#very binary society and being binary trans is acceptable

[bluejay-makes]

Drow kiddos growing up in different cities

[acertainmoshke]

Wip files tag game: I’m so curious about what Akolla is 👀 -stuffaboutwriting

Ahhh thank you I'm so glad someone asked! Akolla is a person, as are Talil and Tlapil. They're all part of a 1,000-year fantasy history I'm building surrounding the kingdom of Halara. Specifically, there will be 10 books, focusing on different generations of the royal family.

Akolla is the focus of the second book, the fourth royal generation after Talil the war hero united them as one kingdom. Akolla is an only child and the first royal generation to be somewhat isolated from the general population, though he doesn't live in an actual castle until he becomes Kelesh (the Halaran word for ruler).

I'm not going to tell you everything about Akolla because that won't be all that interesting out of context. What I am going to tell you is about their gender system, because it's my favorite part. Halaran only has one pronoun for all people, vi, but I use different pronouns to differentiate in English. Their gender system is fun and complex, so have an organized list:

Children don't have a gender at all. They all wear tunics and leggings and grow their hair long (well, everyone grows their hair long but adults cover it). They choose their gender when they reach the age of apprenticeship at 14. There's a big ceremony and everything. At that point they start wearing gendered adult clothes and hair coverings--almost all adults wear some sort of headscarves.

With 6 different gender options, gender (mostly) is not based on physicality but on what you prioritize in life, what you want to project to the world, and which deity you feel most represents your self.

Gendered clothing is traditional but not completely fixed--the headscarf style is near-universal and can be the only way to read gender. But also, one can't always be sure. That doesn't matter as much when you don't need to know what pronoun to use for someone, and asking can start interesting conversations.

Ku is the gender associated with the sun deity, with warmth and farming and protection and life. They wear skirts and loose shirts and headscarves in a style similar to a tichel. I use eso/eson pronouns in translation

Aig is the gender associated with the river deity, with strength and leadership and hardiness and endurance. They wear pants and loose shirts and headscarves in a style similar to a turban. I use be/bel pronouns for them.

Dakal is the gender associated with the wilderness deity, with athletics, freedom, cunning, and bravery. They wear long robes and headscarves similar to a flowy hijab style. I use zie/zir for them.

Zjigol is a gender associated with the deity of craftsmanship, associated with art, creativity, entertainment, puzzles, and beauty. They wear wrap-around skirts and either no shirt or a shawl depending on weather and their own preferences. Their headscarves are worn tied at the base of the skull with a tail down their back or over their shoulder. I was running out of options by this point and I'm really not sure what they're called. I use ne/nem pronouns for them.

Kenba is a gender associated with the deity of change, with seasons, adventure, relationships, and politics. They wear single-piece jumpsuits with varying levels of tight or loose fitting legs depending on the current style. Their headscarves are tied tight across their hair with a knot above their forehead. I use kri/krun for them.

Yo'em are different. Traditionally, originally, one was considered a holy and blessed child if they were born with different physical traits. This includes noticeable intersex traits, those that appear at birth or at puberty, as well as other unusual ways to be born, missing or with differently shaped limbs, etc. Initially, they had no choice in the matter and were often sent to become priests (although others could be as well). They were thought to be good omens. In later years, their options expanded and they were given more choice. Eventually, some began to choose their own gender while others redefined what being yo'em meant to them. They wear tunics and leggings, but in a much more adult style than children's, and no headscarf, leaving their hair loose. I use the Halaran pronoun vi for them because I'd run out by then.

[softdreamlesssleep]

It's so funny how we were both like "I'm probably non binary but I have a job so I don't care about that rn" and then we got together, talked about gender and stuff, both realised it meant nothing to us and absolutely nothing changed except for the fact we now have this understanding that we're just two people who love eachother without feeling the need to conform to any sort of norm with how we dress, act or treat eachother.

[ugly-anarchist]

I've seen quite a few posts about people who want to "transition to intersex" and it's really starting to frustrate me

Intersex doesn't mean "androgynous", it doesn't mean "both male and female", it doesn't mean "somewhere in between the binary"

Intersex means you have naturally occurring sex characteristics that don't align with what society deems "correct." You cannot transition to being intersex because it's not something that can be done intentionally.

The changes caused by HRT or surgery do not make you intersex and you do not want an intersex body because there is no single definition of what an intersex body looks like.

If you're perisex and want a body that is androgynous, somewhere between male and female, or both male and female then you're allowed to want that. You're allowed to want whatever it is you want your body to look like, but you will never have an "intersex" body and you shouldn't be using the label intersex.

People who say they want to have an intersex body either fundamentally do not understand what being intersex is or they have a very fetishized idea of what being intersex is like. (Ex: they think being intersex means you have both sets of genitalia)

As a nonbinary intersex person I know what it's like to want your body to look nonbinary, but that isn't what makes me intersex. What makes me intersex is the fact that I have secondary sex characteristics that do not match what society deems normal. And, btw, that isn't a nice thing. I'm learning how to accept that part of me but my intersex traits actually give me major dysphoria.

So yeah, TLDR: Perisex trans people stop being weird about intersex bodies.

[bingsoo-jung]

I said this in the comments of someone else’s post, but I’m going to say this here. Taash identifying as non-binary is good actually, and in fact better than the dev’s making up some new term for them. Let’s get into it.

So for a bit of background, I’m non-binary and Thai. If you don’t know, Thai has specific terms for different gender-sexual identities, they’re quite old, they date back a few hundred years. However, the thing about culturally specific terms is just that, they’re culturally specific. The reason you use them is because you are tied to the culture in such a way that you gender-sexual identity cannot be disassociated from it. Because, to be clear, these terms are never just about your gender or sexual identity. They encompass a role you play within society itself.

For instance, in Thai culture we have tom/tomboys. These are AFAB folks who occupy a masculine societal role and date women. If you’re AMAB you cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc and feminine? You cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc and not attracted to women? You cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc and mostly date men? You cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc but don’t particularly feel like taking care of the girl you date, taking her out, being the ‘man’ in the relationship? You can’t really be tom.

Because the thing about culturally specific genders is that they come with a lot of rules. Being tom isn’t being non-binary. There are cis women who are tom, and there are non-binary people who are toms. You do not get eschew gender roles in these cases. You are quite literally taking one on. You have a role and place in society that has been made for you, and you are expected to carry it out.

Because of this, none of these terms are a one-to-one for other identities, and nor should they be. Being kathoey or hijra is not the same as being a trans woman or non-binary, and visa versa. You can be kathoey and not be trans. You can be trans and not be kathoey. Being aqun-athlok or any other specific term shouldn’t be either. The idea that it is, is more ahistorical and inaccurate than the word non-binary itself. Giving Taash some new, culturally specific term, would inherently tie them to a culture, and one perhaps that they didn’t feel apart of. Especially since Taash’s entire story is about struggling to figure out where they belong. Arguably the biggest issue with their story is that you have to make them decide, and fundamentally tying them to a term would’ve compounded that problem.

The reason I identify as non-binary and not a tom, is because I am not occupying some specific role in Thai culture. Despite living in LA, I rarely interact with other Thai people who aren’t my family. I do not live in a cultural context that would allow me to identify as a tom.

The thing about terms like non-binary, or trans, or agender, is that they’re meant to be acultural terms encapsulating the concept of truth to oneself and ones identity. Whereas culturally specific terms aren’t, they’re about the role you hold in society and where you fit in. It’s about your identity within a status quo. Taash is a character who is eschewing societal roles, and breaking the status quo, giving them those terms just wouldn’t work.

And finally? Using non-binary itself allows the writers to very specifically say where they stand. There is no space given to transphobes. You either accept that DA is queer-friendly or bust. And that’s a very important stance to make in an era where trans and non-binary folks are being actively targeted. There’s no ‘well Taash isn’t actually trans or non-binary they’re [insert term here]!’ Because people would’ve done that, we know they would’ve. This means people can’t do that. They have to just say that they have an issue with the term, and thus we can call them for what they are. Transphobes. Plain and simple.

So yeah, Taash’s identity does have nuance, it has a lot of it. And to be honest with you, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trick Weekes, a non-binary person whose wife is First Nations and thus from a group with culturally specific gender identities, knows about the difference between something like two-spirit and trans. And to be honest with you, using something like non-binary has nuance I doubt was actually afforded to Krem, considering they cast a cis woman to play Krem.

So yeah.

[manicsystemic]

There is no use for a lesbian identity that includes men.

There is very real harm constantly going on against people who aren't men who aren't attracted to men, I have experienced it since before I public transitioned, during the process of my transition, and after my transition, in family gatherings, in my therapist's room, in queer spaces where I thought I'd be safe. This harm comes from everyone, my family who openly yell for lesbians to be abused into a relationship with men, my therapist who wouldn't allow me to obtain hormones without actively being in a relationship with a man, and other trans women who couldn't accept that I wasn't into men and openly pressured me on my orientation and fetishized me in front of men.

There is only one identity that addresses the needs of people like me who face structured, social, and interpersonal harm from being the way I am, and anyone who doesn't acknowledge lesbian identity as being exclusive of men so as to describe correctly my position in society because of how I am treated by it is doing the same thing as those who don't acknowledge that transfems require our identity to acknowledge our agab because the way we are treated by society is predicated upon it.

No I am not like every other lesbian, none of us are exactly the same, some are only into masculine women, some are only into feminine women, some are in relationships with nonbinary people who dont consider themselves women, but the situation is the same for trans women, many of us are not binary, and our womanhood is informed by lived experience as being treated as degendered and outside acceptable social norms, but transfem identity cannot be appropriated by those who are not amab, and lesbian identity can't be appropriated by men or those who are attracted to men.

Frankly, if we didn't face such pervasive persecution, we would not need such a distinction of identity for being trans women or lesbians, but we are, and we do require this distinction for both. Anyone who does not acknowledge this is disregarding the need for justice and social change for people like me. And I'm angry about it.

[gatheringbones]

[“When I asked Janelle, “Would you be hesitant to introduce a trans woman partner to your friends or coworkers,” she responded:

Janelle: Friends or coworkers, no. I mean when I like people, I have to show them off, so like, I mean, if I like her, Ima show her off, but [pause] you can still like show people off [pause] and be brave but still be scared. You know?

alithia: Would you be scared about being a woman with another woman or scared for how they’d react to her being a trans woman or?

Janelle: Her being a trans woman, because you know people [pause] like people are trained to discriminate people based [pause] I don’t, they’re like doing a lot of things in law that has to do with like if you like [pause] depending on your sexuality, you can be fired from a job or things like that, so like that’s very scary or and also the family like just so many factors. It’s just like anxiety-driven for me. So yeah, I, I, I feel like [pause] being scared or timid is [pause] justified in this sense. In this world that we live in.

Janelle was not afraid of how others would perceive her for being with a trans woman. Instead, she worried about them both living in a society that punishes individuals who deviate from cisgender, heterosexual norms of dating and relationships. Such fears of being harmed were perhaps more pronounced for her, with her and a hypothetical partner being two women vulnerable to the harms of cis-heteropatriarchy. These fears, though, were not simply about whether they would be accepted by others, but whether they would be able to survive and thrive, as LGBT people, particularly trans people, do not have workplace discrimination protections in many states across the United States.

Peaches connected such fears to race. I asked Peaches, “If you were with a woman and knew she was trans, and y’all had been together for awhile, would you be hesitant at all to introduce her to your family?” Peaches responded:

Peaches: No. That’s a lie yes. Like my family are, they, they can be ignorant and like my mom especially, love her to death, but she says like a lot of insensitive things. My mom’s White. She doesn’t think before she talks a lot. So, if anything, I would just be like a little bit hesitant to like take her around my family, because I wouldn’t want them to say anything in front of her um that could make her feel uncomfortable.

alithia: Okay would they do that whether it was a cis woman or a trans woman?

Peaches: Um I think it, they wouldn’t do it as much with a cis woman, yeah.

Peaches was raised by a White, Portuguese mother and a Black father, and she noted her mother’s whiteness as integral as to why she microaggressed others. Peaches was referring to gender and racial ignorance and highlighted a fear of how her mother would treat a trans woman partner. Her connection of this ignorance, cissexism, and racism is part of a larger epistemology of White ignorance that functions to protect “those who for “racial” [and gendered] reasons have needed not to know” how their understandings of the world deny the lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other cisgender/transgender people of color and other transgender people. This White ignorance produces a misunderstanding of reality as inherently binary vis-à-vis sex and gender and an inculcated “alexithymia,” or a socialized inability to feel empathy for racialized Others. Thus, Peaches’ mother’s repetitive “[saying of] a lot of insensitive things” is not so much about a hatred of trans people/of color but the result of an actively developed ignorance.”]

alithia zamantakis, from thinking cis: cisgender heterosexual men, and queer women’s roles in anti-trans violence, 2023

[autolenaphilia]

About cultural feminism

I’ve been thinking about this post of mine, about how anti-kink arguments are linked to transmisogyny and now realize I didn’t realize something important there.

It’s the real reason anti-kink moral crusade is linked to transmisogyny, and that’s because the feminist ideology it draws from is inherently bio- and gender-essentialist. I realized this after reading Alice Echols 1983 article Cultural Feminism: Feminist Capitalism and the anti-pornography movement which is a classic in criticizing essentialist feminism, which Echols calls cultural feminism. If you want to read it, you can either find your copy of issue 7 of the journal Social Text from 1983, (/j) orread it here

I have my objections to Echols’s article. It’s very us-centric. Her in itself commendable attempt to criticize transmisogyny is marred by her own early 1980s transmisogynistic biases. She admits that cultural feminism is a development of radical feminism ,but her attempt to separate earlier, “real” radical feminism from the essentialist cultural feminism it turned into isn’t entirely convincing (she views Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex as a key radical feminist text, as opposed to cultural feminism, but Firestone’s bio-essentialism seems to have led to the cultural feminism she decries). But ultimately it’s brilliant and explained a lot about the development of feminism in the last 50 years.

What is Cultural Feminism?

Cultural feminism is a type of feminism that essentially accepts society’s conventional view on the sex distinction. It’s binary and it’s real, in that it arises from an immutable biological source. Gender differences and the patriarchy arise from this biological distinction. This is what they mean by the slogan “sex is real.”

It distances itself from forms of feminism who analyze the patriarchy in material terms, and which instead see the sex binary and biological sex as merely patriarchal ideology to be overcome.

By contrast, cultural feminism, patriarchy arises from real and immutable biological sex differences, accordingly largely disavows political struggle to overthrow the patriarchy. They instead believe “individual liberation can be achieved within a patriarchal context” by women developing an “alternative consciousness”. Feminism becomes a matter of uplifting the values and qualities that are considered female. It’s women realizing their worth as women in response to societal misogynistic devaluation of their female qualities. Echols call it “cultural feminism” because “because it equates women's liberation with the development and preservation of a female counterculture.”

Cultural feminists may disavow some aspects of femininity as being imposed by patriarchal society, but reifies others as being caused by biological sex. Chiefly they believe that women are naturally nurturing and caring, far more than men, because they are by biology meant to be mothers.

This bioessentialism naturally leads to cultural feminists being violently transmisogynistic. Because it comes from adopting society’s dominant views on sex/gender, it’s not all that different from society’s general transmisogyny, just put in feminist terms.

Trans women, and trans people in general, undermine the sex binary just by existing. And this is why we are so threatening to cultural feminist ideology. When the terf accuses trans women of undermining the basis of feminist activism by existing, it’s because she is a cultural feminist who believes the sex binary is the basis of feminism.

The reason for cultural feminism’s existence is to conform the movement to a conservative backlash against feminism, sexual revolution and queer rights. It’s a feminism for “...when the possibilities for radical structural change seem remote, and the only alternative seems to be the liberal solution of token representation and assimilation into an oppressive and inegalitarian system.” It’s the strategy of “if you can’t beat them, join them.” It’s feminism for those who see the sex binary as an obvious fact, and any attempt to overthrow it and the patriarchy that created it as insane. And cultural feminism is a thoroughly conservative movement.

The cultural feminist by adopting the traditional view of gender, also adopts the traditional sexual morality. They have the stereotypical view of male and female sexuality. Men are driven by an uncontrollable, violent and rapacious sexuality that causes them to predate on women. Whereas women are far less sexually driven, and to the extent they have a sexuality, it’s about love and connection instead of violence and domination.

Their view of male sexuality may be superficially seen as “misandry”, in that men are irredeemable beasts driven by their biology to rape. But this view comes directly from conservative patriarchal explanations of sexual violence. When men’s sexual violence towards women comes from an unchanging biology, it is an inevitable feature of human life and not the fault of the patriarchal system. Sexual violence can not be abolished by structural change, only partially ameliorated by carceral solutions, “locking the worst men up.”

The valorization of women as chaste, non-sexual beings similarly serves patriarchy. It literally makes a virtue out of an oppressive feminine stricture that restricts women and results in women’s sexual repression.

From this conservative view of gender, the cultural feminist comes to conservative political solutions. As Echols describes “Because the sexual revolution is seen as enslaving women by promoting the male sexual values of promiscuity and rapacity, cultural feminists propose the establishment of a female standard of sexuality…. The cultural feminist solution to male lasciviousness is the re-establishment of old-fashioned respect which the sexual revolution has destroyed. This analysis confuses respect for equality and fails to recognize that respect is merely the flip side of violation “

The central struggle for the cultural feminist becomes reigning in the rampant male sexuality let loose by the sexual revolution. The cultural feminist accordingly makes alliances with conservative forces to fight against pornography and bdsm. The role of women feminists became the traditional role of women in conservative political movements: the moral guardians, “the chaste regulators of morality” against “men as dangerously over-sexed violators of the moral code “

Their stance on pornography arises naturally from the basic errors in the cultural feminist ideology. Cultural feminists have abandoned material analysis of the patriarchy for a mixture of biological determinism, and idealism. (idealism is meant here in the sense in the sense that history and society is driven by ideas, “bad things happen because of bad ideas”). So they make the error of seeing misogyny in pornography as causing the misogyny and sexual violence in the wider world, instead the causal chain being the other way around. This is mixed with their biological determinism, where they believe pornography is irresponsibly feeding the uncontrollable and rapacious male sexual drive.

They also extended their criticism of pornography to sexual roleplay and sexual fantasy as also causing misogyny and sexual violence, explicitly rejecting the distinction of fantasy and reality as patriarchal.

This of course included lesbian and other women practioners of kink. As Echols explained, “..the movement's message is directed towards women rather than men. The movement attempts not only to control male sexuality,but to rationalize and control women's sexuality as well.” Women are the primary victims of cultural feminism, men are as always protected by their privilege.

The cultural feminist idealizes women’s sexuality and lesbian relationships as pure, in a way that as Echols points out can’t really accommodate the ambiguities and conflict of actual sex , or the behaviour of actual flesh-and-blood women. For that reason, and to build bridges between lesbian and hetero feminists, is part of why lesbianism was defined in the 70s as “identification and bonding with women” or “radical female friendship” instead of a sexual orientation.

This idealization also created this paranoia about “male forms of sexuality” such as bdsm and pornography corrupting women’s sexuality. This led to the moral crusade against lesbian practioners of bdsm and lesbian women’s own pornography. And the transmisogynist attempt to exclude trans women from lesbian women spaces was part of that same struggle. Trans women was seen as smuggling their male sexuality into sapphic women’s spaces to corrupt lesbian cis women and turn them heterosexual.

Where are we now?

Over 40 years after Echols’s article was written, we can safely say that cultural feminism is alive and well. Most obviously in everyone that calls themselves a radical feminist nowadays. Echols argued that early radical feminists were critical of the ideology of the biological sex distinction and bioessentialism, but no doubt even she would admit that the cultural feminist take-over of the term is now fully complete.

Her analysis did help me understand why every openly transmisogynist radfem are all also anti-porn and anti-kink/fetishes. Like pretty much everytime someone leaves an anti-porn/anti-bddsm comment online, I check their account and they are also an open terfy transmisogynist. It is all part of the same struggle for them. In the intervening decades since Echol’s article, the popularity of fetishistic depictions of transfems in pornography, and Ray Blanchard’s autogynephilia concept, explaining sapphic trans-feminity as a fetish, has probably increased the identification of transfems with the evils of kink and porn in the radfem ideology.

And a form of cultural feminism is also the prevalent ideology among the more subtle form of transmisogynist that dominates tme queer/feminist spaces. Unlike the open terf, they will claim to believe “trans women are women”, be very “terfs dni” and disavow the more openly bioessentialist aspects of cultural feminism. Yet it will consistently spout 70s era cultural feminist arguments about porn, kink and sexual fantasies, albeit often restricted to the more controversial kinks nowadays, such as CNC and fauxcest.

And it’s obvious our womanhood and inclusion is always dependent on good behavior as defined by tme people. Our inclusion is dependent on us possessing the feminine virtues that cultural feminism see as common to women, but we are in this matter held to way higher standards than cis women or tme trans people are. Their inclusion in queer/feminist spaces is based on their ovaries, us on our possessing feminine virtues.

So we have to be nice and kind in a feminine way, which is to say self-denying, acquiescing to every demand from a tme person without complaint. And we have to chaste and virtuous in our sexuality, so we can’t show sexual attraction or flirt, or have problematic kinks.

When we fail to live up to these feminine standards, because no human being can, our tme allies turn against us and start acting like the terfs they claim to hate. They may not openly claim all transfems are prima facie seuxally perverted predatory male infiltrators, but they will eventually discover that every individual transfem is one.

This is why the feminist anti-kink and anti-porn arguments are never free of transmisogyny, because it’s all rooted in the same bioessentialist and gender essentialist ideology.

[genderqueerdykes]

genuine question about some identities

why do you think theres so much hate for people who are afab/amab and are also trans women/men, those who are cistrans and multigender people?

ive noticed that when you tell certain queer people you'd think wouldn't be exclusionist that your gender is funky and you're trans bc of it, they begin to use your assigned sex and your biology against you because "you can't be a trans woman if you have a uterus, ur just feminine".

its the same argument as conservatives make it. why is there so much hate?

ppl don't acknowledge my individual genders but instead see how they work alongside each other. ppl don't see me as a trans woman when my gender is woman but will acknowledge me as a trans man because of my sex traits.

these are some very important questions to ask, i appreciate you for sending this ask

i honestly think more people are becoming indoctrinated into transmedicalist and gender critical thinking without realizing it, and it's becoming dangerous. people want to inherently label an afab transfem and/or an amab transmasc as liars, people who are spitting in the faces of others, and shouldn't be a part of our community. other people make assumptions about others' experiences based on their own and don't understand that there is an entire world outside of their perspective, and that world is full of experiences they have no hope of understanding, but can simply accept.

i've gotten a lot of questions about whether afab trans women and amab trans men can exist, it's definitely a hot button issue right now, and i agree with you. if you ask me, afab trans women and amab trans men deserve to have a platform to speak from. if someone genuinely believes their identity is trans no matter what their AGAB is- who the hell am i to stop them? it's important for afab trans women and amab trans men to not speak over their other siblings and try to speak for what it's like to be intersex or an amab trans woman/afab trans man. but that doesn't mean that these people can't exist- they deserve the right to talk about their experience, because it exists alongside the experiences of amab trans women and afab trans men. they're not fighting with each other, they're unique experiences that belong under the same umbrella.

at the end of the day, someone standing there being an afab trans woman, an amab trans man, or a cistrans person is not hurting anyone. the identity itself will hurt no one. ignorance about what other trans people experience is dangerous, and so is speaking over others, but these identities in and of themselves are not harming anyone. it is very possible to go "i don't understand how that works, but if that is how they identify, then i will respect that."

between people becoming indoctrinated into radical feminism and people who are proudly adopting gender critical politics, there is a schism in our communities that don't need to be there. people think they need to "weed out the fakes" in order for us to be accepted by cishet society, which is just not how any of this works. we can't cast aside the queers who are "too weird" or "not really queer" in order to try to make the rest of the community look legitimate

this community has always been here for people whose identities don't line up with the cisheteronormative binary. it doesn't matter what someone's AGAB is- i mean, isn't that the point of the trans community? are we not the "i don't give a shit about your AGAB, i want to know who you really are" community? it's become honestly scary to see how focused the queer community has become on AGAB. people are utterly obsessed with trying to figure out the AGABs of strangers in order to deny them access to queer spaces or kick them out of spaces they rightfully belong in

and it bothers me deeply that people police the identities of multigender people beyond belief. it's like having 1 trans identity is okay but if you dare to have more than one, you're not really queer or whatever. cistrans people, multigender people who are cis, trans wo/men who consider both their manhood and womanhood trans no matter what their AGAB is, transfemmasc/transmascfem people... these identities belong and yet people proudly and gladly wake up every day to do conservatives' jobs for them.

whenever you police another queer person's identity, no matter what your intention is, good, bad or something else- you are doing conservatives' jobs for them. you are not preserving our community. you are not keeping identities sacred or safe or whatever the hell. you're gladly sucking up to our oppressors and spreading their propaganda. it's disturbing how people don't realize this

thank you for taking the time to send this ask, i agree with you 100%. this behavior has gotten out of control and it's time for people to wake the fuck up and realize they've been indoctrinated into transmedicalism, radical feminism, and being gender critical. this isn't the "right" way to behave. it's antithetical to the very foundations of the queer community.

[ventbloglite]

The thing is...I've read a lot of posts and listened to a lot of videos by binary trans men & women and non-binary people of any AGAB and intersex people to whom masculinity is assumed or desired.

Each group has unique experiences with unique bigotry targetted at them for being who they are. But each group also experiences misplaced bigotry, aimed at a different group but used to hurt them anyway.

There's also a distinct and very real overlap between transmisogyny and transandrophobia. The thread that connects these concepts for binary and nonbinary trans masc people, AMAB's of any identity (intersex and not), and yeah even some butch cis lesbians is what we've been harking on about so long - the inherent villianising of masculinity in particularly when deemed to be in the 'incorrect' place!

A butch woman is not expected to be 'too masculine'. If she's seen as failing womanhood in this way, she will face discrimination from others for doing this even amongst other lesbians.

Attending groups or events for 'women and nonbinary' only to find out they mean 'women and women-lite' and don't want anyone with any proximity to masculinity to be there. Being told or being able to quickly understand that your masculinity is making others uncomfortable despite the fact that you are amongst other queer people/trans people. Being expected to preform femininity to a certain stereotyped degree to prove you are 'safe'.

These are all specific things which could be considered both transandrophobia OR transmisogyny, depending on who they happen to but...now here me out, doesn't that just mean we need to sit and realise that the distinction between them isn't always rigid? That there is an antimasculine issue within the trans and queer community but it doesn't target any one particular group over another. The acceptance of queer masculinity is a must. It won't solve all issues not by far, but would go a long way into making sure trans women (especially but not just those who 'don't pass' and maybe never want to be feminine anyway) feel more accepted and less like they'll always be seen as predators for being born male/assigned male at birth. It'll go a long way into accepting the 'men' part of trans men and the 'masc' part of any trans masc. It'll go a long way to accepting butch lesbians are still women despite their outward proximity to 'maleness'.

And if you're seriously reading this and are about to go on a tirade about how masculinity is praised and desired in society - stop. Cis masculinity is praised and desired and even then it has rules.

The world is a lot more complex than men and masculinity good anything else bad but unfortunately if you keep seeing it this way even if you disagree you are going to be responsible for both transandrophobia and transmisogyny persisting.

[baeddel-txt]

it's very concerning to me when i see people denounce baeddelism but not analyze any of the reasons why it's such a harmful ideology and instead pivot it back to how the original baeddels were cultlike.

like, yes, that's an extremely important thing to acknowledge. but we also need to take a step back and analyze how it's a flawed ideology that does nothing but hurt people.

trans people, as a whole, are almost never in a place of gender-based privilege in our modern society. never. it doesn't matter what sex you were assigned at birth or what gender you transitioned to. ultimately, none of us fit within the bounds of cisnormative society. it is impossible to transition into privilege because the act of transitioning itself ensures that, once again, you will never fit into what is deemed acceptable within these societal standards. it doesn't matter if you're fifty years down the line from the start of your transition- if the wrong person finds out your assigned sex at birth you still run the risk of violence. there are hundreds and hundreds of cases of trans people freely living their lives in stealth only to be outed and erased posthumously.

the entire baeddel movement hinges on the idea that, as opposed to the currently existing systems that perpetuate violence against trans people, the ultimate enemy of transgender women is AFAB trans people. this is absolutely untrue. the only world in which transgender men would hold any kind of gender-based privilege is in a hypothetical in which trans people are always treated as their preferred gender post-transition- and in this world, it's doubtful that transphobia would even exist in the first place. bigots do not look at a transgender person and determine what direction they are transitioning in before enacting prejudice. and while yes, some of this can definitely stem from misplaced transmisogyny, we also need to acknowledge that transgender men face their own unique form of oppression that serves as an intersection of transphobia and misogyny. the infantilization, erasure, and corrective violence that transgender men and similarly-aligned trans people face are, in fact, a form of prejudiced oppression!

this isn’t to say that afab trans people can't perpetuate transmisogyny. anyone can, because our society is inherently transmisogynistic and it falls on the individual to recognize and analyze their own unconscious prejudices. (this goes for all forms of bigotry.) what i'm saying is that this is absolutely not something unique to afab trans people. and once again the systems in place to perpetuate violence against trans people are a much bigger threat.

i think the reason i haven't seen much deconstruction of this is how this sort of rhetoric still echoes around online trans spaces to this day, with the most prevalent example being the established TME/TMA binary and scaremongering about any discussions of transandrophobia as inherently transmisogynistic. i never thought that i would have to explain in the year of our lord 2024 that transgender men do, in fact, face misogyny, but here we are.

other trans people are not your enemy. stop drinking the radfem kool-aid and fight alongside your brothers, sisters and siblings for a better future for us all. amen.

(apologies for any bad wording, this was written very late at night. i hope this was a good analysis of this topic.)

.

[pokegyns]

Transmedicalism: The Sexism, Racism, and Classism of Transmeds

the theory of transmedicalism is undeniably intertwined with eurocentrism, white supremacy, colonial values, classism, and sexism.

1.) SEXISM

transmedicalists often propose the idea of “being born in the wrong body”– which has become the most widely accepted definition of transness. this is pseudoscience; no one can be “born in the wrong body”. this idea supports the neurosexist myth of the sex brain, “womb hormone imbalance”, “brain-body incongruence”, and general misinformed scientific misogyny. transmedicalism suggests medical intervention as the only solution to dysphoria & incongruence, which can be deeply harmful due to the unresearched nature of gender/sex dysphoria. the calls for the medicalizing of gender also fail to recognize the inherent intersexism this very idea is built on– unnecessary medical intervention on intersex infants is completely built on the medicalization of gender. of course, transness is medical & neurological– but it also undoubtedly is sociological, and transmeds fail to consider this fact. they fail to consider gender socialization, patriarchal values & environmental influence. their belief of having to involve medical intervention in every case of dysphoria fails to encompass the very fact that dysphoria can heal, and this uniquely disempowers & harms detrans people. with their assimilationist views, transmeds tend to revert back to cisnormative praxis. presenting medical transition & assimilation as the only path to trans happiness, they actively ignore the corrupt nature of the affirmative-only model, as well as the overly sexist practices presented to dysphoric individuals. the affirming-model, following transmedicalist thought, often attacks dysphoric people for not wanting to completely assimilate in the cispatriarchal society. assimilation is a direct attack on liberation. assimilation kills, assimilation is erasure, assimilation is the violence of invisibility. attacks on individuality & informed consent, as well as promising happiness to dysphoric people & claiming that medical transition is the only path available for them (& the fearmongering of, “if you don’t transition, you will die”) is the corrupt nature of transmedicalism. medical transition can be harmful, as much as it can be helpful. it is not the only cure to dysphoria, and sometimes it isn’t a cure, at all. the goal of trans liberation isn’t to assimilate into the strict gender binary, it is to destroy the gender binary.

2.) RACISM

attempts at purposing the “immediate need” for medical intervention in cases of dysphoria are also intertwined with colonization & white supremacy. strict attempts of white trans people to “pass” uniquely harm trans people of color. trans people of color are disproportionately subjected to extreme rates of poverty & discrimination, and are therefore bared from the resources they might need for the furthering of their desired transition. the emphasis that transmedicalist ideals place on the importance of passing as cis, as well as the ways in which racist stereotypes have bred toxic masculinity in communities of color, has led to a disproportionate level of violence being targeted towards trans people of color. pressuring dysphoric people to take unhealthy measures at “passing” & “assimilating” otherwise “they aren’t truly dysphoric”, undoubtedly is rooted in the westernized & eurocentric view of trans healthcare.

3.) CLASSISM

transmedicalism is largely classist, through & through. grooming young dysphoric people, who oftentimes come from non-wealthy families, that the only way they can reach happiness is by medically transitioning, is a very well-known tactic of transmedicalism. transmedicalism fails to consider diverse economic situations, and by presenting medical transition as the only path to happiness of dysphoric people, transmeds breed a unique form of insecurity, self-doubt, and depression in the brains of dysphoric youth. they claim medical transition is the only way dysphoric people will ever be able to be happy, and as they make this claim, they simultaneously subject lower-class trans people to lifelong suffering. this is one of the many ways classism manifests as one big hole in transmedicalist thought. not everyone can afford to pass, and it is unfair to declare everyone who cannot pass as a “faker”. branding transition as the only “cure” to dysphoria, and then barring certain individuals from the said “cure”, tells us just how flawed transmedicalism is. capitalists love to profit from vulnerable people’s pain, and dysphoria is a neurological condition that, by branding such a commodifying solution as “the only cure”, can get capitalists thriving at the expense of deeply ill & vulnerable people. transmeds imply that dysphoric people immediately need fixing, otherwise they’re doomed to lifelong suffering & inevitable death. this is the fastest way of manipulating a marginalized group & thus providing & promising profit to consumerist industries & those on the top of the capitalist pyramid.

4.) CONCLUSION

transmedicalism is the most socially accepted idea of transness. it is one that supports assimilation, the patriarchy, racism & colonialism. it is one that is the most likeable to large corporations, conservatives, and the power thirsty capitalists. as such, we shouldn’t see it as a feminist idea of transness. i have seen far too many self-proclaimed radical feminists claim transmeds are “the best trans people” & “ones we should accept the most”. this is a blatantly incorrect & dangerous belief to hold. transmedicalism harms dysphoric people on a wide scale; it punishes deviation from the gender hierarchy, affirms medical transition as the only way to trans happiness, profits from dysphoric pain– and as such, is inherently anti-feminist. it is one thing to acknowledge that dysphoria can be neurological, and that dysphoria is a mental condition– but it is a completely distinct thing to pressure trans people to medically transition, to imply dysphoric people need “fixing”, and to push & betray our trans siblings to the large messy pit the capitalist industry of medical transition is. undoubtedly, medical transition can save lives– but it can also destroy them, and the industry needs immediate reform. a lot of transmedicalists declare themselves “pro-radfem”, which is probably why they’ve gained such sympathy from self-proclaimed radfems– but the two groups couldn’t be more separate from each other. radfems generally have more in common with the crowd that parades neopronouns & xenogenders– and although more than few radfems will find this nonsensical– we still have to admit that these people have no power in the gender hierarchy whatsoever, unlike transmedicalism– an idea that built its’ praxis & is turning into a huge corporation. dysphoric people are not an experiment, nor are we a public good & guinea pigs. our pain is not something that capitalist pigs should have access to commodifying. transmedicalism hurt me as an individual, as well– the effects kalvin garrah & the “truscum” community (i had quite a few toxic transmed exes) had on me as a vulnerable dysphoric teen were numerous. i hated myself, and i hate myself a little less ever since i distanced myself from the huge mess the “truscum” community is. feminism is helping me heal, and i get enraged every time i see transmedicalism be accepted as a radfem ideal. it is not, and it never will be.

– mod zoroark

[earhartsease]

because we host a nonbinary support group, we often get sent requests to share surveys for someone's college course or whatever, and we filter them by filling them out ourselves first, to check for any awfulness (you'd be amazed or not at the assumptions, especially the number of surveys who forget not everyone has genders or who fail to imclude nonbinary or intersex experience)

anyway one of them has raised an interesting question, on which we have Opinions:

what does "post transition" mean to you?

our own personal view on this is that living in a society that can't/won't fully accept the existence of trans and/or nonbinary and/or intersex people as fully normal, can anyone really experience their transition as over?

we're sure that there are people who do feel they're "post transition" (those we've talked to or read about mostly seem to be binary trans people just getting on with their lives as women or men), but we suspect the vast majority of people are left with a difficult cocktail of having to mask some of the time for safety/inclusion/acceptance, and who have to live forever with a certain level of internalised dysphoria imposed on us by our society's distaste at our existence (and sometimes full on legal denial of our existence - speaking as an agender person in the UK who has no legal status except that accorded to trans women/men even though we are neither, and we can't apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate because it doesn't recognise our absence of gender at all, etc)

we personally went through a physical and social transition whose medical part was finished a decade ago (no genders were involved, but these days we are usually presumed to be a woman due to physical changes) and we're just on hormones now, but we find it very hard to imagine feeling like it's all done and we're living as an agender person with whatever "a female-coded 62 year old body" even means and it's simply accepted, we're simply accepted - and until that happens, we feel permanently in transition

so we're interested to hear from other people here about how you relate to this question (we're not sure how to ask this, we can't get our head around this as a poll, it would be too coarse grained) - what does "post transition" mean to you if you're someone who plans to transition, is transitioning, or has transitioned as much as you wish to/are able to?

this being tumblr, we're expecting a very broad probability field of responses!

edited to add: and of course some people use hormones and/or surgery and/or other appearance/social change things but don't use the language of transition at all

[uh-velkommen]

At some point in the past couple of months I have concluded/accepted that I am transgender. It's been a constant back and forth from being agender to gender queer to non binary to agender again, surprisingly NEVER gender fluid but at the end of the day, I am transmasc. And I still say that instead of saying I'm a boy or a man because even if I ever transition I think I'd play around a bit with femininity still and that could just be due to the fact that I was socialized as a girl and I've been treated and perceived as such all my life and to let it all go, at least for the time being, feels like I'd be letting go of or giving up who I am. I don't know who I'll be or how I'll act and feel years in the future when I've physically and socially transitioned. As of right now, I don't know if I ever actually will transition. I reckon my life would end before I ever even get the chance to utilize America's beautiful(🙄) healthcare system.

I resigned myself to being one of those people who just never comes out. Where history will be like "she had masculine tendencies and preferred outdoor activities" only for those who know to be like, "yeah she was probably trans." I planned to and accepted that I'd live the rest of my life in misery because the misery I feel doesn't outweigh the fear I have about how the world will treat me if I start transitioning. All my life I've been picked on for being different. I can't bear it, thinking that coming out would be GIVING people a reason to hate me. But lately I've felt soooo unmanageably wrong and dysphoric. I can't handle it anymore. I didn't know things could get worse. I didn't think it could get this bad. If I don't start taking the steps to feel like myself, I don't think I'll last very long. But I'm also nervous that if I ever do start to feel comfortable in myself, I'll want to live for too long. And I can't do that in this world. I can't envision it.

So this is my official coming out post. You guys are getting it first because I dont have anyone in my life I trust enough to tell and its eating me up inside not talking about it. I still don't know what to do about pronouns. I've always hated telling people "she/her is fine" in the most devastated voice. I hate hate hate so much that society has gotten comfortable with asking people their pronouns because it was the catalyst for me no longer being able to ignore my feelings. But I think I should at least try telling people to use they/them pronouns. Maybe then I won't be so afraid of transitioning.

[genderkoolaid]

I just, I don’t know. I don’t know how to make sure people only see me as a straight cis binary man who’s attraction to women is heterosexual when people are so quick to look for an excuse to call trans men lesbians and associate them with femininity, I don’t want to police other people’s labels because you fall into a cesspool of “acceptable” and “non acceptable”, but at the same time I don’t want to be able to be associated with lesbianism or it’s connotations in any way. I want to be able to say I’m a man and have that convey that I do not want people that consider themselves lesbians or heterosexual men to be attracted to me. I don’t want gender to be fake, at least not for me, and I don’t want the mixing of labels because for me it feels like it is creating the opportunity to be misgendered and forced into being seen as some sort of “half man” or “not really a man”. I want to be a man, just a guy, and I feel like there’s an increasing opportunity with these labels to misinterpret that, and yeah, I’m scared. I want people to be able to do what they want, as long as I will unequivocally be seen as a man.

The thing is... you are, unequivocally, a man. But in transphobic society, there is no guarantee you will unequivocally seen as a man, and certainly not by everyone.

There is nothing we can do that will make our transness acceptable for transphobic society. No matter how hard you try to be the perfect man, or how much you try to distance yourself from anything that could possibly associate you with womanhood, transphobes will not suddenly respect who you are. If there's anything to be learned from transmeds, its that trying to make people shrink their identities to something cis people can understand does nothing to fix transphobia but does everything to perpetuate it and hurt other trans people.

Cis people do not need weird trans people to make opportunities for them to misgender you. They will do that themselves. This is what we mean when we say other queer people are not the enemy; you are, even if unconsciously, blaming other queer people for the bigoted actions of cishet people. You are drawing a line from "being misgendered" to "other trans men calling themselves lesbians". You are trying to find a way to appeal to transphobic society to respect you so that you can avoid the pain of transphobia, but that will not happen. You cannot respectability politics your way out of being disrespected by transphobes. It fucking sucks and there's no way around it until we create a society free from queerphobia. That's why we have to stick together, that's why transunity is vital.

Again, this is very similar to bi lesbians being blamed for giving straight men an excuse to hit on lesbians; they don't need an excuse. I would like you to ask yourself: why do I jump to blaming other queer people for the actions of cishets? Why do I assume that, if they changed how they acted, it would mean my life got easier? Why do I feel that trans people have a responsibility to act and identify themselves a certain way to shape how cis people treat us, as if its our duty to make them stop being transphobic instead of theirs?

[absintheandtextbooks]

Ok so I haven’t posted like a proper potentially controversial deep dive here but I need to say some things about this season of Bridgerton. Before I do here are some qualifiers

1. I am not plus size but I am on the chubby end and wear typically a size large.

2. I come from a long line of people who are plus size

3. I think every comment about Nicola’s weight besides the ones she chose to make without pressure to make them are just simply not our business and pretty shitty

4. I want this to be a discussion this is not a hill I need to die on but I think peoples opinions can change and two things can be true.

Ok here we go buckle up

I was incredibly excited when I saw that the new season of Bridgerton was going to have Polin. It actually is what got me to start watching it in the first place, however I noticed a couple things with “the discourse” happening around the show.

Firstly, people were really excited to see a larger actress as a romantic lead which I agree is fantastic! The second is that these same people were very vocal about the height difference between the two of them. In fact how “tiny” she was in comparison was brought up a lot. I’m sure if this post has stumbled across your page a bunch of those did too.

Like some of the comment pieces on the above Forbes article mention, the media seems to have an allergy to “mixed weight” relationships when the woman is heavier-set or bigger in general than the man. What we talk about less is that height is also a factor. Society doesn’t just want women to be thin, it wasn’t them to be small.

I don’t mean to write about this in a “the tall girl movie from Netflix cringe way” but I think there is a nuanced discussion to be had about how we want women to take up less space and how femininity is tied to being small and delicate.

To me, a 5’ 6” ish queer person I’ve been taller than a lot of girls I’m friends with and a bunch of the men and enby or trans people I know. That, personally, has always made me feel bigger and ganglier and less feminine than the other femme presenting people I’m around. I get automatically stuck in a different category. Gaining weight, however, intensified this feeling. It feels as if I am perceived differently because of the combination of these two factors not just each on their own. Everything around us says it’s ok to be tall if you’re super thin and it’s ok (but less ok than being tall and thin) to be bigger if you’re short and dainty. It feels very conciliatory and condescending like a woman can’t take up space if she wants to be loved.

In Bridgerton, the conversations circling Nicola’s weight and height like vultures prey on this idea. It’s not acceptable just because she’s not sample size and that should be normal but because she’s little next to him even when she’s bigger. She can be a romantic lead because the man they show her to be in a relationship with is still bigger and stronger in different ways.

This also puts pressure on masc presenting people too. They need to be taller and often bigger to be accepted as “masculine or manly” which is its own problem I don’t feel as qualified to write about.

I’m sure this has its own complications for people who are non-binary or trans but I just needed to get this out there because it’s been BUGGING me.

Cheers,

Absinthe