#transmisogyny discourse

[fleshengine]

k I've seen a couple posts about it today but it is so funny to me how the "break up with a trans woman and unperson her" and "unperson any trans woman who's minorly annoying" so perfectly map onto my own recent experiences. My friend (transfem enby) broke up with their boyfriend (transmasc) and he immediately turned our entire friendgroup against them. The three other people immediately, and I mean immediately, like within a day, put them on their shitlist. He convinced them to hate them so fucking easily. He said he feared for his safety and that they'd almost hit him, and that they were a sociopath and all this shit. I learned about this late (because no one talks to me) and my first thought was "has anyone talked to them about this?" Because it didn't seem like them, the friend I knew was extraordinarily kind and understanding and loving and quiet. They'd never do that shit. Guess what?!?! None of my friends had talked to them and it had been two days of icing them out and telling them to leave. So I talked to them, got their side of the story, and spent days convincing the rest of my friendgroup to talk to them. Well, after talking to them literally everyone came around and now we're back to normal, minus the asshole who tried to get us to hate them. During all this, while he was going around spreading rumors about my friend, I texted him and asked him to stop. I tried to be understanding and meet him where he was at while holding fast to the "please stop telling random people my friend is a sociopath." I knew he was doing it too, because he apparently randomly started talking to MY ROOMMATES about my friend. Well lo and behold literally the next day my roommates were chilling in my living room and told me "Oh yeah ____ is going around calling you a gaslighter btw." Which was hilarious to me?!?! I guess he thought they wouldn't tell me? Like he was unironically trying to turn the people I live with against me. If I hadn't done anything, my friend would have been completely ditched by my friendgroup. They would have no one at their back going into their senior year.

Anyway moral of the story is love every transfem before it's too late and maybe check with people who are having rumors spread about them? Maybe that "violent sociopath" is stressed out from classes and made some bad decisions. Maybe that "manipulative gaslighter" is genuinely just trying to look out for her friend.

[lindentea]

there were some thoughtful tags in the notes & i didn't want them to get lost at sea. (i cropped the usernames bc i know some ppl put things in tags instead of as a comment when they reblog in order to limit their notifications and/or to try to minimize the potential for harassment)

all i know is when you're trans you are whatever gender hurts you more

thinking about how the whole "trans men literally can't experience misogyny bc men can't experience misogyny" thing has done fucking catastrophic harm to feminism as a movement in recent years

[euniexenoblade]

It isn't shameful to be a trans woman and dudes aren't going to explode being compared to them. Egg jokes are not a big deal and a trans woman saying some shit like "hey, I used to do that before I realized I was trans" is not a big deal, infact most trans women wish someone had helped them realize sooner. If it turns out the person is just a cis dude, big deal! Being upset that your actions can be seen as a thing trans women do is suspect as hell! Being a trans woman is not a bad thing to be!

[endykelopaedia]

trans girl: i wish the world wasnt so cruel to me just for being my authentic self

genderfuck millenial with "fuck terfs" in bio: see THIS is why we need to be kinder to men & males. people are treating this person so bad for what? bc they're male? bc they seem masculine? trans men also face this too, and cis men tbh. the world is just so fucking cruel to masculine people. trans men's liberation now.

they/he ex terf mutual who still rbs from the "nice ones": the oppression people face when they present as afab is so real. afabs know what its like to be hurt like this. female socialisation makes the world so violent for us. like it cannot be overstated the kind of violence we face just for the way that we are born.

trans girl: you guys dont make me feel all that safe or understood actually

transandrobro who is actively participating in the harrassment campaign of 5 other women: i just fantasised about killing you

[communistkenobi]

I believe it was the work of legal scholar Florence Ashley where I first encountered this term (it might have also been Serano), but I’m becoming more and more committed to saying “degender” as opposed to “misgender.” like I think the term ‘misgender’ fails to properly identify the mechanism behind the process it describes: misgendering is not an act of attributing the wrong gender characteristics to a trans person, it is an act of dehumanisation. I think the term ‘misgender’ especially gives people much easier rhetorical cover to argue that trans women are hurt by misandry by being ‘mislabeled as men,�� or that they are in fact ‘actually men’ and benefit from male privilege, because the (incorrect) assumption underlying this is that when trans women are ‘misgendered’ they are being treated like men - to follow this line of thinking to its natural conclusion, this denies the existence of transmisogyny altogether, because any ‘misgendering’ of trans women is done only with the intent, conscious or otherwise, to inscribe the social position (and the privileges this position affords) of men onto them, as opposed to stripping them of their womanhood (and thus, their humanity).

The term degendering, however, I think more accurately describes this dehumanising process. Pulling from the work of both Judith Butler and Maria Lugones, gender mediates access to personhood - Lugones says in the Coloniality of Gender that in the colonial imaginary, animals have no gender, they only have (a) sex, and so who gets ‘sexed’ and who gets ‘gendered’ is a matter of who counts as human. She describes this gendering process as fundamentally colonial and emerging as a colonial technology of power - who is gendered is who gets to be considered human, and so the construction of binary sex is a way of ‘speciating’ or rendering non-human the Indigenous and African people of colonized America, justifying and systematising the brutal use of their land and/or their labour until their death by equating them to animals. Sylvia Wynter likewise describes in 1492: A New World View that a popular term used by Spanish colonizers to describe the indigenous people was “heads of Indian men and women,” as in heads of cattle. By the same token, white men are granted the high status of human, worthy of governance, wealth, and knowledge production, and white women are afforded the subordinate though still very high responsibility of reproducing these men by raising and educating children. Appeals to a person’s sex as something more real, more obvious, or ‘poorly concealed’ by their gender is to deny them their gender outright, and therefore is a mechanism to render them non-human. Likewise, for Butler, gender produces the human subject - to be outside gender is to be considered “unthinkable” as a human being, a being in “unliveable” space.

Therefore the process of trans women going from women -> “male” is not “being gendered as a man,” it is being positioned as non-human. when people deny the gender of trans women, most especially trans women of colour, they invariably do this through reference to their genitals, to their ‘sex,’ as something inescapable, incapable of being concealed - again, this is not a process of rendering them as men, it is the exact opposite: it is a process of rendering them as non-human. there is not a misidentification process happening, they are not being “misgendered as men,” there is a de-identification of them as human beings. Hence, they are not misgendered, they are degendered, stripped of gender, stripped of their humanity

[katrafiy]

"Of course," the transmisogynist might say. "Most women were raised to be meek, self-abnegating, submissive. You were socialized male, taught from an early age that your opinions and needs matter, that you should speak up." And if they're trying to be clever, they may add, "that doesn't mean you're not a woman! Of course you are! It just means you don't act like one, and it's really not even your fault!"

In fact, of course, it means "you're not exactly a woman, and I want to say that without being called transphobic." It's also completely wrong and erases my actual history. In fact, to keep using myself as an example, before I transitioned I was meek, quiet, terrified of imposing on anyone, submissive. l spent 10 years in a physically, sexually, and emotionally abusive relationship (with a closeted trans man, not that it much matters); I did what he told me to, jumped when he said jump, made excuses for the bruises and sexual violations and exhaustion, never stood up for myself. And then I transitioned and found my voice. A lifetime of pain had taught me what it is to suffer, and as I took charge of my destiny, I learned to love myself, respect myself, advocate for myself, and fight.

To attribute my hard-won voice to "male socialization" is to call me not-woman, to call me a man, to erase my story. It also deletes the girl who was tortured for her girlhood, silenced, attacked, hurt, and dominated. It also deletes the woman who took control of her life and finally learned to stand up for herself and the people she loves. It's handy for silencing me--and nothing else.

[a-polite-melody]

Hey

If you ever find yourself tempted to blame anything negative about certain trans women you’ve met on some “male socialization” which makes all trans women like that

Maybe stop and think for two seconds

“Is the thing I’m talking about also something cis women are taught or will do to other women?”

Because I guarantee you the answer is ‘yes’.

“Oh there’s a problem with trans women treating people like sex objects, especially if the people they’re attracted to are women.”

That’s not a trans woman specific problem. That’s a problem you can also find with cis women at similar levels.

“Trans women act in ways that are misogynistic and don’t question it because ‘by my identity I can’t be a misogynist.’”

That’s not a trans woman specific problem. I think I’ve actually encountered more of this attitude from cis women than I have from trans women, myself.

“Trans women use their status as ‘the most oppressed’ to claim that any of their behaviour—even if it’s creepy, even if it’s bigoted, even if it’s predatory, even if it’s abusive—is justified because it is always ‘against their oppressors’ anyway.”

…Are we forgetting that cis radfems exist? That’s their whole schtick!

“Trans women act entitled to all other women’s bodies, this must be because they were taught as boys to act entitled to women’s bodies”

Acting entitled over women’s bodies is a problem that exists within the population of cis women to the point where it’s even cited as part of what makes up transmisogyny.

All of these things (and more) are much more coherently explained as patriarchal socialization of EVERYONE in society and often then a compounding of using your identity as a reason you shouldn’t need to unpack that. This is a society thing, not an ~AMAB socialization~ thing.

[trashfeminabag]

blanchardism is incredibly harmful but also its so fucking stupid and funny to me. like yes every single trans woman ever fits into one of these two exact categories made up by a single old white dude who posts his tgirl hot takes on twitter.

these categories are "incredibly horny for straight men" and "incredibly horny for our own tits". there are no exceptions. these are the ONLY REASONS we would spend years of our life and thousands of dollars and subject ourselves to intense scrutiny and bigotry. we're just THAT horny. can you tell blanchardism was invented by a straight white dude yet

[gay-otlc]

I'm generally not a fan of quantifying oppression or looking at it as a scoreboard, but I frequently hear the claim that if you read the data, it will show that trans women are indisputably the most oppressed of all trans people, and isn't comparable to the level of oppression trans men face. And I looked at some data, from the UK's National LGBT Survey (I was referring to it for some data on transheterosexuality so I had it on hand).

The survey included 3,740 trans women and 3,170 trans men.

Being LGBT in the UK:

Average comfort level being LGBT on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the most satisfied: 3.10 for trans women, 3.15 for trans men

Average life satisfaction on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most satisfied: 5.07 for trans men, 5.52 for trans women

The data from this survey indicates that similar proportions of trans men and trans women tended to struggle in their overall experiences living as a trans person.

Openness about gender identity

Entirely closeted with friends: 7.4% of trans women, 2.8% of trans men

Entirely closeted with family members that participant lived with: 20.1% of trans women, 14.5% of trans men)

Entirely closeted with family members that participant did not live with: 25.3% of trans women, 22.0% of trans men

Avoiding being open about gender identity for fear of a negative reaction: 58.9% of trans women, 56.2% of trans men

Avoiding being open about gender identity in public premises or buildings: 67.6% of trans women, 62.4% of trans men

Avoiding being open about gender identity on streets or outdoor public places: 68.1% of trans women, 61.8% of trans men

Avoiding being open about gender identity on public transport: 68.7% of trans women, 58.7% of trans men

Avoiding being open about gender identity in neighborhood: 68.5% of trans women, 56.9% of trans men

Avoiding being open about gender identity in workplace: 60.6% of trans women, 53.0% of trans men

Avoiding being open about gender identity in cafes, restaurants, pubs, or clubs: 61.8% of trans women, 57.5% of trans men

Avoiding being open about gender identity in the park: 54.4% of trans women, 46.2% of trans men

Avoiding being open about gender identity in other environments: 9.0% of trans women, 8.9% of trans men

Avoiding being open about gender identity in athletic environments: 63.1% of trans men, 60.2% of trans women

Avoiding being open about gender identity in schools: 45.6% of trans men, 35.1% of trans women

Avoiding being open about gender identity at home: 38.9% of trans men, 32.4% of trans women

The data from this survey indicates that more trans women than trans men tended to struggle with being open about their gender identity.

Transphobia from people the participant lived with

Verbal harassment: 34.0% of trans men, 22.2% of trans women

Outing: 38.5% of trans men, 23.5% of trans women

Threats of violence: 7.0% of trans men, 6.1% of trans women

Coercive/controlling behavior: 25.0% of trans men, 18.2% of trans women

Physical violence: 6.1% of trans men, 4.2% of trans women

Sexual violence: 2.2% of trans men, 2.1% of trans women

Other transphobic incidents: 29.4% of trans men, 18.3% of trans women

The data from this survey indicates that more trans men than trans women tended to struggle with facing transphobia from people they lived with.

Transphobia from people the participant did not live with

Outing: 29.4% of trans men, 24.6% of trans women

Verbal harassment: 42.2% of trans women, 36.0% of trans men

Threats of violence: 13.7% of trans women, 10.5% of trans men

Physical violence: 7.2% of trans women, 5.6% of trans men

Sexual violence: 6.1% of trans women, 3.9% of trans men

Other transphobic incidents: 27.6% of trans women, 25.8% of trans men

Private sexual images shared without consent: 18.5% of trans women, 13.3% of trans men

Had conversion therapy: 5.0% of trans women, 4.1% of trans men

Offered conversion therapy: 9.3% of trans men, 7.6% of trans women

The data from this survey indicates that more trans women than trans men tended to struggle with facing transphobia from people they did not live with.

Experiences in school/educational institutions

Entirely closeted at school: 16.6% of trans women, 9.3% of trans men

Entirely negative reactions at school: 3.6% of trans women, 2.1% of trans men

Entirely positive reactions at school: 28.9% of trans men, 34.7% of trans women

Outing at school: 77.9% of trans men, 62.9% of trans women

Verbal harassment at school: 73.4% of trans women, 70.0% of trans men

Exclusion from activities at school: 31.7% of trans women, 24.3% of trans men

Threats of violence at school: 25.0% of trans women, 19.8% of trans men

Physical violence at school: 15.1% of trans women, 9.6% of trans men

Sexual violence at school: 12.4% of trans women, 5.0% of trans men

Other transphobic incidents at school: 50.0% of trans men, 47.3% of trans women

The data from this survey indicates that more trans women than trans men tended to struggle with being trans in schools/educational institutions.

Workplace experiences

Had a paid job: 56.9% of trans men, 65.3% of trans women

Entirely closeted with senior colleagues: 33.4% of trans men, 31.5% of trans women

Entirely closeted with colleagues at same/lower level: 30.6% of trans men, 26.6% of trans women

Entirely positive reactions in workplace: 34.7% of trans women, 36.3% of trans men

Entirely negative reactions in workplace: 5.1% of trans women, 3.9% of trans men

Outing at work: 59.9% of trans men, 55.5% of trans women

Verbal harassment at work: 49.6% of trans women, 45.6% of trans men

Exclusion from activities at work: 32.7% of trans women, 21.8% of trans men

Threats of violence at work: 9.6% of trans women, 7.7% of trans men

Physical violence at work: 5.5% of trans women, 3.2% of trans men

Sexual violence at work: 7.0% of trans women, 4.0% of trans men

Other transphobic incidents at work: 54.2% of trans men, 53.3% of trans women

The data from this survey indicates that similar proportions of trans women and trans men tended to struggle with being trans in the workplace, with slightly more trans women struggling.

Public healthcare experiences

Needs ignored: 32.3% of trans men, 24.0% of trans women

Avoided treatment for fear of discrimination: 24.3% of trans men, 17.4% of trans women

Inappropriate questions/curiosity from healthcare workers: 29.0% of trans men, 18.9% of trans women

Discrimination from healthcare staff: 14.2% of trans men, 12.6% of trans women

Inappropriate referral to specialist services: 13.8% of trans men, 10.3% of trans women

Unwanted pressure for medical testing: 10.6% of trans men, 8.6% of trans women

Had to change GP: 10.9% of trans men, 9.7% of trans women

The data from this survey indicates that more trans men than trans women tended to struggle with public healthcare.

Mental healthcare experiences

Average ease accessing mental health services, on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being very easy: 2.49 for trans men, 2.55 for trans women

Unsuccessful accessing mental health services: 28.6% of trans women, 27.7% of trans men

Anxious/embarrassed about accessing mental health services: 40.1% of trans men, 29.1% of trans women

Unsupportive mental health practitioner: 17.0% of trans men, 16.9% of trans women

Average mental health service ratings, on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being completely positive: 3.22 for trans men, 3.40 for trans women

The data from this survey indicates that more trans men than trans women tended to struggle with mental healthcare.

Sexual healthcare experiences

Average ease accessing sexual health services, on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being very easy: 3.72 for trans men, 3.75 for trans women

Unsuccessful accessing sexual health services: 14.6% of trans women, 12.3% of trans men

Anxious/embarrassed about sexual health services: 57.3% of trans men, 31.8% of trans women

Unsupportive sexual health practitioner: 15.1% of trans men, 11.9% of trans women

Rating of sexual health services, on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being completely positive: 4.05 for trans men, 4.10 for trans women

The data from this survey indicates that more trans men than trans women tended to struggle with sexual healthcare.

TLDR: According to the data from this survey, the areas in which trans women tended to face more struggles than trans men were in openness about gender identity, transphobia from people they don't live with, and being trans in educational institutions. The areas in which trans men tended to face more struggles than trans women were in transphobia from people they did live with, public healthcare services, mental healthcare services, and sexual healthcare services. Trans men and trans women struggled similarly with being trans in the workplace, and with their overall experience being trans in the UK, with trans women facing slightly more struggles in the workplace.

Obviously, this is only one survey, and doesn't represent all trans people as it was conducted only in the UK. It's possible that another survey might show trans women struggling more in healthcare, or trans men struggling more in schools.

But I would say this is strong evidence that trans women are not necessarily the most oppressed of all trans people by far in all areas of life. Trans men and trans women both face severe oppression, in some similar and some unique ways, and it helps no one to minimize the suffering of either.

Reading Comprehension Questions:

Did OP say that trans men are more oppressed than trans women? (Hint: No)

Did OP say that trans women oppress trans men? (Hint: Also no)

Did OP say that transmisogyny isn't a real issue, or that trans women shouldn't be allowed to talk about transmisogyny? (Hint: No again)

Did OP say that trans men's oppression is more important than trans women's and deserves to be talked about more? (Hint: Still no)

Did OP say that any issues are exclusive to trans men or trans women and that we have no overlap in our struggles? (Hint: You guessed it- no!)

[ruthtearna]

first non reblog on here but can we please just go back to the mentality of "anyone who tries to convince you that other trans people are the problem holding us back is a fed", trans community infighting is so exhausting

all trans people have unique experiences with oppression, transmisogyny and anti-transmasculinity are both real, and ALL OF YOUUU need to listen more to intersex ppl and their experiences

trans women are affected in a way that is unique to them

trans men are affected in a way that is unique to them

absolutely no trans people have male privilege, ur lack of it came with ur rejection of gender norms, which is an inherent rejection of the patriarchy

"male-socialized" is terf-speak and using it against trans women to invalidate their expressions of femininity is disgusting.

trans men trying to build up their own community culture is not them trying to "be" trans women.

intersex people do and will have contradictory and complex labels because our experiences simply cannot be compared to that of perisex ppl, there will be afab transfems, or amab transmascs, and how they chose to label their experiences of sex and gender is simply not something which should up for perisex people to debate

honestly NO ONE'S gender identity or experiences of sex and gender are something which is up for anyone to debate.

[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

[fleshengine]

I want to talk about representation a bit, because I see the "trans women have more rep, so they are privileged/can't be oppressed/are more societally accepted" thing thrown around a decent amount. Let's take a game I'm playing right now, Cyberpunk 2077.

I love how for trans characters in Cyberpunk 2077 we have Claire, a tough looking bartender who's into cars, and the random girl in Lizzie's who drops a line about how she's a woman and that demands sacrifice, a sex worker who immediately gets played for laughs as her (floating) co-oworker makes fun of her.

Claire is fine representation in my eyes. Sure, she has "guy" hobbies but like genuinely so do most of the girls I know. We get interested in things as kids and that stuff stays. She's a little tough looking, but it's 100% in a definitely masc woman way. She's great, I love her, best girl. The mox is representation, but like... harmful rep at that. She's literally just a side character in this one scene who says "yeah being a woman is rough but it's worth the effort huh?" and gets made fun of for being trans. Her entire point is people pointing at transwomen and saying "haha you're all sex workers and ugly and everyone can tell you used to be a man lol." and frankly it's infuriating. She even uses the male character model! I don't know if cyberpunk 2077 has any definite transmasc characters, and so the case could be made that trans women "have more rep" in it. But when half the rep is this random mox who exists to be made fun of, I don't see the point.

And this is what I mean when I say recognition is not representation. Claire and the mox are both recognizably a trans women, but only Claire is a character who has depth and is a person and actually represents anyone. Being a trans woman is a tiny part of her, but it's there, she has a flag on her truck and mentions it in dialogue exactly once! You don't even really learn she's trans until later, so she's barely recognizable in the text.

So much of what people refer to as "transfem representation" boils down to characters like the mox who are just stereotypes of transwomen who exist to be made fun of. They do not represent anyone, no lived experience, no depth of character. They exist entirely to be recognizable as transwomen and nothing more. They are jokes and to say they represent trans women in any way is deeply revealing to how tme people think of us.

When you clock me in the street, what kind of trans woman will you recognize me as?

This is an idea I've had kicking around in my head for a bit. I'd love feedback/ideas on it so I might uhhhhhh @plaidos hopefully that's okay. You don't have to respond, I just want my thoughts out there.

[autolenaphilia]

It's so infuriating when anti-kink type of transmisogynist deny their dogwhistles and when criticized go: "I'm just against pedophilia and incest, why are you bringing up trans women, it's actually you who are transmisogynist for pointing out my dogwhistles." Like we can't tell that "the evil predatory fetishist freaks who claim their sicko perversions are queer" is so obviously code for trans women, like it's literally what radfems have said about trans women for decades. And the transmisogyny being criticized is not theoretical and abstract at all. They keep on doing callouts of trans woman after trans woman for having weird kinks.

And like these people are explicitly reviving 70s radfem arguments about kink and porn, something you can't cleanly separate from their transmisogyny. These radfems undeniably saw their crusades against porn, kink and trans woman as the same struggle. Trans women were and are the ultimate pornsick sado-masochist freaks in the radfem worldview.

[euniexenoblade]

"I don't like projecting gender identities onto other people" you won't even stop calling trans women bro

[mr-ribbit]

gonna rant again bc im seeing a lot of trans women on my dash having to carry the heavy lifting to argue for their basic respect and a lot of other queer people who want to ??? get mad about that apparently. for the record as usual: im tme, im not speaking for anyone besides myself and my perspectives, but I am trying to reach out to fellow tme people to level with y'all from inside the house.

i thought we all got past the 'calling people gendered terms when theyve asked you to stop' thing in like. 2012. i swear we were allllll on board with not calling women dude anymore, nerfing sir and ma'am, neutralizing collective terms for groups, and all of that was like, during the onceler era. that's how we got off-putting shit like folx into the mix - remember???? why are we here again.

to those who I've seen claiming that they REALLY genuinely don't want to offend anyone, and that theyre trying to understand the dude thing, and they don't want to be seen as transmisogynistic when they aren't: ok. let's talk about it. step one, stop sending that really loaded anon to a trans woman you don't know, and close that in-group hatepost with 100 replies from people name-dropping trans bloggers they don't like. try to open your mind and assume for the duration of this post that I am not cynically trying manipulate thousands of tumblr users into making Bro the next big swear word, but a fellow queer human being who thinks you're all being pretty intentionally obtuse about an upsetting trend in our community

to be clear: this post is about the issue of trans women being called bro, dude, man, etc., particularly in recent tumblr discourse about transmisogyny, and the backlash they face if they get upset about it. this is also maybe moreso about the shitty ass excuses I see tme people make for why they supposedly can't stop doing this.

so let's go through some of the things I've been seeing people say they don't understand, supposedly in earnest, about this issue

"I DIDNT USE DUDE AS A MASCULINE TERM. I CALL EVERYONE BRO. MAN IS A GENDER NEUTRAL TERM"

I'm not actually going to exhaust my list of reasons why dude/bro/man are not strictly neutral, but you should be pretty aware that all words have context. Dude might be seen as neutral in many contexts, sure, but 'woman who is frequently called a man by others' is a situation where the context adds extra meaning to your words, just like calling someone "sweetie" might be neutral in some cases, but if you've got the context of knowing that's your coworker who's half your age, it's a bit less neutral. If you're not capable of reading that context and being tasteful about when you say dude, then you need to at least be ready to respond gracefully when someone asks you to stop. This is the part I'd rather focus on.

"BUT I DIDNT MEAN IT THAT WAY. IM NOT TRANSPHOBIC"

I think you should consider broadening your perspective *beyond* your intention behind the word. people may already understand that you meant the word neutrally and therefore didn't have transmisogynistic intent, but that's not really the entire scope of what people are saying. if that's your only concern, you're just trying to clear your record, not actually listen to what they're saying.

there are lots of words people don't enjoy being called, and in most cases, when they say 'pls don't call me that', people respect that and move on. even if the word isn't a slur, if it hurts someone's feelings, we all as a society have agreed that it's pretty shitty to keep calling them that. if your friend asked you not to call them 'buddy' anymore because their dead grandparent called them that, or something equivalently personal, you'd probably respect that instead of telling them 'but I call everyone buddy!!' right? even if you didn't really understand why it bothered them so much?

there is a prominent tendency for trans women to be denied this privilege, and when they ask not to be called dude or bro, people don't seem to respect this request as much as they would in other situations. when I accidentally use a gendered word and someone tells me they don't like it, I try to respond with something like "my bad, I didn't mean it as misgendering but I can see you were still bothered by it, so I'll try not to keep saying it. sorry!" and most people are willing to accept that. when trans women ask people this favor, a lot of people get VERY defensive, and treat the request as inane or unfair, instead of just apologizing and moving on. this is why people are upset when this happens, and it's why people are calling your actions transmisogynistic

also like you might not be doing this, but a lot of people DO use dude and bro in an intentionally gendered way to make trans women uncomfortable. it's a power play bigots use to talk down to them or otherwise maliciously harass them. do you know what arguments they use to defend that behavior when called out on it? 'oh I call everyone that' 'dude is gender neutral calm down' 'dont overreact its just a word'. by acting like this, youre all just giving credence to those same arguments.

"WELL THEY SHOULDNT GET SO MAD AT ME WHEN I DIDNT MEAN ANY HARM"

they can get as mad as they want!! also, are you sure they're 'mad'? or are they just expressing their feelings about a negative topic to you, and it makes you feel bad, so you have to make them out to be unreasonably emotional? how do you think they should have phrased 'dont call me that' to better spare *your* feelings?

also like, in most cases, these women do not knowww you. if your main response to someone saying you disrespected them is to say "I didnt mean it that way, I meant it in a friendly neutral way", well that's NOT YOUR FRIEND! she has no idea what your opinions are or what you think of her!!! she has no reason to assume you only upset her in a friendly way and not a bad unfriendly way! but she did get upset, and she did the one thing she can do which is *tell you what upset her* and your response is to say "well actually you shouldn't be upset at all"??????

and another thing:

it's not just the issue of using the word 'dude', it's because you're coming off extremely dismissive of women who have asked you to stop doing something that harms them, and because your argument is basically that they just shouldn't be so bothered by it. or that they're stupid, irrational, or otherwise crazy for telling you that it bothered them at all, just because you Technically used a gender neutral word according to Your Rules. be honest, does that seem fair? If people were calling you something that bothered you enough to ask them to stop, and they responded like this, how would it make you feel?

focusing solely on your intent and what the words mean when you use them is the same thing as saying "just get over it". no woman should need to Prove to you that 'dude' is gendered for you to care about what she's saying. the fact that you're asking people to do that sucks and makes you look bad, which is why people are arguing with you and calling you a misogynist.

especially those of you who are only doing this with trans women who are actively arguing with. you're wielding misgendering as a cudgel and we can all see it, grow up please.

[hiiragi7]

I've been seeing quite a lot of discourse lately defining transness as "identifying as a gender opposite to/different from what society expects you to be".

This is incredibly vague, and I feel misses that, for many people like me, there is not exactly a clear gender in which society expects us to be, nevermind a clear "opposite" or "different" gender which we can identify with. Many intersex people have experiences in which one person calls us a "failed male" while another calls us a "DSD female". Many of us have been assigned, reassigned, degendered, reassigned again. In this sense, for many intersex people, it would appear that no matter which gender we are we would fall under this definition of trans if we so choose it; society so often does not expect us to conform to a singular gender, rather they expect us not to exist at all. Even for many intersex people who identify as cisgender, their gender and sex are constantly brought into question and suspected of being inauthentic, an imposter of a different gender/sex "pretending" to be cisgender. In this sense, any gender we choose is "opposite" of expectations, even cisgender identities, because we are intersex.

And yet, the discourse I have been seeing lately has been attempting to sort intersex people into easily digestible and simplified boxes based on AGAB ("AFAB intersex" and "AMAB intersex") and trying to claim what kind of intersex person is allowed to call themselves transfem based on their AGAB, as though this event at birth always determines what gendered expectations are set for you and where you can transition to after.

Which of my gender assignments should I refer to as my "assigned gender"? The choice made by the medical professionals at my birth? The choices made by my parents? At which time? By which parent? And why does it matter to people so much that I have an assigned gender to refer to when it's all so messy anyway? Why must I invent convenient acronyms to describe it to you for your judgement? Why is it not enough simply to say I know my own experiences and identity best and that it's none of your business? Why are you trying to decide for me what I should call myself?

All this to say, I wish people would stop making assumptions about and policing other people's identities. I will readily admit I don't always understand an identity, and this is a good thing; it means there is an infinite variety of us and an infinite amount to learn about each other.

I wrote this post with the recent intersex transfem & afab transfem discourse in mind, but it quite honestly applies to a lot of the very exclusionary and rigid attitudes I've seen in our community lately. Once again, why are we using the actions of oppression (for example, the action of nonconsensual gender assignments; AGAB) to define our trans identities, to the point of excluding each other within our own community? How are we helping each other in doing this?

(I do have similar questions regarding the divide in language between "AFAB transfem" and simply "transfem" - Why specifically the label of "AFAB transfem" rather than just "transfem", if the argument is that AGAB does not determine gender? Personally, I would like to move away from AGAB language altogether.)

I've never had a clear gender to transition from; I only hope that in the future the community will support people like me in using whatever language we find best to describe the gender we are transitioning to.

Trans is a word open to anyone who identifies as such. That's the best part of it.