#theyfab discourse

[weiszklee]

This insult is actually a key component of material analysis. Don't like it? Tough luck, now I'm gonna call you a woman, too.

[nixisverytired]

Please stop forgetting nonbinary people!

Theyfab isn't a transmasc-specific slur. It's always been used against any nonbinary person assumed to be AFAB.

Though the AGAB of nonbinary people is nobody's business in the first place, it bears repeating that not every AFAB nonbinary person is transmasculine, just as not every AMAB nonbinary person is transfeminine.

These bigots aren't just transphobic towards trans men/mascs, they're exorsexist as well. We'll be stronger if we stick up for each other and push back against them together!

Edit: Just to make it clear, theyfab is being used against transmascs as well! I just want people to also acknowledge the non-transmasc nonbinary people being hurt.

[transandrobroism]

I see this term on your blog a lot but I don’t know what it means. I have a guess because of context clues but what is “theyfab”? Genuine question.

"theyfab" is a derogatory term for someone who was AFABed and is nonbinary. it's a mashup of 'they' + 'afab'. transradfems are currently trying to rehabilitate it as "a word for afab nonbinary people who are transmisogynistic and weaponise their agab against trans women". concrete examples of what is meant by "weaponising their agab" are not forthcoming.

arguments for its use are "it's a word for transfems to talk about their experiences and call out transmisogyny". arguments against it's use are "it was a slur made up on 4chan and it's hurtful to nonbinary people, and is a form of misgendering by alluding to their agab". this form of misgendering is a particular problem for nonbinary people because of the tendency for people to be like "are you the Boy Nonbinary or the Girl Nonbinary??" so using it as an insult is pretty distasteful in this case.

[big-gay-bird]

Hey uh

Now that a lot Discourse TM has quieted down around it, I would like quietly and gently request that folks, especially cis folks not call me “theyfab”. (I understand that folks like plaidos were saying cis folks can only use it in instances of calling out transmisogyny, but I still feel like the power in context is something I personally don’t feel great about in our current climate.)

I understand when it’s coming from trans woman and TMA folks it’s intended like “cracker” or “Karen”. I accept that and previously just gritted my teeth while I worked to genuinely check my privilege.

However, I really really need other trans people to understand that about a decade ago, when I was first coming out, “theyfab” was a phrase that around me was used exclusively by self IDing truscum and transmedicalist people to tell me I was just a cisgirl who wanted to be special and that it was an insult to real transsexuals to imply I should ever be part of the community. This frequent and deliberate exclusion really got in my head and made impossible for me to understand and work with my dysphoria. It’s part of why I’ve had such a hard time accepting that any form of physical transition is something I can pursue. These truscum and trans med folks were both TMA and TME. It wasn’t just online, these were barriers I faced in person.

That all being said, a caveat, I don’t think most of the trans women and other TMA people who use the word today are using it in a truscum or transmed context. I don’t think they are truscum or trans meds and I understand why they would use the word “theyfab” when dealing with transmisogyny from TME people. I am not trying to make a blanket “they can never use the word it’s a slur” type of argument. (It’s also not a slur in my mind because its use is contextual. I think cis people can intend it as a slur, and have, but that doesn’t make it inherently one.)

I’m tagging this liberally so people can avoid it, I am not trying to attract attention or get in a debate.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of really debilitating dysphoria swirling with depression. I should still be called out if I do something oppressive or shitty, this is not me trying to imply because I am mentally ill I cannot be help accountable. However I just really need to avoid that word if possible because it is in all honesty, a trigger for me for the reasons explained above.

Thank you for your understanding.

[carapaced]

So I guess I was making things up or pretending 10 years ago when trans masc and nonbinary people who didn’t pass or express their gender in societally accepted ways were called “trenders” and “theyfabs” by the same people who would gladly accuse someone of being a blue haired liberal/sjw/feminazi/etc….Just another example of trans men not being respected as reliable narrators of their own experience!

[ggo-sinon]

imma block you if you ever use the term theyfab derogatorily. no exceptions. even if we're friends in person. its a fucking 4chan slur that ppl on this site just decided to buy into so they could hate on people. i see it slung toward non-medical afab nbs, transmascs on T, and generally anyone with a presumed pussy that these people decide are "not trans enough" and its gross. TMA/TME is a similar red flag but has entered more mainstream acceptance, so its a less good litmus test.

You dont get to know if im a transfemme or transmasc, or something else making this post. It shouldn't matter. Fuck you if you treat people you're ostensibly in community with this way.

[abyssal-debonair]

we have reached the peak of hateful discourse brainrot that people on this hellsite are dedicating whole blogs to shitting on transmascs and nonbinary people with "AFAB privilege," but it's okay because they're "calling out transmisogyny" and "uplifting transfemme voices" all the while using slurs and denigrating language specific to transmascs and nonbinary people.

if your "uplifting" and "positivity" posts rely on punching your fellow queers and contributing to transphobic rhetoric, don't be surprised if you get called out for perpetuating hate speech.

but, of course, these dolts won't realize it with their heads stuffed so far up their ass.

[a-polite-melody]

I really think that the “trans women should be allowed to call transmisogynist AFAB people theyfabs” attitude is just the ‘logical next step’ out of the problem on tumblr of identity determinism.

Every other day I see a post worded as a reminder that women can and do reinforce the patriarchy and wield misogyny as a weapon even though women are also marginalized by the patriarchy. Or a post reminding people that, just because you’re trans doesn’t mean you can’t be transphobic. We have a problem with identity determinism here.

So it’s honestly not a huge surprise that people are scrambling to claim that trans women who have picked up using “theyfab” are not only calling out transmisogyny (which, again, I think has mostly been a hasty post-hoc justification for pulling out a slur; a lot of the use of “theyfab” I’ve been seeing does not include calling out active transmisogyny, and at best hypothesizes on a transmisogynistic attitude the person must have because of their identity)

but people also are just outright refusing to acknowledge the ways in which the people so happy to wield “theyfab” are doing so in transphobic and misogynistic ways. Because of course they’re ignoring that. Because by the nature of identity determinism a trans woman can’t be misogynistic or transphobic. Especially not to someone who is her oppressor, who she’s calling out for being a transmisogynist!

But then we go back to the fact that women (or trans people) can and have been misogynistic (or transphobic) toward other women (or trans people, respectively) despite the fact that they’re oppressed by that system. And we can even find historical ways in which women have wielded their position in the patriarchy over less-privileged (by way of intersecting oppression) men who are ‘above’ them if you isolate the singular type of oppression by-way-of man>woman.

I don’t know, this just feels like tumblr falling into the trap of identity determinism here again, and then that also often gets paired with a malgendering of anyone who complains about it.

[transandrobroism]

lmao I keep bringing up that song too

every time i see a fresh round of the "we are actually allowed to call people slurs as much as we want" discourse i feel like that guy in Pacific Rim reading the patterns in kaiju attacks going "within days we could be seeing an unironic 'Woman Is The [N-word] Of The World' event!"

[echosblanketfort]

I would pay money to never have to hear or read "theyfab" again

[lehhoh7822]

as an afab nb person i kind of feel like my gender is worthless

this is not the fault of anyone it’s mostly me obsessing over transandrophobia discourse and reading some extremist opinions about afab queer people

I would be better off de transitioning instead of being a worthless terf adjascent theyfab

it would be better for me to not exist

[penumbralwoods]

lays down and stares at the ceiling. really wish it was as easy for me to ignore casual exorsexism as it seems to be for so many of you

[relaxxattack]

trying to do actual research into this shinigami eyes debacle is annoying as hell, because i don’t doubt that it actually has issues— it’s community-run for fucks sake it’s gonna be biased and full of community infighting— but whenever i try to find actual proof all that i’m seeing is people being weirdly transmisogynistic. and then it’s hard for me to take their complaints about being marked red seriously.

[aropride]

i like how shinigami eyes keeps getting worse

[biracy]

The for lack of a better term "theyfab discourse" is extremely complicated and not something I particularly want to engage with bc I'll inevitably get my head torn off but can I just say if someone says "I personally remember transmedicalist trans guys using this word like ten years ago" I don't rlly think it's anyone else's place to basically go Nuh-Uh That's Not True. Are u truly so connected to the fucking word "theyfab" that u need to do Tumblr meme word etymology revisionism about it

[rotationalsymmetry]

Hey, so, terms can be reclaimed and all, but if you're using a term used to describe a subset of queer people that does not include you as an insult, that's fucked up.

No it isn't less fucked up if you're saying an entire category of queer people is bigoted in a specific way, that's worse.