#the tme discourse

[lilietsblog]

a few notes on 'transmisogyny exempt'

part I

while there are many elements that go into transmisogyny, i believe it to be a shared understanding that the part that generally, usually, normatively elicits the violent, murderous rage that results in so many deaths is the idea of "a man pretending to be a woman in order to trick other men into sleeping with him"

there's a lot to unpack there, but the thing I want to highlight here is that this is not an accurate description of trans women. it both misgenders them /and/ ascribes decidedly untrue motives. it is generally /associated with/ trans women and used to /refer to/ them but it does not 'mean' trans women because it is fully untrue about them

like i would actually be surprised to learn that literally never in the entire history of humanity has there been a single trans woman who thought it would be funny to trick a man into sleeping with her only to surprise reveal her genitals. however, even this hypothetical daredevil prankster would still, by definition, be a woman, making the idea still untrue as applied to her

i would also be surprised to learn that literally never in the entire history in humanity has there been a man who thought it would be funny to dress up like a woman and trick another man into sleeping with him only to surprise reveal his genitals. this hypothetical daredevil prankster is meanwhile, by definiton, not a trans woman

so the iconic feature of transmisogyny, the most physical threat to trans women's lives, is based on a misconception and misgendering in the first place

this is also characteristic of other aspects of transmisogyny. they are not based on an accurate undersatnding of the world. see all the denial of science going on, among other fun facts

when transmisogynist decides to transmisogynistically attack someone, they do not first ask for their birth certificate or their pronouns

literally any gender non-conforming person, and also any person who does not conform to the corresponding culture's gendered appearance standards, is a possible target for transmisogynist violence

you can call it "misdirected" but that doesn't make any sense, because see above: the original idea does not refer to trans women in the first place, it 'intends' to target men who pretend to be women in order to trick other men into sleeping with them. trans women are simply the most common target for the associated violence to be misdirected towards

it usually targets trans women, yes. however, trans men, nonbinary people, intersex people of all genders, cis men and cis women are all not exempt since it's based on ascribing someone a spurious motive and making bigoted assumptions about their gender in the first place

part II

at one point in feminist history, 'men pretending to be women in order to trick men into sleeping with them' got a buddy

it was called 'men pretending to be women in order to trick other women into sleeping with them'

and also another more general friend called 'men pretending to be women in order to infiltrate women's spaces with nefarious intent'

that be the terfs, we all know of them

(terfs reading this, please think long and hard about why you think what you think. please take this chance to look up some science, crime statistics, etc)

and while there was some theoretical opposition to be had in 'actually men are not inherently violent, are our natural allies in the fight against sexism and patriarchy rather than enemies, and there are predatory and rapist women as well'

most opposition to the idea was 'actually trans women are women though'. people rallied against misgendering, invited trans women in as their sisters, and so on. it was very nice

you know who is not women though? trans men

'men in women's spaces tricking lesbians into sleeping with them'. 'men trying to access resources meant for women'. 'men are inherently misogynistic and hostile and hold oppressive views'

men pretending to be women with nefarious intent, where have we heard this before

concepts to look up for supplementary reading

gender essentialism

sexism

queer liberation

you can go from there, i believe in you

extra special supplementary reading by me

some notes on patriarchy

[maria6136]

I never feel more alienated from the trans community in general and other transfems in particular than when I see people going after "TMEs" and "transandrophobia truthers" and so on, ostensibly in the name of defending people like me. Or derailing their own perfectly decent points about transmisogyny by including some irrelevant, gratuitous dig at transmascs (or intersex people or "theyFABs" or whoever the target of the day is).

What the fuck are you doing? Do you get some kind of rush from deflecting TERFisms onto targets you've decided are more deserving or privileged than yourselves? What are you trying to achieve? If you want to do some weird 70s separatism tribute act then please just go your own way already and leave everyone else alone.

As a transfem who is not a woman and doesn't pass as one I don't trust "TMA/TME" proponents to have my back in any case. And I'm much more wary of engaging with trans spaces than I used to be because of this bullshit.

I'm so sorry to everyone who has been fucked over by this tendency. I hope we can get over it. Can we please collectively at least try to get a grip and maybe rethink how we're doing things a little bit? Because unless the goal really is self-cannibalization it's not working is it?

[renthony]

It's real fucked up how many queer people dread Pride season due to both systemic queerphobia and queer infighting. Pride season always rockets up my anxiety, and I know I'm not the only one.

This shit sucks, y'all. We gotta support each other more than the queerphobes hate us. I'm not saying we have to love each other, I'm not saying we even have to like each other, but we cannot keep subdividing communities, circulating callouts, and dogpiling each other over who has it worse. That shit will kill us all.

We cannot keep thinking of our individual experiences with bigotry as, "I know [xyz kind of queer] has it worse, but...", and we cannot keep looking at other experiences with bigotry as, "that's bad, but [abc kind of queer] still has it worse," when the reality is that we are all being targeted. It's all bad! It all deserves to be talked about and fought against without trying to put it in some kind of hierarchy! Hierarchies are not fucking helpful here!

Some fucking unity, please.

[maive-the-sheep]

Tme this, tma that.

I'm intersex and i want you to stop being transphobic (yes, using these terms seriously is transphobic, even if you are trans) and intersexist

And stop saying someone talking about issues they are facing shouldnt happen cause you are facing issues. We are all in this together. Or do you want the bigots to win?

[eclipsedomens]

i'm gonna say something that's gonna piss a few of you off, but like i think some of you need to realize that assigned gender at birth isn't like. Scripture from God. like you do realize that's a human doctor and some motherfucker behind a computer. like it is not fault-proof. in fact in the case of intersex people it is often Intentionally faulty because society refuses to accommodate them to any degree. even in perisex people they can be wrong. have you all never heard of cis perisex people with the wrong gender on their birth certificate because of a clerical error.

all this to say i think if you base how you treat someone based on their assigned gender at birth i think you are just being transphobic and intersexist with extra steps. Sorry.

[aropride]

is anyone else so so tired.

[juney-blues]

"a system of oppression can exist but there can be no meaningful distinction between those who enforce it and those who are subject to it" is an absolutely incomprehensible take to have just so we're clear

[lilietsblog]

also, "nonblack" isn't phrased as "antiblackness exempt". Like imagine if a demographic of PoC that people can easily confuse for mixed black was called "antiblackness exempt". Can you fucking imagine

For those who aren't aware, TME/TMA language works a lot like nonBlack & associated terms.

NonBlack is a term that was created to specifically focus on how antiBlackness has such a foothold on the entire world that no matter where you go, the more Black you are, the less rights, the less respect and the less power you have in general.

NonBlack, as a term, has been protested for a lot of reasons. We're not the only ones who experience racism, other people have dark skin too even if they aren't Black, people of other races can "experience" antiBlackness too, etc, etc.

But the point is that Black people are the ones who have to deal with antiBlackness day in-day out, with the knowledge that it is meant to target us for nothing more than our race.

Yes, other people have dark skin and yes, other people can be mistaken for being Black. But do they constantly have to deal with being The Targets of antiBlackness, on political, social and structural levels?

No, and there needs to be language to talk about that.

Especially since the biggest part of being nonBlack is that even if you are mistaken for being Black, you still have racial power over people who are Black. You still have the beloved trump card of saying "But I am not Black."

TME/TMA language works the same way. Yes, you may run into people who mistake you for being their targets.

Yes, you may be targeted using transmisogynistic language but you also still have power you can leverage over TMA people and you still do not have the burden of dealing with transmisogyny constantly knowing you are the target.

Do you have to like the language? No. Do you have to respect the way and language oppressed people have chosen to speak about their oppression? Yes. Yes, you do.

This has been a Certified Sex Ed Post.

If you add transmisogynistic things to this post, or get weird about antiBlackness, I will block you! Feel free to ask questions though, as always.

[lilietsblog]

@goldmoose What's the specifics in this case? These terms literally mean "trans women" and "people who are not trans women", which is terminology we already have.

And if you insist that we need a single word for "people who are not trans women", wouldn't it be better to use instead of "TMA/TME" something like "TMT/TMA" (transmisogyny targeted / transmisogyny affected)? Given that it's more accurate?

Because TMA/TME is directly detrimental in that it asserts facts that are incorrect and get people to get their hackles up about it instead of contributing to productive discussion. Isn't it?

On that note, would you describe Imane Khelif as TME or TMA?

[ankles-be-bitten]

i honestly think that anyone who earnestly compares transandrophobia/anti transmasculinity/tme/a discourse to racism/global imperialism needs to shut the fuck up forever. no, tme/tma discourse is not "like poor people from the imperial core refusing to accept that they are more privileged than poor people from the global south." do you understand how stupid you sound? you're doing "trans women are the black people of the trans community" and acting like that's not widely understood to be obscenely offensive.

trans men do not hold any real, tangible, material privilege over trans women the way people from western imperialist countries have power over the countries they COLONIZED FOR CENTURIES. YOU SOUND FUCKING STUPID!!

[darci-tbh]

crazy when people are just so blissfully and self righteously unaware of how much it is not sunshine and roses being a trans man. absolutely insane when people say "when has a trans man ever been shunned from a space" "when has a trans man ever had to walk on eggshells for fear of being made an example of" "when has a trans man ever been/had to fear being raped/abused/abandoned/belittled/denied personhood for their transness" ME! me RIGHT HERE in my fucking real life. many many many others too. just because we're constantly silenced and infantalized and erased from the public eye doesn't mean we're not out here suffering. I'm sure it's not the same as the transfem experience. I know for a fact there's a unique kind of suffering in being in the bigots' spotlight. but you can talk loudly and angrily and righteously and exclusively about the mtf experience without slipping in a sly disgusted comment at other trans people or implying that the abuse we go through completely undetected and unacknowledged cannot exist. genuinely. stop fucking generalizing us as all little uwu discord teens with no problems in sight

[anti-terf-posts]

i’m really curious as to what “tme/tma” users get out of using those terms. do they feel like they won some kind of oppression competition when they declare themselves as tma? do they feel like cis people like them more? and what is the PURPOSE of using those terms? like genuinely when is it useful outside of discourse? i’m really curious.

[txttletale]

Obligatory "in good faith" premise.

I've seen an argument against tme/tma that focuses on the fact that there's no similar terms for other types of oppression (as in, no terms like "racism affected/exempt"), and how tme/tma aren't good terms because they imply there's people who can't be affected at all by transmisogyny, regardless of whether it would be "misdirected" or not (which I do think it would be, although a lot of people against tme/tma would disagree).

Since tma/tme functionally ends up meaning just "transfem" and "not transfem" (or at least that's how ive seen it used and advocated for), do you think there's something to the idea that we could just say that instead when discussing transmisogyny? Or is there something about these specific terms that adds to the conversation?

I mean, I guess it would be awkward to put "not transfem" in your bio maybe

i mean like. there are those terms, though, those terms dfo exist, they're jsut called 'poc' and 'white'. liike the construction of 'whiteness' is such that it basically literally means 'racism exempt' within the context of white supremacy (which is ofc the context in which most discussion of racism takes place).

i feel like people are really getting caught up on like, 'exempt' and 'affected' as like, total absolutes 100% of the time and bringing up edge cases as though this absolutely refutes them when i think that's not a particularly useful thing to do for what are fundamentally abstractions for discussing a particular set of nuanced and diverse relations to transmisogyny! like obviously every single person has a unique and specific relationship to transmisogyny, but that doesn't make the terms useless an ymore than 'gay' or 'trans' are useless because people have complicated sexuality or gender situations.

& i think that if we started saying 'transfem / not transfem' then all the exact same edge cases and arguments would just start shifting onto the definition of the word 'transfem'. which i don't think is synonymous with TMA. i think that e.g. arguing that drag queens who regularly have their lives threatened by nazi militiamen with guns are not Transmisogyny Affected is kind of sillygoofy, right, but a lot of them don't identify as transfem! & i think moreover that saying 'trans women' and 'non trans women' kind of is the exact same maneuver as people who say 'don't say cis' because like the implicit content of using those constructions is that there are 'default' people who need no descritpor and then there are 'transfems', right?

+ i think TME/TMA are valuable because they articulate exactly what's relevant about the distinction, which is a relationship to transmisogyny. like a trans guy isnt 'TME' because he's a trans guy, but because if he gets into an argument with me he can pull out the classic 'aggressive' 'scary' 'creepy' 'predatory' 'sexual deviant' cards and try to have me socially murdered and have people side with him by default, something he shares with a cis guy and a cis girl in the exact same situaiton. because of the Trans Misogyny that i am Affected by and he is Exempt From and that therefore can be weaopnized against me in any interaction.

[abearinthewoods]

One transmasc to another, please reflect on how your actions may cause actual harm to transfems.

A joke made in anger that is entirely unactionable does not warrant tattling to the organizations that are currently trying to strip all of us of our rights, and are looking for any reason to villainize our transfem comrades.

What’s been done cannot be undone, but please for all of our sakes remember that we’re all under the same boot, and licking said boot won’t make it any less likely to crush you too.

It’s our responsibility to take care of each other, learn from each other, and to look long and hard in the mirror when someone says your words and actions are harmful.

Solidarity. Solidarity. Solidarity.

(Most of this is answered here: https://www.tumblr.com/abearinthewoods/770794163004407808/okay-i-dont-know-a-lot-about-the-situation-but-i?source=share)

I need everybody to understand one uncomfortable but super important truth.

Class solidarity means an end to the oppression olympics.

You should never be looking in your neighbor's bowl to see if they have more than you, only to see if they have enough.

Like lets take a step back for a quick moment and recap whats going on here. She made jokes about killing one of the most unsupported and invisible members of the LGBTQ community, because why?

Like no, lets actually address that.

Trans men want to use terms like trans misandry and trans androphobia to talk about their oppression, not terms like trans misogyny and trans emasculation. and for this they got bomb and death threats from other people in the trans community?!?!?!?!?!?

Because trans men want to use words centered around their their hatchling gender, not their egg gender, to describe their oppression, because they don't want to center their discussions about their issues around some axis of women as the most oppressed, they got hit with a massively outsized amount of hate from (a tiny collection of, lets be very fucking clear here.) mostly trans fems who drunk a little too much of radfem's cis-male hate that they decided to transpose onto trans men. All escalating to bomb threats which my inbox is now also full of.

This is your brain on oppression olympics.

This is the threat to class solidarity.

This is the threat to class solidarity.

This is exactly what they want. For us to be fighting over who has it worse. I don't give a fuck who has it better or who has it worse, and i sure as fuck don't care about any narratives that center this question around one's identity or demographics as some kind of universal truths that overrides individually.

Even when I do bring up ways in which cis or trans men have it worse, or ways in which women commit crimes more than men, I try to focus it on purely countering the opposite narrative, to make sure I am only pushing the pendulum back towards the center, nothing more.

No experience is universal and arguments about stats and oppression and privilege tend to paper over peoples individuality.

Solitary means respecting how we are different. How that changes how we all experience the world. You can't tell a trans man you have it worse than him without disrespecting this because you can not know his life, what he went thru, how his brain's chemistry makes minor changes to how he sees or deals with adversity that build up over time, or how the same difficulties may be harder or easier for somebody to handle or overcome based how they were raised or what other experiences they went thru.

There is a reason why countries who are not at war with each other fly their flags all at the same height; never flying their flag above their ally's flag. They stand as one. United. Because that is what solitary actually means.

We stand at a fork. Down one path is trans men using words like trans misandry to talk about their oppression and trans rad fems on tumblr not interjecting with some bullshit, and down the other path is trans men still using words like trans misandry, but also the hostility comes out and you'll get shit like them telling the same trans radfems to stop calling their oppression trans misogyny, and start calling it trans misandry, and the whole world goes blind. Because i've seen how understandably upset trans women have gotten at me when they've mistakenly thought i was actually suggesting that, its not a blow in the gender war we'll come back from if it enters the discourse.

(as an aside thought experiment, its actually kinda hard to truly only be sexist in one direction. like one could argue that slutshaming is implying there is something dirty or unclean about men/manliness that they 'taint' women with by having sex with them. but you'd rightly call me dick if MRAs started showing up to the local feminism meet and interjecting that every time the topic comes up. And as an MRA, So would I. So please lets stop trying to argue over the "true" direction of acts of sexism and let people be individuals who experience and talk about it in their own way.)

((Final aside, it would make things easier for our intersex and enby brothers, sisters, and gender nonspecific siblings to cast aside this gendered concept of oppression))

[remma-demma]

I’m actually scared of alienating some of my followers and moots with all the trans discourse I’ve been steeping quietly in and contemplating, but… I’m trying to not let being scared shut me up about this. That, in and of itself, is erasure and silencing.

Fuck staying quiet. Trans men and mascs deserve a voice, and we, as a group, are not oppressing or invalidating anyone else by using that voice. (Obviously there are shithead exceptions!! Anyone can be an asshole.)

I really hope that if I ever speak about any of this in the future, that people recognize that it’s not ever, ever trans femininity as a concept I have an issue with. It’s people who

- try to divide the community

- are reinventing gender essentialism from the ground up but make it trans

-police other people’s identities and decide for them what oppression they must face because of a tiny set of superficial traits

- simply. Don’t understand what intersectionality means.

- disregard and invalidate anyone who doesn’t fit a very specific (binary, rich, white, abled, flawlessly passing) idea of what it means to be trans.

None of those things are specific or exclusive to one identity. There just happens to be a community of transfems who are currently espousing many of these ideas as gospel. They are understandably defensive because of real actual transmisogyny they face. But other trans people are not your enemy. Accusing anyone and everyone who tries to point these flaws out as radical transmisogynists is simply not true. Pointing out bigotry is not bigotry in itself.

I don’t want the trans community to constantly be at each other’s throats. We each have to sit down and think if we ever catch ourselves blaming an entire other marginalized group for our issues. That’s just fascism babes.

[briarpatch-kids]

I wish more people understood you can't "opt out" of experiencing misogyny by being trans. Trans men still have to access sex based care, still get systematic sex based oppression, and still deal with day to day microaggressions. Anyone deemed "failed" at manhood deals with misogyny in some form. We can't just "opt out" like people seem to think we can.