I don't know if anyone has heard of the Trans Period Pride situation that happened a short while ago, but it has shown me why advocacy is important for all of us and how we are affected in different ways within the community.
Fo those who do not know, there was an event organizaed in Boston called Trans Period Pride which was made to give resources and information to those within the community who bleed. It was supposed to help give advice and care to transmasc folks, nonbinary folks and trans men while being inclusive and supportive of trans folks.
But Fox news and other conservatives caught wind of it and got extremely upset to the point the organizers having to cancel the initial event (they ended up rescheduling it). Why? Because they assumed it was for trans women, and got upset about trans women "claiming to bleed and have periods". Mind you, in no way did the organizers hint that this event was catered towards trans women, but because conservatives can't use their brains and their phones to function properly, they assumed it was an event for trans women.
On one hand, there's clear blatant transmisogyny and transphobia directed at trans women. When ever people see trans, the only thing they know or care much for are trans women and transfems, they direct all their hate at them which is the horrible impact of hypervisibility. People choose not to care for or understand trans folks, and only latch on to what they don't like.
On the other hand, there's anti-transmasculinity, transphobia and erasure directed at nonbinary folks and trans men. Because many of these people didn't even realize trans men existed in the first place, didn't care to know and went ahead and nearly caused the removal of an event that could benefit the lives of transmasculine people and trans men. Some of these people DID know we existed and still hated the fact that we "co-opted" their experience as cis women. Some mentioned us only as a tool to further attack trans women. And all this behaviour ended in them harassing the organizers. I'm glad they still decided to schedule the event, but there are instances like this where they don't put it back up. And tras men/transmascs/nonbinary folks who have limited support or information on things like this have little to nowhere to go that would accept them.
This is an example of what discrimination can look like for the trans folks within the community; trans women and transfems get attacked at the forefront which leads to harm, harassment public surveillance, and even death. Anyone else gets treated the same while being stripped from access to support and care, and ignored when struggling as a result by folks both in and out of the community. And at times we even have overlapping experiences, but erasure and dismissal is far too prevalent in transmasc's/ trans men's spaces and nonbinary ones too.
And I'm glad that there's been a growing conversation on the erasure of transmascs and trans men in advocacy, in the community, and in media. We need to center trans women in the advocacy of trans rights, we also need to center trans men and nonbinary folks as well because we are all being horribly impacted by this in different ways, under different stats.
This really is a time to come together and fight, and to remember each and everyone of us are important in this conversation.
