My Blog Got Deleted So Now I Have A New One Cries

[genderkoolaid]

tbh my opinion isnt so much that trans men cannot have male privilege. its that the way we understand male privilege is based in cis women, specifically otherwise privileged (esp. otherwise-gendered privilege, i.e gender-conforming/straight/perisex) cis women's understanding of gender as something static and inherent to who you are, rather than something fluid which is, in part, constructed by society and placed onto you separately in every moment.

can a trans man experience (cis) male privilege? yes. can a trans woman? yes. and so can a cis woman! hell, a femme perisex cis woman with a gender neutral name could if she's assumed to be a cis man on a resume. male privilege is not an on/off switch. the idea that it is stems from cissexist understandings of male/female as entirely separate and static categories which everyone can and must be understood through. trans people in feminism are expected to constantly defend and deflect accusations of being Privileged Male Oppressors by promising cis perisex women that our experiences are just like theirs! we don't have any scary opinions that don't align with their worldview! we swear we won't ever make them have to reflect on how being cis+perisex has biased them and potentially made their analysis of gender at all inaccurate! trans experiences are only considered valuable to cisfeminism to the extent that they reaffirm what cisfeminists already hold true. thats why they only ever want to talk about a very simplistic narrative around wages pre/post-transition. its extremely unthreatening to cis people because it presents transness in patriarchy as just going from one cis role to another; it doesn't ask cis feminists to expand their paradigm to include the ways in which trans people are treated as a class and their own complicity in transphobic oppression.

which is why trans men have been getting fucked over by trans-affirmng cisfeminism. because by virtue of having our gender acknowledged, we are expected to forfeit our place in the feminist movement and adopt the role of outsider along cis men*. and its also why trans women and MTX people get fucked over the minute they cannot or refuse to describe their experiences through the one or two approved narratives. cisfeminism cannot tolerate transness-as-transness. it has to be compressed and reduced and diluted into something that fits within a cis-centric framework. we aren't allowed to have nuanced and intersectional conversations about trans men & other trans folks relationship with male privilege, the things we have to sacrifice to there, how fleeting it can be, the fact that for some of us being read as "biologically male" is actively more dangerous than being read as female... if it isn't familiar to cis women, then it means you aren't really oppressed.

*cis men should not be outsiders in feminism either btw but thats another post

[learn-how-to-love]

I found out today that there was a (thankfully very ill-fated) attempt to have the entire Wikipedia article on discrimination against transgender men deleted. At first I thought the perpetrator was yet another bargain bin transphobe/TERF act of disruption but apparently not so, she is a trans woman. The user in question had been disputing the use of transandrophobia in the article as being inappropriate, but as other editors pointed out, the way in which it was used was as to be expected (basically saying “hey this term is being used commonly right now in places to describe this phenomena”). When attempts to get the article edited to remove any mention of the term failed, this user instead decided to just nominate the whole article for deletion instead. She even went as far as to say “you will never be a man” to the editors disputing this, though it was quickly deleted. It’s the actions of only a single person, but I find this indicative of how the chronic devaluing and othering of transmasculine people and voices in faux-transfeminist spaces leads to action basically indistinguishable from cis transphobes. Resorting to attempted vandalism of an online resource and blatant transphobia is a symptom of this trend that deserves absolutely no patience at this point.

[professorfcknmoriarty]

[genderkoolaid]

the transandrophobia Wikipedia page is not being deleted (good work!) but I wanted to share the exchange that went to down.

I saw these screenshots in the notes ~2m after it was decided:

I just took these of the project page:

& looking in the edit history, I see this:

Nice to see this get defeated so quickly.

[fishtank-thinktank]

Also, I feel like it’s important to mention! That if the issue around the page is mainly the word transandrophobia, it should also be stated that the word is used two times in the entire article!



Twice, one in the intro alongside other words used to describe the oppression that trans men face in this way, the other one being a restatement of that fact: “is sometimes referred to as anti-transmasculinity,[1] transandrophobia,[2] or transmisandry” “The discrimination experienced by transgender men has been described using various words, but none have seen widespread use. Terms used include anti-transmasculinity and transandrophobia.”

The word transandrophobia is used twice in the article, both times referring to the different words that are used to describe trans men’s oppression.

[genderkoolaid]

the funniest thing about this is that transandrophobia deniers want to make anti-transmasculinity theory out to be some terminally online niche internet discourse thing soooo bad. they clearly want to present it as something completely outside the realm of legitimate theory, something no "reasonable adult" or "feminist" would ever buy into because its just so obviously wrong.

but then you have something like this. where it is just so painfully obvious they are on the same side of history as aphobes and biphobes. when you have people who 1) are not personally invested in transandrophobia not being a legitimate term, and 2) are actually looking at the academic and statistical sources given for transmasculine oppression, it becomes pretty obvious that this resistance is motivated by personal discomfort with the term.

notably, in my experience, people are super willing to come out swinging against transandrophobia, all confident in their rejection of the concept, until you respond with numerous cited sources on material transmasculine oppression and back it up with widely accepted feminist theory. then suddenly they ghost. so much anti-transmasculinity thrives as a direct result of people's refusal to acknowledge the reality of transmasc oppression, and when you can't do that because its a Wikipedia page with extensive sources, you have to fall back on petty defensive cruelty, because that was what was at the heart of this uproar all along.

keep talking about transandrophobia and/or anti-transmasculinity. use those terms. don't be embarrassed about it. if trans-rad-feminism gets to be slowly mainstreamed in queer spaces, why can't transunitism?

[crabussy]

every time a trans man who does not want to be called a twink gets called a twink I will personally go out into the world and rend 1 parked car to shreds with my teeth. cut it out

[crabussy]

walk with me for a moment. let's think for a sec. I'm not upset but I do want people to understand. do you think assigning a label associated with feminine features, hairlessness, skinniness/lack of muscle tone, and high pitched voices is something that most trans men would feel comfortable being associated with? why or why not?

[crabussy]

of COURSE there are trans men who don't mind it, or trans men who actively enjoy being called a twink. but I am not hairless by choice. I WANT fat and muscles and body hair and a deep voice. and a lot of trans men that get called twinks DO HAVE THESE THINGS, yet they get called "twink" anyway. why do you think that might be?

it's okay if you've done this in the past. maybe just check in before you call your friend or acquaintance something with so many specific, potentially disheartening associations!

[crabussy]

I wonder if the inverse occurs with trans women getting called "butch" too. because there are many wonderful butch trans women!!! but if you call trans women "butches" for traits like short hair or body hair despite otherwise feminine presentation, maybe think about why that is? is she really a butch? or is that just her body? just ask first!

nonbinary people too. are they really "masc presenting" or is that just their body? are they really "fem presenting" or is that just their body? let's all try to be a bit more cognisant of the language we use to describe the trans people in our lives, yeah? [: it's worth thinking about. don't worry yourself into a hole about it, of course! but it's something to check every now and then.

[strongcat]

no need to wonder, it definitely does happen to trans women. and honestly for some time i felt kind of pressured to identify as butch bc being a lesbian it seemed like the only way to get other lesbians to accept my body as it is. but that literally is just my body

[steviecopeland]

tbh

[userfish]

this pride month we’re all going to be radically pro transgender. or else.

[userfish]

hey so this means radically pro ALL transgender. don’t put limitations on this. all trans people are radically accepted here.

[mikumiotics]

I am making a concious effort to not say 'terf' anymore because trans woman excluding radical feminist(twerf) is wayyyy more accurate about what these people are doing. trans men/transmasc people aren't necessarily excluded from their hateful rhetoric, but the vast vast majority of their hate is directed towards trans women. we are who they constantly obsess over, and in fact there is a significant number of trans men who are sympathetic to twerfs!

[mikumiotics]

you'll notice, if you read the post, if you read the post you 🫵🏻 just reblogged! that it contains the line:

"trans men/transmasc people aren't necessarily excluded from their hateful rhetoric"

You can understand posts you reblog by reading them first ! hope this helps.

[aro-rites]

yeah! you also started your damn post by basically saying "we should call terfs a different thing bc really they only target one (1) type of trans person :D👍"

"aren't necessarily excluded" so I don't know if you know this, but saying something isn't "necessarily" xyz is effectively implying that while it's not this thing, there's exceptions. Framing the struggles of transmasc people as lesser is dumb. if you think differently, you're more than entitled to.

Also. You realize that not all transfems are lesbians. ergo not adjacent to lesbian spaces. right????? and those people are EQUALLY hated by terfs as transbians. (not saying that was ur point, bc i dont think it was, but wow did u make it sound Like That)

look. i'm not in any way saying transfems are not targeted by terfs. but to imply they are their only target is really dumb. Show me these hordes of people that genuinely don't believe terfs hate transfem people. Because if you can't, then the argument of terf vs twerf has no meaning <3

also! believe it or not, repeatedly insinuating i didn't read your post doesn't prove your point more! it makes you sound very silly. hope this helps.

[vampiricvenus]

Atp it was a mistake to allow people with terrible gender and sexuality politics and who just run with the vibes of a new term instead of actually understanding them, to learn about he/him and transmasculine lesbians because none of these imbeciles can think in any shades of gray and took it as "trans man lesbian" instead of "non-binary person who's transitioning towards masculinity and identifies as a lesbian", and also "he/him = binary man, every single time".

[mikumiotics]

I am making a concious effort to not say 'terf' anymore because trans woman excluding radical feminist(twerf) is wayyyy more accurate about what these people are doing. trans men/transmasc people aren't necessarily excluded from their hateful rhetoric, but the vast vast majority of their hate is directed towards trans women. we are who they constantly obsess over, and in fact there is a significant number of trans men who are sympathetic to twerfs!

[genderkoolaid]

i think ive posted about this in the past but PSA: i don't think anyone should talk about the "transandrophobia community" or use the term community to describe this. i see myself as part of a discussion, which many people contribute to, and there may be communities that form within and around this discussion.

but "community" implies a degree of interpersonal connection that i don't think exists. there are also people across this site and other platforms who have very different sorts of discussions about anti-transmasculinity, and i don't think it makes any sense to act as though everyone who talks about transandrophobia/ATM is inherently connected in a "community" and uniquely accountable for each other's actions, purely because we all talk about how transmasculinity is systemically targeted by patriarchy. this does not mean, to be clear, that people do not have a moral obligation to call out transmisogyny, racism, intersexism, exorsexism, etc. in spaces where transandrophobia/ATM is being discussed. the trans community is still a thing, as well as general ethical behavior.

the point of talking about transandrophobia/ATM is to talk about it, to theorize, to organize. people may make friends and find community through this discussion, but that is secondary to the discussion and not the point. & that should be clear from the fact that referring to people as "pro-transandrophobia" or part of the "transandrophobia community" is extremely confusing and contradictory, because the term was always meant for social analysis and organization, not community-building or sectarianism.

and once this goes from a discussion to being a "community," it is becomes something more about interpersonal relationships and, inevitably, drama, than it does about the analysis of systemic oppression. it turns "transandrophobia" and "anti-transmasculinity" from widely applicable terms into the Special Words of One Online Community and, if the community collapses, the words will be seen as tainted. i do not want that. i think one of the most dangerous issues the left faces especially in the US is the inability to distinguish between the personal/individual level and the social/collective level of thinking. ironically, i think the idea of a "transandrophobia community" does more to trap us in the mindset of the personal than it does to encourage us to think socially and avoid the ideological mistakes that helped get us to our current fucked up sociopolitical situation.

i have been very careful while running this blog to avoid using the term "community" but i wanted to make this explicit once again.

[genderkoolaid]

should also add: this is why i fundamentally still agree with the idea of using "transunity" / "transunitist" as terms. they are also theoretical but i think it does a better job at capturing a general trend in queer approaches to patriarchy as well as how trans people (should) relate to one another. i think it covers a lot of ground in terms of describing what kind of things certain people have in common re: how they think about gender and the community, without just collapsing into "everyone who talks about transphobia targeting trans men."

its a different kind of broadness that seems, to me, better suited as "transunity" covers not just anti-transmasculinity but anti-transfemininity and all forms of exorsexism on equal grounds. there are blogs that only cover transmisogyny/transgynephobia/anti-transfemininity that are still clearly part of the broader sphere of "people who treat transandrophobia as a real thing and a major part of transphobia" but it makes much more sense to describe the connection being about the overall approach to how patriarchy & the community are understood, rather than having to funnel all this through "do they think this one word for trans man oppression is good or bad"

also adding @sirmarsian's tags because they make a great point:

#i saw someone use that term (transandrophobia community) and it made me uncomfortable and this encapsulates why#it feels like transandrophobia as an issue is decentralized to put the spotlight on people's personal bonds#it has a weird connotation too. I dont know how to articulate it well but it feels reductive#it's like if instead of the queer community we said 'the homophobia community' 'the transphobia community'#it feels weird to name a community around the oppression rather than the people#queer people arent solely defined by the queerphobia they suffer and the conversations concerning us are broader and more numerous than tha#plus queerphobia can be used against anyone even people who are not queer

[genderkoolaid]

also i think its a good tactical move to change the language from "pro vs anti transandrophobia" (confusing, keeps the terms of the discussion on "is this term allowed and also are we even allowed to talk about this problem that clearly exists", see above) to "pro vs anti-transunity (clear, directs focus back to trans-centered feminist theory, explicitly intersectional, makes visible how trans-radfems are divisive and akin to cis female separatists and exclusionists)

[learn-how-to-love]

If I had a nickel for every time a trans creator with a large audience that I respected came out as supportive of authors and works that speak over transmasculine voices, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but god does it suck so bad

[genderkoolaid]

Wanted to add some stuff from the notes as to why Talia Bhatt is not a good source of productive transfeminist theory (surprise, its racism and cruelty towards other queer people and transandrophobia and exorsexism and store-brand radical feminist lesbian separatist shit But Trans So Its Good Now; thank you to @therapatical for staying on her ass and collecting receipts of this behavior)

Reblog by @therapatical · 99 images

💬 1  🔁 49  ❤️ 134 · final note: not all of these screenshots are mine, they're things I've collected over the years from various people

Post by @therapatical · 10 images

💬 2  🔁 3  ❤️ 13 · absolutely no pressure to answer this (tbh you can just ignore it, if you feel that's best), but could i ask for more cont

[storyweavingspider]

Tara Knight inadvertently inspires the next generation of transfeminist theorywriters by them collectively going “holy shit, almost anything I write could be better than The Cripple Killing Essay”

[storyweavingspider]

Shooting to be the Marx of transfeminism and instead becoming the Freud of transfeminism is crazy work tbh

[aro-rites]

i wish i was kidding but just had the fascinating experience of someone saying i was "sealioning her",

looking up what it means

anjd then realizing that was what she was doing to me lmao

[busket]

both trans men and trans women are punished for our proximity to both feminity and masculinity. people decide when we are men or women based on what is the WORST option at the moment. we both get treated like women only when someone needs to infantalize us or call us bossy, bitchy, stupid, vapid. we both get treated like men when someone wants to demonize and paint us as violent, predatory, abusive, perverted. NONE of us are benefiting from any gendered privilege, because we are always treated like the worst of either gender depending on the scenario. this is something all trans people experience, regardless of agab, both trans men and trans women. so why do we assume that the other side has the opposite experience as us?? why do you think that because your life as a trans man or a trans woman is painful, that a trans person of a different gender must have the opposite experience?? like i just dont get the preschool level understanding of gender like "well boys and girls are opposites so of course our experiences are opposites too" we are living the same transphobia and if you cant see it you need to listen to other people more

[razortouched]

In case anyone was wondering about the current state of transfeminism, one of the most praised transfeminist authors just boldly and unapologetically referred to someone as "tdickmatized".

We're supposed to take seriously the critiques of a woman who is coming up with new derogatory terms for transmascs in relation to their genitals.

[spottedcuscus]

okay you've taken offense to this one sentence in the book. which book? oh you won't tell us okay*. oh it was ten words from that run-on sentence which you've. okay which you've paraphrased to mean something inflammatory. awesome i'll 100% buy your book encouraging transfems to secede from community as a whole so we only associate with people we agree with! #communism am i right

*Book is Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex by Pat Califa by the way

I realise dogpiling isn't gonna change anyone's mind but i'll say my bit anyway. The people who are constantly uplifted on this website as pillars of transfeminism are increasingly just reactionaries using revolutionary communist talk to drive hate and encourage us to fear our non-transfem friends and isolate ourselves from any sort of actual force creating social change.

[bundleofstx]

I would like everyone to know:

Everyone who’s upset about me going after this book and using the phrase the tdickmatized… you’re defending a book that defends pedophilia. Not any amount of destigmatizing but straight up abolishing the age of consent. Have a good day.

[razortouched]

I am not defending the author or their views by criticizing your use of the word tdickmatized. You can criticize the author's views without using derogatory terms for transmasc's genitals.

[vergess]

That is one HELL of an extremely bold claim to make about a book that, again, the OOP is refusing to let anyone read for themselves on the basis of it being a traumatically corrupting influence.

Which is interesting, since the book is over thirty years old.

If Pat Califa were, in fact, actually agitating for an increase to the sexual abuse of endangerment of children, don't we all think perhaps that would have been mentioned in the last 30 years of commentary?

No?

No, we should just assume that a queer man--the group of people MOST LIKELY to be stigmatized as child molesters in the west--is himself a secret child molester and that it took the brave and insightful eye of someone who personally detests him for being a queer man to figure it out?

You really think a book that has had multiple reprints and multiple additions in the last 30 years is secretly calling for mass child rape and no one else ever noticed?

I'll say it again:

That's one HELL of a bold claim.

A claim refuted by Califa in 1992 before the first edition of the cited book was even released:

'I don't agree with NAMBLA, because their position is that age-of-consent laws should be repealed, and there are members of that organization who think it's OK for prepubescent children to have sexual relationships with adults, and I just cannot agree with that. I think it's developmentally inappropriate.'

So, yeah, okay, this is just straight up lying to call a queer man a child rapist so you can feel great about sexually harassing him by mocking his genitals in public.

TLDR: OOP is a lying asshole who wants us to really truly believe for realsies that THIS time the queer man being lambasted as a child rapist is doing it for real. Meanwhile, the man in question has been loudly refuting these claims for longer than OOP has been ALIVE.

[closet-keys]

It's like this.

these groups work together, cross-pollinate theory, and substantially overlap in demographics because they are all deeply invested in leveraging transmisogyny while denying transmisogyny exists.

[aro-rites]

While I completely agree with the diagram I do think it's simplifies the point of intention that a lot of transmasc people have with the argument of "transascs benefit from the patriarchy". Like, yeah some do. Just like there's any queer person that under the right circumstances benefits from the system, I was able to leverage parts of their identity to benefit from it.

A lot of the times, the argument transmasc people are trying to make is that indiscussions of transness, people seem to forget that most people don't view us as men / view as just "weird women". And that inherently ends up marginalizing and hurting us.

(this isn't even touching on just how many trans men/transmasc people do not pass, oh don't have the opportunity to pass because of restrictions on transitioning - testosterone is a strictly controlled substance.)

I'm really not trying to pull a "not all men" - the chart is Good and Correct!! And tackles how these ideologies feed off each other. I'm mainly trying to consider why do many transmasc people feel off about the general sentiment of us benefitting from the patriarchy.

[sexboobomb]

Your last four posts before this are all transandrotwerf bullshit, followed by participation in a transmisogynistic hate campaign against a single transfem who had the audacity to say “maybe we need to focus more on helping kids and less on hurting the people we think are icky”.

Shut the fuck up man. You very clearly don’t actually understand what patriarchal privilege is, you’re just boiling it down to passing/not passing, which is a reductive and largely useless metric. You are more interested in hurting and ignoring trans women than in actually addressing the material conditions that make up the systems of oppression we are talking about.

​Men will literally come onto a post about how men benefit from male privilege and then talk over women and say “actually I understand the patriarchy better than the women who literally have no choice but to understand it as a survival mechanism and no we don’t have male privilege” and act like that isn’t the purest expression of irony.

[aro-rites]

My last 4 posts happen to be disucssions of issues that affect me, a transmasc person, yeah. No one's stopping you from talking about transmisogyny, and just because I don't talk about it 100% of the time doesn't mean I don't acknowledge it :p

Idk what hate campaign you're talking about, but I don't actually message people negative shit like. anywhere. Rebloggin a post without seeing shit someone else did (if that's what you're implying, bc tbh I don't even know) isn't participating in a hate campaign

If you have a different vision of patriarchal privilege, I'd genuinely love to hear about it, or see what resources informed your opinion. You're absolutely right to insist the patriarchy hurts trans women. I never denied that. I simply discussed how transmasc people are involved in these discussions.

What the fuck makes you think that I, as a trans man living in a coutnry where my existence is illegal, didn't have to "understand it as a survival mechanism" and that I have "male privilege"????

This is exactly what I am trying to point out: trans men are hurt by the patriarchy. If one of us benefits from it in one specific circumstance, that is not a sign of systemic benefit. In fact, you realize that basically all transmasc people have the experience of living as women too, right? You know, of having to deal with partiarchy and "understand it as a survival mechanism"??

You are a fucking stranger on the internet. You don't know shit about me. I'd love to know why you are so insistent about imaginging things about a stranger. Stop it, it's embarassing.

[closet-keys]

It's like this.

these groups work together, cross-pollinate theory, and substantially overlap in demographics because they are all deeply invested in leveraging transmisogyny while denying transmisogyny exists.

[aro-rites]

While I completely agree with the diagram I do think it's simplifies the point of intention that a lot of transmasc people have with the argument of "transascs benefit from the patriarchy". Like, yeah some do. Just like there's any queer person that under the right circumstances benefits from the system, I was able to leverage parts of their identity to benefit from it.

A lot of the times, the argument transmasc people are trying to make is that indiscussions of transness, people seem to forget that most people don't view us as men / view as just "weird women". And that inherently ends up marginalizing and hurting us.

(this isn't even touching on just how many trans men/transmasc people do not pass, oh don't have the opportunity to pass because of restrictions on transitioning - testosterone is a strictly controlled substance.)

I'm really not trying to pull a "not all men" - the chart is Good and Correct!! And tackles how these ideologies feed off each other. I'm mainly trying to consider why do many transmasc people feel off about the general sentiment of us benefitting from the patriarchy.