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I will never buy into the idea that supporting one type of trans person means opposing others. Fuck transmisogyny, fuck anti-transmasculinity, FUCK exorsexism, I am a loud and proud supporter of all my trans siblings and theres nothing anyone can do to change that.
been seeing a lot of people locked into trans discourse express disdain that "ugh the trans unity people want us to all hold hands and pretend there is no beef" and it demonstrates such an inability to see a bigger picture.
I'm nonbinary, and in recent years the people who have been the most exorsexist to me have been binary trans people. Binary trans folks, yall piss me off every damn day on this website. And if I was unable to see past short-sighted ideas that prioritized comfort above autonomy, safety, liberation, authenticity, I could conclude that binary trans people are my biggest enemy. But they aren't. Not even close.
It's not trans people following you into bathrooms, it's not trans people shouting shit when you walk past, it's not trans people killing us. If we want to play oppression olympics, I've got more reason to hate you guys than you do to hate each other, but it's such a cowardly position to take. It's so inauthentic.
Not because trans people aren't doing harm in this shit storm, the race to acceptance and assimilation comes with a body count, but the crabs in your bucket are not the ones who put us here.
This is WHY I am critical of ideology and not of groups. Reactionary movements are an attempt to take back power as a powerless group, but it only empowers you to violence over other powerless people, because your power is granted BY the oppressors. We must build power as a collective against them.
Trans unity is not a fake-smile-we-all-love-each-other bullshitfest, it is a recognition that we are not each other's enemies, even when we are not each other's friends. The shittiest trans woman deserves the things I am fighting for, the most vile trans guy MUST have access to what we are dreaming of. That is the point. And my unity extends to cis people, not just because i do not want to be another barrier to the closeted trans person finding people who will take them in, but because the gendered liberation of cis people is tied to my liberation too.
We are on lists, we are struggling to afford our care, we are abused by people and systems beyond our control, and fighting against a massive machine for our right to live. Of course it makes sense that bullying someone you think is doing transness wrong makes you feel big. Of course it makes sense that you think policing hard borders stops people from getting what you are afraid of losing. But it doesn't work like that. We are too intertwined that cutting each other off is like cutting off our own arm out of spite. Our oppressors LOVE that you have one less arm to fight them with--it doesn't do shit to them!
But it feels like control. It feels like action. When you feel stuck and hopeless, doing something, often especially out of anger FEELS like progress--like movement.
We do not preach "loving" our fellow trans people out of a naive belief that we could all just get along, but because the only way to survive is to survive together. The only way to thrive is to celebrate the wins of others. The only way to move forward is with all of us.
Because if you whittle and whittle away at "threats" and cut down on your circle until only those you can "really" trust who "fully" understands you inherently--rather than meet them and build collective understanding--eventually the only one who will be left is you, and if other trans people are your enemy, how do you think it goes when it's just you vs yourself in the end?
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
idk some people just feel threatened by anyone being unapologetically themselves even when they aren’t hurting anyone because it brings up the possibility that the rules are made up and the points don’t matter and that’s an uncomfortable thought
Just being yourself is quite difficult at times because most people’s true selves don’t perfectly fit what society wants them to be in every single way but also once you’ve tried actually being yourself it’s difficult to impossible to go back tbh.
I've seen a few posts lately that are like "how to avoid abuse as a housewife" and that's important but I want to say something from the kind-of-opposite-kind-of-the-same perspective:
if you thought you were signing up for a partnership of equals where you shared the responsibilities and financial burdens, the other person does not have the right to pressure or manipulate you into becoming The Breadwinner.
like, in my case it was super duper obvious that what my ex was doing was wrong because they would watch me come home from 50+ hours of work every week while they did three, and then expect me to do all the grocery shopping, cleaning, and life admin shit as well.
but even if they hadn't. even if they had decided to be The Housewife while I was The Breadwinner. that would still be bullshit because when we got married it was based on explicit agreement that we were planning to be a two-income, split-everything-equitably couple. no matter what, I didn't consent to burning myself out trying to provide for two people, and no one had the right to force me to do that.
what I'm getting at here is: just as it's manipulative and dangerous for your partner to demand you give up your job and focus everything on your home life for their benefit, it's also manipulative and dangerous for your partner to demand you work yourself to death so they can stay home.
You know that tidbit about how "if you want to be a girl/boy, but you don't want to consider yourself transgender or commit to any form of transition because 'I'd make an ugly girl/boy!', then you are already transgender and a girl/boy"? The same is true for non-binary people. If what's stopping you from thinking of yourself as non-binary is a fear that you'll turn out ugly or like a caricature of a non-binary person, or that no-one will ever view you as worthy of love if you're non-binary, you are non-binary and expressing gender dysphoria and imposter syndrome. Just thought I'd let you know.
internalised misogyny (arguably) is the act of perpetuating or upholding the misogynistic and patriarchal systems against women and those perceived as women by someone who has also experienced those systems of oppression and is projecting the harm they have experienced onto others instead of unpacking said harm.
If you believe in any of the above bullet points, you are either a TERF or you are dangerously close to falling for TERF rhetoric, and no amount of psuedo-progressive language about “centering men” is gonna cover up the fact that you agree with JK Rowling on at least a few points in her crusade against trans people. And that is NOT a good look.
Like. Look. Listen. I have taught introductory quantum physics at a university level, and I need you all to incorporate this into your trans advocacy: There are situations where you need to make a decision to prioritize being comprehensible to your target audience above being The Most Unassailably Correct.
I think the reason a lot of leftists struggle with disability justice is that they haven't moved past the concept that discrimination isn't bad because it's objectively "wrong." yes, sexists are objectively wrong when they try to claim women are dumber than men. yes, antisemites are objectively wrong that jewish people are inherently greedy and run the state. yes, racists are wrong when they try to claim that white people are the superior race. and so on.
but then with disabled people, there are a lot of objective truths to the discrimination we face. people with IDs/LDs do fall behind and struggle with certain concepts. physically disabled people are often weaker and less capable of performing demanding tasks than able bodied people. many of us with mental illnesses are more reckless and less responsible. a lot of us are dependent on others and do not contribute much "worth".
and guess what? disabled people still deserve a place in the world. disabled people still deserve the supports they need. because they are people, and that should be enough to support them and believe they deserve a place at the table.
if your only rebuttal against discrimination is its objective inaccuracies, you are meeting bigots where they are at. you are validating the very concept that if and when people are truly incapable of being equal to the majority, that means they are worth less. this causes some leftists to then try to deny the objective realities of disabled people and/or become ableist themselves.
your rallying behind marginalized groups should start and end with the fact that people are completely worthy of life and equity, because they are fellow human beings and that should, frankly, be enough.
everyone loves to hate terfs until they realise that it actually entails rejecting bioessentialism entirely and then suddenly you’re “taking things too seriously” and you “don’t have a sense of humour” like i’m sorry but saying protect the dolls doesn’t make you immune to terfism it has seeped into every corner of mainstream feminism and unless you’re actively searching it out and checking your own biases you will always be at risk of sharing a space with terfs
“Only women can—” nope. “But all men—” nah. “The divine femininity of—” gonna stop you right there. “Everyone born ama—” if you finish that sentence I’ll kill you. “Men don’t experience—” you’re wrong. “Gender isn’t real but sex is imm—” *loud incorrect buzzer*
It also goes without saying that bioessentialism inherently can’t be trans inclusive no matter how hard you try. “All men including trans men—” probably not. “This is only a woman’s issue—” is it really? “Afabs only—” why? “All trans men are like—” what? what are they like? finish the sentence i dare you.
We need desperately to start celebrating the overlap of identity instead of hyper-scrutinizing whether or not someone overlaps fully.
Marsha P. Johnson never called herself a trans woman--she called herself a drag queen, or a transvestite--yet we recognize the impact she had as part of trans history. Of trans women's history. There is so much effort to re-imagine her influence as being the one who "threw the first brick" at Stonewall and less effort to remember her as one of the co-founders of STAR, an org dedicated to the protection of sex working transvestites. (Which took influence from both queer orgs and revolutionary orgs like the Black Panthers). Whether it's a lack of terminology or her transness was not under such a narrow definition (the P. in her name stands for "pay it no mind" because when people asked if she was a man or woman she told them to mind their business, and said "I think of myself as me.")--she is part of trans history because drag history, transvestite history, female impersonator history, gnc history is trans history whether the participants would consider themselves trans women or not. It's transfeminine history.
Stormé DeLarverie, the person whose violent arrest sparked the Stonewall uprising, is described as a drag king, and as such, every publication--including queer coverage of her involvement--lump her in with cis women's history and never also transmasculine, despite the fact that while she didn't identify as anything to those who knew her, she preferred to be assumed to be a Black man. That's transmasculine history. That's lesbian history. These two histories are not mutually exclusive, yet we act like they are.
Leslie Feinberg described hirself as a trans woman--zie was trans and a woman. Queer coverage tries to decide whether that makes Feinberg a cis woman or a trans man. Neither. Leslie has influenced transmasculine history and transfeminine history, and has been part of women's history with hir feminism. Leslie was a pivotal voice in trans movements, and focused much of hir work on the overlap with "female" identity. Leslie has arguably moved the needle more for trans women than trans men due to hir focus on women, but those are not separate categories--victory for trans people of any type is a win for us all. Transmasculine history is not wholly separate from "women's" history.
Emi Koyama is responsible for popularizing the word "transfeminist" and was (and still is) a deeply influential voice in the trans and transfeminist movements. Emi is also intersex, and her identity has been used to discredit her status as a "real" trans woman. Her influence is in intersex history and trans history and women's history. These communities are not non-overlapping--Emi occupies all three!
Kate Bornstein has been one of the most influential trans theorists since the 90s, yet her work has been largely erased as time goes on. Her focus on nonbinary identity and attempts to break us out of a binary seems to be the cause of the strife. A writer, speaker, poet, whose work focuses on the overlap of many trans identities and the empowerment of the individual to find the language that suits them ought to be the single most talked-about style of transfeminism...and it isn't. Her name is fading from people's reading lists.
Riki Anne Wilchins created one of the most influential groups fighting against the exclusion of trans people from pride--and other queer events--alongside Denise Norris: Transexual Menace. She created the term genderqueer. She has written countless influential pieces about trans life and those of us who exist even in the margins of trans identity--and she wrote often about the overlap with nonconforming cis people, whether they later come out or not. She even founded GenderPAC.
Nonbinary people, intersex people, gnc people, genderweird--those who never had the language and those who didn't use it for whatever reason--are part of TRANS history. We do no one any favors to assign labels to people who didn't use them to legitimize their already-legitimate existence in our minds as part of the movement. And we do no favors to narrow our eyes and block the door until the folks who bled, cried, fought, and died for us--the trans community--call themselves what we prefer to hear.
The murder of Brandon Teena galvanized countless trans women. Trans men were some of the first to issue fundraisers for Miss Major when she first fell ill. There are so many trans people who do not see separate niche groups but recognize the collective under this big umbrella of transness--we desperately need for those groups to not be in the minority. Trans is a collective, not a club.
And what does trans men? Anyone who doesn't fit the cis narrative of gender.
Quotes from trans folks about what transgender means to them:
Dana Turner: "...you are a person that feels, in your spirit, your mind, your soul...different than your physical anatomy--your biological anatomy."
Leslie Feinberg: "--whether that be transexual women and men, or masculine women and feminine men, or bearded women who allow their beards to grow, or women weightlifters who can't use the women's bathroom because they've been pumping iron--it can mean everyone who doesn't fit that Ozzie and Harriet paradigm of sex and gender."
Kate Bornstein: "Transgender is just a big ol' umbrella term that includes just about everybody I know.
Martine Rothblatt: "To me, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the gay and lesbian and transgender movements all really are one and the same. These are all movements to respect people as individuals rather than as a body type that their genes determine for them."
fucked that you can’t fix other people especially when you really care about them. Oh so im just supposed to be there for you while you suffer. like a useless cunt gargoyle
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