#undermine trans men's safety. hating on men to be just one of the girls isn't optional for trans women and it is dangerous to trans men

[puc-puggy]

@soaplantro i've been vascillating between just deleting all of your replies or attempting to have a good faith discussion. good faith discussion is possible if you stop attempting to bait me. so we'll see.

before we start, let's explore the idea that trans men and trans women actually do not have conflict with each other and that intracommunity conflicts between trans people are generated by external hostility. just play with me in the space where there is no oppressed group out to get or trying to hurt other oppressed groups, there are only oppressed people trying to survive a system hostile to their existence. sometimes that overwhelming hostility puts different vulnerable groups at odds with each other. this is not the oppressed group's fault.

this is what I mean by the environment pitting trans people against each other. trans women are not safe with people who believe they are predators and trans men are not safe with people who believe they are predators. because no one is safe with someone who believes them to be a predator, and trans people are incredibly vulnerable. why is it acceptable to put trans men in danger by assuming they're predators but not trans women? you say there that trans women are no strangers to being labeled predatory and seem to use this to dismiss the life-threatening danger a queer person is in when they are labeled a threat or predator rather than empathize with it and recognize the same dangers.

to be clear, I am not talking about terfs, i am talking about trans inclusive separatists still attempting to delineate a binary between Dangerous and Not Dangerous. separatism is, in essence, the idea that men are the enemy. terfs telling trans men that they're just women confused by misogyny are misgendering the men in question and cannot be argued to be allies. I am discussing the impact of "trans inclusive separatist feminists" (oxymoron) attempting to fit trans people into the separatist binary, which asserts that men are the enemy. when there is an enemy, who exactly is and isn't an enemy must be clearly labeled. the enemy these feminists are searching for are binary cis men and anyone polluted by binary cis manhood enough to be 'as dangerous as a man.' these are the feminists who pit trans people against each other by investigating trans people's genders and attempting to force them to fit in a cissexual binary.

there are multiple groups of these feminists, and which set of forcibly binarized trans people are labeled a predator is dependent on idiosyncratic belief systems, typically based on arguments of socialization. again, because while terfs manufactured this environment, the separatist rhetoric has bled outward. separatist feminists are attempting to maintain separatism with trans inclusion, which is an oxymoron. trans inclusion requires inclusion beyond the binary, which separatism is incapable of. yes to socialization means trans men good trans women bad because socialized as woman/socialized as man. if they say no, socialization is more complicated than that, it leads to trans men identify with oppressor therefore predator. this leads to trans women and trans men occupying separate communities, because neither is safe with groups that believe them to be predators.

this is not the fault of trans people. no trans person is doing this. no trans person is trying to undermine or harm the wellbeing of other trans people. the environment is hostile and demands different behaviors from trans people to maintain their safety. in a reply that I deleted (sorry but it wasn't good faith), you asked me about the lack of parity between trans men and trans women in my discussion. you seemed to believe that it was an uneven discussion, where you perceived trans men's rhetorical arguments as offensive and trans womens rhetorical arguments as defensive. so let's go back to the basic principle. you are not safe in a group that will label you a predator. no one is. are trans men safe when they're making arguments in favor of "female socialization"? or are they trying to avoid the danger of being labeled a predator, just like you. are trans men really out to get trans women or are both groups being attacked by outside forces, desperately trying to avoid being labeled a predator? why is it okay to label one group of oppressed people predators but not another?

no matter which way you slice it, investigating trans people to determine how close they are to the "bad" end of the binary is going to result in transphobic harassment. because the idea that men are the enemy is going to harm anyone who crosses gender boundaries and has spent time in "enemy territory."

as a final thought, transmisogyny is as useful as misogyny to explore trans womens' experiences. that is not however what we're seeing. because oh fuck. the separatism hit and reconstructed the gender binary. we're no longer talking about transmisogyny, description of the discrimination and intersections of oppression that trans women face. we're sorting everyone into tme(enemy)/tma(ally) and calling trans men misogynists for liberatory feminist conversation. that is the negative impact of separatism. that is a non-separatist theory shoved into a separatist discursive environment, and because separatism cannot support inclusion beyond the binary, we built two new boxes to sort people into again. there's still only two and they don't look any different from the old ones.

the transandrophobia discourse is poisoned by separatist feminist theory that terfs and radfems have been maliciously injecting into feminist conversations, so here's The Will To Change excerpts by bell hooks again.

libratory feminism sees no difference between men and women except those manufactured by patriarchy. misogyny is a symptom of patriarchy the system, not a structure by which to interpret patriarchy the system. replacing "sexism" with "misogyny" does not change the nature of the analysis, which is a weak one. patriarchy the system can induce the symptom of misogyny in any person subjected to that system. using sexism/misogyny/male chauvinism is not a useful lens of analysis when looking at patriarchy because women are misogynists too. let's not move backward on that. women are misogynists too and men are allies.

the recent "trans men are misogynists" allegations I've seen lodged against trans men are:

unprepared to be treated like a predator, may cry about it

asked that only trans men attend a trans mens' support group

discussed male loneliness instead of talking about violence against women

all of these are actually feminist discussions. so the backlash seems like angry feminist reactions to Men Having Feelings, which is not a new thing. in fact, hooks addresses it directly.

i see men being mocked for having their feelings hurt, men being mocked for wanting to discuss their feelings, and men being mocked because they're thinking about men and manhood in new and complex ways. exactly what the doctor ordered.

i am not seeing challenges to patriarchy here. I am seeing reinforcement of patriarchal expectations of masculinity on trans men who do not want to perform those expectations. i am seeing separatist radfem bullshit in the assumption that trans men have lost or never had a valuable perspective on misogyny or gender or sexism and cannot tell when the shape of discrimination they're facing has changed. i am seeing toxic separatist radfem bullshit shut down liberatory feminist discussion because one of the speakers is trans in the wrong direction.