#trans men who experience misogyny are listened to and validated

[angelellipsis-devilofdots]

the dumbest points ive seen from terfs and radfems that do nothing except make this movement look ridiculous:

trans men are misogynistic gender traitors who become men because they hate women and want to be privileged. they will DEFINITELY never experience oppression for their intersectionality at all! they will never be the victims of transandrophobia and lingering misogyny. because ALL MEN live easily, duh

it's okay to sexualize transmascs and then see them as innocent little girls who were manipulated into hating themselves for being women

sex involving kink between consenting adults is ALWAYS bad and is NEVER excusable even though both/all people involved EXPLICITY and ENTHUSIASTICALLY consent to said kinky sex

all men are automatically disgusting and evil, and masculinity is inherently gross and negative (even when it is healthy masculinity and NOT the toxic and fragile kind!)

taking testosterone hrt will not make you a man, but if you were born with a vagina, are raised female, identify and live as a woman, and then find out later in life that you have a higher testosterone level than the average cis woman, you are indisputably a man

top surgery is misogyny because it mutilates the breasts of innocent women. it definitely isn't actually a life-saving gender-affirming surgery that is completely consensual and something that people work hard to receive access to and is proven to be a procedure that statistically has a <1% regret rate

if you feel sexual attraction or kinks you're a pervert with unresolved trauma and you just want to sexualize yourself. but also asexuals are all just confused teenagers who want to be special and sex is what makes us human or something

becoming the oppressor is absolutely a valid form of liberation! it is in fact okay to commit violent acts against cis men and transgender people! it definitely IS some kind of salvation and ISN'T some kind of fucking petty form of hatred that could traumatize future generations

all cis women should feel threatened and endangered by the fact that a woman with a penis exists in the same space as them

if cis women want to be happy they cannot get a husband. marriage to a man is an act of self hatred and they will regret it forever and it is internalized misogyny. (unfortunately this is a real thing i've seen terfs and rads say. i wish i was making this up)

seriously. why are some people still listening to these idiots.

[tirfpikachu]

when someone says that women weren't allowed to do xyz until a certain date mainstream tras might give a side look like hmm :/ this isn't inclusive of trans folks... but otherwise leave it alone.

but if you say that specifically cis/bio women and transmasc ppl weren't allowed to open their own bank account until 1974, suddenly you're making the transfems feel a bit too privileged and it causes a riot bc you're pointing out that amab/male folks used to have an INSANE amount of privilege on the basis of being born "amab" and even if they were super gnc, they still had that privilege from birth. to this day, cis/bio men and transfems do NOT go thru many specific struggles that cis/bio women and transmascs experience. but that's somehow controversial as FUCK to say in most tra spaces. why?

fr why is that? why?? why are transfems so fucking oversensitive to anyone pointing out that they're not oppressed on every single axis of oppression? meanwhile transmascs are bending over backwards being super fucking supportive of transfem rights and having so much nuance about things without much knee-jerk defensiveness at all. could it be that perhaps... hmm... "amab" upbringing does not teach amab/male folks what it's like to face misogyny, so they often do not enter feminist spaces, and now that they enter leftist spaces they don't know that we're all about intersectionality and nuance and acknowledging the ways one might be privileged in some ways and disprivileged in other ways? instead of showing allyship to cis/bio women and transmascs, transfems and their more extreme allies instead sit on their thrones and get offended whenever anyone implies that they might need to be good allies too. why is that?? why are cis/bio women and transmascs enabling that behavior so much?

hmmm it's almost like how afab/female folks are conditioned to excuse inappropriate behavior from amab/male people from a very young age... almost like the stereotypical One Of The Boys (in this case Males) trope, trying to be a Cool Girl (or Cool Trans Boy) to be validated by the ones in charge, the amabs, who are just poor sweet misunderstood cinnamon rolls uwu. i think mainstream tras really idolize transfems. which comes from a sweet place, and might feel good, but also means you're infantilizing them like precious perfect little princesses who can do no wrong. that might be validating for transfems ─ who doesn't like being coddled every now and then? ─ but also means not holding them accountable the way we're supposed to hold EVERYBODY accountable in leftist spaces. or at least that's what we generally pride ourselves in, right? isn't that supposed to be a leftist thing? intersectionality and all that?

and this is why so many cis/bio women and transmascs are joining radblr. this is why even some transfems are saying okay, this is too much now, and actually seek out female/afab voices and hear their povs and apologize for how they're treated by tras. the tables are starting to turn. people are too fed up with this shit. we are getting muzzled for talking about the most basic feminist stuff ever, things that back in the day oldschool trans folks were WAAYYYY more likely to see as common sense and feminism 101. systems of oppression are complex. you can talk about how hard transmisogyny is, and you'll get sympathy from most of us, but you gotta listen to how hard anti-female/afab misogyny is and how we're uniquely persecuted in specific ways you aren't. and you gotta work hard to learn how to be a good ally to us, you gotta research, you gotta learn. so many transfems have no fucking clue how to do that. so many cis/bio women and transmascs are acting like their loud guard dogs too, coddling them, speaking for them, enabling them. it's leading to really bad shit to happen. it's enabling transfems-on-female/afab abuse and bigotry... and you just sweep it all under the rug, say it was just a "terf" roleplaying, it must be a troll, it doesn't matter. it's just one or two victims, why should we even care about them? why make any changes to prevent further victims? that's such a classic male apologist mindset!!! this shit is not okay. we will never accept that bs.

you need to clean up all the misogyny and homophobia in your spaces or the only sane folks will come to radfems and find actual nuanced discussions about oppression, and you'll be left with crazies. if y'all are gonna act like oversensitive toddlers then radblr is gonna be where it's at for real leftist activism. enjoy your little tra circus ig 👋

[unclewarwick]

when terfs tell trans men and other trans people that if they (the terfs) were in a younger generation or in slightly different circumstances that they might have transitioned too - why is it that so many people believe that? or why do so many people want to believe them?

the tactic doesn't fool the people it targets, and it is incredibly clear the concept of not identifying with what you were assigned is misunderstood or twisted by them for horrible transphobic and terf recruitment reasons; not any genuine sympathy or shared experience... we do not receive an attempt at understanding from these people. we are not special cases. that's their whole deal with approaching our transness.

they project onto us this assumedly universal concept of being women who were alienated by society or who experienced a terrible trauma, either of which were so bad that we wanted to Become A Man because we "thought it would be better" and that we could escape the supposedly "limited" or "weak" parts of womanhood. in the terf's attempt at manipulation, they explain that we wanted to escape misogyny and hated how women are treated, but were too confused and stupid about our own experiences that we thought the feelings meant we hated being a woman entirely. that sounds like a muddled explanation from a psychologist in a horror movie. so why do other trans people choose to believe this?

terfs do not actually understand what dysphoria is and how it differs from hating how women are treated. and if they do, they play dumb for the sake of their ideology. that's the whole point. dysphoria can't be real according to terf beliefs. they will keep making up ways us trans people are wrong and "delusional" according to them. you can't just pick and choose what parts of their statements you suddenly trust just because you don't want to believe that we experience a unique kind of transphobia from them.

do people seriously hear a terf calling any dysphoria from a trans man or other trans people "just misunderstood misogyny" and think "yeah, this person has absolutely no barely-disguised agenda behind this statement"..?

for the people who hear the "i might have called myself a trans man too, and could have ended up disfiguring my sacred biologically female body if i talked to the wrong people" line and think "wow!! i can't believe these people are really deeply closeted trans men! i can't believe it's so obvious and nobody else sees it!" . . . why do you demean yourself by aligning with them? a terf will say dysphoria is actually a misinterpreted hatred of misogyny, and you are not disagreeing with their sentiment if you say the "misinterpreted hatred of misogyny" is actually repressed dysphoria. you are validating a part of their rhetoric. do you like doing this? do you honestly feel good and okay knowing you would rather align with a terf's logic than listen to fellow trans people about our own unique experiences?

i've seen some specific people have obsessive fixations on terfs like joanne being Actually A Trans Man and wanting to shift the blame on the whole group of trans men for this woman who has used glaringly obvious manipulation tactics as part of her pointless moral panic. and let's just say these people do not react calmly or reasonably when people point out how weird and transphobic this obsession is.

i just want to know, why do some people trust terfs - famous liars - over fellow trans people? why do they so badly want terfs' transphobic lies directed at trans men to be true? they recognise the harm terfs direct at trans women, yet think terfs are suitable people to believe the words of over trans men and other trans people? that seems inconsistent and like their worldview is influenced by biases that erase and ignore the experiences of their fellow trans people. hmm

[cistematicchaos]

Feminist cis women "allies" love to be so ignorant of trans issues, its ridiculous. They say "oh we acknowledge not all people who menstruate are women!!" but never want to address or listen to how things like the period tax or reproductive issues in general affect trans folks, they say "oh we understand not all women are uhmmmm AFAB" and then never want to talk about transmisogyny or address the violent differences or even overlaps in experiences with misogyny they have with trans women, they say "of course trans men are men" but then won't use "cis men" when they're speaking specifically about cis men, they say "oh of course nonbinary people are SO valid" but can't use they/them pronouns to literally save a life and refuse to talk about feminism without dividing the world solely into "men and women".

They love to call themselves progressive but wouldn't put in the work to become transfeminists or even just trans-inclusive if their asses were literally on the line. And I know that because their asses are on the line and they're still doing jackshit. I hate some of these fuckers so much I stg.

[the-delta-quadrant]

"it's valid for transmascs to have a space to talk about their oppression by themselves because it might be annoying to transfems to hear men talking about their experiences with misogyny"

like there's so much wrong with this

1. not all transmascs are men, stop perpetuating the idea that transmasc and transfem are just binary lite

2. transmascs & transmasculinised people deserve having specific spaces because it may just feel safer to talk about certain experiences (oppression or otherwise) among people who also share those experiences. the reason is not "transmascs shouldn't talk about their oppression in front of transfems because they should respect if they find it annoying". the reason transmasc(ulinised) people may want a private place by ourselves shouldn't centre transfems

3. transfem(inised) people who get annoyed at transmasc(ulinised) people talking about our oppression don't need to be accommodated for it, like, come on. if you have a problem with "men talking about their experience with misogyny" you just have a transandromisia problem. transmasc(ulinised) people's experience with misogyny are real and valid and they matter as much as transmisogyny does. "i don't want to listen to it because it personally offends or annoy me" doesn't cut it. we need intracommunity allyship and that doesn't work if you just shield yourself from listening to a certain experiences because you don't like the fact that men or other people who aren't women are deeply affected by misogyny. listening to other trans people with different experiences is vital. us learning from each other is vital so that we as a community can better understand and fight the system of transantagonism.

the worst is that this came from a transmasc person, one with a large platform at that, someone who i know for a fact would not say that transfems shouldn't talk about transmisogyny in front of transmascs because transmascs find it annoying.

like, can we please not normalise the idea of "i shouldn't talk about my oppression in front of certain people because they may find it annoying", at least in this context?

this whole idea is just based in the idea of transmasc and AFAB privileged and that transfems shouldn't have to listen to us horribly privileged people talk about our oppression. it's fucking bullshit and it's extra hurtful when it comes from someone who is affected by these things, because people will just cite them as a reputable source on why they're shutting down conversations about transandromisia.

and i know for a fact they'd say this shit about exorsexism too if exorsexism would actually exist in trans discussion.

i honestly don't give a fuck if you find it annoying when i talk about exorsexism or transandromisia just because you decided they don't matter. you don't get to decide that other people's oppression is just an annoyance.

[fite-club]

we already talked about this. the trans guys who are the most vocal and upset about "transandrophobia" are the guys who are still subjected to misogyny on a daily basis and they turn that insecurity around into a misplaced anger of the "if feminism is about equality then why do feminists hate men" flavor. the guys most upset about not passing, the most dysphoric and self-loathing guys, they try to heal that by shifting the blame outwardly (very typically masculine behavior, btw). you're validating your own gender and pain by making your man-ness the issue, since it's the thing being questioned, but it's not the world's issue the way that misogyny is the world's issue. one day you will pass and you'll know what it's like to be seen as a man in public: to see women at night cross the street to avoid you, to hear men whisper sexist jokes to you, to notice when men are actually listening to what you're saying when you're talking instead of pretending to listen and waiting to talk next. the small internet communities that you're in that hyperfocus on this stuff, they're warping these things out of proportion and presenting them in a distorted way. the vents and criticisms coming from trans women about trans men are not going to have a tangibly harmful affect at all. when they tell us to shut up and stop centering ourselves and our experiences, we do, because that's what men are supposed to do when women are talking about misogyny. yes, we can and should talk about our experiences with misogyny--the only people stopping us are terfs on social media and they aren't even stopping us as much as hating on us--but our experiences with misogyny are not unique to us. our experiences with transphobia are not unique to us. everyone's individual trans journey and struggles with discrimination are personal and valid, of course, but on the whole trans women and trans femmes "have it worse" or "have it harder" because women and femmes have it harder in society, period. it's not invalidating or silencing trans men to say that, the same way it's not invalidating or silencing latino men to say that black men have a harder time in society. that's just how layers of discrimination works, that's how "transmisogyny" works. if you find yourself surrounded by terfs, constantly hearing that trans men are being told they can't experience oppression or can't talk about it, regularly making blanket assumptions about trans women/fems as a whole hating trans men or masculinity... that is a problem that will solve itself when you detach from these people

[lesbiansanemi]

the projection of your internalized transphobia is literally radiating off of you. leave trans men alone holy fuck we can't even speak about our oppression without someone who isn't even a transfem yelling about how we're taking the spotlight or something. while many transfems actually pitch in and are glad that we talk about things that never get talked about in the trans community bc yes it is mostly passing binary white trans women who get the spotlight 99% of the time lmao. like not only are u speaking over trans men ur also speaking over trans women who benefit from these conversations. idek why i'm writing this tbh im just holding onto some small hope that maybe you'll listen but i really hope you just grow out of this separation type mentality abt other trans ppl. no ONE type of trans person should get the 'spotlight' literally everyone's trauma and ways of talking about our oppression deserve attention equally bc erasure is not cool or sexy. im sorry that it seems like u have trauma or something from ppl who happened to be trans men (im guessing transmeds?? but those literally affect trans men too lol) but literally what makes you think that making an over generalization that all trans men are violent misogynists or something is not transphobic??? like ur not owning the evil trans men ur literally just vilely transphobic. like i genuinely hope you realize that someday or something. for the record this isn't supposed to be hate, i just wish you guys would see how terrible you treat trans men, like ur literally pointing out someone's marginalized identity on why u hate them. idk man just... we are supposed to be allies not enemies. please just find it in yourself to see that. if you wouldn't make that overarching statement about other trans people/marginalized groups, then genuinely why is it okay to do to trans men? just think about that. have a good day.

1. You are putting words in my mouth I did not fucking say, and 2. You are ignoring the ones I did

I never said binary trans men couldn’t talk about the issues they face. I never once said that anywhere. I never once said I hated trans men. I never once said being a trans man made someone a “violent” misogynist

What I DID say was that the community of trans men had issues with misogyny (internalized or other) but that any time someone pointed that out, they were accused of being transphobic (exactly what you are doing right fucking now)

Criticizing a community for an issue within it is not “hating” them and it’s certainly not hateful or transphobic. You are the one reacting in such an extreme way to someone criticizing an aspect of your community. If I see misogyny (internal or otherwise) from trans women or genderfluid or non-binary ppl or or or I’m also going to point it out. I’m not “hating you” for your identity. I never said “hate” anywhere. You are blowing a valid criticism of your community way out of proportion to paint me as nothing but transphobic so you don’t have to consider your own biases

A lot of trans men ARE misogynistic (some internalized, some not). A lot of trans men ARE transmisogynistic. A lot of trans men (ESPECIALLY gay trans men) are lesbophobic

I’m saying this as a trans masc person who has tried interacting with your community and people in it a lot, and has dealt with these issues on multiple occasions in multiple ways

You are also proving my point that you don’t see afab nonbinary ppl as “””””really”””” trans in comparison to binary trans men from the way you’re talking to me. MY experiences don’t count, obviously. MY opinions on the trans community don’t matter because I’m not REALLY trans cuz I’m not a binary trans man and therefore basically cis, right? That’s what you’re implying, after all! I’m “talking over” the REAL trans people

As a trans masc person, saying “wow, this community has a lot of unchecked transmisogyny” is not speaking over transfems. Transfems have SAID this and pointed it out and you don’t fucking listen to them either

You’re right. We are supposed to be allies. But if we are to be, you need to accept that other marginalized subgroups within your community are sometimes going to point out that you have your own biases to examine, and when they do, maybe you should actually think about that and consider it rather than scream “YOU SAID SOMETHING NEGATIVE ABOUT ME THEREFORE YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY A RAGING BIGOT WHO FUCKING HATES ME BECAUSE OF MY IDENTITY” You can’t just accuse everyone of transphobia if they say something you don’t fucking like

And I’m not even gonna touch the “cis passing white trans women get 99% of the spotlight.” Like wow. Not even trying to hide the transmisogyny there bud huh. That is such a generalized blanket statement that is not true in ANY capacity. Also very funny of you to go on and on and on about how “spotlights” don’t and shouldn’t matter when it comes to oppression and then say that. You are just… proving my point. You want a reason to get bitchy about trans women so bad you will literally make them up

Don’t come into my inbox, do exactly what I was saying the community had a problem with, make assumptions about my so called “trauma with trans men”, accuse me of being “vilely transphobic”, and then tell me to have a good day

As I said in my original post, gay trans men be fucking normal about women for once, and don’t accuse everyone of being transphobic when they point out misogyny in your fucking community

[sevens-evan]

I wanna rant about my experience as a trans man who has been openly trans since 2013 and started hormones in 2019. I had a large group of friends with various genders, they all knew I wanted hormones when they first met me. a month after I started T, their view of me completely changed. I became "too masculine" to be non-binary. my autistic ramblings became mansplaining, my experiences as an ethnic minority and refugee became white saviour, my experience with sexism and ab/se became misogyny. they called me a woman hater BC I was mlm. I was ostracized out of queer spaces to make room for cishet white women. when I had noone else, I asked the trans organisation that ran monthly support groups (one for everyone + one exclusively for trans women) to run one for trans men and they did, but everyone was invited. trans/cis women and men, children. the only thing that made it transmasc was that they made packers. theyve never hosted any since.

thank you for listening, I can't post this myself out of fear of backlash for my own experiences.

thanks for sharing. i'm not sure if it will help you feel less alone or make you feel worse but the tags of that post are almost entirely trans men sharing very similar experiences. there are maybe five or six people arguing about it and they are very much drowned out by trans men talking about their actual real lives. i feel like i've been continuously gaslit about this for a long time so for me seeing that stuff is reaffirming that i'm not alone and some of the things i've experienced are real. it seems like a lot of people would rather have me believe that i'm just being #hysterical or whatever and it's nice to have that validation that i'm not. idk, just figured i'd tell you. you definitely aren't alone in this.

[getawaycardotvent]

cancellable opinion under the cut lol

people often point out that TERFs seem to conceptualize womanhood as being defined by experiencing misogyny, which is true of many TERFs, and then seem to frame the problem with it not in the fact that they universalize this and act like that is the only meaning womanhood can have for anyone, but instead frame it as a tragedy that they've brainwashed themselves into feeling that way. Like "I almost feel bad for them cause they think being a woman means suffering when actually it's great and joyful!" or even speculating that they are closeted trans men who haven't realized it yet.

Not that there are no TERFs who eventually deradicalize and realize they're trans men and transition. But I just kind of bristle at the idea that "I am a woman because I experience misogyny" is framed as some awful self-loathing thing, instead of a completely valid way to experience womanhood.

Bc like--that is my experience. I don't have an innate sense of gender, but I do have an acute sense that I am seen and treated differently because society has classified me as a woman, than I would be seen and treated if society had classified me as a man. That's the extent of my gender identity.

"Oh you're probably just agender then!" no, I'm not. My gender identity is rooted in the material reality of my life. I feel like a woman when I'm reminded that I'm seen as one. The most womanly I've ever felt was during the 2016 US presidential election, was during metoo, was a few months ago when my religious male doctor refused to refill my birth control or listen to me about why I needed it. I've tried IDing as non-binary and as agender and they don't feel right, especially when I'm subjected to misogyny and my internal sense of self snaps right back to "woman."

And I shouldn't really have to justify that, tbh. If you agree that trans men and trans women and non-binary people shouldn't have to justify their gender to other people, shouldn't have to describe an internal sense of self, if you agree that we should believe them when they say "this is who I am, I just know it," then you don't really get to turn around and demand cis people justify why they've defined their own gender by a certain feeling.

I'm very adamant about the fact that I support trans rights; I don't believe that my way of experiencing womanhood is The Only Way, that the experiences and feelings that have led me to continue to ID as a woman are the Only Reasons someone would ID as one. I don't believe my experiences are or should be universal. If someone says "I'm a woman/man/enby/etc because of my internal sense of self, regardless of the role society has tried to force on me" then I believe them and I support their right to live safely as themselves and access the healthcare that they need.

It would be nice, though, to receive that same energy in return. I'm aware that my sense of gender maps closely onto that of many TERFs and their ideology; I don't think that makes me a TERF, because I don't turn my sense of gender into ideology. Like I literally am just vibing.

[obstinatecondolement]

sigh (non-binary grumbling)

"So girls, let's educate ourselves and boys, listen well. Nonbinary people, you're gorgeous, take five."

This is obviously A Joke and I do think that the video I am sniping about is good and important, but I am just so fucking sick of this patronising shit where people talk about the misogyny and/or womanhood in a way that is very binary and, at best, is not talking about non-binary experiences of gender out of a desire not to complicate the message and then just ... make a glib little comment about how non-binary people are so awesome and soooo fucking valid despite us all being Mx Not-Appearing-In-This-Film for the purposes for the rest of their discussion.

You don't have to do that. Just say you're talking about binary experiences of gender within the contemporary Western gender binary and are using terms like "man" and "woman" as a shorthand to convey a complex idea more simply, but that not everyone is a man or a woman and this analysis does not encapsulate all experiences of manhood and womanhood, and do not fucking patronise non-binary with your stupid jokes about how great we are. It just makes it seem like you don't think we're worth even pretending to think about seriously.

This was also a big gripe I had with Hannah Gadsby's special "Douglas" which I found incredibly binary and "men be like x, women be like y" to the point of naked bioessentialism, but which also had these sort of nominal throwaway trans and/or non-binary affirming asides along the lines of like "Non-binary people are probably thinking, oh is that your idea of a hard day?" after talking about what she found hard about being a woman.

Like! Please do not do that! Upon noticing that your extremely binary stereotype of gender falls apart if you think about how we exist, do not just briefly acknowledge we exist and that you are totally pro-us and then ... ignore us again and say exactly what you would have said if you hadn't felt the need to reflexively deflect and preempt criticisms that uwu you forgor :(

The specific thing I'm kvetching about now isn't exactly the same issue, because it involves a trans woman talking about misogyny as opposed to a cis woman talking about misogyny, but it's still extremely annoying to me.

Obviously neither of these women are my oppressor, nor do I believe them to be unilaterally privileged over me because they are binary women or some nonsense like that, and I do very much see the value in talking about misogyny and womanhood in a way that centres women themselves. And I do not expect women who want to talk about their own experiences of gender based oppression to have to fold me and my very specific set of experiences into the mix, because I'm the main fucking character or something.

But ... I am very hurt and frustrated by the glibness with which people, often but not always women, sometimes declare that they do not care to even try to talk about people like me and other non-binary people when they discuss gender based oppression, but don't worry, because we're so valid, babes. It feels like, at best, we're this auxiliary fringe group who shouldn't be considered a priority and at worst like they don't actually believe we exist at all.

And like, you don't have to talk about us, but, Idk, please don't explain the choice not to in this fucking way with your belittling, patronising little digs.

[vitos-ordination-song]

Being a Le Guin expert means constantly being annoyed at people’s takes on her, people who just don’t get it or people who haven’t read enough of her writing to know what she was about. Particularly when it comes to feminist controversies with her work, I’m constantly banging my head against the wall.

First you get men getting up at arms at any sign of potential feminism. Just makes ‘em defensive. One academic lecturer said he didn’t like Tehanu because it was “preachy” (no follow up). I listened to three different podcast bros say the misogyny in The Dispossessed was exaggerated. This is all from the last 10 years of course, whereas Le Guin was born in 1929. I promise you that a concept like “women are natural inferiors to men” is not something she made up but in fact possibly something she heard stated verbatim growing up. (I was born in 1997, and I don’t think I’m from a representative population since I was raised in a conservative evangelical community, but I also heard such things stated in childhood.) I wish I lived in these mens’ worlds where portraying such attitudes in fiction is “going a bit far, even as social commentary.” Equally I’ve seen men get hot around the collar when there’s “bad guy” males. Le Guin tended to steer clear of simple villains, but in Tehanu and a couple other of her works, there are truly sadistic men, at times sexual threats. Any men fragile enough to get upset by that are sad to me, especially because Le Guin also wrote a female pedophile in one of her novels and never shied away from “bad guy” women. There’s a kind of disbelief I see from people (often men but not just them) when it comes to Tehanu, like it’s unbelievable that there could be such obsessive abusive misogynists. Again. Welcome to the real world. This shit happens.

The author Kim Stanley Robinson said he disliked the later Earthsea books for being too didactic on feminism. I somewhat get what he means and I don’t think he’s a misogynist himself. I also agree that Le Guin was bullied into being defensive of her feminism; she was attacked by other women for being a married with kids, which is just pathetic behavior. It made her a bit edgy for a while, and then she doubled her efforts to be woman-centered. This had the occasional consequence of didacticism, there’s a couple moments in her later writing where I go, “okay, I get the point,” but her points are never bad. Where I disagree with Robinson is in whether she actually rectified wrongs in her writing. Frankly some of her early works read as male chauvinist, she later stated she was a woman pretending to be a man simply because she thought that’s how a writer should be. In many cases her feminist turn was much needed, though it’s true that even her early work is more complex on gender issues than people give it credit for.

Then there’s people who read a single of her works and write her off as a gender essentialist. It’s really frustrating because it’s like people aren’t able to engage with a text except for how much it validates or invalidates them personally. People who’re “against the gender binary” will see a work which depicts a realistic, materially based gendered social system and take issue with it just on the principal that people in the story have assumptions about men and women. What exactly is wrong with writing a story that way? It’s not as if Le Guin herself believed in fixed gender characteristics. It makes me think of a post I saw a while back that was like, you can’t be free to experiment with gender until you acknowledge how we are enslaved by our biology. Of course our biology isn’t simple either, but the point is, we can be pro-trans, all for gender non-conformity, questioning of even the existence of gender, without denying that gender as a concept was borne out of biological sex, and that historically sex/gender have taken on many meanings and significances. Authors are not required to write disclaimers explaining themselves, and honestly it’s an insult to the nuances of Le Guin’s writing to pretend that she was some kind of close-minded old-school feminist.

Finally there’s the dumbasses who will complain about the lack of “girl power” in her novels. I see this sort of thing a lot actually, not just when it comes to Le Guin. When I was a little girl, I always wanted stories about awesome women who could save themselves/others, since I had previously been psychologically disempowered through passive narratives about women. But I’m an adult now so I like stories that are a bit more mature. The Earthsea books, when they begin to focus on women’s narratives, don’t just become “women act like men and it’s awesome.” It’s not about women being wizards or anything like that, though there’s examples of literal empowerment. It’s about women’s values destabilizing the world of men and a balancing of the previously unbalanced gendered social system, which was very much in need of doing and aligns with the themes of the series. I want to slap people who say Tenar “doesn’t get to do anything” and “is helpless” in Tehanu, as if she isn’t one of the strongest and most dignified characters Le Guin ever wrote. It’s an entire novel of her caring for a child everyone else fears, fending off a world which is hostile to her, and maintaining her wits when malicious forces are trying to steal them from her. But I guess since she didn’t like, cast a fireball, it’s not feminist enough. It’s also not a “feminist hot take” to shit on the entire concept of being a mother and wife, keeping the household. You know how that’s a lot of what women have done throughout history? I mean, in no way does Le Guin discount how marriage/motherhood can be a cage for women, but is it really anti-feminist to say that there’s something to respect in traditional women’s work? The novel also acknowledges the value of both “respectable” women (wives and mothers) and “non-respectable” women (witches who never marry and often contribute a great deal to their community despite being marginalized). At this point I’m just ranting about Tehanu, but it’s not only my favorite Le Guin but probably my favorite novel of all time and it drives me wild how much people misinterpret it.

[carriesthewind]

The recent twitter kerfuffle over “are young men getting to have enough sex?!” has gotten me thinking about how we talk about the importance of listening to, and believing, the people who are affected by a situation discussing that situation. Specifically, I’ve seen a number of men who, when they receive pushback for giving a Bad Take (tm) on the issue, respond with some version (implicit or explicit) of, “my take is based on my experience and you all are Bad/Misandrists for refusing to listen to me about my own experience.”

While the loudest of the voices making these arguments are doing so in bad faith, I fully believe that many of them (or people quietly reading along) are genuine. And it’s not hard to see a misguided but good-faith young man saying, hey, wait a minute. I’m a young man who is not having sex when I really want too, and I think it’s b/c [modern women won’t date poor men/my head is the wrong shape/misandry has replaced misogyny/etc.] and the solution is [mandated sex for involuntarily celebrate men/punishments for women who cheat/focusing on discrimination against men b/c women have too much social power now/etc.]. These lefty progressive types are always saying we should listen to the people who are actually affected by an issue - so why are they not listen to me when I try to talk about this important issue that affects me?

Of course, that’s because there is a difference. Of course we should listen to young men (and not-young men!) talk about the experience of not being able to have sex. And while we (as a society) generally already do exactly this, there is definitely improvements we can make to ensuring that men - especially non-traditionally “masculine” men and men who are marginalized in various ways (gay, trans, fat, disabled, not white, etc.) - have safe paces to discuss those feelings in vulnerable and open ways and be heard. But these men being the authorities on how they feel about their own experiences is not the same as knowing what the problems are or what to do about them, and that is where the disconnect lies.

The difference is between being an expert on your own experience, expert on the broader experience of the relevant group, and being an expert on the problem and solutions.

Likewise, when we talk about listening to minorities and disadvantaged groups - listen to black people, believe women about sexual assault, focus on trans people when talking about trans issues, etc - normally, we are saying this because we are saying to listen to those experiences, because as a culture, as a whole, we don’t even generally accept those experiences exist. The panic over young men not getting to have enough sex is regular enough that I had to specify the recent discourse - the culture accepts that there are young men who don’t get to have sex they want and it sucks for them. But mainstream culture and politically powerful actors do not necessarily accept systemic racism, the widespread sexual assault of women, or even that trans people really exist as a valid way to exist.

Furthermore, because the experiences of minorities are under-appreciated and their struggles disbelieved, members of those minority groups are often the ones who have to become experts in the problems and potential solutions. To the extent mainstream culture and power structures even recognize those issues, they may be using a bigoted framework to study and understand them. This is further complicated by the fact that because members of these groups are disadvantaged, they often have difficulty accessing the formal structures of licensing and expertise (e.g. academia), and so have to seek expertise outside these normal structures. Even if members of the group are able to get into academic or power structures, 1) the most likely members to get into those power structures are likely to be the ones most willing and able to conform to the bigoted hierarchy and 2) if they don’t conform, they will often receive institutional pushback. This is why it’s a good idea, when researching a topic that affects a minority or disadvantaged group, to "listen to marginalized voices" - e.g. seek out voices from that group to see what they have to say about the formal research and research institutions.

And it’s worth talking about this distinction explicitly because while I think it’s something a lot of us progressive lefty types kind of intuit, and it is something that is talked about in (good) activist circles, it’s something that I don’t often seen laid out in online and casual spaces. And I think it’s one of the things that leads to a lot of the problems in those spaces.

Most of us understand, for example, that if someone with dyslexia says their dyslexia was cured by Scientology, we don’t need to believe them. But I think that sometimes that understanding gets confused into “everyone knows Scientology is bs so obviously that person’s experience is bs,” rather than, “this person can speak about their experience of dyslexia and how they don’t feel like it affects them anymore, but they do not have the necessary expertise to say that it is cured (if other evidence points to it not be cured) or what cured it, and they things they are claiming go against a vast weight of other evidence.” This lack of distinction, I think is how we get everything from Tumblr nonsense like people pretending to be lesbian HIV-positive nonbinary Chinese-Pakistani trafficking survivors living in India when they are actually white American teenagers, spouting absolute nonsense and throwing their “identities” around when people call them on it; to lgbtq+ twitter uses frequently piling on to other lgbtq+ figures (usually transwomen) for perceived imperfections and justifying their own actions by describing their own feelings of pain; to fandom puritans declaring that they know the solution to abuse (removing “bad fic”) based on their own personal discomfort with said fic; to grifters (or even just people who are severely under-informed but don't know it) who leverage their status as members of disadvantaged groups to claim expertise and either spread misinformation or divert resources to their scams. And I think it’s why I’ve seen some people get genuinely turned around and not know how to respond to people like our hypothetical sincere young man above.

And I don’t think there is any universal solution. But part of the solution is more general education about, and mindfulness of, these essential differences in expertise - expertise in your lived experience, expertise on the general experience of a marginalized group, expertise on the problem, and expertise on finding potential solutions.

[ooglywooglies]

stupid discourse again

i literally cant escape this fucking topic and its driving me fucking insane and i dont have any control so heres some issues i have with the topic on the whole, on both sides

STOP TALKING ABOUT MISANDRY IN TERMS OF OPPRESSION

if youre gonna talk about the problems trans men face FOR BEING MEN dont call it oppression, trans men are not oppressed for being MEN. yes men can be oppressed but it is for another aspect of their identity. i know that transness and manhood are intrinsically linked in trans men, that if they were not men they would not be trans and if they were not trans they would not be men HOWEVER, being treated like a man is not the same as being oppressed. i think misandry is sometimes a valid word to use, only in the context of generally like radfems though because its my opinion gender essentialism and separatism is the main thing that defines radfems. misandry describes a HATRED of men, it doesnt have to be systemic. (it gets misused a lot so im not really advocating for its usage im just giving my perspective)

2. Men Have Problems, Not Worse than Women, But Do Nonetheless

i think the things that tend to affect trans men is MOSTLY just transphobia and misogyny (ill not say transmisogyny bc im not transfem and that term was coined with a specific definition that is not solely the convergence of transphobia and misogyny) and i hate when trans men push back on the idea that they are affected by misogyny because it "gives them dysphoria" like bro you experience misogyny as a result of transphobia, you cannot say that you dont experience misogyny just because you dont like it. men in general are not exempt from experiencing misogyny, this usually happens when men are put down for having traits/interests ASSOCIATED with women. obviously homophobia has its own word but homophobia is sort of rooted in misogyny in the first place

mens problems are generally all rooted in misogyny, trans or not, and trans men experience both mens problems and often regular made-for-women misogyny and especially trans men often get pushed aside and belittled when trying to talk about problems more specific to them. it sort of annoys me when trans men in particular (but it can apply to men in general) try to create a space for themselves to discuss this kind of thing and then people push back on them from doing so because they "dont experience anything worse than what (trans) women experience" and thats the main reason men (trans but and in general, in a broader topic) do feel a need to have a space for themselves because if you share a space of discussing issues with women then youre basically always talking over women and their suffering, and men NEED to care about womens issues if not more than at least as much as their own. people often compare trans men expressing a desire to have this kind of room to MRAs and thats another thing that really bothers me because MRAs were only ever a problem because they blame FEMINISM for their struggles, not the actual cause which is patriarchy (which itself is an arm of capitalism)

3. No One is Listening

the biggest mainest thing is that there are bad actors on BOTH sides of this discourse, and im not saying its trans men vs trans women theres a bit of both on each side ive been reading this shit for weeks bc its taken me this long to develop a perspective im somewhat confident in. theres transmisogynists using the topic to demonize transfems for no fucking reason, and theres people who think its immoral to "choose" to be a man, theres probably terfs fueling the infighting on both sides who fucking knows anymore

and both sides use the fact that the other has bad actors to refuse to listen to each other, like i know no one wants to hear "why cant we all just get along" but like, i keep coming back to this topic but i cant stop thinking about how this discourse BARELY exists outside of tumblr, yknow like is anyone thinking about what the actual problem is or what to do about it or that maybe they should do some self reflection and not act like this is such an us vs them thing

and generalizations, like, when will everyone figure it the fuck out that sharing a gender is not the same as sharing a brain we are not all REMOTELY the same as each other. like one issue we face a lot as trans people is being all lumped in together (not implying some trans people are bad and some are not-like-those Bad OnesTM), we are ALL hurt by being treated like a hivemind whether youre masc or fem or nb, especially because its so easy for any of us to start adopting bio/gender essentialism and separatism like i think theres a reason when we infight were constantly accusing each other of being terfs/radfems its because when we do that and we "other" each other we legitimately become vulnerable to that stuff

(side note not all terfs are a hivemind either they dont all have the same criteria or takes as each other - generally i believe being a radfem is always bad and being a radfem is defined by othering people, not just trans people, not just people that are in a different "rank" from you)

4. what do i actually think

i know im immediately biased because im a trans man and my perspective is therefore inherently limited, and the fact that im a trans man means i am also possibly thinking in my own interest

personally i just started transitioning and im an agoraphobe who only interacts with queer people irl (mostly transfems and grunglers as i have stated on another post) and i was exposed to this tag via the discourse first (the "this idea is inherently wrong" side) and i kinda got sucked into it as a topic because i was like oh thats probably something i should be familiar with and i should have a stance on it if its important

i think ultimately the discourse itself is not really important but its a fair enough topic to try to get into, the main perspective i see from most similar temperamented people is that "the idea that trans men have unique struggles and want to talk about them is fine, but the tag/term theyre using implies a concept that doesnt exist" which is basically my position

i made a post just before that i think "transandrophobia" is a stupid term, mostly because it sounds really dumb, and personally i dont think "transmisandry" is really a valid concept in real life but i think the reason it was initially used is like PURELY a tumblr categorization purpose, maybe there could be a more elegant term but from what ive seen the transandro community is pretty frustrated with the fact that theyve been made to keep switching terms in the first place.

i feel like queer communities on tumblr have ALWAYS had trouble inventing terms for categorization purposes in an annoying and cringy way. and its like maybe i am missing something im not claiming to be infallible or all knowing but i dont think its that big a deal that a term is not 100% intuitive on tumblr dot com

im fucking baffled that this has blown up as much as it has and its like, im not saying none of you people involved have nothing to be mad about i just think its become pretty well divorced from the core issue any why no ones tried to distance themselves from it or block everyone confuses me

i havent moved on or blocked everyone bc a) i got hormone brain worms man i literally cant stop digitally self harming 2nd puberty is awful and b) im not on one side or the other and most people are fairly reasonable just wasting their time or have some wonky arguments, ive been blocking some people but its mostly actual complete assholes

ive been trying my best to avoid using the word misguided bc thats just like inherently patronizing and i think ALL trans people have some very bad feelings about that word but its like... idk some of you are kinda dumb! its not bc of your gender its probably because of your age! i think a lot of people saying the well meaning dumbass shit are like 17-21

[hungee-boy]

milkyymintt replied to your post

Omg no! Not women who believe in biological reality and recognize sex based oppression! :( We can’t have any conversation that isn’t reaffirming echochamber thought patterns. Block and stay safe everyone!

hey if youre sympathizing with or are one of the people that say that im a woman with internalized misogyny and label women as predators for no fucking reason then can you please unfollow me kthx

[genderkoolaid]

the whole deal with "all men are bad" & related concepts are also unique to the transmasc experience. because there really isn't a mirror of that for women. because anger at cis men is extremely valid, but because people never. ever. remember that trans men exist. you have "all men are bad" type takes which simply do not consider trans men. it's an.... interesting experience, being a man who is oppression for being a man by other men, and that's not something mainstream feminism has even BEGUN to seriously consider. that "men" cannot be considered a universal oppressor class. that men dont experience misogyny or gender discrimination (even ignoring transandrophobia, transphobia itself is gender discrimination) feminism needs trans men's opinions and understanding of gender dynamics so badly but nobody wants to listen to us because we call into question a whole lot of notions nobody wants to challenge

[nothorses]

This thread on Twitter (also give @Azure_Husky a follow!!)

Linked Article Transcript below

Content warnings for transphobia against transmasculine people, including violence and harassment It's easy to say that transmasculine people get male privilege and face less oppression than many other trans people, but only if you don't actually listen https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/9/1877651/-There-is-a-hidden-epidemic-of-violence-against-transmasculine-people

I hear pretty constantly from transmasculine people about the violence they face from cis people and the erasure, condescension, and "suck it up, you're the oppressor now" attitudes they get from other trans people. 

We are failing the transmasculine parts of our communities. We are failing our brothers and masculine siblings. We need to get better at listening to transmasculine people's concerns and working together rather than fostering hierarchies of oppression within transness 

Once transness is involved, shit gets complicated. Simple responses of "misandry doesn't exist because men have the power" assume transmasculine people have access to the same privileges as average cis men when frequently they don't. 

One of the saddest things about being someone who talks about this is that i regularly get transmasculine people giving heartfelt thanks for the smallest mentions of their needs & concerns bc they're so used to transfeminine people ignoring their existence or being antagonistic 

We need to do better. I refuse for some of us trans people to base our fights for equality and justice by stepping on the needs of other trans people. 

I see transfeminine people I care about and respect who will sometimes share "let's make a world without men" type things and like I have had these feelings too, I struggle under misogyny and have a bunch of bad experiences with (cis, especially but not exclusively) men. *and*- 

- i've seen too many of my transmasculine siblings' hurt as they are constantly lumped into "just as bad as cis men" baskets (which I also have feelings about but is a larger topic I think) & have heard from too many transmasculine people who have spent years in denial bc of this 

I've heard from too many transmasculine people who have put off transitioning, tried to avoid accepting their gender, because they internalized the constant stream of this shit. And I love trans people too fucking much to keep letting it go. 

I get that for many of our communities there can be some incredible trauma around masculinity, either because it was enforced on us against our will or due to violence and/or sexual assault. And i don't debate the validity of that trauma. 

And also we can't extrapolate our trauma into "this segment of trans people, by virtue of their gender, is worth less (or worthless)". 

I mean if we want to dig into it, a lot of us transfeminine people get attacked by transphobes under the auspices of trauma regarding specific genitals or gender expressions or body types. And most of us can agree that their trauma doesn't mean they get to denigrate us. 

Honestly I'm tired. And also I acknowledge that my tiredness about this cannot be even a mild fraction of the exhaustion of the trans people targeted and erased by this must be. 

So I'm calling on y'all and asking you to please do better by *all* trans people. I get the joy and relief in venting about men. I do. We live in a misogynistic society and a lot of us suffer under the hands of a specific gender and sometimes we need an outlet. 

But at the very least please be aware of when your venting is in a public space where it *is* going to harm and affect others, and specifically other trans people (since I don't have the spoons to get into a larger discussion about cis men currently) 

Know that every time we make vent-jokes (or not jokes) about how everyone who is masculine is worthless to us, we are directly damaging other trans people, and possibly painfully forcing some to deny themselves or stay closeted because who would want to become The Enemy, right? 

And I feel like I *have* to keep talking about this because if transmasc people stick up for themselves, I see how often they get shot down as just another "not all men" concern troll or like they're trying to talk over feminine people 

Hell I've seen threads where a transmasc person starts the thread to talk about transmasc issues and *still* people have declared it derailing or speaking over others. How do we address their oppression if they aren't allowed to discuss it anywhere? 

So as a transfeminine person I've got allyship privilege here where I may be condemned as having internalized misogyny or being an assimilationist or something but at least I can't be seen as just another dude talking over women

(i use the binary language there thoughtfully bc a lot of these Us vs Them dichotomies tend to erase nonbinary people or pretend that all nonbinary people are centre or feminine of centre on the gender spectrum) 

Just. Do better. Please. Like. Just listen to transmasculine people with an open heart for a bit and hear the intense transphobia and discrimination they also face and consider the impact of your words on them. 

It sucks to see people who are generally caring and thoughtful about many types of oppression just.. Let it all go when a chance to lump transmasc people in with The Enemy comes up. 

Addendum: I've had a couple people express concern that I'm saying that transfeminine people shouldn't address when they are facing transmisogyny from transmasculine people and I hope that it is clear that isn't what I am saying at all. 

Transmasculine people can be transmisogynistic, absolutely! I've had experiences with that too. What this thread is about is the fact that for *some* people, transmasculine people as a whole are considered less marginalized by dint of their masculinity and it isn't that simple. 

So saying broad statements about transmasculine people isn't "punching up". Its horizontal violence if it's coming from other trans people or can be punching down if it's coming from cis people. That is what this thread is meant to address. 

By all means we should be discussing and addressing transmisogyny. But transmasculine people discussing the specifics of their own concerns isn't in and of itself transmisogyny. We do no one any favours by trying to silence that. 

This thread isn't about transfeminine people never speaking ill of transmasculine people or vice versa. Its about calling-in a specific subset of transfeminine communities for treating transmasculine people as a whole as disposable and The Enemy.