#sorry i dont have time for discourse i need to do my dishes and read a book and go outside

[lorephobic]

some shit always going down that i dont know about

[lesbian-ed-discourse]

this just in: biological sex is not the only aspect of gender, oh my gosh how surprising. y'all act like what someone has in their pants automatically indicates exactly how they'll act and think, which is not feminist at all. y'all literally said you dont think transmen/women aren't actually men/women. good job on being "welcoming" and "positive" - while simultaneously treating trans ppl like shit. so yeah, thanks for that. (pt. 1)

And secondly, denying biological sex doesn’t deny someone’s gender. Insisting that they must actually be men/women depending on their sex does - which is what y’all are doing. Trans ppl may have some particular type of junk in their pants, may have been raised a certain way but that doesn’t make them men/women - it makes them fucking trans. (pt. 2)

Trans people experience the world much differently than cis ppl do, and our brains function and are chemically different to someone who’s fine with their assigned gender. The science behind this is there, and there are several studies which suggest that the brain structure of trans ppl is entirely unique to them, just like it is for men and women. (pt. 3)

Actively denying trans ppl’s gender - by saying stuff like, “well, they’re actually just a man/woman” does actually hurt them. It does actually get us killed. Bc you know who else says that? The guy that murdered a trans woman who fucked him and now thinks he’s gay. The parents of trans teens who deny their child’s gender, resulting in depression and oftentimes suicide. (pt. 4)

I’m not saying you shouldn’t talk about biological sex - of course that is important. I’m just saying there are ways to do that without calling transmen “females”, and transwomen “males”. Surprise surprise you can talk about biological sex and how it affects people without automatically assuming that everyone with that junk is a woman/man - and triggering dysphoria and possibly trauma. (pt. 5

Examples of treating people like more than just their junk include - talking about specific body parts without calling their owners any pronouns, ex. “People with vulvas” “people with prostates” etc. actually talking to trans women, and men to see how they feel about this. As a trans person, it makes me feel like shit to hear you say I’m not a man - but it’s not surprising either. (pt. 6)

A majority of the population thinks I’m not actually a man, so you’re not particularly special. Most people don’t give 2 shits about people like me, or they just dislike us/want us killed and gone. You know how many times I’ve been called a “fucking tranny”, and a dyke? The answer is a hell of a lot. And you don’t get to just come in here and tell me that that’s ok because I’m actually just a woman. (pt. 7)

Reducing people to their biological sex is transphobic. You can acknowledge that someone has certain bits, but you don’t know how trans people think or feel or how being seen as just a dick/vulva feels. We aren’t just sex, we’re actual people with feelings - who wanted to be treated like actual people. (pt. 8)

I just want to say that if you being gender critical plays into a societal norm of treating trans people like they don’t exist, what makes you any different than the homophobic and misogynist politicians who want to see us dead? Maybe if being gender critical makes people lapse into depression and dysphoria, you should think about why you think it’s a good idea. (pt. 9)

Because the fact of the matter is is that this kills people. It kills young people, maybe not actively, but it still kills people. Trans teens have such a high rate of suicide because of people like you who think it doesn’t hurt to be reduced to your sex, who think it’s ok to not listen to trans people and treat them in ways that hurt - even when they've told you very specifically what is transphobic. You don't get to decide what is and isn't transphobia. (pt. 10)

So, first off: we’re using totally different definitions of the terms “male/female” the way we use it, doesn’t mean “man/woman” (as in the gender and gender roles assigned to someone) but refer to a biological reality, what sex someone is, and what sexual characteristics they have. To us, using “female” is the same as you using “afab” or “people with vaginas” It’s merely a biological descriptor, it doesn’t come with any “you should be like Y, and act like Y, and follow these gender roles” It’s just stating what “junk” (and reproductive system and secondary sexual characteristics) someone has. No more, no less.

I’m sorry that this causes trans people dysphoria and distress, I get why being reminded of their bodies, and their “supossed role in society as a man/woman” like that would (but I don’t see why “people with vaginas” is considered more acceptable? Since it also reminds you of your anatomy?) And I would recommend that if any discourse that uses these words is too triggering for you, that you disengage from it for your own well-being.

Now, cis women also suffer from not aligning with what their supposed role in society is. That’s what gender roles are, and they’re a tool of women’s oppression, which we as feminists want to combat. To be able to do that, we need to look at the roots of it, why is patriarchy the way it is? And the answer, harsh as it may be, is that it’s related to bodies and the sex of them. 

Being born a certain sex means you’re treated a certain way from birth. Little girls are raised to play with dolls (to learn to be “motherly”) and wear dresses, told that they’re less intelligent and inferior to boys, and that their only worth is how attractive they’re to men. Little boys are taught to be assertive, to be strong and to be leaders. This creates a divide, a hierarchy, and what each person is taught is completely dependant on the sex of their body.

This carries on to adulthood too, and yeah, there may be nuances, a non-passing trans man will be a lot more catcalled on the street than a trans man who passes as male. The same way, a non-passing or closeted trans woman (that’d be read as a cis man) may not experience misogyny BUT a passing trans woman will. And this is all because of the way misogynistic men assume what sex you are based on how you look. This is all because they see you as “female/afab” and that makes you a target for misogyny.

Now, I’m not gonna say that if the hypothetical passing trans woman I talked about revealed she was trans (so of the “male/amab/people with penises” sex) that was going to make people treat her like a man. Because society is transphobic and misogynistic and they’d see her as a “man deviating from their assigned gender role” which they hate.

And it’s this, this misogyny tied to what gender roles you’re supposed to follow because of your body, what causes violence against trans people, violence that is very often dished out by cis men. Cis men who in no way listen to anything radical feminists have to say because if they did, they’d be against gender roles.

Now yes, this also leads to trans women internalizing some “men” behaviours, because of being socialized as boys, including sexual entitlement (as we’ve seen with the cotton ceiling discourse, that lesbians are evil if they don’t open their legs for any trans woman) and we have to analyze that, but this doesn’t diminish the violence trans people face at all, and I want to reiterate that we don’t support that.

I’m sorry that this makes young trans kid want to kill themselves, but people shouldn’t stop speaking about important things just because it hurts you (and I’m saying this as someone who has struggled with depression and with wanting to commit suicide). We don’t want any trans kids to feel suicidal at all, but we can’t just not speak about sex when it’s relevant to us and our experiences, so again, I say that if this hurts someone that much, it’s better that they disengage from the conversation.

I support trans & dysphoric people treating their dysphoria however they see fit, I support them having legal protections and rights so that they don’t get discriminated against in any aspect of life, I support them in living free from male violence, and that they enjoy the same freedoms and obligations everyone else should. Calling them “male” or “female” when talking about feminist discourse (or about sexual orientation) where someone’s birth sex and the sex they’re read as is relevant to the conversation, doesn’t suddenly contradict the above. 

We merely said we’d welcome any trans men that feel they could relate to our experiences in our positivity blog, because there is and has been historically a lot of overlap between the trans men and lesbian community (many trans men used to identify as lesbians and viceversa, many lesbians have dated trans men, etc) so yeah we share common experiences because of our shared sex, and if they’re female-attracted, even more so. So we just said they’d be welcome on our blog, if any of them wanted to. It doesn’t mean we want to force anyone to take on any label they don’t want to (re: straight trans men and the label “lesbian”) it just means that if any of them felt they could relate to what we post, that that would be perfectly fine by us. But we’re not going to make anything aimed specifically at trans men.

As for trans women, I personally don’t mind if any of them follow us if they’re able to relate to what we post. I don’t like obsessively policing who follows me or who other people follow (mod m speaking here) But, again, since our blog was made to be a space for female/afab lesbians, it’s the perspective we’ll be speaking from. So we’re not going to make anything specifically aimed at trans women either, because we feel there was a lack of spaces that focused on female lesbian sexuality and talked honestly about exclusive same-sex attraction, and what that entails (because with discourse like the “lesbian are bigots if they don’t like dick” we’re becoming less and less able to talk about our sexual orientation and desires and what that entails, because other people thinks us talking about our lives is inherently evil, when it’s not meant to hurt anyone, it’s just us speaking our truth)

This doesn’t mean we hate trans people at all or wish them any ill. All we want is a positive space for us and people like us to talk about our experiences. 

Mod M :D