that go beyond what is implied by the literal meanings of the words they are constructed from. This is true for english terms just as much as it is true for latin and greek terms. But getting transfeminists to change their terminology is not the point of this exercise, the point of this exercise is to always put trans women on the back foot, to never give them an inch, to deny them completely any and all avenues for framing the discourse around themselves and their own experiences. Either you allow trans women the use of language in its normal capacity or you are a transmisogynist.

If you are TME, the way transmisogyny affects you is as a TME person. You can shoot through bulletproof vests, you can see invisible ink, you can eat inedible substances, you can say unspeakable things and water can be liquid below its freezing point. Your relationship to transmisogyny is a different one than that of a TMA person and that difference is what TME/TMA describes. The literalist angle is obscurantist on purpose. It is instrumentalizing the epistemic marginalization of TMA people against them to deny the epistemic marginalization exists to begin with. You deny us the right to exercise authority over what our own terminology means and use your own willfully transmisogynistic interpretation to imply that we hold reactionary views that we do not hold in order to further our epistemic marginalization. You can wrongfully accuse transfeminists of actually wanting to uphold binarist, essentialist and reductive categories and there's not much we can do about it because we don't get a seat at the table where our own oppression is discussed unless we say exactly what you want to hear from us.

I want to appeal to you to consider our positions, our terminology from an angle of self-advocacy in light of how invested others are in transmisogynistically misexplaining our own experiences to us, over us and against us. "Everyone can be affected by transmisogyny" is true in the same way that "everyone can be affected by intersexism" and "everyone can be affected by racism" and "everyone can be affected by ableism" are true. It ceases to be true when it's used to deny that there is a meaningful qualitative difference in how intersex people and perisex people relate to intersexism, how racialized people and those who aren't relate to racism, how disabled people and non-disabled people relate to ableism.

TME/TMA aren't essentialist, they don't reinforce a binary and they're not reductive if you understand them the way they are supposed to be understood instead of applying a hostile bad faith reading wherein transfeminists are a bunch of selfish greedy tyrants who want to hog all the transmisogyny for themselves in order to lord the immense standpoint epistemological social capital they derive from having their oppression over-specified and over-acknowledged over everyone else.

I'll remind you of this most famous example of intersecting discrimination: A targeted layoff of black women at general motors, which could neither be attributed to them being women alone nor them being black alone because black men and non-black women weren't laid off. Acknowledging the specificity of the oppression is the explicit point of intersectionality (because that specificity can and will otherwise be used to deny that it is oppression at all, that it is targeted at all) - it's not an "essentialist" misunderstanding of intersectionality. This neither implies that everyone who is ever laid off suffers from misogynoir nor does it imply that only black women can be laid off. It doesn't imply that black men and non-black women aren't discriminated against in other contexts either.

To say that there is a specific intersection that happens to people who are transgender women is not essentialist, we don't attribute any essential characteristics to anybody. Tautologies aren't essentialism, rejecting tautologies is a denial of logic itself. All it is saying is that some things happen to transfems specifically because they are transfems. To deny that specificity is straightfowardly anti-intersectional. To say "all trans people experience transmisogyny" as a rebuttal to discussions of the specificity of transmisogyny is reinforcing precisely those malformed patterns of argumentation that intersectionality is meant to address to begin with. If you redefine transmisogyny as something that can affect all trans people in comparable ways then what you defined is transphobia and the intersection is rendered conceptually invisible again. It ends up being a more roundabout, rhetorically involved way to deny the existence of transmisogyny altogether.

Reductive, transmisogynistic ideas of transmisogyny like that we only suffer transmisogyny when we are recognized as transfems (regardless of whether those doing the recognizing consider trans women to be women or not) or mistaken for men ignore the fact that even those of us who are "seen as" cis women all day every day have to completely structure their lives around transmisogyny. The fact that I'm a trans woman renders interactions with people who have no idea and even passive states that would have nothing to do with transmisogyny otherwise into transmisogyny because of the way they interact with the objective fact of reality that I am a trans woman. Transmisogyny is not a mental defect of transphoboes and it cannot be reduced to individual interactions or attitudes.

If a trans woman tells you something is transmisogynistic but you think it's not because you fundamentally disagree about the basic axioms of your analysis you have to recognize that. "If you agreed with my analysis you wouldn't consider my analysis transmisogynistic" is a totally inane statement that holds true for even the most obviously transmisogynistic analysis. Even terfs don't consider themselves transmisogynistic. Even terfs have some trans women who agree with them. You have to either make a good faith attempt to sort out that disconnect or move on in the knowledge that your views are fundamentally at odds with each other and it is logically consistent for a transfeminist to consider the things she considers transmisogynistic transmisogynistic and she's not just accusing you of transmisogyny in an attempt to unfairly smear you.

When you are transmisogynistic the reason you don't see it is that the ideology you check yourself against to determine if you are being transmisogynistic is the same ideology that led you to your transmisogynistic views to begin with. When you say "I'm not a transmisogynist" your reasoning is logically consistent but it's as self referential as saying "I'm not a transmisogynist because there's no such thing as 'transmisogyny' and there's no such thing as 'transwomen', just delusional men"

You might think that because you occasionally take umbrage with a few of the most egregious examples of transmisogyny coming from non-transfems, you have sufficiently fortified yourself against transmisogynist biases and occupy a somewhat neutral position from which you judge our views according to a higher-order ideological framework than the one transfeminists use to judge your views, but it is in fact just an opposing ideological framework. You deny the existence of transmisogyny not by saying "transmisogyny doesn't exist" but by supplanting it with your own homonym, a definition of transmisogyny that is alien to ours. You argue "A thing called transmisogyny exists, but not the thing you mean by it. And because it would be essentialist/binarist/reductive to say the things you say about transmisogyny if you meant by it what I define as transmisogyny, your analysis is essentialist, biniarist and reductive." You are engaged in two entangled efforts to deny us our language and framework for analysis: You redefine the term transmisogyny and then use that redefinition to argue that the derived terms TMA and TME have reactionary implications when you take them literally.

[dragonstailbutch]

Hey sorry i am trying to like. find examples of what you mean when you talk about mra stuff and (trans)misogyny in forcemasc content and tumblr search has betrayed me once again, can you explain?

(sorry I normally wouldn't ask but I wanna make sure I'm not perpetuating anything!! Also fucking tumblr search!!! it is ridiculous!)

so ive been sitting on this ask for months since ive got it. i want to do it justice and try to take it at face value that its being honest in asking.

The thing is, theres this trend and a weird amount of effort to be like force femme, to be forceful and like its something to fearful of and give in to. But we cant do that, cause all that does is reinforce the idea that being a man is a toxic thing. I saw this post the other day where a transman talked about like, the whole "raised as a weapon" thing, the violence and horror of being a man and raised that way versus how they felt growng into it as a transman. How they wanted to reclaim that phrase or something? i could be misremembering.

But that was never the intent of forcemasc. It wasnt actually about being a dude, literally *forcing* someone who was unwilling into masculinity, none of the posts that i made that started the community (and yes i, a transfem butch woman, started and made this community and some of yall need to get over yourselves) were ever about that, it was intended to be a soft mimic or even a call to forcefemme.

i was all about making it soft and tender for a reason, cause if i didnt i was only reinforcing the toxic masculinity narrative, "men fighting in the mud" "men are dominant and cool" " to be a man is to be forced into masculinity and to be disgusted with the feminine" or whatever. When masculinity isnt about just men, and being butch isnt just being masculine. masculinity should also be sensitivity, not domination. i wanted it to be better, show a better side of what masculinity could be, what being butch is.

Ive spoken before a bit too, about the tags people used and added to forcemasc, and really maybe i was wrong in ever naming it forcemasc. people used and still use tags like autoandrophilia, autoandrophile, androphile, autogynephilia, androphilia, and autogynephile. Ive seen so many people with urls and tags and posts calling themselves transandrobros, literally calling themselves MRAs, as if that was something to be proud of, as if they dont understand that they arent fighting for their and our rights, they're fighting for cis-mens rights by using those names and terms, not transmascs/transmens rights. I can understand ignorance, but weve talked about how the words you use have history, especially those like the tags i mentioned and androphilia and androphobia and others, all of them have roots in deeeeeeeply misogynistic and transphobic people and history.

Literally all of these are awful and are phrases that arent and wont be reclaimed because theyre history is one of pain and hurting trans people, one of coercive 'help', literal forced detransitioning and reinforcement of MRA and terf narrative that men are both good and the worst creature alive and that to be a woman is to be disgusting and the purest thing all at once. That to be a transwoman is sick and we shouldnt be trusted.

Im trying to be very kind, not scream and rage, not because i dont desperately want to, but because if i do, as a butch transwoman, ESPECIALLY cause i claim being butch, people wont listen to me no matter how much of what i say is meaningful. one of the reasons why im doing this NO, instead of in anothr day or two, is that im coming to terms with the fact that the situation will just get qorse, not better without words.

Part of why im still sane is that ive gotten a couple asks here and there about how my posts and creation of the community has helped them and its so wonderful to see that, genuinely so amazing to see people recontextualize and love themselves. its wonderful and im so fucking happy about it.

i personally made this space so i could love myself, who i am as a trans person and my body, and i knew that other people needed and wanted that for themselves too and i wanted to help, share this love with more people. That to be hairy and chubby and masculine and butch was a nice thing. But to me it feels like it was coerced into being a thing for Men. A thing no longer for me or people like me who share the butch culture and name to no longer enjoy cause people unfamiliar with kink and tran history have decided that masculinity and butchness are the exact same thing. Id say people should go be a bear, but you wont learn their culture either and thats cruel and insulting to bears.

We deserve better You deserve better. Stop falling for the lies and hate. We beg you

[velvetvexations]

My commentary on the whole "if dipper is transmasc mable is a terf" thing is that dipper and Mabel are 12 years old and exist in a cartoon set in 2012. Mable does not know what a terf is. Mabel is 12 years old, 12 year Olds can't be terfs. If her actions persisted into adulthood yeah she'd be transphobic but she is a cartoon character who can never age. I don't look at a real life 12 year old saying transphobic things and think they're a terf, because that's stupid. I'm sure if this character could have the intricacies of transphobia explained to her she'd understand her actions were wrong, but she can't, because she's a twelve year old from a cartoon that stopped airing in 2016.

the anon who pointed out it's exactly the same with Chihiro is so gigabrained

cannot get over how much some transfems get mad at transmascs for doing the same shit transfems do. "transmascs are obsessed with headcanoning characters as transmasc even when it makes no sense" coming from the "estrogen would save her" crowd is, maddening

well thanks to epistemological standpoint trans women will always have a deeper and more complex relationship to gender

Its literally nauseating and disgusting listening to - say that trans mascs don't face the same rate of SA as trans fems or that we're lying about the statistics of the violence against us

I know anon <3

whats really funny about the whole "mabel would be transphobic" thing is that she would be transphobic regardless. saying that someone isn't a man cuz they're too girly is transphobic. like just straight up. it's not like. the worst form of transphobia ever. but it's like how telling a guy that he throws like a girl is still sexist regardless. and you know what? mabel is 12. she's a child. so what if she's a little bit mean? the whole thing is just so stupid because it's trying to make a headcanon thats relatively completely innocent seem problematic. and idk if i really want that sort of precedent to be set around trans headcanons. anyways i hope ur having a good day ^^

I keep saying this but it's wild how the "trans men are so comfortable with being girls and calling themselves girls" crowd is dogmatic that a twelve year old girl misgendering a twelve year old trans boy is committing the worst possible crime against him.

- i'm sorry but is this person implying that in order to not be discriminated against trans men should stop being men or is it something out of my fucked-up head?

Unintentionally, yes.

Idk if you saw the Twitter blahaj drama but like, some trf’s loose their minds if trans men also like a stuffed animal but god fucking forbid we also have transmasc headcanons like idk it’s always the same people doing this shit too at this point I think they just hate any other kind of trans person and just post-hoc rationalize it whenever there’s a “”tme”” being happy

Correct! And then transmasc TRFs are like "so true queen, don't these sissies know that being a man is all about suffering."

Potentially hot take but if you really REALLY can't find a trans actor to play your trans character I would VASTLY prefer a cis actor of the character's actual gender not their ASAB. "But anon, what if they're early transition?" Plenty of cis people are clocky, that's a very common pushback against TERF bullshit; that they're applying such a narrow standard of gender presentation that even cis people get caught up in it. Makeup exists. Prosthetics exist. Good actors who can make you believe they're fucking trans exist.

Yeah! Just look at the fantastic job Demi Bennett does playing Rhea Ripley!

'transandro dudes are stupid cause they say androphobia is bad but they're too scared to go up to the buffest gym dude and ask for his testosterone supply' are you stupid on purpose. it's not because he's a man it's because he's cis and a lot of cis people are SO down to beat up anyone they suspect might be a trans person. and a pre t trans dude asking for testosterone when the gym guy perceives said trans dude as a woman is DEFINITELY gonna get clocked and then be at risk of getting injured. can we please bring back thinking with our brains

transmasc and transfem TRFs are both so desperate to see themselves as having places in society identical to cis men and cis women and it's not going to fucking work out any time soon

Now personally I adore all the aesthetic posts and they give me a ton of material for my technology tag sooo thank you 4 reblogging so many dope gifs ^^

Thank you!

Maybe one day a week where the only messages people are allowed to send are fawning/simping/lusting after you idk lmao

that IS half my inbox already lol

weird thing but as a kid i was labeled tomboy so often i would consider my gender as a kid to BE tomboy. but when i decided to start being just a boy (trans boy) instead everyone acted like it was something out of left field and that there was "no proof" that i was trans (keep in mind this is like 2014-ish. i am still 99.9% sure i was the first ever person to come out as not cis at my school). like... what the hell do you mean "no proof"?? you literally spent my childhood calling me a tomboy and, after my sister started walking and talking, pointing out how much of a girly girl i WASNT compared to her.

the idea of cis people wanting "proof" is so weird

i like ur aesthetic posts tho, they make me happy also why tf r they complaining about aesthetic posts on tumblr of all places lol

literallyyyyy

Now personally I adore all the aesthetic posts and they give me a ton of material for my technology tag sooo thank you 4 reblogging so many dope gifs ^^

You're welcome!

[joy-haver]

I think my frustration with the way transphobia discourse happens on this site is mostly that it seems to be pretty divorced from real life experiences and examples. I’m not saying those experiences aren’t there, more that we don’t talk about these things by actually explaining “this is what happened to me” or “this is what I’ve observed in these specific new cycles” or whatever. I see people mostly arguing about the terminology of hypothetical differences in peoples experiences of transphobia and that might be useful to some extent, but ultimately I think folks are just shouting past each other because everything is treated as an abstract terminology to be figured out in a lab.

But look, all of this should be descriptive, not prescriptive. Trans misogyny and trans androphobia and whatever other terms we want to use. If you are giving me examples of things that happened in your life and are like “yeah I think this explains what happened to me” I will listen.

But if we are just sitting and debating about the validity of words without any actual discussion of the real traumas associated with them…I’m probably going to just keep ignoring it and move on with my day

[bandofchimeras]

okay will return to this sincerely later but this discourse about androphobia is....its hitting something. something about our relationship with (specifically white or colonial or militarized) masculinity. there IS a fear of and hatred of masculinity within patriarchy. of specific forms of it. of male self-love and desire outside of a repressed homoerotic drive that keeps men seeking eachother's approval. there's a reification of masculinity in singular acceptable forms. there's hatred of racialized, feminized masculinities but feminized IS a racialized term....there's cultural conflict here bigger than the USAmerican centric trans discourse. a whole vein of analysis. still digging at the corners of it. reading the magnus hirschfeld book. the Will to Change by bell hooks. and the thing that's getting to me is the conflation of nonbinary AFAB people with trans men. and the perspective of intersex advocates who have been ignored in these debates that are centered around perisex folks. so yeah, i'm grateful for everyone who is critiquing the concept of transandrophobia, its refining. because what i truly want to understand is masculinity, my own, cis men's, that of trans men ancestors, to really put it in the full prismatic biological, social, anthropological and ecological perspective. as a settler, i don't think its my place to say "decolonize masculinity" but that's EXACTLY my personal investment. i want us to articulate TRANS DECOLONIAL MASCULINE LIBERATION & LOVE. i want us to have a place, not just an understanding of our oppression or an integration into cis masculine roles (even though that's fine to want for yourself), a sense of brotherhood, personhood, and not only visibility or acceptance, but belonging.

what does it look like for men, for trans men, to belong? to be well and connected to ourselves not only as individuals but important, named parts of a collective? there are languages with words for people like us, not just medical labels, but words of belonging. and we also as a community, an international, multi-lingual community, can do better at listening and creating words for our experiences.

[discourse-quantum]

If this gains traction I'm gonna get dogpilled, but I'm just gonna say it

I think the transandrophobia denialism and the hatred of transmascs among transradfems has to do with not only androphobia/hatred of men but also with misoginy. I'm not trynna accuse trans girls of being opressors or misgender them (esp because transradfem/baeddelism/this kind of infighting is currently a niche online thing + most trans girls are not like this) (or misgender transmascs for that matter)

But there is something to be said about people raised as men telling people raised as women to shut up because they're the real victim, they're opressed, that trans men have to shut up and listen to them about our own struggles

Sex-based opression and the validity of trans identities and experiences aren't mutually exclusive. They just intersect in ways most people don't talk about

TERFS FUCK RIGHT OFF. I am aware of how this sounds, but I don't want any of you here. I am transmasc. If you call me a TIF I will steal your hair and make wigs out of it

[doberbutts]

Vent/rant but I hate it when people go "well transandrophobia is just a word for misogyny that trans men experience (because trans men are female so it's misogyny!1!1!), it doesn't mean that androphobia exists"

Because, it does, men are also oppressed under the patriarchy and that carries over to trans men as well, and the intersection of this is trans men not being seen as "real men" (transphobia), men being seen as inherently bad/predatory (androphobia)

Honestly I think a significant amount of the problem is that trans men begin to transition having internalized the concept of men being treated better and having privilege, experience what it's like to be treated as a man, and go "hey uh. This also sucks." Especially trans men who are under multiple marginalizations- race, ability status, religion...

I've said it before many times but it bears repeating: almost all of the trans guys I know will acknowledge they have "listened to more at work" privilege and "not catcalled" privilege. But they also begin being affected by things that didn't affect them as much when they were read as women, and that makes it so the grass doesn't feel many shades greener on the other side.

I noticed a distinct change in the way coworkers and strangers and especially police began treating me as I pass more and more frequently with less and less effort. I'm passing like 90% of the time at this point and I can tell you it is an incredibly noticeable difference. I'm not saying it was safe to exist as a black GNC woman. I *am* saying that existing as a black man is also pretty unsafe.

[bilbobagginsomebabez]

@[REDACTED] because you heathens can't let someone fucking LEARN. op, I intend this kindly, but I can tell you would not be a friend to terfs and this whole thing is rooted in terf brainrot. I'm choosing community today and going to explain why this is terfy shit fucking over trans mascs.

so the core of the terf belief system is that there is a bioessentialist Quality Of Men that makes them fundamentally an Oppressor who can never face marginalization, right? we disagree with that because we love trans people--both women and men. if men are Fundamentally Oppressors, you can't Change Genders. here's the thing. under the premise of "transmasculine oppression does not occur at any axis so they can't have this word", you have removed the bioessentialist aspect but still accepted that there is a Quality Of Men that innately makes them an Oppressor that can never face marginalization.

now the next logical step that we've taken from "men can never be oppressed or have a -phobia term" is that because the "base model" or cis men aren't oppressed and don't face what would hypothetically be "androphobia," trans men cannot create the term "transandrophobia" to describe their real experiences of pain and oppression. despite this weird semantic caveat, we both fully and entirely agree that trans men/mascs do face real oppression specifically due to being Trans Men/Mascs that is different in nature from the cruelty and oppression that Trans Women/Femmes face. so we fully agree that the phenomenon is real, but you and many others are for some reason saying they cannot have a word to describe it. they can't have a word to describe their real experiences because the "base model" doesn't face oppression and we hate the base model so much they specifically do not and can never have a -phobia word.

what is the point of this? who does this help?

it helps terfs keep trans mascs isolated is who it helps. i just. i think the toxicity of the idea is really represented in action right now. because we are talking about a group of men/masculine people who are actively specifically marginalized. they are telling us they are being targeted for detransition and conversion therapy. they are trying to tell us something and we aren't listening because we're playing semantic games over what words they're allowed to use. because they aren't oppressed enough to "be at an axis." in practice right now, it seems like "be at an axis" has turned into "have a real voice in the community." there needs to be room here, conversations where "trans masc" isn't a performative placeholder for "passing trans men," more fluid boundaries between "Man" and "Woman" and how people identified within those categories face marginalization, less hatred for Men and more love for queer life and liberation. not just to be inclusive of nonbinary people who also exist and face weird mixes of both of these real things--transandrophobia and transmisogyny-- but because right now we are denying solidarity to members of our community and limiting our own discussion and understanding in favor of forcing a Very Harassed Group Of Us to endlessly workshop the term over petty semantic grievances.

and I'm sorry but i really. just need us to collectively take a moment and reflect that the grievance is "this word could be broken down into another word we wouldn't like." and i don't really know what to do with that. there are a lot of good reasons to use the term "transandrophobia" not the least of which is because it's immediately descriptive under the language rules we all know (the marginalization/hate that trans men face) but because it fits in with all of the other queer terms--biphobia, homophobia, lesbophobia, aphobia, queerphobia--we generally went hard in terms of "phobia" terms. trans-andro-phobia seems perfectly reasonable to me to describe the hatred of trans men. i am really really sad that "'andro' can't be in a 'phobia' word because men can never be oppressed" became the dominant discourse on this because it really is just. mean. it's just mean-spiritied. 'misandry' already exists. if whatever you were scared of was gonna happen, it already would have. i really cannot comprehend the preferencing of some nebulous possible harm of "androphobia" over and above our ability to describe real problems facing members of our community.

again i ask you, who does this help? trans mascs are our community and they are being attacked brutally and quietly and we aren't talking about it because?? men can't be oppressed because they're not on an axis? they are asking us for solidarity. and they need it.

trans men are asking us to see that terfs weaponize murderous language against trans women but they are no less genocidal in their aims of targeting trans men and mascs for de-transition, conversion therapy, and corrective rape. "lost lesbians" and "lost daughters" and "irreversible damage" are rallying cries and money makers among the far right--they say "keep your daughters daughters, keep them in the ontological category of victim before they become a predator."

the hostility to the term transandrophobia because "men can't be oppressed" is the internalization of the terf belief that men are fundamentally and innately predators and oppressors instead of people reacting to their position under the system of patriarchy. it's a belief that never allows for the destruction of the patriarchy. it says you can never be a gender-traitor unless you're the right gender--a feminine gender (woman) fighting against the innately violent masculine onslaught (men). there are straight cis men who fight against toxic male gender norms and face violence for it, too. this model cannot articulate that violence beyond "homophobia" and it cannot articulate the violence against our trans brothers beyond "transphobia" and that is a failure. that is not ideological purity-- that is an active failure to real and living members of your community. we need to articulate it.

transandrophobia is a perfectly serviceable term to describe a real problem that needs a term. trans men and mascs face specific violences. your response literally agrees that it's real. we have both stated on multiple occasions that agree that it's real. so we need to be able to talk about it. so we need a word for it.

i would encourage you in general to prioritize people's wellbeing over and above linguistic purity. especially right now when things are getting worse and worse and worse for ALL trans people.

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

I usually try to avoid transandrophobia discourse as much as I can help it but sometimes I can’t resist. Today is one of those times. Please don’t go after op and make this a whole thing, I just want y’all to be able to recognize what’s wrong with this take, although I’ll warn you you have to be able to read between the lines a little bit to see it

Firstly, yes this post was tagged #transandrophobia. At first glance this doesn’t seem particularly bad, but once you realize that when op said “randomly bringing up linguistics” he mean trans women talking about the definition of transmisogyny as a concept of intersectional feminism. We talk about this to try and explain how the word “transandrophobia” makes no sense because “androphobia” (which is just a less bad sounding version of “misandry”) isn’t real, men are not oppressed on any societal level, and so there can be no intersection between oppression for being trans and oppression for being a man. I’ve posted about that before and I don’t want to get too into it here.

Op, of course, doesn’t address this directly, and also doesnt even point out trans women explicitly, but that’s very clearly what he is referencing, which he reframes as “randomly talking about linguistics” to make it sound like the entire discussion of intersectional feminist concept is actually just semantics. Again, trans women aren’t explicitly brought up, but we are the target of the criticism here, which makes it all the more egregious to describe our discussion of transmisogyny as being “radfem shit”. Radfem doesn’t really mean anything anymore because people keep misusing it, to the point that I have regularly seen TME people call transgender women radfems and terfs, this post is no exception.

Op acts as if he just wants to discuss the oppression of transmasc people, and is complaining that when they do, very likely because he’s a transandrophobia truther, he thinks that when we explain why transandrophobia doesn’t exist it’s actually just us trying to use it as an excuse not to listen to them (which is ironic because transandrophobia truthers not listening to trans women is the reason all this discourse happens in the first place). Literally no one would have an issue with you talking about struggles transmasc people face if you didn’t keep trying to use a word that was created from a fundamental misunderstanding of intersectional feminism to do so, but I guess me saying that makes me a radfem doesn’t it

So yeah, tldr the op of this post accused trans women and our usage of intersectional feminist terminology as being just semantics and is saying that discussions of transmisogyny are actually “radfem shit”. The funniest thing to me is that when I checked his bio to see his pronouns I saw “❌ Don’t drag me into any discourse shit”

[softbutchthatlovesyou]

Sure am tired of trans people with screenshots of t/rfs calling us shit like t/i/fs and making plans trying to detransition us, using those to claim we want that kind of shit near us. How do you screenshot t/rfs plans to say and do downright distrusting things to try and trick and detransition transmasc/men and think they are on our side?

Neauseating. Disgusting.

The shit yall say about transmasc/transmen who just want to be fucking listened to is appalling on a good day. But saying we are t/rfs or that their beliefs align with ours is disgusting.

I dont think transwomen are men i dont think they opress me. (They fucking do) I dont think there such thing as gendered socialization or inherent gender/sex behavior. (Which they do) I dont think segragation of the genders and sexes is a good thing. (Which they do) I dont see men as constant predators and women as continuous victims. (Huh wonder if they belive that?) I belive that misogyny is systematic and i believe that androphobia exist only in intersection rhat needs to be seen if we are going to fight both. None of that shit is something they would agree with.

They loose their mind at me for suggesting intersectionality.

Blaming the victims of t/rf harassment is not and will never be okay, and should have never started. Not to any trans person.

[momett]

U say ur anti trans misogyny but don't listen to trans fems when we repeatedly say we are against transandrophobia

Transmisogyny is the unique intersection of misogyny and transphobia

What would transandrophobia be? Transphobia and misandry? Because misandry doesn't exjst

Oppression isn't just disliking someone. Oppression is systemic. Men may have man haters but the world runs for them

Yes trans men and transmascs suffer for being transgender but not for being men

this is actually an interesting ask!

your definition of transmisogyny is a bit simple but not wrong, but that does not automatically mean transandrophobia means the exact same thing as transmisogyny. misandry/androphobia isn't real. this is honestly why i don't really agree with the term, but i'm not going to stop posting about issues that affect me (a transmasculine genderqueer/agender person) because it uses a word i disagree with.

i personally prefer the term anti-transmasculinity because it is a much better encapsulation of the issues we as transmascs face. it is specific to transmasculinity, not the intersection of transphobia and oppression that doesn't exist outside the context of our transness.

[velvetvexations]

two things:

1. objectively the most hilarious/cringe inducing side effecf of telling people about an interest in imperial japan is when you realize The Implications and have to clarify that your interest has made you realize that the entire imperial dynasty should be fired out of a comically large cannon

2. the cgirlforeskin post ("if they saw us as men they would respect us and listen to us"), and similar ones about how nothing about transmisogyny could possibly be about hatred of men, because men aren't hated in a systemic way, ignores

a) that terfs hate men (because that's core radfeminism) and

b) that society will class anyone who Should be a man (has been amab) but does Not do it exactly to patriarchal standards (by being non-white, gay, too soft, whatever dumbshit thing you can think of) as man-but-lesser. which, imo, also (especially in the case of gay men and trans women) relates to misogyny and how patriarchal society just fucking. tier lists women under men (how could gay men want to Have Sex With With The Man Class when that's what the Lesser Women Class Does? how could you want to Become Woman and therefore Downgrade Your Social Standing?) and while misogyny is an important aspect of it with how gay men get feminized by homophobes and trans women get the fucked up standards pushed on cis women but about tenfold as bad, the impulse to punish the Class Of Worse Men is aimed at men. that makes it misandrist or androphobic or whichever word has not had a tantrum thrown over it recently.

it's just not the misandry that the Andrew Tate types and anyone theoryposting about why the term transandrophobia is bad want to acknowledge.

Surprisingly, I've not had anyone call me out over IJ-posting, although I am fairly clear every time that I think it was one of the sickest societies ever cobbled together out of an inferiority complex and desperate need to assert themselves as the greatest nation in the world. Imperial Japan was just...SO evil and SO incompetent, and in the US they don't teach you anything about them outside of Pearl Harbor and maybe if you're lucky Midway and Iwo Jima.

Depressing fact! During the Battle of Okinawa, the single bloodiest battle of the Pacific War, nearly as many Okinawan civilians died as US and Japanese soldiers put together, many through coerced suicide. Teach that shit, dagnabbit.

As to everything else, yes, I absolutely agree. We can either call it misogyny based on who it "targets" (that's another discussion) or we can call it androphobia based on who the feelings that go into it (hatred of men/failed men), but engage with the material reality of it either way.

[bearballing]

Why are you treating being oppressed because people hate women is something that trans men can’t experience, why are you trying to make it a competition of who’s get hurt the most, why are you trying to silence trans men who want to talk about the bullshit they experience from cis people and trans women alike? Or do you just want everyone else to do what you aren’t willing to when it comes to listening to what we face and look into yourself to see how you contribute

we're not oppressed by trans women, genius. they're like not even just mean to us or anything, they get frustrated by shit like this and constantly being talked over and discarded..... you think you'd know what that's like if you Experience Misogyny, right lol.

what we face is transphobia. not androphobia because there is no such thing. you cannot be an oppressed class on the basis of being a man. we're oppressed because we are trans.

people have said this time and time again and it's always like talking to a brick wall.

[calypsolemon]

One of the many reasons you're wrong is that no one has ever said that transmascs can't harm transfems. We are equal in the oppression we face and TMA/TME discourse does, in fact, exist entirely as a euphemism, people are constantly using it as a synonym for transmasc without even realizing how mask off it is. That is who you were talking about, literally, and it's insanely disingenuous to pretend like everyone else is weird for noticing your plain English. Right now people are still spreading the lie that the person who coined the term "androphobia" has a fetish for raping trans lesbians, when it was actually him indulging his girlfriend's kink and these same people loudly insist a trans woman's kinks can never be side-eyed for any reason at all. The blatant hypocrisy is just so revolting.

And that's not even getting into the millions of ways this stuff hurts transfems, but I'd be more than happy to educate you on transfeminism unless you're unwilling to listen to a trans WLW voice.

I've quite literally seen people claim that transmascs can't harm transfems. I've seen this take. With my eyes. And I simply cannot bow to the idea that transmascs and transfems are equal in their oppression when only one of those are being categorically picked off this website one by one by staff, and only one of those has a whole widespread popular hate movement centered around ousting them from the queer community and legislating them out of existence.

I am not unwilling to listen to a transfem voice. The only reason why these asks have been answered at all instead of resulting in an immediate block is because it's coming from a transfem. But like literally all you have said so far is a massive "nuh-uh" to me talking about the things I've actually witnessed people doing, tell me I'm saying shit I haven't said, brought up a discourse I didn't even mention (my feelings on "transandrophobia" as a transmasc nb are kinda moot bc I simply don't like to define my own oppression by that term regardless of it's origin), and made a condescending response to my original post. I don't see why YOUR VOICE in specific is the only one I should listen to rather than the many transfems I see openly discussing their experiences with harassment on this website. ESPECIALLY when the post that sparked this discussion in the first place was me talking about my own feelings regarding why I'm distrustful of the rhetoric of rejecting TME because it literally reflects my own experiences with being told I can't define my oppressors. You assumedly wanna make space for transmascs to talk about their oppression, but apparently I can't discuss how my own community makes me uncomfortable with the rhetoric it has decided to recycle without getting "schooled" on a untagged post that had like 6 whole notes before you reblogged it.

So no, I'm not particularly interested in being educated at the university of keeping my eyes closed and not forming my own opinion

[bubbelpop2]

Making my own post because someone disagreed with me and blocked me (which is fine)

I'm an intersex, autistic, queer leftist commie that was determined female at birth. (I hate that term but it's what I was labeled as) And I feel too afraid of women and men to show my pain in public sometimes. I feel compelled to perform masculinity in a certain way in front of people who believe men shouldn't cry or have problems that they can't solve. I have internal misandry.

And I've also experienced misandry from terfs, and from conservative clowns. I believe that men's issues under the patriarchy need to be taken seriously. I think we need to listen to men. We need to listen to trans men, cis men, intersex men, we need to listen to male leaning nonbinaries, other nonbinaries, and we need to listen to trans women who are considered men by transphobes and conservative clowns. We need to listen to trans women who grew up being so negatively affected by the patriarchy and so emotionally damaged by it, in so many ways.

And we deserve terminology for It. Misandry. Trans-Misogyny. Trans-androphobia. Men's rights. Trans rights. Women's rights. Feminism.

All of these terms have been used by stupid people for stupid things. Including feminism being used by terfs. Feminism needs to include trans women, and trans men, and cis men, and people of all genders. It should be about equality. The fact that it's called feminism doesn't mean that it's not about equality. I'm clearly not an uneducated conservative Christian 4chan loser just because I believe the term "misandry" has a real place. Misandry is a real thing. It hurts men. And it hurts me, and I'm a man. I deserve the ability to talk about the ways the patriarchy hurts me without others thinking I'm complaining about women getting treated equally. Because I'm not. My use of the term isn't about women. Anybody of any gender is capable of misandry, and perpetuating the issues of toxic masculinity under patriarchy.

I need to be able to talk about my experiences that hurt me. And so do other men of all kinds. And also people who aren't men who have experienced misandry. It's not about complaining that women get special treatment for their emotions. It's not about complaining that women are sensitive. It's about talking about how most men are expected by everyone, including themselves, to keep their mental health issues In-between them and their gun. They're not taught to articulate feelings. Literal actual children, four year olds that are crying, are punished for expressing upset emotions because they're boys. They're punished in school, by their peers and their teachers, for having upset or sad or angry emotions. They're not taught to breathe and cope and seek help for regulation.

These are real, actual, genuine issues that I try to help other men unravel and heal from. And I deserve to be able to talk about it in a way that's not just "toxic masculinity" because that implies that this phenomena is only perpetuated by toxic men. Which simply isn't true. Even the healthiest neurotypical mother is capable of it. She's capable of punishing a boy, a child, for crying. She's capable of demeaning him for having emotional issues. Capable of downplaying him, telling him to "just deal with it", and she's also very very capable of ignoring her husband's boundaries. Ignoring his comfort. Ignoring his emotional needs, and reducing his emotional needs down to sex and food and television. Which is disgusting.

I deserve to be able to use the term misandry without people thinking I'm a fourchan loser incel that hates women. I don't. I have a fear of them, because I've been abused by them. Both at home, in school, and at work. I've been made extremely uncomfortable by them, too. By this one girl my age who was really pushy when she was flirting with me, and made me feel unsafe enough that I needed to say "I have a girlfriend" (i did not)