#unlearning transphobia

[ozomatli]

i think op of these tags should kill themselves

[saintjosie]

i think a lot of people in their 20s or younger who think it’s too late to transition or start hrt would benefit enormously from taking a long hard look at their internalized transphobia.

yes, you may have gone through puberty already and need to do more work to achieve your goals than someone who got on puberty blockers and started much earlier. and being afraid of never achieving your goals is a valid and incredibly normal fear.

but transition is so much more than just taking hrt and looking the way you want to. it’s about learning who you are and how you want to express yourself. it’s about unlearning shame and finding joy in the forbidden. it’s about the journey. a slow, painstaking, lifelong journey, filled with unexpected turns every step of the way. and it is infinitely more satisfying than living in fear of what may never come.

it is never too late to transition because it is never too late to start loving yourself.

[multigenderswag]

I'd like to talk for a bit about the genre of post that's like "sure you're a boygirl fagdyke genderfreak but do you respect [trans identity]?" I think these sorts of posts do address a lot of important points, such as:

Even if you're genderqueer and going "gender isn't real! smash the binary!" there's a real possibility you haven't unlearned or might still be upholding some very transphobic sentiments, and you should do some introspection about that

Some people only want acceptance for their trans identity but don't want to do the work to deconstruct what gender looks like, stop holding other people to their own gendered expectations, and unlearn their internalized bigotry about different trans identities

Sometimes the [trans identity] is specifically relevant to the identities referenced, such as people who will do surface level acceptance of "boygirls" but then call multigender people problematic for using "contradictory" terms like male lesbian, or asking "are you normal about intersex people?" to point out the prevalent intersexism in the multigender community.

But if the [trans identity] or intersex identity being asked about isn't related to multigender community issues, it seems a little strange to consistently single out labels like boygirl and fagdyke that tend to be used by multigender people in these posts. All kinds of trans people can be transphobic about other trans identities. All kinds of trans people are capable of fighting for their own acceptance but not anyone else's. But these posts are pretty frequently just about boygirl fagdykes.

It reminds me of posts about a "theyfab named Sock being transmisogynistic." Are there transmisogynistic FTX nonbinary people? Yes, no one is immune from perpetuating transmisogyny. But these types of posts are still exorsexist.

Similarly, though I'm not saying the pattern of "sure you're a boygirl fagdyke genderfreak but do you respect [trans identity]" is necessarily exorsexist or transmultiphobic, since like I said they do address important points, some of which actually are multigender community issues. But people do use those types of posts to be really transmultiphobic and exorsexist, but in an "acceptable" way, because the boygirls are transphobic so it's okay to hate them.

Some examples in the notes of this sort of post asking 'are you normal about trans women?":

This assumes that multigender identities are only an online thing, only a young person thing, that all multigender people look cis in real life, that no multigender person has experienced real transphobia.

Again, this assumes that no multigender person "looks like a freak" for their gender, that they never struggle with transphobia offline. And straight up saying they have a "huge issue" with girlboy genders.

Multigender labels aren't "performative titles," they're our genders. This person is just straight up admitting they think our genders are fake, that they're only "titles" and not real fucking identities.

"I tend to Not like multigender people" okay so we're just saying the quiet part out loud now

By all means, keep talking about intracommunity transphobia. It's important. But don't throw multigender people under the bus to do so.

[ventbloglite]

"TERFs love trans mascs because they love people who detransition into women" "Trans mascs who believe in transandrophobia are just future TERFs/trans men are just future TERFs" "If I'm clocked as trans I just pretend to be a trans man and let them 'convince me to not ruin my perfect feminine body' lol" "Theyfabs" "TME includes cis people as well even cis women!! {but I use it exclusively in reference to trans mascs}." "The world would be better if everyone was a woman/feminine." "How can anyone find masculinity empowering?!"

You see trans men and AFAB nonbinary people as women, or at the very least future women, you are a transphobe and likely a TIRF. You need to unlearn all that internalised transphobia before you open your mouth.

[olderthannetfic]

Something video essayist Unpoetic Justice said that really resonated with me is that a lot of younger people on the left in the US scrutinize unfairly anyone who's unfamiliar with politicized internet terms. For instance, she was assumed to be transphobic because she didn't know what the term "TERF" meant. It was a familiar concept to her as someone who'd studied feminist literature. But not knowing the term was treated as if she'd failed some kind of test, as if she'd proven herself complicit in transphobia or indicated she didn't run in the right circles. She was treated with wariness bordering on contempt from a lot of younger people in her audience until the bulk of her work proved to be trans accepting enough for it to sink in she was not, in fact, an evil transphobe for not knowing the term.

Recently I got some shit from commenters about how I wrote a character who is canonically 56 and from the Deep South. Specifically, the fact that he has some sexism he has not unlearned and some internalized queerphobia wasn't taken to mean "he's being written this way because he's a product of his time and environment, just like in canon". It was taken to be a reflection of my values as a person. The fact that I didn't know what "bihet" meant when a commenter said it and therefore didn't condemn them immediately (I instead said, "he's bi, not het" and thought the person was confused about his sexuality) for using it was also used as proof I, the writer, was biphobic and queerphobic.

I don't have a neat little bow to put on this or a way to wrap this up eloquently. But I really do wish people would drop this bad-faith-as-default approach to everyone and everything. It gets exhausting after a while.

--

[watermelinoe]

ok so let me get this straight, when a lesbian is only into pussy it's because of transphobia and how dare you imply that dicks are a male sex organ and you need to unlearn your genital preferences, but when a man demands a surgical imitation pussy because his pee pee gives him suicidal gender dysphoria you better not question it or ask him to unlearn anything

[trans-all-at-once-tournament]

Propaganda

Rasputin “Raz” Aquato:

- The way Their family talks about them being psychic is BIG "transphobic/homophobic/etc family starting to unlearn their bigotry" vibes. At various levels

- Their older brother is VIOLENTLY angry about them being a psychic in a way that feels close to transphobia. Believing that it's a choice and when pointed out the dad is psychic he says "It's a phase!"

- Mom is obviously still holding anti-psychic biases and would rather not talk about her family members being psychic, even if she's much more polite about it

- Older sister is not ready to come out as a psychic yet, saying that she's "not ready to break Mom and Dad's heart" (like Raz did)

- Dad has awkward enthusiasm about psychic stuff to try to mend the relationship between the child he hurt and to connect with them

- There's a dialogue option where you can try to out the older sister as a psychic, and the Dad responds with "She'll come out when she's ready"

Big Man:

- Gender in Splatoon is referred to as "style"

- The idea of a character named Big Man having any other gender is really funny

[queeraliensposts]

I've seen people calling Aiden Thomas a transmed author (mostly cause some transmeds like to claim his books), but if you followed Aiden Thomas on social media you'll see this not the case, also I think the reason why a lot of white transmeds resonate with his novels like Cemetery Boys and The Sunbearer Trials, has nothing to do with Aiden Thomas's writing and more to do with the fact that Aiden Thomas writes stories about LATINO trans men, and for a lot of white transmascs the message went way over their head.

In my own personal experience as a latino trans guy I relate much more to Aiden Thomas's work then to most other transmasc authors, because Aiden knows that it's a lot easier for us to internalize those toxic ideas of gender. Toxic masculinity is prevalent in latine culture it has it's own damm name "machismo". Therefore it's a lot harder for us to come to the realization that there's nothing wrong with our bodies and the problem stems from the way society views them. To add to that just as toxic masculinity is so over enforced in latine culture so is toxic feminity, so many of us feel the need to present very femininely before we finally decide to start presenting as ourselves. So once we actually come out and start presenting as male we try to compensate for that. On top of that growing up latine and afab means you and your body gets sexualized a lot more often. Mostly by the white supremacist stereotype of the curvy spicy Latina.

With all of that I can easily explain why when I read The Witch King, a novel about a white trans guy, when Wyatt said that he doesn't have a problem with his body and it was the way that people saw him as female, I personally couldn't relate.

But now going on the the actual content of Aiden Thomas's work (I will only be touching on Cemetery Boys because I haven't finished the Sunbearer Trials 😅).

Yadriel starts the novel with a lot of internalized transphobia which he's not even aware of. This is because at this point, he is the only queer person he knows, and he's surrounded by people who see him as different for who he is. It's not until he meets Julian, another queer person who has interacted with many other queer people. It's not until Yadriel starts talking to Julian and his friends that he starts realizing that everything he was taught about what it means to be a man is bullshit by the end of the book while I'm sure Yadriel hasn't 100% gotten over his internalized transphobia, he set on a path to unlearn it.

Aiden Thomas isn't a transmed author he just writes about the trans experience from a perspective that is often overlooked.

Closing off I would like to set the record cause as a latino trans author that's currently working on a novel about a latino trans boy mc. For any transmeds who wanna claim my work, it's not for you.

[girldraki]

i also think it is generally unhelpful, when faced with someone who has a different opinion on a topic that is clearly at least kinda subjective, to tell them they are so riddled with internalized transphobia that it is pointless to even talk to them and they should Fix Their Heart (reach a point of phrasing-exact ideological agreement with you) or Die but what do i know

egg joke discourse is FASCINATING maybe we should all cool down with the absolute statements for a bit!

[drdemonprince]

so first off, sorry bc this is super fucking heavy.

re: commonalities between cis and trans men, and that other ask. something I've had to come to terms with is how even as a teenager before I had the concept of transitioning in my head - I still got all of the societal messaging wrt misogyny, etc. I totally benefited from it, even as a woman. I put other girls down. I was the cool chick. I cashed in where I could with it. i was absolutely a chauvinist when I transitioned. I felt inhuman as a woman, but I understood that ultimately that's the way women were *supposed* to be, as much as I wished otherwise. it took a long time to unlearn that.

my personal experience makes me very uncomfortable when I see other trans men talking about gendered socialization, or how overly negative people are towards men as a class. I wonder if they have ever sat down and really reconciled with the way they have, and do, benefit from their gendered position, or if they've convinced themselves they can't be a "bad person" by virtue of their birth sex.

I can't find a nuanced way to talk about this that won't be read in bad faith as essentialist rhetoric. rape culture is the system by which consent violation is normalized, its all the music and books and movies and bad relationships I assumed were normal and romantic as a young adult. I really, really hurt people, and I did it as men are encouraged to do, and as they are rewarded for doing. I found affirmation in hurting people, and it is so fucking easy to do this without even really thinking of it because it's the entire culture you've come up in.

I'm not even talking like, obvious cases here like phyrical domestic abuse & intentional date rape. there are so many subtle boundary erosions, there's weird gray areas around drugs & alcohol, there's attitudes and expectations in established relationships, there's the potential to exploit community for personal gain. there are partners who will fear you, and freeze and fawn and will not tell you "no."

a lot of the "we need a special word for masculine transphobia" types seem to also disavow the possibility that they hold male privelege. but we need to look at that shit, sexual or otherwise. it's scary to see guys who see women talking about it and they knee-jerk shout back "I'm not a rapist" and "not all men." guarantee some of them are, and just aren't aware of it. i was.

Thank you so much anon for this really brave, candid message. I think it's something that a lot of the trans guys crowing in my inbox about how cis men "are the bad gender" need to hear. (yes, someone literally said that to me). Portraying gendered categories, especially ones based on birth assignment!, as ontologically more evil or pure than others sets people up for abuse. Separating cis men out from trans men erases the ways in which trans guys can both leverage power and the ways in which toxic masculine norms are transmitted culturally to everyone regardless of assigned sex at birth. Lots of trans guys are palpably uncomfortable with their power, and can only see that relative to cis men, they experience transphobia and misogyny in greater amounts, and so they presume they must be in a highly victimized category. But they dont ever consider that as men they can and do often wield power over women -- especially trans women -- and they've got to fucking learn how to handle that reality responsibly, which many cis men actually do know how to fucking do. Especially multiply marginalized cis men who have been preyed upon and exploited themselves.

I think it's really powerful to hear you taking ownership of the actions you've taken that have hurt others, and the allure such actions had. Very few people have the courage to look their lower moments in the face and affirm that it's actually a part of them. If we're ever going to stop abusing and talking over women we've got to own up to our shit. I've seen what can happen when men come together to be vulnerable about their struggles, own their wrongdoing, and seek to change -- back when I was working in a men's drug treatment program. We can overcome this shit and take responsibility. But a lot of the birthday boy trans guy squad is incensed by even the idea of owing anything to anyone. Like a lot of MRAs.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for being an ex-Terf/radfem and going to pride with a friend?

(tw for transphobia, ⚧️ to find it later)

I (25F) was a radfem for a while, i fell into the rabbit hole online. But then, my friend (24FTM) came out to me as a trans guy. And I was so horrible about it, the usual terf stuff you've all probably seen. He says its okay now, I couldn't help it, but I still feel bad, because he stood by me a lot in our friendship.

Ffw to recently, I want to go to local trans pride events with him this year, but I'm just worried I haven't unlearned everything I need to yet, and I might put my foot in it. The last thing I want is to make anyone feel as bad as I made him feel.

TLDR WIBTA for going to trans pride events with my friend, and accidentally putting my foot in my mouth because I'm still unlearning years of radfem poison?

PS! If you're a radfem/terf reading this, please do what I did. Get yourself out of the hole. It's not worth the energy to hate when love costs you nothing

[johannestevans]

Every day I see discourse about how it’s problematic to make a character a trans man and an omega in omegaverse or problematic to “treat a twink character like ‘the girl one’” or some nonsense and then I come on your blog and it’s a breath of fresh air every time. LOVED that post about the rapid werewolf pregnancy, so glad the world will never lack for fetish stuff that I actually like just because people incorrectly think gay people are reinventing gender roles in writing about fictional smut scenarios.

Honestly, sometimes I see people get a bit grumpy and upset with recs of my work because there aren't enough trans men topping or what have you and they're just not interested in trans men bottoming or subbing and that's completely fine!

But it doesn't mean that I'm some sort of evil fetishisiser force-feminising every trans or effete man and single-handedly holding up the side of global transphobia, lmao.

Some people are unfortunately just very sensitive about their own dysphoria and project it onto other people's fetish and kink work, and not everyone has the ability to separate their own dysphoria or discomfort, or just having the ick, from their perceived ethics or morality of that work existing.

It's difficult for many people to unlearn those reactionary tendencies, especially without exposure to healthy and unemotional talk about sex and sexuality, including kink and fetish, and so faced with all that tangled emotion and nowhere to put it, you end up with angry essays and paragraph on paragraph about how this is upholding various bigotries or is responsible for actual hate crimes and such.

Rest assured I will be posting away with my usual revolting erotic horror and terrible hentai scenarios because I just think they're such fun. And in the meantime, all the best to those poor lads tangling themselves in knots about it - we can only hope they're able to find comfort where they can and chill the fuck out at some point.

[romcomxdd]

What if Mav didn’t get custody of bradley?

Maybe Goose and Carole never got around to officially naming Pete as Bradley’s godfather. and by the time Carole knew she was dying, it was too late. Maybe her death was so sudden none of them had a second to think about it until she was already gone. Basically there was no legally binding documents saying that Mav was the next in line to be Bradley’s carer.

But when Carole did die, and Mav applied for adoption almost immediately, he was deemed as an unfit carer, on account of him moving for work all the time. And of course he couldn’t say that Ice would be there to look after him as well because of DADT.

So Bradley was fostered by another family, just until Mav was able to settle down and prove he was able to look after a kid. Or that’s what he thought.

For the first few months it was okay, Mav was allowed to visit Bradley whenever, and the new foster family were okay with that. Until one day, bradley mentioned his godfathers boyfriend (Ice), and the family freaked.

They told Mav he wasn’t allowed to come by anymore, or they’d get a restraining order on him, go the authorities or something like that. They also quickly began the official adoption process of Bradley. Telling themselves that ‘there was still time to “fix” the kid, make him unlearn the homosexual tendencies he must have picked up from Maverick and Ice.’

Mav was devestated, understandably, as he couldn’t even say goodbye to Bradley. The family told baby Rooster that Mav was glad to get rid of him. That he had told them that he never wanted to see Bradley again. This kinda fucked the kid up, doubling his already present trust issues. First his dad, then his mum, and then the man that he had begun to think of as his second dad.

As soon as the adoption reports went through, the family moved across the country, just to be safe, and Bradley grew up with them.

Over the years he ended up with a shit tonne of internalised homophobia, and transphobia if that’s how u head canon him.

Anyway, after a few years Bradley began to stop thinking about his ‘old’ family so much, and grew up with his ‘new’ one. Maybe they turned out to be kinda abusive, or toxic, or Bradley could just never really connect with them.

The one thing he could vividly remember was his dads love of planes (whether it was Goose that he was thinking of or Mav, it’s unsure, maybe a mix of both). How he would talk about flying with that twinkle of wonder in his eye. So Bradley became a navy pilot, following in the footsteps of his dads. He cut contact from his adoptive parents and progressed rapidly in the ranks.

Bradley got with Jake at one point, after doing A LOT of self discovery, but ultimately broke up with the texan, as a self defence mechanism he had put up after Mav ‘ditched’ him. Another part of the breakup was his still present internalised homophobia.

But basically, Bradley got into top gun and everything, and ended up at the events of TGM as usual. but imagine how much deeper the angst would be between him and Mav, and the misscomunication and oh so much toxic masculinity and them refusing to talk about their feelings.

uhm yeah hope you enjoyed yet another fic idea that i’ll never write :]

[kittyburnout]

Endlessly, eternally frustrating how many people use 'trans unity' as an excuse to ignore transfems and our issues as though we aren't like. The most visible and despised members of the trans community. Like it's no coincidence that 90%+ trans people murdered are transfeminine, the majority of reactionary rhetoric against trans people is targeted at transfems, and by and large our gender identities and expression of such have been ridiculed for decades, with parodies of transfems as 'men in dresses' representing our only real presence in media other than sex workers or victims.

All this to say that certainly we all experience hardships as trans people, but the unique intersection of transphobia and misogyny that enables such violent views towards trans womanhood is unavoidable even for those within our own community. All of us grew up in a culture that demonizes trans women and it's difficult to unlearn the intrinsic biases that come with that. It's critical to listen to and understand transfeminist theory and rhetoric to understand how these biases affect all of us, and it is absolutely not helpful to so called trans unity when our issues are brushed aside in favor of the comfort of TME individuals who don't want to confront their own bias. Genuinely, if unity is something that is worth fighting so hard for, maybe try engaging with the nasty transfems who dare to have a spine and are willing to stick up for themselves, because no matter how hard you wish it wasn't true, other members of the trans community can and do have privilege over transfems and whether intentional or not, it is very often leveraged against us.