#on transfeminism

[hantologie]

[T]he contrary subjective identities of transsexuals, the sartorial practices of transvestites, and the gender inversion of butches and queens all work to confound simplistic notions of material determinism, and mirror-style representational practices, in relation to questions of gender. Sex, it turns out, is not the foundation of gender in the same way that an apple is the foundation of a reflection of red fruit in the mirror; "sex" is a mash-up, a story we mix about how the body means, which parts matter most, and how they register in our consciousness or field of vision. "Sex" is purpose-built to serve as a foundation, and occupies a space excavated for it by an epistemological construction project

Susan Stryker, (De)Subjugated Knowledges: An introduction to transgender studies for The Transgender Studies Reader

[taliabhattwrites]

The Third Sex

After months of research and painstakingly connecting the threads of transmisogyny theory, queer activism, and field-wide epistemic injustice, I would like to present "The Third Sex": my treatise on a third-world transfeminism.

[hazelsmask]

You don't understand it's totally your responsibility as a trans women to deconstruct gender roles. And you do this by not transitioning. Women can have body hair so you shouldn't get electrolysis. Women can have flat chests so you shouldn't start hrt. Women can have deep voices so you shouldn't voice train. It's incredibly important for me as a woman that you don't transition so you can challenge gender norms! Trans women shouldn't transition trans shouldn't transition trans women shouldn't transition!!! It's for feminism and not because I hate trannies

[femme-ressentiment]

“unlike Other Men, we [marginalized] men are actually structurally incapable of misogyny” is a disturbingly common belief that goes unchallenged on here

[thetransfemininereview]

THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION. Censorship affects all of us, and if Project 2025 gets its way, the entire trans publishing industry is at a significant risk of criminalization. In this article, I lay out the problem and the stakes, and suggest a broad action plan with dozens of potential response ✊

[pretty-kitten-paw]

The UK government headed and run by many transphobes has decided to make the Trans Panic defense legal. If a trans person does not disclose their gender and the other party presses charges due to this, they can be convicted with sexual assault crime.

Furthermore any trans person, (tho particularly trans women), who has obtained a Gender Reassignment Certificate (GRC) will be put into prison of their birth sex if the matter is a sex crime

With these two bits of legislation Labour have made it not only legal but easy for trans people to be jailed and sexually assaulted by members of their birth sex. We know for a fact that sexual assault in prisons happen esp to trans women. We know that placing them in female prisons, whilst not eliminating sexual assault, does make it less common.

Labour are defining a movement based on fear. Based on the fact that any cis person disgusted by their own internalised transphobia at sleeping with a trans person will have the full backing of the law to punish them. Even if sexual consent was given. Even if you both got inebriated and fucked and the "victim" found out your transness later. This puts every stealth trans woman at risk. This puts every trans woman who enjoys hook ups at risk. This puts everyone at risk.

And yet people wonder why trans women overwhelmingly date their sisters and friends.

[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.

[velvetvexations]

Gender is entirely made-up and I don't understand why some people are so fixated on it being "true" in the sense of like...are trans women women? Of course they are, insofar as "a woman" can be said to exist in the first place. But people have gotten obsessed with proving objectively that a trans woman is a woman, when the actual core of trans liberation is that anyone forcing their preferred gender on you is fascist. It's missing the forest for the trees. When all you do is play the "I am [x] really truly deep down just like everyone else" game you're meeting the transphobes on their level and accepting their premise that "man" and "woman" are distinct, tangible things.

To be clear, it's not that you CAN'T feel gender is a kinna spiritual force within you, or something to that effect. I think we all do on at least some level. But my point is that trying to rip that spiritual force out of our bodies to dissect it and prove all the haters wrong because look it was here all along is just a waste of time and effort.

The truth of the matter is that the goal is not to get people to see trans women as women, it's to get them to stop feeling like clothes and pronouns and names and locker rooms should be dictated by what some asshole wrote down on your birth certificate.

[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]

[taliabhattwrites]

The most widespread form of transmisogyny within the queer community is denying trans women epistemic authority.

Which means: people do not believe us on our own experiences. They frequently assume any and all oppression we face must be mild or must simply be anti-effeminacy instead of "real misogyny". We are considered to be exaggerating the material consequences of bigotry on us and assumed to not experience various harms that we in fact do, including medical misogyny, sexual violence, CSA, being infantilized and dismissed, being inadequately represented (since most popular depictions of us are cissexist caricatures and do not authentically portray our lived realities!), and more besides.

Perhaps the most hysteria inducing aspect of this is being told that our testimony is not frequently dismissed, BY PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTIVELY DISMISSING OUR TESTIMONY ON HOW MUCH MISOGYNY AND DEGENDERING AND VIOLENCE WE EXPERIENCE.

We are not "new to oppression". We do not have to be taught what it is like to be feminized and dehumanized under patriarchy. We are painfully familiar with how misogyny operates and experience it regularly, in addition to having to justify even to "our" communities that we do in fact experience it!

That, my friends, is the core of transmisogyny: being dehumanized while being denied the right to even name one's oppression or have it be acknowledged as such!

[genderqueerdykes]

"I Am A Transwoman. I am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out." by Jennifer Coates

here is an extremely important article written by a trans woman that touches on why man hating, and assuming certain people to be men affects more than just men. this behavior affects trans women and transfemmes and we need to care about not profiling people who are in our spaces and lives

[wolfbirdgirl]

IDC what anyone else says, becoming more of a transfeminist has only made me MORE convinced that transmasc people have it hard too. it is one of the axioms of feminism that women are allowed to aspire to the aesthetics of masculinity as long as they never actually achieve it, and for men to aspire to femininity is sacrilege. and you see that in the way media portrays transmasc and transfem characters. Transmasc characters are always trying to be masculine as a front. they talk with deep voices, hang out with "the guys". but they are never allowed to actually achieve it. they can never be muscular. they can never be assertive. they can never have facial hair. They must always be short and soft. Conversely, trans women must NEVER have any hint that they are AMAB. they also cannot have facial hair, or body hair. Their voices must always be high and lilting, but in that way that's immediately clockable so no one could mistake them for a ""real"" woman. they cannot be strong or aggressive or anything even vaguely associated with men. Or, alternatively, if they're transfem nonbinary, they're just gay men with colorful hair, since everybody knows gay men are basically just women already. And of course, masc lesbians aren't real, don't worry straight men. a butch is just what you call a conventionally attractive woman wearing a sports jersey. At the end of the day, queer people of all types are accepted only as long as we can be relegated to the category of "Feminine but weird". That way, none of us can ever be any threat to the sanctity of the Holy Masculine. None of us are men or have anything to do with men. And while we squabble over who has it the worst, the patriarchy lives on.

[dreamyintersexouppy]

i think the assumption that transfeminism considers closeted trans women as tme kinda misses the whole "transmisogyny affects us wether we transition or not" part of transfeminist analysis

[hantologie]

Speaking from the perspective and the tradition of lesbians of color, most if not all rationales for excluding transsexual women are not only transphobic, but also racist. To argue that transsexual women should not enter the Land because their experiences are different would have to assume that all other women's experiences are the same, and this is a racist assumption. The argument that transsexual women have experienced some degree of male privilege should not bar them from our communities once we realize that not all women are equally privileged or oppressed. To suggest that the safety of the Land would be compromised overlooks, perhaps intentionally, ways in which women can act out violence and oppressions against each other. Even the argument that "the presence of penis would trigger the women" is flawed because it neglects the fact that white skin is just as much a reminder of violence as a penis. 

Emi Koyama, Whose Feminism Is It Anyway? for The Transgender Studies Reader

[thetransfemininereview]

Hello my wonderful followers, please signal boost the hell out of this incredible and timely piece by Maya Deane and Kai Cheng Thom. Thank you 🩷

[tortuah]

The thing is about trans headcanons is that transfem headcanons are usually because of the character's theming deeply overlapping with the transfem experience, with things such as like dissociation, depersonalization, dehumanization, struggle with femininity/masculinity, social isolation, etc. And transmasc headcanons are usually cause like. There's a guy and they like him. Like ultimately both of these should be fine, but guess which one is endlessly picked apart for being "unrealistic" or "unwarranted" or "overdone" or "too generalized" and which one is seen as good in every scenario :)