god fucking dammit i really really wanted to like this blog but then the transmisogyny...for fucks sake its heart breaking you are *so* close to seeing shit properly but then you leave out our trans sisters. Insane. The trans women in my life have grappled with misogyny and the violence of men and discrimination just as much as I have and they are some of the most vulnerable of us, and they fight with us all the time. And yet. Instead of standing together against the real problem (patriarchy, its always patriarchy. Misogyny.) Y'all pull this shit. I promise you being a terf doesn't make your life better. I promise you, you're harming the cause of women and gender equality when you leave trans women out. It creates a strict definition of womanhood that chokes us all. Worse, you're harming yourself.
I really hope that genuinely caring women like you free yourselves from the aesthetics of virtue. What I mean by that, is too many women conflate niceness for actual kindness or goodness. The performance is more important than the ethic and it's practice. I know you think I hate trans people, but I don't. I care more about diagnosing what's actually happening as opposed to what appears to be happening. I know people like you think I'm evil because I say shit like "transphobia/cis privilege doesn't exist" and reblog shit like "i love being a TERF," but it's interesting how angry you are about these posts I've either made or reblogged when the surrounding context of such statements is entirely fair.
For one, I don't call myself a TERF. I am called a TERF by predominantly US/UK white people who don't like that I don't view gender as materially real and are divorced from the reality of my plight as a black woman living in Africa. I do celebrate being called a TERF, though, because it has become, on some level, a euphemism for "feminazi" which is something male supremacists use to shut down feminists. I am proud to be saying things that threaten the status quo enough to provoke such vitriol from men.
Secondly, I say transphobia/transmisogyny is unreal because they are useless political concepts. They are not only insulting to other marginalized and oppressed groups like women and the LGB, but they are also worthless when it comes to articulating the struggles trans people face and why they do. You are angry at me for the appearance of bigotry (and men view noncompliance from women as bigotry, incidentally), but I have not actually been remotely bigoted by saying what I have said.
Your message is evident of how ineffective and divorced from intellectual rigour such words like "transmisogyny" and "transphobia" are. For example, we are both women that know what it's like to be hated for our femaleness, but still, unless you yourself are black, only one of us would experience misogynoir. My skin and my uterus aren't identities. They are facts about me. "Trans" is an identity. It's a "gender expression." Misogyny is the hatred of female people (otherwise, why does it exist at all? on what grounds?), but the fear of gender nonconformity is a direct offshoot off the hatred and oppression of lesbian, gay and bi people. You aren't oppressed for having "a gender expression" if you can just change it. It's like saying you're oppressed for being goth. Just don't where those clothes, then. Me? I can't just bleach my skin and WHOOOSH! No more racism. Majority of people in the world can't just change their genitals or cellular structure and all the other things that sex affects. Gay men also face things women face, i.e. sexual assault and being berated for being feminine--they're still men and the reason trans women experience hate or violence for their identities is because they are gender non-conforming male people. You don't see women getting beat up for being feminine. Why? Because gender is a tool of oppression, not an axis of oppression. Gender is used to keep male and female people "in line" and trans people step out of line, which is why they're socially punished. Yet, that still doesn't make trans women "our sisters" any more than it makes gay men "our sisters" anymore than it makes white women capable of experiencing misogynoir. Their manhood is essential to their experiences as men as our womanhood is essential to our experiences as women. Trans women can't be hated for being something they're not. If they were women, no one would be giving them the stink-eye for wearing a dress. Who are we helping by ignoring these realities? Certainly not the black homosexual trans women that die at the hands of johns in the prostitution industry. Certainly not majority of the poor, working class trans men who still experience rape and harassment from men of all sorts and can't afford hormone treatment or surgery (because majority aren't wealthy enough for that amount of lifelong treatment). Certainly not the gay feminine boys who think there's something wrong with them for being both male, feminine and attracted to men. Who are told real men aren't attracted to men and don't play with dolls. Certainly not the older women who need HRT because they're in menopause but an entitled straight man who got addicted to porn and is turned on by wearing women's clothes got there first.
Trans women, like everyone--even straight men--can be affected by misogyny because misogyny is a prejudice borne of a system that affects how each and every one of us live. But just like straight men, they cannot themselves experience hatred for a sex they don't have. The same way they can't experience racism for a colour they aren't. Female bodies aren't neglected in medicine because we didn't present "masculine enough." Butch/stud lesbians are still treated badly because they're female. Just-born female infants are still killed because the female sex is looked down on. Their "masculine" identity doesn't help them with shit. So if being masculine can't give female people (like trans men) male privilege, why would being feminine give male people (trans women) female oppression? It doesn't and it can't.
To say that women and men can identify in or out of oppression is to say that wherever oppression against women happens, it happens because we're choosing it. It also suggests that real, actual bigots will be careful to ask your pronouns first before oppressing you. It's backwards. But of course, it does make you seem like a nice and loving person to just validate people who ask for it. Even if what they're asking you to validate isn't real or helpful.
But I'm not interested in appearing nice and that's why I'm not scared of being called a "TERF" or a "transphobe." They're just virtue signals at this point, and I'm more interested in knowing the truth and using the truth to actually help people instead of my reputation. I hope, when you have the time to sit with your emotions and think about why you value what you do, that you'll realize there are more productive ways to help the vulnerable of society than "being nice and affirming."
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