#trans womanhood

[jimberoschwezer]

Recognizing afab trans women as trans women is part of the fight against bioessentalism. You can't exclude us from trans womanhood without reinforcing bioessentalist gender boundaries

[gwemmieee]

I've realized that I have a very complex relationship with gossip. Unique to most, but not so unique to any trans woman with autism. Not even that unique to any non-trans woman with autism. My relationship with gossip is somewhat dominated by the destructive consequences of abusers who falsely claim to be advancing the plight of women, almost as much as it is dominated by the empowerment of solidarity between women.

Since taking this new chance in this new less transphobic world to realize and broadcast that I am a woman, I have been given access to this rich inner world of gossip, and it has drastically and instantly changed my life for the better. It has allowed me to hope that anyone else will ever treat me like a human being, which has taught me how to treat myself like a human being for the first time.

I have always been someone who is in the trenches, directly facing many of the struggles of girlhood and womanhood, as well as celebrating many of its beauties and strengths, but I have not always been someone who had any clue that any of it was related to womanhood at all.

That was because I was not allowed into the world of gossip.

I had no blood family in that world--they were all too misogynistic and preoccupied with a religious level of all-encompassing shame. When it came to anyone else, I was seen for my appearance in a very bioessentialist way; for my frames of reference that had been thrust upon me without my consent and without a full picture of any other frames of reference to counterbalance; for my autism and my imperfect skills in making sure I'm accurately heard on who I am and what my intentions are. I was constantly deemed someone who is not entitled to, deserving of, or safe with, the privilege of gossip.

Instead, I was left with the scraps; people who do demonize gossip or who misuse it to be abusive; and ultimately between those people and loneliness, I chose loneliness. Because those people felt just like being lonely, and at least if I stayed away from those people, I could be more in touch with myself as a result.

My life could have become so much more fulfilling and fair so much sooner… if I had ever been given a chance to choose. To show who I am instead of being told I'm someone else and gatekept over it. I think the most traumatizing thing about my past experience with gossip, that I had before coming out as a woman, is that I was either ignored when I had my own gossip about abuse and pain, or I was adamantly kept out of real access to anyone else's genuine gossip, or I was taken advantage of in my faith in people and was led to believe that I was a welcome member of the community--while they openly refused to let me in on any gossip at all, to the point that I was deeply scared they might gossip negatively about me, too. (And in many cases, I would find out later that they did, even though I hadn't abused or coerced or been mean or dismissive to anyone. It was simply down to bioessentialism, homophobia, and especially ableism.)

That is really hard to process alongside the fact that, now that I am finally welcome into the world of gossip, gossip truly has transformed for me from this secret underworld that I was made to be afraid of to this empowering interconnected international network that helps me thrive. To this day, thanks to lingering trauma, I still have an instinctive fear of people who are especially eager to shit talk someone who I haven't had any reason to suspect is an abuser. And yet I also retain my lifelong instinct to look up to people who gleefully celebrate gossip, and to give them a chance in good faith. But, thanks to continuous traumatic experiences, I also have a very real knowledgeset, mask, and careful approach, because a large chunk of people who engage in gossip are, in fact, extremely ableist, and dangerous to interact with as an autistic person. Even if those people truly agree that I am a woman, and let me in on their gossip--the danger to letting them start to see more of me* is so great that they might just take that recognition of womanhood and access to gossip away from me, and not just for themselves but throughout every community I'm in that they have influence over. I've noticed that would even still be a problem if I was a cis woman--it's an autism struggle. It's also a much deeper problem as a trans woman, because the potential for and the consequences of my personhood being denied are much much greater. But also, it was my continued unconscious attempts to enter their world anyway, that got me here. It was the gradual inch by inch that, very rarely, exceptional women barely let me in a little bit more and educated me a little bit when they actually listened to me gossiping about my own abusers. Even while my misogynistic biological mom passionately demonized and rejected my attempts to gossip, attempted to control them, and kept me isolated. (She demonized a lot of other feminine things, too. There is something huge that I suspect about her these days in retrospect.)

It's almost as if my entire life is meant to reinforce the moral that bioessentialism is evil. I believe in the collective attempts by trans folks and our allies to redefine what womanhood is, so that people like me are more easily welcomed in, and abusers and bigots are not. And I believe in gossip as an essential tool of womanhood, that we must not tolerate misuse of.

*I carefully worded this. I would have phrased it as "the danger to letting them get to know me," but that wouldn't be accurate, as people like this never actually want to get to know me--they latch onto the first excuse they can find, however delusional, inaccurate, or bigoted, to brand me as dangerous, and once they've found it, they will voluntarily opt not to ever really know me at all.

[mararhodus]

happy international women's day

[the-most-sublime-fool]

—Mikayla Cadger, trans activist – full article via CBC

[crouton-girlfriend]

Being a trans woman feels like being instructed from birth to be a man, and knowing at some point - it doesn't matter when - that this is killing you. It doesn't matter how you learn - it could be the pressure of the cage, with a thousand daily cuts to toughen up your soft skin. It could be the freedom of the field beyond, with a taste like honey-kissed ambrosia of the first real joy you have felt in a long, long time. Being a trans woman feels like deciding at some point - it doesn't matter when - that you will split this machine in two before you let it take another drop of your blood.

All you need to be a woman is to want it. And that want is a beautiful and powerful thing, and you can change the face of the world in its name. I believe in you <3

[softbutchvodkasoup]

Transsexual women stop fucking infantilizing yourselves challenge.

[mistybunny]

"if hell is a teenage girl then heaven is a woman"

[contagious-watermelon]

Why do I keep seeing transmascs and trans men insisting or implying that all trans men are "female socialized," or "understand the female experience," or "navigated the world as a woman." Because yeah, sure, that can be true for some people. especially if you weren't gnc at all as a kid and didn't crack your egg until well into adulthood, it makes sense.

But they don't stop at saying they had that experience. It always comes with an addendum that trans men, as a group, all can relate to this experience. I don't know about the entirety of my demographic, but I never got even a little bit of what some of them talk about. I didn't even believe that women were scared of going out at night until I kept consistently seeing them say it, online or wherever, for years. I never realized catcalling was a thing until I saw some women complaining about it on reddit.

But they posit it as some sort of, you're safer than cis men, right? You know what it's like? Which, on top of being patently, demonstrably false in the case of myself and many other trans men, holds some unpleasant and often outright hostile implications about trans women. And they always deny it, but if you can't even conceptualize someone like me who grew up gnc, and never got the bulk (or any?) of whatever we consider to be 'female socialization,' what does that say about what you think trans girls went through, growing up? I don't want to speak for them, as I've never experienced that firsthand, but I can guarantee that (if you're even a little bit obviously trans) people don't treat you like a cis kid of the opposite gender. By and large, they don't get treated like cis boys.

It just makes me mad that we're taking this inaccurate framework that (ever so conveniently) puts trans people into the box of our assumed birth gender, and trying to fancy it up and use it with a faux-progressive veneer; never mind the way that transphobes use it to bar trans women from being athletes, or using the bathroom, or having access to any gendered resources they need. It would be bad enough to try and dust it off and use it even if it were largely accurate, due to the aforementioned connections to outright transphobia, but it literally is patently false. Not in all cases, obviously, but why are we trying to revamp this untrue, inaccurate generalization and pretend that we can make it 'trans-inclusive?'

[genderqueerdykes]

how do people not understand that when we hurt and fail trans women we hurt and fail all women because we've hurt and failed some of our most vulnerable, disadvantaged women. there is never a situation where you can uphold women withhold upholding trans women as well because trans women are a vital part of that population. you can't step on a trans woman's toes without stepping on a cis woman's toes or genderqueer woman's or intersex woman's or queer woman's or butch woman's toes as well. when you exclude trans women, you exclude all women. we all lose. love and include trans women or leave.

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

There are people out there who have said nothing about the dutch child rapist competing in the olympics but have now declared that they care deeply about women’s safety and ethics in sports.

[uncanny-tranny]

Tall trans girl reading this: you aren't too tall for heels. If you want to wear them, wear them proud. There is nothing more spectacular than a tall woman in heels, and nobody can ever take that away from you, not even yourself 🩷🪻

[scramratz]

Wait till these radfems find out I still identify as a lesbian

[antifainternational]

[liberaljane]

support your SISTERs, not just your CISters.

My womanhood is not threatened by a trans woman claiming hers ♥

Digital illustration of a trans woman sitting on a teal cushioned chair. There are various trans patches sewed at the base of the chair and fireflies. Text reads, 'my womanhood is not threatened by a trans woman claiming hers.'

[bfpnola]

please watch the whole video! i’ve always loved the work of @/thatbrownguurl on tiktok!

— reaux (she/they)

[ineffabildaddy]

right so i need u lot to know that when i write crowley as a woman-shaped being it’s not because i’m heterosexualifying her relationship with aziraphale, it’s because

1. she’s the trans character of all time

2. it’s really interesting and fun to write a character with a different gender presentation to their usual one. opens up different possibilities for their character oftentimes

3.there’s enough people writing them both as man-shaped beings, mostly with dicks, so why not mix it up a bit?

i have specific plans to write fem!az and man-shaped crowley and fem!az and fem!crowley together when i’ve got the time for it too so watch this space